It’s back to the drawing board for challengers advocating a drawbridge instead of a high, fixed-span bridge linking Anna Maria Island and the mainland at Cortez.
An Aug. 5 order from Judge Anthony E. Porcelli of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, went against the challengers to the megabridge and favored the Florida Department of Transportation.
“We will review the order to see if any issues warrant an appeal,” Joe McClash, one of the parties to the lawsuit challenging the high bridge, wrote Aug. 7 in an email to The Islander.
The DOT wants to replace the 17-foot clearance Cortez drawbridge — built in the 1950s and spanning the Intracoastal Waterway on Cortez Road between the fishing village and Bradenton Beach — with a 65-foot, fixed-span bridge in 2026-27.
Work by the DOT to advance the project, including design recommendations, has been taking place for years.
So, too has the campaign to push the DOT to alter its plan and replace the current draw with a 35-foot clearance drawbridge.
Leading that campaign are McClash, a former Manatee County commissioner and environmentalist, and Cortez residents Lindo Molto, Joe Kane and Jane von Hahmann, who also served on the county commission.
The complainants maintain the DOT inappropriately used a categorical conclusion to bypass U.S. National Environmental Protection Act-mandated studies into the impacts of a high bridge during the bridge selection process.
In 2019, the DOT concluded a study of replacement alternatives and selected the high bridge without conducting a more extensive analysis of environmental impacts.
The challengers brought their case to federal court in March 2020, hoping for a ruling to require the DOT to go through the bridge selection process again and conduct the studies.
The DOT, throughout the lawsuit, has maintained that further studies likely would demonstrate the high bridge has no significant environmental impacts, meaning a court ruling in favor of the complainants would only delay the construction of the megabridge.
Porcelli’s order, filed Aug. 5 and provided to The Islander by McClash Aug. 7, consists of 57 pages, outlining the challengers’ quest for declaratory and injunctive relief relating to the high, fixed bridge “rather than another drawbridge,” as well as the DOT’s response, motions and cross-motions.
In the end, Porcelli denied the challengers’ motion for summary judgment and granted the DOT’s motion, writing in part that the DOT’s action “cannot be considered arbitrary or capricious.”
McClash said the ruling “details FDOT’s talking points.”
If the DOT builds the bridge that’s proposed, said McClash, “the Cortez community will lose its character. FDOT is blind to this fact and our local elected officials have turned a blind eye on Cortez.”
The DOT told The Islander Aug. 8 that it had no comment on the judge’s order.