A proposal by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to allow gopher tortoises to be relocated more than 100 miles from the development sites from which they have been removed has generated some concerns.

I deal with those presently, but first a little history might be helpful.

Gopher tortoises didn’t have much protection of any kind in Florida until 1972 when it became illegal to sell or export them. And even thought this species was declared threatened in Florida in 1975 and downlisted to species of special concern in 1979, it was not until 1988 that it became illegal to “harvest” (catch and kill and eat) them.

That was followed by a series of rules and revisions of rules and development of management plans and revisions of management plans governing how exactly to deal with gopher tortoises that lived in the path of development.

Initially developers were allowed to bury them alive and pay a fee to fund purchase of mitigation areas, but today developers have to remove them from their burrows, keep them alive and transport them to an approved relocation site.

This process has been complicated by the need to try to prevent the spread of an upper respiratory disease that was wiping out these reptiles in some parts of Florida and finding relocation sites in a rapidly developing state where suitable gopher tortoise habitat was also prime development land.

Another wrinkle in this process was the problem of how to protect other species ranging from gopher frogs and Florida mice to Eastern indigo snakes and Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes that regularly used gopher tortoise burrows along with hundreds of lesser-known invertebrates. They are known as commensal species.

Although the frog and the mouse are no longer classified as threatened species, the indigo snake is federally protected and the rattlesnake is being considered for federal protection. So is the gopher tortoise for that matter.

State wildlife officials acknowledge the relocation of commensal species is not well-researched and about all the current regulations say –except for the indigo snake—is to let them go their own way out of the path of the bulldozers and hope they survive at relocation sites.

The argument over whether gopher tortoises can be relocated 50 miles away or 100 miles away or 150 miles away is really about a bigger issue.

What is really needed is stronger measures to limit development in gopher tortoise colonies in the first place by buying and protecting more key habitat areas.

That’s because development restrictions face political resistance and legal challenges over claims that they infringe on property rights.

However, the effort to buy the land necessary to protect gopher tortoises and other native plants and animals has been hamstrung by the Florida Legislature’s refusal to fully implement the funding authorized in a constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved several years ago by Florida’s voters.

The dispute is still tied up in court and the hundreds of millions of conservation dollars that were supposed to be available remain unspent.

And that, not agency rulemaking, is what this is really about and will continue to be about until we get some change in Tallahassee.

This is embarrassing, but it seems that as Florida legislators prepare to debate whether the Florida Scrub-Jay should replace the Northern Mockingbird as the state bird, there is no official state bird.

The measure proposed and passed by the Florida Senate in 1927 to make the Northern Mockingbird the state bird was never ratified by the Florida House and never enacted in Florida law.

All of the other state plants and animals and festivals and plays and songs etc. are included in state law.. The mockingbird’s status was just one of those things almost everyone took for granted.

This historical research came to light during the current campaign to make the Florida Scrub-Jay the official state bird.

This, of course. Is an oversight that could be corrected in the 2022 session. Or, legislators could start over and name the Florida Scrub-Jay, the only bird species found only in Florida and a symbol of declining native habitat that should be protected, the state bird. Maybe it could revive discussion on fully funding the Florida Forever program as voters intended in a constitutional referendum.

There have also been suggestions—but no proposed legislation—to give that honor to the Roseate Spoonbill or the Swallow-tailed Kite or perhaps other species.

The lobbying is under way to secure endorsements from conservation groups and local governments.

This issue came up several years ago and was killed by National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer who was at odds with bill sponsor Florida Audubon over an unrelated issue.

Stay tuned.

The task of providing water to feed future development ambitions in Polk County has long involved exploring the feasibility of drilling wells into the nether regions of the aquifer, an area known as the Lower Floridan Aquifer in hopes of finding water that could be good enough to be feasibly pumped and treated and fed into a countywide pipeline system.

This exploration has been going on for several years.

Initially the work was centered on a private ranch south of Lake Walkinwater east of Lake Wales. Next a well was drilled on property off Boy Scout Road northwest of the lake.

At this week’s Polk Regional Water Cooperative meeting, a more comprehensive map of the long-range plan for this water supply plan emerged.

It involves a network of 15 wells along the east side of Walkinwater Road. Many of those proposed wells would lie within sections of Lake Wales Ridge State Forest and around Tiger Creek, which flows from a nearby nature preserve owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy.

The development of this well network is still in the discussion phase and will require permits that will address the environmental impacts of the construction and operation of these well sites. Utility officials said that there is no indication so far that tapping water from the deeper section of the aquifer will affect surface water levels.

PRWC East Polk Well Plans Come Into Better Focus

The task of providing water to feed future development ambitions in Polk County has long involved exploring the feasibility of drilling wells into the nether regions of the aquifer, an area known as the Lower Floridan Aquifer in hopes of finding water that could be good enough to be feasibly pumped and treated and fed into a countywide pipeline system.

This exploration has been going on for several years.

Initially the work was centered on a private ranch south of Lake Walkinwater east of Lake Wales. Next a well was drilled on property off Boy Scout Road northwest of the lake.

At this week’s Polk Regional Water Cooperative meeting, a more comprehensive map of the long-range plan for this water supply plan emerged.

It involves a network of 15 wells along the east side of Walkinwater Road. Many of those proposed wells would lie within sections of Lake Wales Ridge State Forest and around Tiger Creek, which flows from a nearby nature preserve owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy.

The development of this well network is still in the discussion phase and will require permits that will address the environmental impacts of the construction and operation of these well sites. Utility officials said that there is no indication so far that tapping water from the deeper section of the aquifer will affect surface water levels.

The explosive growth of residential development in northeast Polk County seems to have finally captured the attention of the Polk County School Board.

This week outgoing School Board Chair Lori Cunningham suggested it may be time to increase the school impact fee to provide funding for the increased demand for school capacity in this fast-growing area of the county.

That will be up to the Polk County Commission, which has the authority to make such changes.

In the past, county commissioners have been reluctant to levy impact fees at the full level that consultant studies have recommended are justified to deal with population growth.

Also in the past School Board members have been reluctant to press for higher impact fees. Some of the more conservative board members have argued the funding for need new schools would increase their maintenance costs.

The question is what kind of school system Polk County envisions. Rezoning has its limits, so do portables.

What’s next? Double sessions or courage of their convictions?

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection offers free admission to all state parks on Thursday, Nov. 11, in honor of Veterans Day.

There are a number of state parks in the area that offer a variety of day-use experiences from hiking steep sandhills on the Lake Wales Ridge to walking along a boardwalk in a cypress swamp. Some also include campgrounds.

If you happen to be in an area without a lot of urban light pollution and a clear night sky, Veterans Day also coincides with the peak time for the Taurid meteor shower.

Area state parks include:

Highlands Hammock State Park 5931 Hammock Road, Sebring, was constructed by the workers employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression. Facilities include a museum honoring the CCC, boardwalk, hiking trails and a campground.

Lake Kissimmee State Park, 14248 Camp Mack Road, Lake Wales, features a 19^th century cow camp commemorating the days of Florida’s open range, hiking trails, a marina that provides access to Lake Kissimmee and Lake Rosalie and a campground.

Colt Creek State Park, 16000 State Road 471, Lakeland, contains hiking and horseback trails, an artificial lake for fishing and kayaking and a campground.

Payne Creek Historic State Park, 888 Lake Branch Road, Bowling Green, contains hiking trail, a boat ramp and a museum.

Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park, 4335 Firetower Road, Haines City contains a network of trails for hiking and horseback riding.

Lake June in Winter Scrub State Park, 630 Daffodil St., Lake Placid, contains hiking trails.

Lake Louisa State Park, 7305 U.S. 27 Clermont, contains hiking, mountain bike and equestrian trails, campgrounds, bicycle and kayak rentals and cabins.

If you visit state parks often, consider getting an annual pass. Veterans receive a 25 percent discount.

DeSoto County’s work session Tuesday highlighted the questions about a plan to reconsider the County Commission’s 2018 vote to deny Mosaic’s request to mine the northwest corner of the county for starters and to expand further into other areas of the county.

One of the prime issues was the plan to mine the land, which would change the geography and topography forever, and to develop a network of what the industry calls clay settling areas and others refer to as slime ponds, areas where the clay wastes from the initial separation of the soil Mosaic wrests from the earth along with trees, undergrowth and the wildlife habitat it contains.

Mosaic representatives focused on the improved safety of the dikes around these impoundments after disastrous spills in earlier times. This refers to a 2 million gallon spill in 1971 into the Peace River following a 488 million spill in 1967 from which some people testified that the river and the Charlotte Harbor Estuary downstream has yet to recover.

Despite the claim there have been no spills since 1994, there have been spills from other phosphate operations more recently.

But it was not simply disastrous spills that were the issue.

The initial process of the mined material, which involves a chemical process to separate clay, sand and phosphate rock, generated a lot of comments because the chemicals used in this process—particularly fuel oil—raised concerns that these chemicals have been documented to flow through the ponds’ dirt walls into the aquifer, causing potential pollution of drinking water supplies.

This testimony belied attempts by Mosaic officials to downplay the potential threat.

One resident described the threat as a “time bomb.”

DeSoto County officials questioned Mosaic representatives about how long it would take for these chemicals to break down. Mosaic officials admitted they could not answer.

Critics also questioned why this issue was even being reconsidered.

Although there was testimony that the issues residents raised would be considered in state permitting reviews, residents were skeptical this would happen.

Another issue was the potential for flooding, which would isolate local homeowners, and the lack of any provisions at this point to establish warning network to alert residents of the threat.

Some residents describe the potential for off-site pollution as “trespass” and maintained that the so-called scientific studies used to buttress Mosaic’s position were not peer-reviewed by scientists unconnected to the phosphate industry and were instead industry-supported papers.

DeSoto commissioners raised questions as well about how the clay ponds would affect aquifer recharge and local hydrology.

Mosaic’s application is not scheduled to be considered until early 2023. In the meantime, DeSoto County officials have hired outside experts to help to evaluate the proposals’ effects on the county’s residents and environment.