Audubon chapter representatives and other conservation organizations filled the room at the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) Governing Board meeting Tuesday December 11 to offer comments and recommendations to the board on surplus land proposals. The district governing board made several changes in their proposals in response to these public comments.

In all, the decisions by the board resulted in:

• Retaining 569,779 acres, which represent 92 percent of District-owned lands.
• Donating 25,091 acres to local governments and retaining conservation easements on those lands
• Selling 6,574 acres and retaining easements to protect the lands' conservation values.
• Identifying as surplus to sell or exchange 3,591 acres of land (less than 1 percent) that have lower conservation value, have land management issues, or are no longer needed for the original purpose of the acquisition.
• Converting 13,388 acres to alternative uses, such as leases allowing for forestry activities or peat removal.

The board made clear that the actions being taken were only the adoption of a plan to guide future work, and no actual lands were formally declared surplus under statutory and constitutional requirements. Those actions will come later, parcel by parcel as individual proposals are brought back to the board on each piece of land. Opportunity for further discussion and modification will be provided.

A key policy change in the district staff proposals resulted from Audubon Florida’s presentation. Audubon Florida urged that the SJRWMD Governing Board condition lands to be listed as surplus in the plan at the Lake Apopka North Shore Restoration area include a restriction that no surplus sale would result in incompatible uses that would endanger the remainder of the conservation land that the district is retaining for marsh restoration.

Part of the primary 500+- acre tract under discussion for surplus designation at Lake Apopka has been sought by the West Orange Airport Authority (WOAA) for extension of a small airstrip which that agency wants to transform into a regional jet airport for business aircraft. Audubon presented material from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Wildlife Hazard regulations which demonstrated that a jet airport at this site could result in FAA requirements to drain marshes and eliminate bird populations on much of the restoration area. While board members did not specifically vote on the airport proposal itself, several board members stated clearly that they would not support a land deal that would result in an airport on district lands at that site, and the board as a whole voted unanimously to add the “no incompatible uses” policy to the surplus land program in the case of all surplus land disposal proposals throughout the district.

That policy will make consideration of an airport runway extension very unlikely at this site in the future.

In other action, the board voted to reduce the proposed surplus of land on the eastern edge of the Lake Lochloosa Conservation Area in Alachua County in response to Audubon concerns.

The 803 acre “Pine Meadows” tract in Lake County was approved in the plan for surplus of 729 acres with retention of a conservation easement and 74 acres of unrestricted possible sale. In response to concerns the staff recommended that any action on actual surplus declaration or offering the property for sale would be delayed to allow local agencies to determine if they want to acquire the property. The Pine Meadows tract is in close proximity to the Trout Lake Nature Center and Ocklawaha Valley Audubon has advocated its retention in public ownership.

The decisions of the SJRWMD on these surplus land tracts are only now beginning, and all Audubon chapters and other conservation organizations are urged to continue to be involved in the details of the process with each parcel.

A complete listing of the results of the SJRWMD land assessment and the surplus land plan organized on a county-by-county basis can be found by clicking here.