For those who know the PBCEC, you know that we take strong and strategic stances in defense of our environment and our communities. Many times we have stood together with other local and national environmental groups and other times we have felt a need to stand apart and stick with the overgrown-grassroots road. While our fight with FPL has taken us on a wild ride--and it certainly ain´t over yet!--there is a series of new battles emerging that also demand our attention. They offer opportunities to work with many groups and individuals (certainly including some pretty strange bed-fellows.. with whom we may likely find ourselves lying on the floor). Just as we took a stand against the West County Energy Center being the fossil fuel motor of unsustainable growth, we are now facing another facet of the sprawl machine: roads. Roads have rightly been called the gateway drug to development. They are the infrastructure of the potential over-development nightmare to come...
Yet, as with the power plant fight, if we stop road construction and expansion, we invite a new future of conservation and sustainability into our communities. And in doing so, we remove the need for new rock-mining that is polluting the water supply and leaving craters in our wetlands and marshes. The PBCEC demands that all public funding go towards improving public transit access for a crowded and polluted County that is on the verge of wiping out the Everglades ecosystem and any chance at it´s restoration.
Now is the time to defeat these destructive projects. The development/real estate industry and their political puppets are on the defensive (or under Federal indictments). They can no longer justify the infrastructure proposals that they have been pushing on us for decades. Now is the time and to stand and shout for the future we want; and to begin creating it here-and-now... (and while i´m on a roll, i´d like to throw in there: to hell with the Bert Harris Act!)
...We are the ones we´ve been waiting for...
Hope to see everyone reading this message at our next PBCEC meeting April 7th, 7pm at Howley´s Restaurant in West Palm Beach (4700 South Dixie Highway.)
panagioti tsolkas, PBCEC co-chair
www.pbcec.blogspot.com
p.s. Don´t forget about Fossil Fools Day, Tues., April 1st 2008 www.FossilFoolsDay.org to get involved with local activities, contact EvergladesEarthFirst@gmail.com
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Everglades Agricultural Area mining summit THIS WEDNSEDAY!! At the Mounts Botanical Garden,
¨Commissioners have called for a first-ever county rock-mining summit with state and federal authorities. The three-hour meeting, with a half-hour allotted for public comment, is to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Hutcheson Agricultural Center, 559 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach.
¨Millions of tons of valuable limestone lay beneath the vast farmlands of western Palm Beach County’s Everglades Agricultural Area — a treasure for those building Florida’s new roads and development.¨
Read the article by Mark Hollis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 16 2008 http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flprock0316pnmar16,0,7274849.story
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No New Roads! No More Sprawl!!
The PBCEC is standing firm in opposition to all new roads that act as a ´gateway drug´ to Palm Beach County´s development junkies. Please get in touch with Nicolle to get involved in mobilizing against these new road plans..
¨I am a Sierra member who also lives in the Acreage, part of the Indian Trail Improvement District. I’m asking for volunteers and Sierra’s support. I ask that you oppose all new roads in the Western Communities because they allow suburban sprawl to continue westward towards the EAA. What happened to Eastward Ho!?
...
Please contact me if you oppose these roads. I need your help writing letters, making phone calls and commenting at public meetings. I would like to have the county’s five year plan ammended to eliminate the funding for these roads. Taxpayers money should go to more worthy causes. -Nicolle Tolleson nolleson@gmail.com 561-506-9016¨
Read Nicolle´s full letter explaining road opposition to at: http://pbcec.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-more-roads-in-pbc.html
Also, read the PBCEC´s letter to the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the Seminole Pratt Extension: http://pbcec.blogspot.com/2008/03/stop-seminole-pratt-extension-restore.html
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Oh and check out some of our recent appearences in the news!
*Great rebuttal to John R Smith´s hit piece in the Sun-Sentinel last week
www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-pbmail847pnmar16,0,687773.story
*Another article in the Sun-Sentinel about FPL and protests..
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpralph0313pnmar13,0,4205026,full.story
*The original John R. Smith piece for those who didn´t see it yet..
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-pbmail847pnmar16,0,687773.story
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