The county’s controversial effort to expand the Oslo Road Boat Ramp ran into a new hurdle – the latest in a long series – when it was notified by the state that it “must obtain an updated cultural study to proceed with the proposed project.”
“The area near the boat ramp was looked at by the state field archeologist back when a countywide archeological survey was done in 1992,” says Indian River County Historian Ruth Stanbridge. “There were a couple or three sites [of potential historical significance] found down in that area.”
“Our consultant is reexamining a midden in close proximity to the road that we have known was there all along,” says Deputy County Attorney William K. DeBraal. “The consultant has finished the evaluation but hasn’t submitted the report to the Department of Historical Resources. Preliminarily, it doesn’t look like there is much there. A midden is nothing more than a rubbish heap, old shells and garbage.”
But the presence of midden often means Ais Indians lived nearby, and the state wants to make sure paving Oslo Road, filling mangrove wetlands for a parking lot and other related work doesn’t disturb the remains of a Native American village.
“The archeologist recorded a village site on the barrier island opposite there, and when there is a village on the island, there is usually a summer site on the mainland,” says Stanbridge. “The archeologist thought the site around Oslo might have been a summer village.”
The historical hold-up is just the latest in a long series of difficulties the county has run into since 2009, when it submitted an application to widen and pave Oslo Road east of U.S. 1, dredge and fill three acres of mangrove wetlands, build new docks, and dredge a channel connecting the boat ramp to the intercoastal waterway.
Over the next four years, the county’s plan was rejected by every applicable state and federal agency and opposed by a wide range of environmental organizations.
Pelican Island Audubon Society, Indian Riverkeeper Marty Baum, Marine Resources Council, the Sierra Club, Save the Manatee Club and the Coastal Conservation Association, among others, say the proposed “improvements” will disrupt a phenomenally important game fish nursery, endanger manatees and damage sea grass in one of the few areas where it still thrives in Indian River county.
They point out the ramp is located within the boundaries of a state aquatic preserve on property the county bought through the Florida Communities Trust Program primarily for conservation and say it makes no sense to invite increased boat traffic and bigger boats in such an ecologically sensitive area – especially since the existing ramp infrastructure is in good condition and is well-used by small boat owners.
Up until last summer the project met a stone wall of resistance from permitting agencies that concurred with findings of environmental harm, but the county has been dogged in its efforts, bringing political pressure to bear on the agencies and repeatedly reducing the size of the project to win approval.
In its current iteration, the planned construction would impact 1.41 acres of wetlands, expand and pave the parking area near the ramp and the section of Oslo Road leading to the ramp, extend docks further out into seagrass beds and dredge part of the channel.
After hearing from Congressman Bill Posey’s office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife approved the latest version of the plan in April. St. Johns River Water Management followed suit in mid-August, announcing its intent to permit the project.
Pelican Island Audubon and Vero Beach ecologist Dr. David Cox immediately filed a petition for administrative review, a process in which an administrative law judge reviews the matter and rules whether the project is legal and in the public interest.
A hearing was set for February, but then the state said it wanted an archeological review and the hearing was postponed until May 6.
The county hired PanAmerican Consulting at a cost of $6,304.48 to do the state-required study.
That may not be a lot of money by government spending standards, but it comes on top of well over half a million the county has already spent and another $1 million it wants to spend on a project experts say will hurt an already severely damaged lagoon.
“There are crying needs for lagoon restoration where this money could be spent much more wisely, instead of spending it to do harm,” says Richard Baker, head of the Pelican Island Audubon.