A proposal to stretch the line between intense development and environmental protection in one of Florida’s most important environmental areas has reemerged along Deen Still Road.

It involves a possible change in the line agreed upon in 1996 between Polk County and a now-weakened state agency over where intense development can and cannot occur at the edge of the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern.

This idea was broached in early 2023, but never went beyond the conceptual stage. Now it’s back.

For those of you new to Polk County in particular and Florida in general, the designation involves 295,000 acres in Pok and Lake counties that was approved by the Florida Legislature in 1974 to protect key portions of the Floridan aquifer and the headwaters of four Florida rivers from overdevelopment. It is also a hub for a network of state wildlife corridors.

The Green Swamp in general is a plateau covering about half a million acres between the Lake Wales Ridge and the Brooksville Ridge.

The settlement allowed development adjacent to the U.S. 27 corridor, but not much farther west.

Or, as Mr. Mason said to Mr. Dixon, we’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Now there is a proposal to redraw the line to allow industrial development to encroach slightly deeper into the Green Swamp.

The discussion is in the preliminary stages and anything that occurs will require a public hearing before the Polk County Planning Commission and the County Commission and review by the Florida Department of Commerce’s community planning staff.

Once upon a time there was a separate state agency called the Florida Department of Community Affairs that was charged with oversight—and the power to sue to stop—unwise development plan changes in the Green Swamp and everywhere else in the state. The agency was abolished at the request of Gov. Rick Scott and under the Scott and DeSantis administrations in Tallahassee growth management oversight in Florida has become almost non-existent.

That is, the staff can object, but no longer has the power to take action if local officials ignore them.

It is impossible to say where the latest proposal will go, but Sierra is watching it and will provide updates if someone tries to slide down this slippery slope.

The problem is that this is not an isolated assault.

County planners recently hatched a plan to allow more residential development on substandard lots in the Green Swamp. Lake Alfred officials have approved questionable annexations that would introduce industrial development into another section of the Green Swamp near Hilochee Wildlife Management Area.

There is also a planned but thankfully unfunded plan on the county’s priority project list to realign Deen Still Road into a major trucking route that would likely increase wildlife roadkill at a time when other agencies are developing wildlife crossings over Interstate 4 to make it easier for wildlife to disperse regionally .That proposed road would bisect a section of the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Hampton Tract and Colt Creek State Park to complete a quicker link to a widened U.S. 98 north of Lakeland on the other side of the Green Swamp.

Who knows what will happen next.

Stay tuned.

The owners of Creek Ranch on Lake Hatchineha Road have agreed to sell the property to the state under the Florida Forever program, The Ledger reports.

Rumors that a deal was pending had been circulating in recent weeks.

The property is scheduled to be managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee and will be used, among other things, as a youth conservation camp.

The deal, which will not become final until it is considered later this month by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, will also end months of controversy over the future of the property.

Last year the County Commission approved a plan proposed by owner Reggie Baxter for a development containing hundreds of new homes and some commercial development.

The idea drew strong opposition from area residents and from the Sierra Club.

The opposition centered on the property’s location between vast stretches of conservation land.

To the south are The Nature Conservancy’s Hatchineha Ranch, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek State Park, Lake Kissimmee State Park and portions of Lakes Wales Ridge State Forest.

To the north lies the South Florida Water Management District’s Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area and TNC’s Disney Wilderness Preserve.

Florida panthers and Florida black bear have been reported in the area, which is considered an important link in the Florida Wildlife Corridor. The corridor is also a migratory path for songbirds.

Although the initial discussion involved purchase of a conservation easement, the deal now involves the purchase of the entire ranch, including the ranch house and other buildings on the property.

The purchase price has not been made public.

There may be signs of warmer winters in the northern latitudes, but in Florida the data are just the opposite, according to the latest summaries compiled by the National Weather Service.

And despite the influence of El Nino, it was not particularly as rainy as it has been in the past.

In this part of Florida, it was way down in the double digits for rankings for coolest or wettest winters. We were not even on the scale for heat, despite reports from other parts of the world.

You can view the details at : Feb2024_Winter2023_24_final.pdf (weather.gov)

This is reflected in river flows.

Going into the typically dry spring season, flow in the Peace River in Bartow is barely enough to make boating possible without a lot of portaging, providing there are no tree falls to make the journey even more perilous.

Downstream at Arcadia, there is decent water flow, but less than the average flow for this time of year and without rain from upstream areas, it is likely the flow will decline.

If you plan a trip on the water on the scenic upper reaches of the river, keep that in mind.

A 1,285-acre ranch in southern Highlands County will be the latest parcel to gain protection within the section of the Florida Greenways Ecological Network.

The protective deal was announced recently by Conservation Florida, whose staff provided technical assistance to secure the deal with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The formal approval occurred last March at a meeting of the Governor and Cabinet acting as the Trustees for the Internal Improvement Fund.

The proposed purchase price was $4 million.

The property is owned by Lee A. Lightsey and Tracy V. Lightsey.

The property is a former active cattle ranch that is now used primarily as a residence and a recreational hunting venue.

According to the staff report for the meeting, it is part of the 43,051-acre Blue Head Ranch Florida Forever Project that protects regional water and wildlife resources around Fisheating Creek, which flows to Lake Okeechobee.

Before this area was approved for conservation protection, it was along the route of a controversial toll road proposed nearly two decades ago called the Heartland Parkway, whose southern leg through rural lands and crucial wildlife habitat was later abandoned.

The northern portion in the Bartow-Winter Haven area of Polk County is under construction.

Another toll road was proposed more recently along a different route through large swaths of rural land and crucial wildlife habitat in southwest Florida, but was abandoned as a result of protests by environmentalists and property owners and a conclusion that it was unnecessary and financially unsound.

The existence of increased amount of protected conservation lands in this part of Florida—the list of prohibited activities listed in the conservation easement includes the construction of new roads unrelated to restoration work—seems to guarantee that the concern over the encroachment of new roads has lessened.

That makes easements like this a big win for the environment.

Jason Garcia a journalist whose Seeking Rents column regularly reveals the background on legislative hijinks in Tallahassee has scored again.

It seems legislators are poised to approve a bill that will limit the liability of polluting industries in Florida, including the phosphate industry.

The legislation, SB 738 and HB 789, involves revisions to the ironically named Water Quality Assurance Act. The bills would limit claims to the effects on private property and not for things like economic damages or damages to public health. This was tucked into a bill that was mostly devoted to changing rules for side slopes in the design of stormwater ponds. So it goes in Tallahassee.

This is probably just a coincidence, but Garcia also reported that Mosaic, whose pollution discharges over the years has been a topic of discussion among people who claim damages from them, dropped a bunch of cash into legislators’ campaign accounts just before the 2024 session began. However, because of new rules legislators approved that are designed to hide contributions until after the session, the total amount is a little hard to calculate. They seem to be in the six-figure range, Garcia reports.

Mosaic has been successfully sued in the past for economic damages resulting from its spills, so you could logically argue that there seems to be a connection between its campaign largesse and the legislative outcome.

Meanwhile, major environmental groups, including Sierra, have threatened to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its alleged failure to regulate a potential source of environmental pollution related to the acidic and radioactive wastes generated by the Mosaic’s phosphogypsum stacks. These giant waste stacks dot the landscape of southwest Polk County. Their chemical releases have been responsible for serious pollution incidents over recent decades.

The state legislation would not affect any federal action.

You have probably read repeated references to Polk’s growth as more people and rooftops spread across its once rural landscape.

Local economic boosters glibly celebrate this trend, but the reality is much more complicated when it comes to providing basic services.

Drinking water often is at or near the top of the list.

More than a decade ago regional water planners documented what some had long feared, which is that the Upper Floridan Aquifer, the source of most of central Florida’s drinking water, had pretty much reached its sustainable limit.

The idea of a development moratorium was never seriously discussed.

Instead, the talk veered to finding alternative water sources from somewhere else.

That brings us to next Tuesday’s meeting of the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board.

The board will hear a discussion of the Polk Regional Water Cooperative’s request to get permission to temporarily increase its water pumping from the Upper Floridan Aquifer while it continues to work on a multiphase plan, which has been in the works for a few years, That plan is to drill wells deeper into the aquifer where there is no fresh water, treat that water with a process called reverse osmosis at a plant near network of wells in southeastern Polk County and pump the treated water via a pipeline system that runs for about 60 miles to reach water plants operated by the county and the cities.

The first such plant is not scheduled to be completed until 2027. More will follow over the next several decades.

This balancing act is allowed under the rules that emerged from the earlier evaluation of the water supply situation, This additional pumping will be allowed to continue for a time as long as there is no evidence the pumping is causing any environmental damage or affecting anyone else’s well.

The time span of this dispensation is hard to estimate. That’s because one of the problems laid out in the Swiftmud staff report is that water demand projections have become somewhat of a moving target.

Earlier in the process planners projected the need for 12.5 million gallons a day by 2045. Now that is the demand number for 2035 because of changes in population growth projections. It does not seem irrational to consider the possibility that the projection could change again.

Although the timing is still a matter of speculation, sea level rise and all of the economic consequences that accompany it could eventually drive more people inland to places like Polk County.

If it’s any comfort, Polk is not alone.

Tuesday’s agenda also includes a recommended emergency action to allow Tampa Bay Water, one of the major utilities serving customers to the west of Polk, to nearly double its allowed pumping from the Alafia River to replenish water in a reservoir whose water supply has been declining as a result of an extended drought.

Tampa Bay Water says it also needs dispensation from the normal rules to feed its growth machine, too.

Imagine that.

Black Vulture at Buzzard Beach recycles the carcass of a fallen comrade. Now these birds have the site to themselves.

What was for decades the only public access point to launch a boat into Lake Hancock, Polk’s fourth-largest lake, is as dead as its namesake’s main diet.

Florida Department of Transportation officials announced plans earlier this year to close the unpaved, bumpy boat ramp that sometimes you needed four-wheel drive to exit as part of a larger project to improve the section of Winer Lake Road between U.S. 98 and the Polk Parkway. Safety concerns were reportedly behind the decision.

The move had been expected for years as Polk County officials worked to develop a paved boat ramp on Saddle Creek south of Lake Hancock on land the Southwest Florida Water Management District purchased in connection with the construction of a new control structure. That structure allowed the agency to raise the lake’s level to form a reservoir to replenish water in the upper Peace River, which had suffered for years from low water levels and sometimes no water at all in some sections of the river.

Nevertheless, the decision, which was announced in a couple of Facebook posts this week, drew criticism from commercial fishing interests who had been harvesting tilapia and other fish and until relatively recently had made up the bulk of the boat traffic on the lake.

The main problem is that boat trailer parking at the new ramp, which opened in 2020, is limited because it is located on a narrow strip of land between floodplain wetlands along Saddle Creek.

That is going to be a challenge because the parking lot also is used to access the southern trailhead for the Panther Point Trail, which runs along the southern and eastern shore of Lake Hancock. Recreational anglers and other boaters use the ramp, too.

As a practical matter, at some point the County Commission may be forced to come up with a plan to expand public access. The problem is that there are hardly any suitable locations to build a boat ramp to access the lake because the bulk of the lake’s shoreline consists of either wetlands or mined land containing a mosaic of deep pits and narrow berms.

Meanwhile, a planned recreational trail, which is still in the study phase, has been proposed to connect the Marshall Hampton Reserve and Circle B Bar Reserve. Its route would cross the area where the now-closed boat ramp was located.

It is part of a regional plan to create a trail network along the Peace River in Polk County and perhaps farther south.