There was no shortage of local environmental news in 2025 and as usual it was a mix of good, bad and ugly.
The longest running story was the controversy over plans for a toll road through portions of rural northeast Polk County that would destroy the tranquility in these areas, make management of conservation lands more difficult and spend tons of public money on a project that no one but the development and road-building lobbies asked for.
At year’s end the Florida Turnpike Enterprise had selected an alignment for the eastern leg of the Central Polk Parkway and the Osceola Expressway Authority had done the same for another toll road through ranch lands south of Lake Tohokepaliga to link to the Florida Turnpike.
Sierra opposed these projects because of their environmental impacts on wildlife movement and prescribed fire, their encouragement of urban sprawl and their furthering the fallacy that you can build your way out of congestion.
There are several steps ahead including design, right of way acquisition and construction that will total hundreds of millions of dollars or more, a lot of which is currently unavailable.
The only good news on the transportation front was that work is underway on a wildlife overpass across Interstate 4 that will restore a missing link to the Green Swamp from the Upper Peace River watershed.
Development issues also caused public outrage.
One long-running battle involves a plan for a massive residential development along the Peace Creek Drainage Canal on the east side of Bartow on land with marginal soils that will require a bridge over the canal’s floodplain to reach in order to funnel traffic to State Road 60.
The County Commission had denied the project a few years ago, so backers applied to be annexed into the city, apparently hoping it would have more lenient development standards.
At year’s end, city commissioners had given the project tentative approval, but made it clear it would take another look at the project when it came back for final approval in early 2026.
Farther east, a massive sand mine that straddles State Road 60 was proposed east of Lake Wales next to Saddlebag Lake Park, where residents opposed the idea and persuaded the Polk County Planning Commission to vote 6-1 to deny the project. The developer is appealing the decision to the County Commission.
One sidelight of the hearing is that the County Commission, in an unprecedented move, voted to remove Michael B. Schmidt from the Planning Commission after the lawyer representing the applicant complained about his comments at the hearing and County Attorney Randy Mink cited earlier comments Schmidt made that violated the guidelines for how members of the panel should conduct themselves.
Meanwhile, Polk County planners are working on an update of the county’s growth plan, which will be considered by the County Commission in 2026.
That effort is complicated by state law approved earlier this year that restricted what kinds of regulatory changes local officials can enact and could force commissioners to table the changes until and whether the Florida Legislature undoes the restrictions.
Polk officials had earlier this year scrapped plans to enact tighter regulations for development in flood-prone areas and Winter Haven scrapped plans for a tree-protection ordinance for the same reason.
Polk’s parks and environmental lands programs was in the news.
One big change was the retirement of long-time director Gaye Sharpe, who will be succeeded by Tabitha Biehl.
The Environmental Lands Program continues to consider a number of sites for acquisition or conservation easements all over rural Polk County.
However, there are some snags ahead regarding funding.
While the Legislature has generously funded programs to buy conservation easements on working lands, the matching funds to buy land with higher value for protecting intact natural habitats have faced cuts.
In addition, it is unclear at this point how proposals to reduce or eliminate residential property taxes will affect the amount of local revenue available for environmental land purchases. At year’s end it was unclear which proposals, if any, will advance to the 2026 general election ballot and whether the idea will attract 60 percent approval.
It will also be interesting to see how or whether this will affect plans for a first-ever environmental lands referendum in Highlands County, which is also tentatively scheduled for the 2026 ballot.
Finally, no discussion of environmental issues in this region would be complete without talking about water.
Polk County utility officials are working on two projects to possibly provide more drinking water and to reduce groundwater pollution.
One involves a pilot project to bring treated sewage to drinking water standards to deal with projected water shortages.
The other involves the construction of a long-sought facility to treat septic tank wastes that were historically dumped in pastures, resulting in odor complaints and concerns about groundwater contamination.
That project, which will be completed in 2026, comes after the shutdown of the BS Ranch facility that promised to turn these and other wastes into useful products but never delivered.
Meanwhile, officials at the Polk Regional Water Cooperative continue to work on securing some sort of future water supply from the Upper Peace River and the headwaters of the Alafia River, but it remains unclear how much water will actually be available after the Southwest Florida Water Management District updates its minimum flows and levels calculations for those water bodies.
In any event, water would be available only during times of peak flows, which this year has shown are unpredictable.
Below average summer and fall rainfall has dropped river flow to between low normal to extreme low levels as what may be the beginning of a drought affecting the area. That condition was even more evident when Polk fire officials pushed for an unprecedented fall burn ban that likely will remain in effect until next summer’s rainy season arrives.
Meanwhile don’t plan any camping trips that involve campfires or paddling trips that don’t require portages.
Take day hikes and enjoy the outdoors in Sierra fashion.
Happy New Year!

The decades-long campaign to end sugar cane field burning in south Florida is producing some results, we learned during a bus ride that was part of Florida Sierra’s recent winter meeting in South Bay near Lake Okeechobee.
The main concern was how the “black snow.” as residents in communities such as Belle Glade. Pahokee, South Bay and Clewiston term the ash fallout, affects their quality of life as it lands everywhere and reportedly causes health concerns for people who already have respiratory problems.
For years the industry seemed to ignore the issue and enlisted state environmental officials to declare the air was safe and clean.
More sophisticated air analyses by private investigative teams lead by Pro Publica have demonstrated there are issues.
There now seems to be some cracks in the sugar industry’s opposition to ending the practice.
We were told one major company, Florida. Crystals, no longer burns the fields and uses the organic debris that was once burned in open fields as biofuels to power their processing plants.
Plant operators have also installed physical barriers to prevent debris from affecting nearby homes in the Harlem community.
Economic development considerations have played a role, too.
When a new Wal-Mart was proposed for Clewiston, the store’s owners made it clear that they opposed burning in the fields adjacent to the store because it would affect their employees and customers.
There is no burning around the store.
This and other examples demonstrate that sugar cane field burning is not really as necessary as previously claimed.
As a side note to demonstrate how pervasive the “black snow” has become, when I visited John Stretch Park between Clewiston and South Bay, the ash even covered the spider webs as illustrated in the photo above.

Tamara Richardson, Polk’s utilities director, provided an informative update on Polk County’s quest for more drinking water to meet projected development demand and progress on Polk’s first-ever treatment plant for septic tank waste at Thursday’s Ancient Islands Group meeting.
Some takeaways from her presentation were:
–Although the Lower Floridan Aquifer will aid in supplying some of the water Polk officials say they will need to accommodate new development, that source, like the Upper Floridan that was the traditional source of drinking water, it is not inexhaustible.
-Pumping water from the Lower Floridan is unlikely to cause sinkholes because there is a confining layer between those two portions of the aquifer.
-The deep well system, the even deeper disposal well system and the 66 miles of pipeline will affect everyone’s water rates; expect a six percent annual increase.
–The other potential future source of water is the Peace River, but that is far in the future and will depend on how much water is available after the Southwest Florida Water Management District re-evaluates minimum flows in the Upper Peace River.
–Another potential source is what is called Direct Potable Reuse(DPR), which involves treating reclaimed water (treated sewage) to drinking water standards.
–DPS is undergoing a pilot project at a plant in northwest Polk using a series of treatment steps to remove such contaminants as organic compounds, viruses and PFAs (the so-called forever chemicals) that normal treatment doesn’t remove.
–The treatment plant for septic tank waste, which should be completed by next summer, is a long-awaited solution to the pollution problems that occurred when septage haulers were allowed to dispose of the waste on the ground, usually in pastures.
–It also comes after a business called BS Ranch & Farms, which, claimed to be able to turn the waste into usable soil, was shut down after being cited for numerous pollution violations.
–Under the new process the septage will be treated and mixed with leachate (contaminated water that flows through the piles of garbage at the landfill) and used as process water at the landfill.
Richardson said all of these projects are part of a series of anti-pollution and water management efforts required by various agencies aimed at reducing these operations’ impacts on the environment.