A new study contends Lee County has enough lime rock to meet demands for the next three decades.

Greg Stuart, president of Stuart and Associates, a land use planning, design and development consulting practice in Fort Myers and Seattle, presented an updated limerock supply study that challenges Lee County’s current mine study, the Waldrop Report.

The presentation took place last Wednesday at a Village of Estero Council meeting.

According to Stuart, the current Waldrop report being used by Lee County to evaluate two zoning cases near Lehigh Acres, is flawed.

If approved, the projects would allow for new limerock mines on thousands of acres of land in the environmentally sensitive Density Reduction/Groundwater Resource (DR/GR) area.

“I did a followup report on information found in the Waldrop Report. It currently states we have enough limerock activity through the year 2037. That is wrong, because they missed inventory and estimated there were 14 mines whereas there are currently 23 tri-county lime rock mines. That’s almost double,” Stuart said.

Stuart also found what he said are other inconsistencies since the Waldrop report estimates were based on air photo interpretation rather than official Lee County mine monitoring reports.

“Waldrop’s estimates relied on regional limerock mine depth averages rather than actual mine-specific limerock depth that have two times greater depth,” Stuart said. “They used air photography to come up with estimates, whereas I went through the actual monitoring reports. Waldrop used only surface area, not the actual depths of each mining site; basically making up their own data.”

The new mine supply study presented by Stuart found that there is enough limerock supply for the seven-county region through the year 2051.

“The addition of these nine sites puts Lee County’s total limerock land use from 297.9 million cubic yards to what I found, a staggering 526 million cubic yards. That’s almost twice the amount of limerock than reported by the Waldrop report,” Stuart said.

Stuart asserts that these new mines that will impact Estero and other parts of Lee County are not needed.

According to Stuart, the county’s attorney’s office has prevented staff from speaking on the issue or taking his new report into consideration.

“They have refused to meet with me since October 2017 in regards to the report. Presently they have placed a gag order on the report,” said Stuart. “It’s in complete violation of the Gross Management Act. I was Lee County’s expert planner for a decade and worked mine cases and helped the county defend itself from litigation. I clearly should have the right to discuss this case with their staff. This type of action is completely unprecedented.”

Stuart warned that Lee County is already fighting an environmental battle due to downstream water estuaries and red tide.

“It’s pretty simple. If you take a natural system and turn it into 110 foot limerock pit, it’s going to create sheet rock flow and cause water quality problems. Plus, these proposed mine sites are right in the center of protected Florida Panther breeding areas. Troyer Brother’s limerock application was denied back in 2011 for all of these same reasons,” Stuart said.

Stuart encourages the residents of Lehigh Acres and other parts of Lee County to write or call the Lee County Board of County Commissioners and ask for them to set up a public hearing where commissioners and citizens will have a chance to hear the updated 2018 report.

“It’s important that they make a decision based on the correct numbers and facts,” Stuart said.

In 2010, after a huge public outcry against the proliferation of mines in Lee County’s environmentally sensitive DR/GR lands, Lee County declared a development moratorium, which amended its comprehensive plan that would stop the creation of limerock mines not deemed necessary.

For more information on the new 2018 Waldrop Report or updates on the Troyer Brother Mine, visit nomineon82.com/