Orange County OKs keeping disputed canal open
Orange County leaders voted 6-1 Tuesday to keep open a disputed canal that gives residents living on a cove in Keene's Pointe access to the Butler Chain of Lakes.
The permit carries several conditions, but its approval dealt a clear defeat to opponents who said the canal would harm the state-protected lakes, especially if similar cut-throughs were ever approved.
"It's not good for the chain," said Lori Bradford, a homeowner on the chain who led opposition to the canal. "This sets a terrible precedent."
However, more than a dozen Keene's Pointe residents spoke in favor of keeping open the pass between what's known as Private Lake or Tibet Cove and Lake Tibet.
Miranda Fitzgerald, an attorney for the residents, said they were trying to avoid future fines from illegal clearing of vegetation and disputed the notion that allowing the 17-foot-wide pass to stay open would harm the Butler Chain.
A previous developer paid up to $20,000 to repair the wetland after one violation, and the homeowners groups paid a $2,199 fine after a second one.
"Absolutely not," Fitzgerald said of any chance the channel would harm the chain.
"There are so many safeguards in the conditions" on the permit, said Fitzgerald of Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A.
One of the most controversial restrictions attached to the permit approval was a last-minute measure that prohibits motorized boats from using a ramp on the private lake as long as the canal is open.
That was a provision that Mayor Teresa Jacobs and Commissioner Scott Boyd wanted.
"This puts some very strict limits on it," Jacobs said, adding that she also didn't view the canal as a potential threat to the Butler Chain's health.
Among the other restrictions: Markers will be erected to limit the size of the channel, along with signs prohibiting motorboat passage when water levels are low. Water-quality monitors also will be installed.
And the Keene's Pointe Community Association must offset the wetland effects by purchasing a $15,000 credit from a mitigation bank.
Tuesday's vote may end a years-long fight that attracted the sympathetic attention of former Attorney General Bill McCollum, who sided with canal opponents, as well as scrutiny from several state environmental agencies.
Orange officials were to vote on this same issue a year ago, but at the last minute, they opted to let state officials sort out the thorny dispute first.
Over that time, McCollum left office and state environmental agencies withdrew from the fight.
Opponents began to voice concerns that high-priced consultants, lawyers and lobbyists were beating out environmental concerns in the pitched battle.
It's disappointing that "with a couple of bucks and a few attorneys, that someone could perform this disservice to the Butler Chain," said Garritt Toohey, an opponent of the canal and longtime hotel executive.
"It's going to become a full-fledged canal," Toohey said. "It's inappropriate, and it's the wrong thing to do."
Neighbors in the community said they were being unfairly cast as environmental villains, when in fact they lived in a development that had some of the most aggressive lake-runoff protections on the chain.
Many Keene's Pointe residents also felt they were put through too many bureaucratic hurdles to get the permit just because opponents would "spin some fabrication" with the news media or a state agency, resident Rob Lacy said.
"Ignore the hysterical rhetoric," Lacy asked county leaders before the vote.
Despite the vote, it's not clear if the fight is over.
Bradford said she's exploring "other options," but she declined to discuss them.