Miami Wilds vote put off, mayor explores other sites

The squabble over the future of a water park next to Zoo Miami launched Tuesday’s Miami-Dade County Commission meeting. The issue, however, wasn’t over the merits of the park, although several community members spoke against it, but rather how the agenda item would be kicked down the road.

Sponsor Kionne McGhee favored, as Johnny Mathis sang, “The Twelfth of Never,” as in deferring the issue indefinitely. Chairman Oliver G. Gilbert III and several other commissioners wanted an actual date.

So, Mr. Gilbert chose Dec. 12 for the Miami Wilds waterpark to show up on an agenda again.

During the discussion, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava conceded her administration was exploring alternative sites for the long-planned water park, first proposed by the commission itself when none of the current members sat on the dais.

“It’s encouraging to hear the county is considering alternatives to this highly environmentally sensitive area,” Elise Bennett, director for the Center of Biodiversity, told Miami Today. “It’s not too late for the mayor and the commission to do the right thing and have a hand in protecting the rare and endangered species that depend on this area for their survival.”

Environmental groups first raised survival alarms for 26 endangered or threatened species, Miami Today reported last December. That concern has been narrowed to three: the Florida bonneted bat, Miami tiger beetle, and Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak butterfly.

At an earlier commission meeting, Paul Lambert, with the Miami Wilds Water Park Project, said the area chosen for the water park is now all parking lot, and disputed whether it would be “environmentally sensitive” to any endangered species.