Destroying 700 Levy County Homes? Only Tornado, Hurricane or Tallahassee Could Do It

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

Maria Wise is determined to stop the Florida Department of Transportation from flattening her retirement home with a bulldozer to build a new toll road through south Levy County.

She says it isn’t going to happen. Period.

She made another appearance before Levy County Commissioners this week to give them a letter she wants sent to DOT explaining all the reasons why it’s a bad idea to run a toll road through her neighborhood.

Commissioners agreed to send the letter to Turnpike Extension Manager William Burke and Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Kevin Thibault listing all the reasons why building a new toll road through her area is a bad idea including the destruction of 700 homes.

Wise and her neighborhood group want alternative toll road corridors A&B removed from consideration by DOT as the agency gets closer to making a decision on where to build the four-lane road through Levy County in the next couple of months. Corridors A&B are two of four alternatives for new toll road construction in the county.

She said her group will be victorious in removing Alternatives A&B from consideration for toll road construction.

“There’s only three things that can destroy 700 homes in Florida at one time, a hurricane, a tornado, and Tallahassee,” Wise said.

The neighborhood group has sent more than 5,000 letters to state officials in the past four weeks in an effort to stop construction of a new toll road through its area.

The DOT is also planning to connect the four-lane Suncoast Parkway in Citrus County to U.S. 19 at Red Level and send toll road traffic north through Inglis, Chiefland north to I-10. It’s a separate project from the new construction project Wise is concerned about, but the proposed changes to U.S. 19 would also heavily impact Levy County by adding toll road traffic on the highway and possibly resulting in bypasses being built around cities like Inglis and Chiefland.

Wise told commissioners she has spoken to several people in leadership positions and was told her group was making a dent in the evaluation of alternatives for building a new toll road through Levy County. The DOT evaluation phase is ongoing.

The reasons Wise and her group oppose toll road construction through their neighborhood are listed in their letter given to county commissioners.

Alternative Corridor A goes through over 750 parcels of land and would displace thousands of residents including hundreds of senior citizens. Low-income residents would bear a heavier impact;
Alternative Corridor A bisects Levy County and hampers emergency response from volunteer fire departments. Levy County has a countywide volunteer fire department and as such this new highway would impose a tax burden on the citizens of Levy County to upgrade and expand the fire department. Also, response times would suffer from lack of access caused by the Northern Turnpike Extension Alternative Corridor A and the Northern Turnpike Extension Alternative Corridor B.
Levy County has no public water facilities. (For the record the county commission was forced by state law to take over ownership and operation of two private water systems near Bronson and Chiefland when the private owners abandoned those systems). The letter continued: All residents not within city limits are on private water wells. If pollution from Alternative Corridor A and B, either from road runoff or from an accident event contaminates these wells if the toll road goes through the area, residential subdivisions would have no access to a public water source. Wise said no one at the state level has given her answer to the question regarding which governmental entity would provide water to residents who lose their wells to contamination from the toll road.
Both Alternative Corridor A and B would adversely affect wildlife and other natural resources which are essential to the economy of Levy County. These roads would negatively impact the Goethe State Forest, home of multiple endangered specials including Indigo Snakes, Gopher Tortoises, Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers, Sandhill Cranes, Florida Panther and others. In addition, both corridors would negatively affect water recharge areas and Florida springs recharge areas.
Alternative Corridors A&B would negatively impact the ecotourism and equestrian industries in Levy County.
Alternative Corridors A&B would greatly harm the agricultural economy and heritage of Levy County.

“These impacts are so severe that you should remove Corridors A&B from consideration,” the letter said.

Commissioners said they would add a statement to the letter indicating they have voted in favor of the no-build alternative.

Farmland Preservation District?

Opponents of the toll road have raised the possibility in previous meetings of the county commission creating an agriculture preservation area in the county, as was done in Marion County.

“The second issue is I want to know where we stand on the ag preservation area like Marion County,” Wise said. “I know you guys directed Stacey Hectus (planning director) to work on whether that is feasible in Levy County.”

Commission Chairman Rock Meeks said he hasn’t had any conversations about that subject.

Commissioner John Meeks said he had a conversation with Hectus about the subject last week.

“We probably need a workshop. There are a lot of pros and there are some cons for us to adopt this, so we need to be aware of what we are doing,” Meeks said. “She’s still gathering some information before we get together for a workshop as a group to discuss.”

Wise responded, “I think it would add a whole lot of comfort to a lot of citizens to know they were in a conservation area.”