There’s more than one way to fight change.
A group challenging the Florida Department of Transportation’s plan to build a high, fixed-span bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway between Cortez and Bradenton Beach is focusing on the permitting process with the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
The DOT plans to begin construction of a new bridge, estimated to cost $76,998,790, in late 2025 or early 2026.
In March, the sole legal challenge to the 65-foot fixed-span bridge ended with the dismissal of a federal appeal.
The challengers against a high bridge — former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash and Cortez residents Linda Molto, Joe Kane and Jane von Hahmann, also a former county commissioner — have proposed a midlevel 35-foot drawbridge instead of the megabridge.
They maintain that a midlevel bridge will not require retaining walls while the megabridge will feature inland walls that peak at 20 feet tall near some Cortez waterfront businesses and extend 700 feet eastward into the community on Cortez Road.
The DOT maintains their new bridge will allow greater clearance for large vessels and require less maintenance due to the lack of moving parts typical in a bascule bridge.
The challengers plan to pursue an evaluation of an environmental resource permit the DOT needs to build the bridge.
“The project still needs a Swiftmud permit,” McClash told The Islander March 20. “The resources that we have will be applied to evaluating the permit application from DOT for the bridge.”
The permit is required for construction that possibly impacts wetlands, alters surface water flows or contributes to water pollution, according to the Swiftmud website.
The site also said a review of the permit application ensures it will not allow construction harmful to natural resources or inconsistent with the public interest.
“The good part,” McClash said, “is that the community still has the ability to challenge the Swiftmud permit similar to what happened on the Anna Maria Island Bridge years ago.”
In the 1990s, the DOT lost a push to build a high bridge on Manatee Avenue to replace the Anna Maria Island Bridge when an administrative hearing officer recommended the denial of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit based on the destruction of seagrass beds.
However, the DOT came back years later with a high bridge plan for Manatee Avenue and the replacement project is set to go ahead.
“Just because the appeal process is over doesn’t mean that there’s not as much of an opportunity to challenge the bridge,” McClash said.
Von Hahmann said the group has reached out to the DOT with a request for transparency as the permitting process moves forward.
“Any permitting that they have to do, I’m sure we will make sure that we are watching and focused on it,” von Hahmann said in a March 31 interview with The Islander. “We’ve asked that they let us know when those permits were submitted and they said they would.”
The DOT work on the new bridge is ongoing.
The next steps in the process include the submittal of Phase III or 90% plans this summer, followed by final design plans in spring 2025.
DOT District 1 public information director Janella Newsome spoke with The Islander March 31 about the permits needed prior to construction.
The DOT needs to acquire the environmental resource permit from Swiftmud, a section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a bridge permit from the U.S. Coast Guard and a coastal construction control line permit and national pollutant discharge elimination system from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.