Editorial: Environmental concerns

This newspaper has a bias against going to court over land use and development matters. We prefer to see elected officials work with citizens and their organizations that have valid concerns, and settle them. Most of the time there is a common ground for developers, environmentalists and other neighbors of good will.

Yet, every once in a while a case comes along that appears to warrant a trip to court. That would be the lawsuit brought by a solid coalition of statewide and Southwest Florida environmental organizations against a cluster of five major developments between Immokalee Road and the southern border of Lee County.

The suit says federal agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to uphold environmental laws in issuing permits for developments known as Parklands, Terafina, Cypress Run, Olde Cypress and Mirasol.

Jointly, they would destroy some 1,500 acres — more than two square miles — of wetlands, according to the lawsuit. The damage would be to property that neighbors Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and publicly owned preserves. That is too close for comfort.

This is a philosophical battle worth fighting. It is too bad that Collier County commissioners have given the environmental organizations no choice but to go to court.

Meanwhile, toward the opposite end of the county, some of the same environmental organizations have an eye on development bordering the swamp buggy grounds that would destroy another 600 acres of wetlands. The golfing/residential/commercial complex would be at Collier Boulevard and Rattlesnake-Hammock Road, and threatens to send pollution into Henderson Creek and Rookery Bay.

Confrontation may be brewing there too.