party time at cross bar ranch?
tommy permalink | categories: agriculture, county, environment, pasco, pinellas, tax wasteby tommy @ 8:32 am
Cross Bar Ranch is a wellfield in Pasco County. You can find it North of CR 52 and just East of US Hwy 41, just south of Masaryktown. Pinellas County purchased the property decades ago, and has been pumping water from there for Pinellas residents since 1980.
Because fresh water isn’t abundant in Pinellas, the 12,000+ acre piece of land was important to the county. But now that Tampa Bay Water exists to ensure everyone gets what they need to drink, they no longer need the property. Pasco County wants the State of Florida to help them buy it (scroll down), and some folks simply want to keep it from being developed.
Since at least 1992, the county has had to pay someone to “manage” the property. The water meter must be read to find out how much is pumped out, and report that to the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Oh, and they must “manage” the population of wild hogs. And as of the beginning of October, Albert Roller will get $2.7 million over the next five years to continue to do just that.
But some folks say that Roller has a funny way of managing the property. Rumors persist that there are lots of parties going on at the Cross Bar Ranch. And it’s been suggested that some Pinellas County officials (perhaps Utilities director Pick Talley?) use the land as a private hunting lodge. In addition to the wild hog population that Roller must keep down, there have been allegations of deer hunting there, too. Albert’s brother lived on the property, too, and Pasco County Deputies say Ralph Roller molested a boy there. Ralph is no longer welcome at the Ranch, though.
Much of this is rumor. Any outsiders that gets onto the property are sent away, so no one has seen any “hunting lodge.”
I’m just wondering how I can get a gig that pays half a million dollars a year to kill hogs and read a meter.
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November 5th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
“Since at least 1992, the county has had to pay someone to “manage” the property. The water meter must be read to find out how much is pumped out, and report that to the Southwest Florida Water Management District”
My question is do they actually read the meter and keep their reports up to date. My friends up in Pasco started monitoring our voracious pumping 30 years ago when everyone in their area saw their wells go dry. They had to sink deeper wells after Pinellas over pumping lowered their water table.
Now I hear that Pinellas pumped over its limit for eight months and failed to report this. Could this be true? The trusty blogosphere will find the truth.