Homestead Air Base plan raises fear of airport near Everglades
Environmentalists worry that a proposal for a fixed-base operator at Homestead Air Reserve Base could turn into a commercial airport and threaten the Everglades and Biscayne Bay.
A murky deal for a new commercial aviation operation at Homestead Air Reserve Base — where environmental impacts to bordering national parks derailed plans for a cargo-flight hub two decades ago — could be up for a key vote by the Miami-Dade County Commission on Thursday.
But not if two environmental groups and other activists get their way. They’ve written Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners asking to delay consideration for a new “fixed base operator” to provide fuel and other services for private aviation at an airfield now used only by the military. It’s a proposal that County Commissioner Dennis Moss, the primary sponsor, says is key to economic growth.
“As the gateway to the Caribbean and
South America, and because of expanded tourism and business growth in MiamiDade, it is important to add additional aviation facilities when you can,“he said in an email to the Miami Herald. “Homestead offers a unique opportunity, because of the infrastructure that is already there.”
But activists say the county has provided only sketchy information about the deal. There have been no details on the size of the operation, or projected number of flights at an airfield with flight paths that would cross both Biscayne National Park and Everglades National Park. Because the base is close to a planned Amazon distribution center, there is speculation the deal is designed to benefit the online retail giant and that it could open the door for a major cargo operation. Amazon declined to comment.
Attorney Paul Schwiep, representing the nonprofit Friends of the Everglades, sent Gimenez a letter on Monday requesting the deferral because the proposal “raises more questions than it answers.” In the letter, Schwiep says that Friends was “intimately involved” in the battle that blocked Miami-Dade County’s plan two decades ago to convert parts of the base into a commercial cargo hub, citing noise and a slew of environmental impacts to the parks.
“The same concerns that drove the successful opposition to use of the air base for private purposes in the late 1990s and early 2000s apply with equal, if not greater, force today,” he wrote.
The Everglades Foundation, in a letter addressed to Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson, also asked commissioners to postpone the vote, highlighting concerns about the county’s apparently “incremental approach that has had the effect of obscuring a much larger, longer-term objective” for the project.
“While, on its face, the county’s potential action tomorrow appears to be part of an effort to expand smallscale, general aviation activity, it has become impossible to ignore the paper trail that precedes it, pointing to a much more ambitious vision for commercial aviation at this facility,” CEO Eric Eikenberg wrote in the letter.
Last month, it took less than a minute for commissioners at a Public Safety and Rehabilitation Committee meeting to approve a resolution asking the county to finalize a deal for a fixed base operator at the base. Commissioners provided limited details on what exactly the project — first reported by WLRN News, The Herald’s news partner
— is about.
The air of secrecy surrounding this item — from the unclear language of the draft resolution to the lack of public comment during the approval process so far — has added to concerns.
“I found it disconcerting that a resolution was proposed without any kind of public input and failed to recognize the years of controversy over commercial aviation at the base,” said
Alan Farago of Friends of the Everglades. “The fear is that this is not just a proposal for a fixed base operator, this is the camel’s nose under the tent.”
The battle to keep commercial aviation from coming to the area, so close to two of Florida’s most iconic ecosystems, isn’t new. After Hurricane Andrew ravaged Homestead in 1992, the idea of transforming the heavily damaged base into an airport was one of the options considered to support the area’s economic recovery. But after opposition from environmentalists — and influential residents of the Ocean Reef Club, a wealthy North Key Largo enclave in the flight path — the facility instead was rebuilt as a reserve air base.
But plans for a new fixedbase operator at the Homestead base resurfaced in 2014, when Gimenez began negotiating a joint use agreement with the Air Force for general aviation operations and services. In late 2015 county commissioners approved a resolution directing Gimenez to propose a deal for limited civilian use at the air base, with only small planes using the facility.
Two years ago, WLRN reported, the county auditor issued a report listing some revenue-generating benefits of expanded civilian use of the base. “A joint-use Homestead Air Reserve Base would relieve congestion impacting cargo operations at Miami International Airport,” the report said. “This would also open MIA for additional, and more lucrative, passenger flights.”
Amazon is one company that could potentially put the airport to use.
Commissioners in July voted to sell a vacant lot at 13200 SW 272nd St. in South Dade to Amazon. The site, sold for $22 million, could be the e-commerce giant’s biggest warehouse in South Florida: Plans call for the construction of a distribution center of at least one million square feet. And it’s less than three miles from the base. FedEx is also already in the vicinity, with a distribution center that opened in 2018.
During the committee meeting on Sept. 9, Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz asked to co-sponsor the item with Moss, saying the project to “have a dual-use airport at Homestead Air Base is getting close to reality.”
In an emailed response to questions, Moss said a specific operator would be selected “in the future” to “provide basic aviation services and operations that are provided at our other general aviation airports such as private plane storage, fueling, landing and take-off services, etc.”
But activists fear the latest proposal could mushroom into a massive cargo operation that could require new roads and bring more traffic — with little recourse for residents to object.
“The thing to remember here is that we don’t know what’s going on,” said Richard Grosso, a Nova Southeastern University law professor and an attorney who represented environmental organizations in prior litigation that halted plans for a major commercial airport at the base. “The potential uses this could lead to are a huge enough problem that the public deserves to know what’s going on.”