State parks are still recovering from the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Irma and are gradually reopening.

The latest information from the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation says that Lake Kissimmee State Park, Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek and Dade Battlefield Historic State Park, Lake June-in-Winter State Park , Lake Griffin State Park and Lake Louisa State Park are open.

Still closed are Colt Creek State Park, Highlands Hammock State Park and Gen. James Van Fleet Green Swamp Trail and Paynes Creek Historic State Park.

Next Tuesday the Southwest Florida Water Management District is scheduled to consider a formal agreement with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for the management of Jack Creek Preserve in central Highlands County south of Sebring.

The meeting begins at 3 p.m. at the agency’s Tampa office on U.S. 301. It will be followed by the tentative budget hearing at 5:01 p.m.

The meetings are open to the public and can also be viewed online.

The 1,268-acre tract is home for 20 listed species and is open to the public for hiking and nature study. It is part of a system, of preserves along the Lake Wales Ridge that have been purchased in recent decades to protect rare endemic species.

According to the backup information on Swiftmud’s website, the agreement is intended to clarify each agency’s role in managing the property.

It took a little checking around, but it seems the Polk legislative delegation has canceled Wednesday’s public meeting to hear from the public about the issues they feel legislators should address in the 2018 session.

If this is the first you’ve heard about it don’t be surprised.

The email blast that went out last Thursday announcing the cancellation was addressed primarily to local government and business interests.

Groups, such as Ancient Islands Sierra, which had formally sent an email asking to be on the agenda, were not included in the notice.

That makes one wonder just who the Polk delegation feels they are actually representing.

According to the email, the meeting will be rescheduled, but the date has not been determined as, apparently, has the method of informing the general public so it can participate in the process.

Part of the problem was that the venue the delegation had chosen, a meeting room at the Polk County Extension Office rather than the Polk County Commission chambers, had been affected by power and Internet outages in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

That site had seemed convenient before the storm because part of the legislators’ gathering had included an appreciation luncheon with the Polk County Farm Bureau, which is located nearby.

The Central Florida Expressway Authority public meeting to discuss the feasibility of four proposed toll roads in Polk, Osceola and Orange counties has been rescheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 19, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Poinciana Community Center, 445 Marigold Ave., Poinciana.

The meeting will be an open house format. Project maps will be set up and consultants and staff will be available to answer questions.

The four projects, if completed, would form a beltway around Kissimmee and St. Cloud similar to the beltway around Orlando formed by two other toll roads that feed to and from Interstate 4.

The projects have raised environmental questions because the proposed routes would bisect undeveloped habitat containing a number of protected species. Some proposed routes would also run near existing conservation areas, possibly making prescribed fire more difficult because of increase smoke management restrictions and cutting off corridors and disrupting regional migrations because of additional lighting and noise.

There has also been skepticism about the need for some of the new roads other than interest in developing more urban sprawl at new interchanges as has occurred along SR 417, the so-called “Greenway.”

The Peace River is flowing well above its average flow following last weekend’s rainfall from Hurricane Irma.

However, it was not close to flow this time of year in 2004, according to preliminary streamflow data at Bartow compiled by the U.S. Geologic Survey.

The flow recorded Wednesday was 2,150 cubic feet per second. A cubic foot per second flow is roughly equal to 600,000 gallons a day.

The 2004 record for Wednesday is 3,840 cfs.

Other readings include 736 cfs on the Peace Creek in Wahneta, which still appears to be rising (the 2004 record for this date as 902 cfs).

More impressive figures are coming from gauges farther downstream as the flow from tributaries accumulates.

Wednesday’s flow on the Peace River at Zolfo Springs was 17,300 cfs, which topped the 15,200 cfs record from around the time Hurricane Donna came through the area in 1960 during an already wet year.

Across the county, the flow on Tiger Creek was record-setting. Wednesday’s flow was 555 cfs, far surpassing the 120 cfs record from 2004 for this site.

The creek, as some of you know, flows through sandhills in Tiger Creek Preserve before emptying into Lake Walkinwater.

The USGS data also shows a 3-foot rise in water level in the creek.

Finally, the North Prong of the Alafia River in Nichols was flowing Wednesday at 693 cfs. The old record was 257 cfs from 2015;.

There was a time when it took quite a bit of effort to recycle in Polk County, if you could do it all.

You had to bag or bundle whatever you wanted to recycle and transport it to a recycling center somewhere.

Today curbside recycling is available in most parts of the county. It provided an environmental-friendly way to dispose of paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, aluminum and steel.

This will continue in many parts of Polk County, but starting next month residential garbage customers in unincorporated Polk County, which is where the majority lives, will have a lot less to recycle.

All glass and most plastic will end up in the landfill even if you put it in your recycling container, a decision county officials say is dictated by changes in recycling market prices. Exactly which plastic will not be recycled is a little unclear, but Polk solid waste officials have refused to provide clear information on their webpage to make it easier for the public to sort things out. Other counties such as neighboring Hillsborough County have done a better job.

City recycling programs will continue for now to recycle this material and so will surrounding counties that have recycling programs.

Polk has a reason not to bother to collect unprofitable materials.

The county budget in a small way depends on the landfill’s turning a profit. That’s because the landfill fund is type of piggy bank for the County Commission. It takes a dividend of a few million dollars a year that can be used for various projects.

The change raises some interesting questions.

Polk’s recycling rate has never been stellar and there has never been a sustained campaign to persuade residents to increase their participation in recycling.

Recent policy decisions don’t advance that goal.

First came the decision to remove the recycling dropoff containers at the county landfill. The dropoff centers are convenient sites to get rid of large cardboard boxes that don’t fit into recycling bins and allows you to avoid advertising recent purchases of pricey merchandise. The stated reason for getting rid of the center was that people were dumping stuff other than recyclables—this was undoubtedly true– and it was inconvenient for county staffers to clean up the mess.

Then came the decision on distribution of new recycling carts to replace the bins that had been used for several years. Polk County sent cards to residents earlier this year asking them to respond if they wanted a cart for the new service that begins Oct. 2. The problem was that if you didn’t receive a card or misplaced your card and suddenly realized you needed to order a recycling cart, the official county policy was that you’re out of luck. You will have to wait until Jan. 1 for no other reason than some county official decided that was the way it ought to be. Residents without carts in the cartless interval have been advised to ask neighbors if they can put their recyclables in their carts.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how Polk’s recycling rate fares in the new recycling regime.

The state’s recycling calculation is based on weight and without heavy materials such as glass in the mix, it could change even though glass has little market value.

Also, it will be interesting to see whether Polk residents back off from participating in any significant numbers once they learn less of their household waste will be recycled.

The Central Florida Expressway Authority has scheduled a series of public meetings to discuss plans for pushing new roads farther south into the Orlando suburbs in Osceola County.

The meetings, which will be in the typical open house format with maps on the walls and consultants on the floor to answer questions, will kick off Sept. 14 at the Association of Poinciana Villages Community Center, 445 Marigold Ave., Poinciana from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. . Other meetings are scheduled Sept. 19 in St. Cloud and Oct. 5 in Orlando.

The stated purposes of the new roads, for which no funding but preliminary planning has been approved yet, are the usual list. It will reduce congestion, boost the economy and connect the region.

The main concern Sierra and other environmental advocates have raised is that the sections planned through rural areas—some of the routes involve more direct routes through already developed areas—is that the roads bisect wildlife habitat, encourage urban sprawl and make fire management of conservation lands more difficult.

The sprawl could be similar to what many have witnessed along State Road 417 over the past 20 years.

This is one of a series of road projects being proposed in the region.

State transportation officials last year pulled the plug on another proposed toll road called the Central Polk Parkway in eastern Polk County that would loop through rural areas surrounding Haines City to provide a roundabout route between U.S. 27 and Interstate 4 and in central Polk between State Road 60 and the Polk Parkway.

Transportation officials concluded the road would not generate enough toll revenue to justify its expense.

Local economic-development officials, who have consistently been the main supporters of these new roads, are still lobbying state transportation officials to revive at least part of the project. They plan their own meeting early next month with turnpike officials.