Because of money restraints, universities in the State of Florida are losing nationally known and respected professors such as Robin Murphy.
So how can the State of Florida afford to buy land from US Sugar for $1.75 billion?
Hey, I’m all for protecting the environment so our natural lands can be enjoyed by future generations. But if those future generations are going to be too stupid to know what to do with them, what is the point?
County administrator Pat Bean has decided we don’t need any more nature preserves.
Oh, did you want to vote on that? Me too. After all, we always have held a vote to decide whether or not to continue our county’s Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP), and the voters have always passed ELAPP by an overwhelming majority.
ELAPP is set to expire in 2011 unless we vote to extend the program again. Citizens have begun raising money to poll county residents to see if they want to put the issue on the ballot this year, or possibly wait until the 2010 election. The Trust for Public Lands has offered to conduct the poll, Tampa Audubon and The Tampa Bay Conservancy have offered to help pay for it, and more offers of help are rolling in.
But even though we have not asked the county to fund the poll, the county administrator is against it. Pat Bean has decided — with no poll and no vote — that we don’t need to continue this wildly popular, successful program.
She says the land-buying program has largely fulfilled its purpose by preserving the most valuable natural areas in the county.
Nonsense! We are nowhere near done protecting this county’s environmentally valuable lands.
I myself have recently nominated large tracts of pristine wildlife habitat, with ecologically sensitive riverine wetlands and tributaries whose protection is critical for healthy rivers and clean water resources. There is plenty of still-pristine land worth protecting, and we also need to protect some less-than-pristine land, in order to make connections between the pristine areas for water flow and wildlife corridors.
Continuing this program’s current budget doesn’t require a tax increase, and the economic climate is opening up a window of opportunity to acquire undeveloped land at bargain prices. Without a local conservation program we would lose the state funding which has so far matched ELAPP to the tune of $75 million.
Publicly, politicians are generally supportive of our hugely popular environmental land-buying program, which is win-win for the environment as well as the landowners who sell their property to the county for fair market value.
So what’s got into Bean? Are her bosses, the county commissioners, eyeing our ELAPP money for their own pet projects? Are they using her, again, to take an unpopular stand for them, so they don’t have to take the heat?
Commissioner Rose Ferlita has assured me that she remains a staunch supporter of ELAPP, and said the county administrator was not speaking for her. Commissioner Mark Sharpe said he’d ask today to agenda this item for public discussion on April 16. So who was Pat Bean speaking for?
Hillsborough county’s Strategic Plan, set on March 7, supports ELAPP with this objective on p.10:
Hillsborough County will pursue the acquisition of environmentally sensitive and significant resources by leveraging ELAPP funding with 40% noncounty funding on an average gross annual basis.
It is not Pat Bean’s place to push an agenda that is contrary to the county’s management strategy, set publicly by our elected officials. Her job is to carry out policy, not set policy. As I’ve said here before,
We don’t elect Pat Bean, and she has no authority to act independently of our elected officials.
I’m asking our county commissioners to support ELAPP, now and into the future, (and I’m thanking Ferlita and Sharpe for their support). Here’s some material that might help you compose your own letter of support: my letter, some bulleted points prepared by the Tampa Bay Conservancy which refute Bean’s position, and some facts & figures on the economic value of ELAPP put together by Wildlife Fellowship, Inc.
I’m also asking our commissioners to rein Bean in. I hope you will, too. The voters should decide whether to continue our land preservation program, not Queen Bean.
Citizens raised many good questions about the proposed Agricultural Exemption to our wetland protections, and we asked our Environmental Protection Commissioners (aka our county commissioners) to refrain from any action at their last hearing, on Nov. 15. So they postponed their decision until this Thursday, to allow time for EPC to address the citizens’ concerns. Disappointingly, EPC has not improved their proposal to alleviate those concerns. If you read EPC’s defense of their position, note that much of their material is actually written by the Agricultural Economic Development Council — which perfectly illustrates the problem with this Ag Exemption.
This Ag Exemption is based — not on science or economic need — but on politics. The Ag Lobby is pushing for less regulation using their political muscle, with no real economic justification or analysis of the environmental consequences. Last August we changed the rules to exempt man-made ditches and cow ponds — the farmers’ biggest bone of contention. Do farmers really need to destroy small natural wetlands, too? Can our wildlife sustain the habitat loss? What will this cost taxpayers in terms of flood control and water quality? Our commissioners don’t know. We’ll see if they care on Thursday.
And we’ll see if they mind that this “Agricultural Exemption” has loopholes big enough to drive a bulldozer through, so it can be used by developers, too.
Check out this map I made. I took the county’s map of “Ag Lands” eligible for the Ag Exemption, and I pointed out a couple of places in my neighborhood where the so-called “Ag Lands” are not being farmed at all. In fact they’ve been recently zoned for dense development. You can see plenty of this “Ag Land” all over the urban area, already zoned for condos and townhouses, where the housing is not yet built. While the developers wait for the market to recover, they can lease the land to a sod farmer, or borrow a few cows to put on the land temporarily, and thereby qualify under this Ag Exemption to fill in some wetlands before they build their subdivisions.
Just like these tactics are used by large landowners to get an “Agricultural Exemption” from their property taxes (under Greenbelt laws), and like non-farmers sign forms swearing to use fireworks only for bona fide farming operations, this “Agricultural Exemption” from our wetlands protections could easily be used by developers.
A developer could also pressure a farmer into using his exemption to fill wetlands as a condition of sale, before the developer buys the property.
Citizens have been trying to put conditions into this Ag Exemption to prevent its use by non-farmers, with no success. For example, we’ve asked that the developer who buys farmland with filled wetlands should be required to put the wetlands back, through mitigation, before building. The EPC staff tried to compromise, saying any filled wetlands turned into a non-farming use within 7 years should be mitigated, but the Ag Industry found this modest proviso unacceptable. The Agriculture Economic Development Council voted last week to approve the exemption only if this time limit is lowered to 5 years — which just shows they want to be able to use this “Agricultural Exemption” on land that will soon be paved.
This Thursday, Jan. 17, Commissioners will decide whether to approve this exemption, at a public hearing at 9:00 a.m. in county center. I’ll be there, with other concerned citizens, to ask them to make sure this rule change has net benefits, before adopting it. You can come too, and be a voice for our wetlands.
The newspapers have all but abandoned the fight now that we’ve saved the wetlands division from elimination. But commissioners continue working to weaken our wetlands protections. They think no one will notice now that the limelight is off.
Whether you agree with this rule change or not, I hope you’ll let them know we are paying attention to what they’re doing, and we’ll hold them accountable come election time. My letter to the commissioners details my concerns, and offers some suggestions for improving the rule change. You can write them with your concerns, too.
At a public hearing next Friday, Hillsborough County’s Legislative Delegation will vote on 7 state laws affecting our county, including one that would allow half-acre wetlands to be destroyed on any land designated Agricultural, without regard for our county’s wetland regulations.
Hugh Gramling, representing the Ag industry, shocked everyone by filing for this sneaky end run around our local wetland protections WHILE he was working with our Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) on changes to our local rules to benefit farmers. In the face of this sabotage, county commissioners (who also act as the EPC) voted to delay the local changes, as requested by citizens —including me.
Commissioner Rose Ferlita felt the Ag lobby’s move was counterproductive:
“I’m very disappointed that the Ag community did that. … to me that gets right in the way of us trying to move forward with what we expected to do through our own local EPC. … That’s, again, such a disappointment to me, and Mr. Gramling, I’m talking right to you.”
State Rep. Rich Glorioso seemed ridiculously misinformed in the St. Pete Times when he tried to justify the bill he is sponsoring:
“Glorioso said some of the EPC’s regulations are unreasonable, pointing out that some farmers have had manmade ditches suddenly designated as wetlands that need protecting.”
Glorioso is wrong. (The Times should have checked). The EPC has already changed the rule to exempt manmade ditches. They voted to do this, as the first step toward the Hybrid, at the public hearing on August 16. (Furthermore, this rule change was simply codifying a long-standing EPC policy that has exempted those ditches for years. And they were not “suddenly designated as wetlands”—the state designated them as wetlands in 1994. Ever since then EPC has exempted them by policy, and now exempts them by law.)
Gramling knows this, and Glorioso should. The Ag industry has been crying about ditches & cow ponds, even though EPC has always exempted them, because it makes a good sound bite in their politicking toward their ultimate goal: NO local wetland regulations for Agriculture —which is exactly what Local Bill #4 would accomplish.
Even our County Commission opposes this environmentally horrid bill (yes, that County Commission). Last year they refused to defend our EPC against a state bill that would have gutted the agency (it died when Gov. Crist promised to veto it), and this year they tried to gut the EPC themselves, but this time they are standing up for our local wetlands protections against this state bill. (We should thank them.)
Maybe our County Commissioners are finally learning that we won’t put up with that stuff from them. Now we have to teach our state legislators that we won’t let them mess with our local wetlands protections, either.
State-level anti-wetlands lobbyists have been trying to eliminate our local wetland protections for years, and they were involved again in the most recent attack on our EPC. We need to make our state legislators believe that we will vote them out of their jobs if they don’t lay off our wetlands. Especially Glorioso.
You can write them now, to ask them to vote NO on local bill #4, and protect our EPC and our natural resources from further attacks. Then, come to the hearing on Friday, Dec. 7, 9 a.m. – noon, at County Center, 26th floor, in downtown Tampa.
This is your once-a-year chance to speak to all 16 state legislators who represent Hillsborough County—all at once, in the flesh, right here at home; instead of having to reach them one by one in Tallahassee. It’s also a chance to watch your elected representatives in action as they deal with your neighbors & local leaders, and vote on 7 local bills affecting our county.
If you want to speak about something besides the local bills (taxes? transportation? growth management?) you must submit this form by noon, Dec. 3. If you want to speak about the local bills, just arrive early on Dec. 7, and fill out a speaker card there. You don’t have to say anything, though. Your presence alone would speak volumes.
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.
Back in the dark ages - before television, air conditioning, DDT, the endangered species list, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Protection Commission and the term “wetlands” - you will probably not be surprised to learn there were developers in Florida.
While some of those developers focused on the Tampa Bay area, others made their way to Miami. Eventually, a few looked west and discovered the Everglades - the once vast and pristine natural wonder that Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote about in her epic 1947 book, “The Everglades: River of Grass.”
When they spotted all that vacant land, the developers said: “Oh, boy!”
Or something like that.
There was one tiny problem, however. The River of Grass was full of water - fresh water flowing from the central part of the state and emptying into Florida Bay. All that water would certainly swamp efforts to pave it over. These guys weren’t giving up, however.
“I know,” said one. “We’ll plant Austrailian Melaleuca trees. Those babies will suck the water right out of that muck so we can put the land to ‘good’ use; we’ll be able to build houses all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.” And so it came to pass.
Punk trees began to attack the Everglades. Pretty soon, the entire state, or so it seemed, was full of punk trees.
To be fair, no one knew back then that the state had been “punked” by punk trees.
They and their nasty cousin, the Brazilian pepper, came to be commonly used as landscape plants everywhere in the state. My father, like many of our neighbors, loved them. Both invasive specie grew quickly and provided some shade. They were cheap, too.
Plus, the birds particularly loved those red pepper berries and spread the plants far and wide. Pinellas County has been trying to get rid of the Brazilian peppers on Weedon Island Nature Preserve for years.
My father was so enamored of the punk trees that he planted a line of them - about 30 - on three sides of our home in the Disston area of St. Petersburg. He spent the last 10 years of his life cutting them down, one by one, by hand. He said it was good exercise.
Only too late had he - and everyone else - come to realize exactly why the trees were imported. Punk tree roots head for water with the same gusto as Harry Potter spoilers jumped to reveal the ending of the seven-book series before the final book was even released last weekend. Pretty soon, those punk roots clogged city sewer pipes, city water pipes, the lines from those pipes to homes, septic tanks, wells. You name it. The damage they and other exotic plants and animals have done to the Everglades and other areas is significant.
There is a point to all of this besides a primer on exotic and invasive species.
I spotted an Associated Press story in the St. Petersburg Times Monday and a brief in the business section of The Tampa Tribune Tuesday that says that a new controversy is brewing: environmental groups opposed to cypress mulch are involved in a national ad campaign that asks consumers not to buy cypress mulch and they are criticizing the retailers who sell it.
Some gardeners are choosing a perhaps more environmentally healthy alternative, says an extension agent in Brevard County: mulch from invasive species such as melaleuca and Australian pine, yet another of the baddies imported from somewhere else.
The logging industry doesn’t agree that cypress mulch is a waste of native cypress trees, arguing that only the tops of already harvested cypress is used in the mulch.
My point here isn’t to start an argument over who’s right, although I suspect I know.
I’m siding with the environmentalists.
To that end, I want to know where to find mulch made out of invasive species. I’ve called around and can’t find it. Does anyone know?
My team built a monster highway through nature preserves and wetlands, over my dead body. Then they defiled the rural landscape with urban sprawl.
300 growth gods-for-a-day at Reality Check Tampa Bay were divided into 32 tables of 8 to 10 people - each table shaping future development on their own map of the 7-county region around Tampa Bay— and I was stuck arguing with a table full of developers, a county commissioner, and other Friends of Sprawl. Story of my life.
Community activist Anita Jimenez came over and rescued me. Led me by the hand through the Convention Center to her table’s map: a vision of Smart Growth compacted in cities connected by multi-modal transit corridors—a land where agriculture still flourished in central Florida and vast stretches of green space were unmarred by development.
All the growth forecast for the next 50 years was given to each team in the form of Legos. Yellow Legos represented housing, red Legos were commercial development. We placed the Legos on our maps where we would direct growth, and pinned colored ribbons down where we would build roads (purple) or rail (orange).
With 90 minutes to cram a jillion legos in SOMEWHERE—while a facilitator prods you to “HURRY!”—you can’t engage in real planning. You are given certain unquestionable assumptions as rules of the game. The exercise is designed to teach people the Reality Check lesson that we have only 2 choices in the face of massive growth:
Thankfully the majority rejected #1. Most teams left great swaths of agricultural & natural areas undeveloped. But everyone was forced to “accept the reality” that we are going to have to allow development of much higher densities than most of us really want in our communities. Reality Check leads its participants to spread the gospel that people must stop complaining about high density proposals in their neighborhoods. It is the only way, they say, to accommodate all the “inevitable” growth, yet save some green space AND make mass transit viable.
Check out the results of the Reality Check exercise. Looking at the 32 maps created, you can see that some teams built a beltway or two, some didn’t. Some sprawled more than others. Some built up the cities more than others. (You weren’t allowed to drown your legos in the bay.)
I cynically expected the 300 carefully selected invitees to be overweighted with developers and politicians, compared to the general population, and I was right about that. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this group as a whole was determined to avoid the horrific prediction which 1000 Friends of Florida says we are heading for if we don’t change our ways. I was heartened to hear the keynote speakers talk of preserving community character and protecting all we love about Florida from overdevelopment. I found a ray of hope in this group’s top 6 “guiding principles” for growth (Power Point!), listed here in order of priority:
I agree with the message that we have to start building up instead of out, and we need to mix housing with jobs & services to cut down on commuter traffic. Still, I question the assumptions of this exercise. More on that later. But whatever your thoughts on the subject, I encourage you to participate. A lot of influential people are involved, and their ideas will carry considerable weight. So should yours.
Sign up at myonebay.com to be included in the conversation that will help shape our region’s future development.
Other blog posts about the excercise:
I hope my gay friends will forgive me.
She was born on March 25, 1940. Miss Oklahoma 1958 finished third in the Miss America pageant in 1959. She moved to Miami Beach where beginning in 1969 she would tell millions that “A day without Orange Juice is like a day without Sunshine.” Of course, she also wanted to “Save Our Children from Homo-sexuality.” That last part really screwed her. In addition to getting a banana cream pie to the face (video with popup ads), her career - her life, really - was deservedly crushed. She ended up filing for bankruptcy all over our great nation.
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