There’s a Cortez Bridge court retort due this week.
The Florida Department of Transportation filed a motion in federal court Sept. 29 to dismiss aspects of an amended complaint filed Sept. 15 by four individuals challenging the agency’s decision to replace the 17-foot-clearance Cortez drawbridge with a 65-foot-clearance fixed-span bridge in 2026-27.
The filing is among the recent developments in a legal battle stretching back to March 2020, when former County Commissioner Joe McClash, Cortez resident Jane von Hahmann, also a former county commissioner, and Cortez residents Linda Molto and Joe Kane lodged their initial complaint with the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida.
On Oct. 13, Judge Anthony E. Porcelli granted the complainants — who advocate for the construction of a 35-foot drawbridge replacement — seven additional days to craft a response to the motion.
Ralf Brookes, an attorney representing the megabridge fighters, told the Islander in an Oct. 15 text message the group is discussing its strategy but declined to comment any further.
In the amended complaint, the anti-megabridge group asserts that when the DOT was deciding between replacement bridge alternatives, the agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 by improperly utilizing a categorical exclusion.
The exclusion allowed the agency to select the high bridge alternative without conducting a more detailed evaluation of the impacts the 65-foot bridge would have on the natural and human environment.
According to the DOT’s Sept. 29 motion, “while the amended complaint provides a myriad of different bases for the plaintiffs’ single claim that the DOT violated NEPA, many of the bases alleged fail to state a cause of action for which relief can be granted.”
Included among the “bases” the DOT asserts are flawed in the motion is the claim that the agency failed to meet the criteria for utilizing the categorical exclusion because it did not include examples of “past experience” with bridge replacement projects to show the high bridge would not involve significant environmental impacts — the DOT asserts it was not required by law to do so.
The agency also refutes the claims that, according to NEPA, the court can order the DOT to proceed with construction of the 35-foot drawbridge and that the agency’s decision to build the high bridge was “highly controversial” because of the number of negative public comments the department received during the selection process.
The Cortez Bridge spans the Intracoastal Waterway and connects Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island to the historic fishing village of Cortez on the mainland.
High bridge schematics call for the construction of retaining walls that would be 20-feet-tall at their peak and would extend into Cortez about 700 feet, dividing the community along Cortez Road.
Of the 1,229 people who responded to DOT surveys during the agency’s bridge selection process, approximately 70% expressed support for rehabilitating the existing drawbridge or building a 35-foot drawbridge — which would not require the construction of inland retaining walls.