As predicted in an earlier post in this space, residents have appealed the recent approval of a dense, city-sized sprawl development deeper into the edge of the Everglades Headwaters to the County Commission, The Ledger reports.

County Commissioners had previously denied another development approval in the area in 2008 that was later acquired by The Nature Conservancy to add to a large amount of public and private conservation land in the Kissimmee River Basin.

The development applicant had applied to the state for a conservation easement under the Florida Forever program, which is still pending.

These applications tend to increase the cost to taxpayers if property owners gain development entitlements and sometimes even if their application is denied as in the case of the Prairie Unit of Lake Wales Ridge State Forest.

During the Planning Commission hearing, which involved a 4-3 vote split, the planning commission majority cited rural sprawl provisions that were added to the county’s development regulations in a settlement with agriculture interests to supposedly to protect farm land by requiring a 50 percent set aside.

The minority questioned whether this property was so flood-prone and so incompatible with the majority of surrounding lands that called the wisdom of its approval into question.

The weakest argument the Planning Commission majority made was to defer to the recommendation of the county’s planning staff.

These were the same people who opined that the troubled BS Ranch project on the outskirts of Lakeland was the best thing since sliced bread.

At next Tuesday’s County Commission, the county’s legal staff is scheduled to gain approval to pursue future action against BS Ranch.

Th8is

You probably noticed this when you received your latest power bill, but your air conditioner had a busy month.

According to the National Weather Service Lakeland’s average daily temperature of 85.5 degrees F. was the highest since 1915.

Bartow was 4^th warmest since 1892 and Winter Haven was 7^th warmest since 1941.

The Bartow temperature figures were interesting because unlike other places in the area, the other warm Julys were not recorded within the past decade or so when climate change became a greater focus. Although the warmest July occurred in 2014, the second warmest July there was in 1932 and the third warmest July was in 1969.

The figures from Wauchula were not in yet.

It was also the second driest July in Bartow.

That lack of rainfall was evident in the Upper Peace River, which officially begins in Bartow at the confluence of Saddle Creek and the Peace Creek Drainage Canal, is flowing below normal for this time of year, which is why flow at Fort Meade is lower than it is at Bartow because some of the river is swallowed into underground caverns in that stretch of the river because of historic decline in aquifer levels in this part of Florida because of heavy pumping.

The river flow can change quickly if a tropical storm arrives, such as occurred last year following Hurricane Ian when the river saw record-breaking flow that caused serious flooding downstream that caused substantial property damage.

The Polk County Planning Commission voted 4-3 Wednesday to approve a city-sized residential-commercial development in a flood-prone rural area east of Poinciana on Hatchineha Road.

The majority sided with applicant’s contention that they could use a section of the county’s development regulations intended to preserve farm land to turn a ranch into a subdivision to be built at urban density, that the engineering plan could solve chronic flooding problems and that the traffic impacts would somehow be magically taken care of with conceptual road-improvement projects that are mostly unbudgeted.

They also deferred to the county staff’s expertise. But is is worth mentioning that the planner who promoted this project was the same person who assured us that the BS Ranch project was the best thing since sliced bread, which did not turn out well.

The minority questioned the project’s compatibility with surrounding uses, many of which are private and public conservation preserves and whether the developers could realistically reduce historic flooding on the property.

The county regulations require that developers do not fix the flooding problems, but simply do not make them worse. That is cold comfort for property owners downstream from the rooftops, sidewalks and other impervious surfaces that will increase the volume and velocity of the floodwaters someday as climate change takes effect.

Opponents are expected to appeal Wednesday’s vote to the County Commission.

Last November Polk County voters overwhelmingly approved a grassroots effort to resume purchase of environmentally important lands.

The tax, which is projected to generate an estimated $11.3 million in the first year it takes effect beginning Oct. 1, will be used to purchase land or conservation easements to protect land from development.

Which lands will be recommended to the County Commission will be based on a review by a technical advisory committee of environmental experts and a citizen committee appointed earlier this year by commissioners.

The citizen committee called the Conservation Lands Acquisition Selection Advisory Committee is scheduled to meet next on Oct 11 in the County Commission chambers in Bartow.,

County officials announced this week the formal application process for landowners will open Aug.1.

The criteria for acquisition involves securing land that protects wildlife and water resources, can be managed cost-effectively and can provide public recreation where appropriate.

Many recent state purchases, which in the past involved partnerships with local environmental lands programs, have involved conservation easement of ranches within the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a statewide conceptual network designed to allow movement of wide-ranging species such as Florida panthers and Florida black bears and to provide buffers along key streams across Florida’s remaining undeveloped landscape.

However, there has also been a push by conservationists to also seek higher-quality sites that include more native habitat rather than pasturelands as a priority.

The emphasis of the campaign to pass last year’s referendum emphasized the need to purchase lands in the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern, the Peace River corridor, the Lake Wales Ridge and the headwaters of the Everglades in the Kissimmee River Basin. In addition, there was an emphasis of trying to acquire land that would connect existing conservation lands to avoid fragmentation.

To apply for consideration to participate in the program, go to https://polknature.com/about-us.

The Tampa Bay Times reported and other Florida media have followed that Mosaic is seeking approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use 337 tons of phosphogypsum for a test road construction project authorized this year by the Florida Legislature.

That sounds like a lot of material that could go toward erasing these waste mountains on Florida’s landscape until you look at the big picture.

Florida’s gypstacks as they are called contain an estimated 1 BILLION tons of this stuff and the number increases by 30 MILLION tons a year.

That means we’re talking about a project that will consume about one ten-thousandth of a percent of the annual output, which even if it were approved would be hardly noticeable.

In case you tuned in late, phosphogysum as the industry calls it so it doesn’t get confused with the material contained in drywall, is slightly radioactive and contains some toxic elements such as arsenic, mercury and chromium. It is a waste byproduct of the process of making fertilizer from phosphate rock.

Meanwhile, the public reaction has been a mixture of unease and ridicule. Commentators on a recent radio show joked about how the roads built with this stuff won’t need street lights because they will glow in the dark.

This isn’t true, of course, but this is hardly a public relations win for Mosaic.

This also demonstrates how the Florida Legislature just rubber-stamped this proposal without any serious analysis in a decision that seemed to reek of politics.

If Trump was for this and Biden is against it, what else is there to discuss?

There was actually plenty to discuss such as whether the public would accept this if were used to build roads in residential areas, whether it is really an economical alternative to limerock and whether it would really solve Mosaic’s waste problem that requires the corporation to otherwise monitor and manage these waste piles until the end of time.

Until EPA officials make a ruling, this discussion is academic but will be entertaining to watch the political reaction if the answer is no.

Stay tuned.

Florida’s Constitution has not undergone a major overhaul in more than 50 years. Recently there has been some discussion of pushing a major rewrite while the GOP legislative supermajority can control the process.

This idea, at least as far as anyone knows, comes from Rep. Spencer Roach, who represents the Fort Myers area.

Although his stated reasons for the rewrite involves things like increasing the number of legislators and re-examining election laws, once there’s a decision to go forward with a rewrite everything inside the document is on the table for GOP legislators and their lobbying partners to go over.

That could include several environmental provisions enacted by citizen initiatives in recent decades in response to legislative inaction or outright hostility.

At the top of the list could be the 2014 amendment that required legislators to set aside a third of net documentary stamp revenue to the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to protect more of Florida’s native habitat for future generations. Ever since voters approved the amendment, the Florida Legislature has done everything it can thwart its enactment.

Then there are amendments that gave tax breaks for the installation of home solar devices to encourage alternative energy sources to reduce greenhouse emissions. Investor-owned utilities tried to undo some of this with a false flag amendment that voters rejected. The big utilities are not against solar; they simply want to control the market. They are big contributors to legislative campaigns and certainly would lobby to get rid of these amendments if the opportunity presented itself.

Then there was an amendment approved in 2002 that is often used as the poster child for topics that don’t belong in the constitution.

I’m speaking of the so-called “pregnant big” amendment that sets standards for this sector of the livestock industry. What this amendment actually accomplished was to make it unlikely that factory hog farms and their manure lagoons the size of phosphate industry waste ponds would be able to locate in Florida and threaten Florida water bodies with the kinds of spills other states have experienced.

Finally, there a section that was proposed by the Constitution Revision Commission and approved in 2018 that seeks to protect Florida’s natural resources and scenic beauty from air, water and noise pollution, supposedly made Everglades polluters responsible for cleaning up after themselves and banned offshore oil and gas drilling.

I can see some argue this an anti-business measure that does not belong in the Florida constitution. If there are problems, certainly the Florida Legislature can handle it.

The good news is that no changes in the Florida Constitution can go anywhere without voter approval, but it will be important if anything comes of this rewrite idea to look closely at ballot language to make sure no one is trying to pull a fast one or two.

After the Florida Legislature passed and Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation authorizing state transportation officials to test the feasibility of using a toxic byproduct of fertilizer production in Florida to build roads, it seemed that was that.

Wrong.

The Ledger in Lakeland reports that state officials and Mosaic, the fertilizer corporation that proposes to build test roads on its property, are awaiting review of this scheme by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA rules currently prohibit using this material called phosphogypsum for anything other than piling it up in stacks the size of small mountains.

Phosphogypsum is a waste product that is slightly radioactive and contains a number of toxic elements such as arsenic, lead, mercury and chromium.

The argument for using this material in roads is that it is not as dangerous as critics claim and that it could reduce road-building costs by eliminating the need to transport limerock, the material that has been traditionally used in Florida road-building projects, from far away mines elsewhere in Florida.

They could further argue this study is unnecessary because the material has already been used in building a road on the outskirts of Fort Meade decades ago. A subsequent investigation of the environmental impacts by the University of Miami reportedly found no problems.

Mosaic certainly has an incentive to push this through because as things stand now, it is financially responsible until the end of time for monitoring and managing these stacks. This is an expense the corporation would be happy to shed.

Opponents are concerned that this opens the door to spreading this material all over the landscape with uncertain results.

However, the reality of this venture is even more complicated.

First, any action by EPA would require a public process before the agency makes a decision.

That decision is subject to legal challenges by organizations that oppose the idea.

This could take years to play out.

Meanwhile, the perfunctory staff analyses accompanying the legislation did not address how much demand there actually is for this material and whether there is enough demand to make even a small dent in the size of the stacks that dot southwest Polk County and a couple of spots in adjacent counties.

Also unaddressed is what would happen if phosphogypsum road testing is ultimately authorized and EPA subsequently decides it is a suitable road-building material and a road project is proposed somewhere in Florida using it.

It is not hard to imagine the political fallout that could occur when word gets out and residents show up at city or county commission meetings to object to using this material near their homes and wells.

You get the idea.

Furthermore, it will be interesting to see, given all of the uncertainty over the EPA review, whether any state-mandated report will be available by its next April Fool’s Day due date and how much it will cost the taxpayers.

Stay tuned.