Support for Homestead airport erodes

Environmentalists and some in the Clinton administration are pushing alternatives at the former Air Force base in Homestead.

By CRAIG PITTMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 9, 2000

NAPLES -- Seven years ago Hurricane Andrew shut down Homestead Air Force Base, never to reopen.

Developers have been trying to turn it into Miami-Dade County's second commercial airport, but environmental groups -- and two key federal officials -- oppose that effort, because it might harm nearby Everglades and Biscayne national parks.

"Isn't there an alternative that in the long run will provide the best sustainable economic future for south Dade and be the best neighbor for the two national parks?" Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt asked during a news conference Friday at the annual Everglades Coalition meeting in Naples.

On Saturday, Babbitt's question may have gotten an answer.

Three groups have proposed alternatives to the airport. One wants to turn the property into a private spaceport for launching communications satellites. A second suggests an office park. The third envisions an aquarium and environmentally friendly commercial and residential buildings.

During a panel discussion on Homestead at the coalition conference Saturday, two of those groups -- the aquarium and office park proponents -- announced they will now be working together. Then they agreed to talk to the spaceport group about joining them, too.

Roy Cawley of the Collier Resource Company said his company's office park plan would fit well with the aquarium proposal from the Hoover Environmental Group. Lacey Hoover Chase -- whose father, vacuum cleaner magnate Herbert W. Hoover, was instrumental in establishing Biscayne National Park in the 1960s -- said the Colliers have an edge on getting the land.

The Collier family holds the right to drill for oil and gas under the Big Cypress National Preserve near Naples, but has proposed swapping those mineral rights to the government in exchange for getting the keys to the former Air Force base.

Chase said her primary objective is to stop the airport -- an objective she shares with Babbitt and with Carol Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"I grew up in Miami," Browner said Friday. "I don't want to see a commercial airport out there. That is a beautiful part of this state. That is not where a commercial airport belongs."

The comments by Babbitt and Browner may be the first indication that the Clinton-Gore administration may be withdrawing its support of the airport project, which Miami-Dade County has been pushing with the administration's backing since 1993.

But the airport proposal has strong political support in Miami-Dade County. The local government has offered to take over the base and then lease it to a company run by local builders.

Environmental groups have strongly objected to sticking a commercial airport between the two parks, citing problems with noise, water and air pollution. They also say native and migratory birds would be killed in collisions with airplanes. The Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration issued a study last week that said an airport would have the most impact on the parks of any proposal, but would not be quite as bad as environmental groups said.

Mike Richardson, vice president of First National Bank of Homestead, said he and his neighbors just want something that will get their town going again. The base once pumped $500-million a year into the local economy, and closing it largely wiped out Homestead's middle class, he said.

"Our primary effort is to bring back the level of economic activity," Richardson said. "If you could bring me the world headquarters of every environmental organization and they would generate the same economic impact, we would welcome them."

-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.