By MIKE SALINERO
The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - A final vote to kill Hillsborough County’s local wetlands protection program will not happen before August, after the county’s environmental director is given a chance to present an alternative plan for providing local wetlands regulation, County Commissioner Brian Blair said Friday.

Blair, chairman of the county Environmental Protection Commission, said he has promised EPC executive director Rick Garrity that there will be no vote on eliminating the agency at the EPC’s next monthly meeting in July.

Blair said he wants to use that meeting to allow Garrity to present his proposal for a streamlined development permitting process that will save time for developers but also protect wetlands.

“I’m going to give him every opportunity to do the plan and lay it out at the July meeting,” Blair said today. “I’m going to try to work with him to do anything we can do to make as many people happy as possible.”

There had been some concern among EPC officials that the commission would hold a public hearing then vote to eliminate the agency at the July meeting. Commissioners voted 4-3 at the June 21 meeting to end local wetlands protections and to allow state and federal agencies to handle the work. Several commissioners said continuing the $2.2 million division could not be justified in light of the deep property tax rollback mandated by the state Legislature this year.

Blair has been a leading critic of the EPC’s role in reviewing development permits that included wetlands destruction. Blair says that state and federal agencies do a good job protecting wetlands and that the local unit’s permitting duties are redundant.

The wetlands division seems to have wide support in the community, however.

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