Lawsuits filed in Scripps site search

The legal fur is now flying in a controversial plan to build Scripps Research Institute and a science park on 1,920 acres west of Palm Beach Gardens.

Lawyers for four environmental groups and individual members have filed petitions contesting the project's environmental resource permit. The permit is a key approval step in transforming Mecca Farms into a sprawling research and development park.

The Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition**, a group led by lawyer and former state lawmaker Barry Silver, and several of its members filed their opposition on Thursday.

Tallahassee-based Florida Wildlife Federation, Loxahatchee River Coalition, the Audubon Society of The Everglades and Jupiter resident Marge Ketter filed a similar challenge on Friday.

"In a nutshell, we oppose the adverse impact it will have on water quality, wildlife and the environment," said Marcy LaHart, the lawyer representing the Wildlife Federation and the others in the latter petition.

The South Florida Water Management District issued the permit on Aug. 11. A state administrative judge will hear the petitions, but no date has been set for that hearing.

The environmental groups want to block Scripps from going up in the rural area, which lacks any urban services. Their aim is to push the project to one of two alternative, but smaller, sites further east.

In addition to the development of Mecca Farms, home builders also are poised to build thousands of homes on farmland owned by the Vavrus family, which sits directly east of the Scripps site. That intensifies the detrimental impact on the area, environmentalists say.

"We oppose Scripps on Mecca and Vavrus [farms], and we will challenge it every chance we get," Silver said.

Both Silver and LaHart said they do not intend to challenge the project if Scripps takes Palm Beach County commissioners up on their offer to build its new research hub on vacant tracts in Palm Beach Gardens near Abacoa or on Indiantown Road in Jupiter.

Palm Beach County has a $60 million deal to buy the Mecca acreage, but would sell at least part of it to a developer - which might anger environmentalists - even if Scripps moves east. The county said it has already spent $10 million preparing the site for Scripps and associated development.

Scripps is expected to consider whether it will even look at the alternative sites on Sept. 13

Scripps spokesman Keith McKeown declined to comment on the wave of environmental challenges.

© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc.

**  Friends of the Everglades is a charter member of the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition