The Village of Key Biscayne’s hotly debated infrastructure and stormwater management project was again a topic of discussion during last week’s Village Council meeting.
Mike Houda, of Black & Veatch, provided a brief update on the Zone 1 decentralized stormwater plan (as recently approved unanimously by Council), saying three steps are next: the CCTV scope of the existing piping, checking the design criteria and looking at the funding to see if current grants that were approved for the now-shelved AECOM project would be transferable.
During the discussion, Councilman Ed London wanted to see if the approved six-station GIT injection well plan for Zone 1 could immediately, at least, begin near the often-flooded area of the K-8 Center school and examine how well that would work before proceeding or not.
Council members realized it wouldn’t be in place by this hurricane season, but were hopeful it could be in place for 2027.
A design-build concept could actually take longer to implement, Councilman Fernando Vazquez said.
“Engineering is engineering and it has to be done right,” Vazquez said.
The Village’s legal team is evaluating the scope of the GIT plan to see if one specific area could be prioritized.
Vazquez suggested perhaps applying an emergency tag to it, but Village Manager Steve Williamson said that because that area has flooded year after year, an emergency contingency would be “a challenge” to get approved, but he will see if the school area can be done first.
In a related issue, London asked the Village Manager if he could hire an engineering expert on staff so that, in the future, any outside bias (if there was any) could be prevented when overseeing and evaluating projects, such as stormwater, that come before Council.