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State Materials Office

Update

 

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) finalized the Lake Belt Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and has issued mining permits for the western portions of Miami-Dade County. In April 2010, the Corps signed a record of decision for rock mining in the Lake Belt Area and issued its first project-specific permit.

About the Lake Belt

  • In 1992, the Florida Legislature recognized the importance of the Lake Belt Area’s limestone resources to the state as well as the need to sensitively plan for protection of the public drinking water supply (Section 373.4149, F.S.).
  • The Lake Belt is an approximately 57,515-acre area that was established by the Florida Legislature in 1997 for the purpose of implementing the Miami-Dade County Lake Belt Plan.
  • The area lies west of Miami and east of Everglades National Park.
  • For the past 40 years, approximately 50 percent of the aggregate used by the Department has come from the mines in the Lake Belt region.
  • In South Florida, groundwater occurs so near the surface of the ground, that when rock is mined, even in shallow pits, the excavation areas fill with water and man-made "lakes" are formed. The "lakes" that form after rock is mined are the feature after which the "Lake Belt" is named. Mining in the Lake Belt area has thus far created approximately 4,900 acres of lakes.