For people hardy enough for summer through hikes in this part of Florida, a construction project may delay some outings.
The South Florida Water Management District announced maintenance work on the S-65A structure on the Kissimmee River will close a section of the Florida National Scenic Trail July 14 through Oct. 24.
The boat lock is located near the boundaries of Kicco Wildlife Management Area, the Avon Park Air Force Range and Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
The work will also affect boat access along this section of the river.

A cooperative agreement among the Department of Defense, the US Department of Agriculture and Conservation Florida has secured a conservation easement on a 1,000-acre ranch in southern Highlands County, WUSF reports.
The ranch is adjacent to Archbold Biological Station south of Lake Placid and is a location of several documented sightings of Florida panthers.
The easement will allow ranching to continue without being threatened by conversion to more intense land uses, such as development.
Florida panthers are known to disperse from their core habitat in southwest Florida along the Lake Wales Ridge and the Peace and Kissimmee River corridors.
Some find their way to the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern in northern Polk and southern Lake counties, which is a documented hub in a network of wildlife corridors in Florida.
Those travels may be expanding.
State officials recently discovered the remains of a road-killed Florida panther that was struck and killed while trying to cross Interstate 75 near Wesley Chapel in Pasco County.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had an opportunity support a measure long-sought by Sierra and other environmental advocates to restore the Ocklawaha River to a free-flowing stream.
But noooooooo! as the late John Belushi used to say.
He caved to the status quo and the dam that created a reservoir that buried active springs and barricades the last 13 miles of the historic waterway will remain.
Legislators had approved a $6.25 million appropriation to begin work to dismantle this anachronism from the days when structural water-management projects ruled the day, but DeSantis vetoed it.
I guess we will have to wait to see whether his successor is more enlightened.

As the number of sites for which the Polk County Commission has agreed to pursue land deals under the Enviornmental Lands Program increases, the options for partnerships to stretch the local tax dollars is decreasing, as details of the recently approved state budget have emerged.
The budget is still under review by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his staff, but here is where things stand now.
The Legislature proposed $250 million for the Rural and Family Lands Protection program, which helps to fund conservation easements. Conservation easements keep the land in private hands but prevents intense development.
This works for many rural landowners who want to continue working the land without dealing with the financial pressure to sell out.
Polk’s program accommodates those kinds of deals.
But in other cases, the outright purchase of the property is a better option and this is where the problem lies.
The Legislature approved a measly $18 million for the Florida Forever program–it was $229 million in the previous budget– and nothing for the Florida Communities Trust program, both of which have been used extensively in past partnerships.
To put that in perspective, the amount of money budgeted for environmental land purchases just for Polk and surrounding counties totals roughly $42.5 million.
If you extend that figure statewide for all of the local, voter-approved programs, how minuscule the state’s proposed Florida Forever funding is.
It is also worth mentioning that a constitutional amendment approved by voters and supported by Sierra and other environmental groups was supposed to have provided more funds for the Florida Forever program. However, the Florida Legislature found ways to worm out of it and for reasons that defy the average person’s understanding was upheld in court.

The Ocklawaha River once flowed unimpeded to the St. Johns River, but that all changed decades ago when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to build a dam blocking the final 13-mile section.
For decades river advocates have been pressing state officials to undo the damage.
This year the proposed state budget contains $6.25 million to begin the job.
Sierra Club and other environmental organizations are urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to leave the appropriation intact.
There continues to be lobbying from other interest groups interested in preserving the status quo of a fishing lake called the Rodman Reservoir, despite the fact that it flooded a good portion of the river floodplain and capped the flow of 10 springs.
The river’s watershed is extensive. much of it beginning in Polk County via the formation of a creek system in the southern portion of the Green Swamp Area of State Concern.
The creeks flow slowly through the sawgrass marsh north of Lake Lowery. and other lakes in the Haines City-Lake Alfred area covering more than 100 square miles before reaching Lake Louisa in Lake County and from there forming the Palatlakaha River, the Ocklawaha’s main tributary.
As many of you know, the dam is the legacy of an ill-conceived engineering project called the Cross Florida Barge Canal, which President Richard Nixon finally halted in 1971.
It was a project that had been discussed in one form or another even before Florida became a state in 1845 as a way of creating a shortcut for freight that avoided what were then the poorly mapped reefs in the Florida Keys.
The project also came at a time when the prevailing water management practices in Florida involved building structures–dams, canals, reservoirs–to deal with issues often better served by purchasing and preserving natural areas.
It would be a tribute to our better understanding of proper water management today to urge Gov. Ron DeSantis to support this portion of the proposed budget.

Polk County’s Enviornmental Lands Program will receive an estimated $13.7 million in the next fiscal year, according to preliminary figures released by Polk County Property Appraiser Neil Comee’s office.
That is up from $12.6 million in the current fiscal year budget.
The increase includes an estimated $545,997 from new construction.
The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
The program has reviewed more than 40 siters involving more than 21.000 acres and has reached agreements to purchase 4 sites and decided not to try to pursue six other sites.
The final decision on all purchases lies with the County Commission.

Lake Alfred’s annexation of land at the Interstate 4-County Road 557 interchange for industrial development did not go unnoticed in Tallahassee.
As reported last year in this space, the city annexed part of Hilochee Wildlife Management Area’s Osprey Unit in 2023 to reach the interchange, allegedly without informing state officials what the city had in mind. And, by annexing land with no residences, avoided a referendum.
That annexation drew complaints from nearby property owners who said they wondered whether that would allow heavier development to creep closer to their rural homesteads along Old Grade Road.
State Sen. Colleen Burton of Lakeland filed a bill this year that would require cities to inform all members of the local legislative delegation in advance of the first public hearing on any annexation of state lands.
The bill passed the Houses and Senate unanimously and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law last month.
An aide to Burton confirmed complaints about the Lake Alfred annexation led to her filing the bill.
The change in state law does not affect Lake Alfred’s vote but could prevent any further stealth annexations without some kind of outside review.
Meanwhile permitting for a warehouse development on the annexed property is reportedly under way and will involve some wetlands destruction, which will have to be mitigated.