Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard and South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Melissa Meeker met with landowners at the Dixie Cattle Ranch in Okeechobee County earlier this week to finalize agreements that will store 4,800 acre feet on water on private lands. In conjunction with Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, Vinyard and Meeker threw the full weight of their support behind the “Dispersed Water Management” that has been advocated strongly by Audubon of Florida over the past two years.

Audubon of Florida commends Vinyard, Meeker and Putnam for their strong support of this important program. As noted by DEP Secretary Vinyard, Dispersed Water Management programs offer the ability to restore wetland systems, raise the water table, and sequester harmful nutrients at a very low cost compared to other types of projects that rely on land acquisition and traditional public works project designs. Part of the important results of these cooperative programs with landowners is to keep land in rural, agricultural land uses and provide landowners with an alternative to pressures that usually lead to selling land to developers.

Charles Lee, Audubon’s director of advocacy responded to DEP’s announcement stating:

“We at Audubon are hopeful that this strong support from two of Governor Scott’s key appointees and Florida’s elected Commissioner of Agriculture will lead to more funding for these already successful efforts. South Florida Water Management District studies have indicated a need for between 900,000 and 1.3 million acre-feet of additional water storage capacity north of Lake Okeechobee. We believe that a substantial part of that can be provided through cooperative dispersed water management programs.”