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Ridge Road Extension Speeds Up

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: January 4, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Federal environmental officials have given Pasco County a checklist of 10 items to complete in hopes of moving forward with the permitting of the county's long-sought eastern extension of Ridge Road.

County officials say they've fulfilled six of the 10 items and are working on the others. The matter will be discussed at the county commission meeting set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the historic Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City, 37918 Meridian Ave.

"All the cards are on the table," said MicheleBaker, chief assistant county administrator. "It's just a matter of dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's."

The county has spent 20 years trying to build an eastern extension for Ridge Road, from Moon Lake Road to U.S. 41. Plans for the road have been under review by the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville since 1998.

For much of that time, the project has prompted an outcry from environmentalists and others concerned that it will damage the state-owned Serenova Preserve. The preserve was created to offset the loss of wetlands destroyed when the Suncoast Parkway was built nearby.

The Serenova property was originally targeted for residential development.

The designs for Ridge Road have changed over the years to try to reduce the impact on the Serenova. County and Army corps officials are now debating whether a narrow, urban curb-and-gutter profile would be better for the road than a wider, rural road-and-swale system.

Mike Nowicki, who has reviewed the project for the Army Corps, said recently the end of the process is in sight.

"The short version of this is there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it could still be awhile," Nowicki said. "The only flaw in the ointment that has cropped up is the interchange with the Suncoast Parkway."

The state Department of Transportation has designed a diamond-style interchange with Ridge Road, but those plans have never gone to the Army Corps for review, said John Post, program manager for the environmental management office at Florida's Turnpike Authority, which built and runs the parkway.

The DOT has been waiting for Pasco County to get a green light from the Army Corps before submitting the interchange plans, Post said. That strategy might change this year, he said.

"We're prepared to go whenever the corps or anyone else says they're ready to go," Post said.

With some tweaks to the 2000 design for the interchange, the DOT could submit its plans as early as the first half of this year, Post said.

When the parkway was built in 2001, a bridge was included where Ridge Road was expected to go. The county and the DOT still need to secure land just east of the bridge to build the entire interchange, though.

Land on the east side of the parkway must come from James P. Bexley, who has banned the county from his property. The Army corps wants the county to assess wetlands on Bexley's property as one of its 10 conditions.

Baker said the county has studied Bexley's land from the air and reviewed wetlands on land to the south that other Bexley family members have brought in for development. Nowicki said that won't be enough.

That approach isn't going to be good enough to meet the Army corps demands for assessing wetlands in the road's path, Nowicki said. Further complicating matters, years of drought may have changed long-standing wetlands patterns in the area, he said.

"The official statement is, 'The ball is in their court,'" Nowicki said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

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