Audubon of Florida’s Director of Advocacy Charles Lee has been actively engaged in the effort to prevent inappropriate loss of conservation lands through a new land surplus process announced recently by the Southwest Florida Water Management District. This proposed process has been the subject of much concern by Audubon supporters, environmental leaders, citizens, and by reports in the Herald-Tribune and The Ledger.
During yesterday’s meeting of the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board, Charles Lee made a presentation on behalf of Audubon urging the district to go slow and carefully analyze the ecological and wildlife corridor values of land before considering any parcels for surplus. Lee pointed out that Article X section 18 of the Florida Constitution, enacted in 1998, prohibits Florida government agencies from declaring surplus and disposing of valuable conservation and ecologically important land.
The Florida Constitution limits surplus and disposal of lands bought for conservation to only those portions of the lands which have been found by a 2/3rds super-majority vote of a water management district board to be “no longer needed for conservation purposes”. In effect, Lee told the SWFWMD Board that this means that lawful surplus decisions are limited to those lands which have little if any ecological value. Further, any cash raised by land sales can only be used for future land purchases, not for the district’s general operating expenses.
Examples of parcels that might properly be considered for surplus disposal are barren or partially developed lands that were acquired by necessity as part of a larger purchase because the seller was only willing to sell an entire property. Another example might be an “orphaned” portion of a larger conservation tract which was isolated from the main parcel by a road, existing development or some other feature, and which had little conservation value in its own right.
During 2010 and 2011 Audubon of Florida was active in providing guidance and testimony to the Suwannee River Water Management District as that agency adopted a surplus lands policy. Audubon's Charles Lee added:
“We started out very concerned over the direction that Suwannee was going, but in the end after a lot of work and discussion their policy bears evidence of considerable input from environmental group leaders and is producing reasonable land surplus decisions that are not resulting in loss of land with conservation value.”
SWFWMD governing board members who were concerned about the possible loss of conservation land dominated the discussion at yesterday’s meeting. Board member Jeff Adams offered the opinion that staff should proceed from the point of view that no parcels were carelessly bought and that correct decisions on their conservation value were made at the time of purchase. Board Vice-Chair Hugh Gramling expressed similar sentiments, and offered assurances that no vital conservation lands were going to be sold.
The process agreed to by SWFWMD board members established a board sub-committee to review possible surplus lands and policies similar to those developed by the Suwannee River Water Management District. The board asked staff to schedule stakeholder meetings so that concerned members of the public could interact with the staff as they develop the program and surplus land policies. The first such stakeholder meetings may be scheduled in late October of November, 2011.
Audubon of Florida will keep our members and concerned conservationists informed about these meetings. Please check back to this website often, sign-up to receive our Audubon Advocate email alerts, or interact with others on our Florida's Special Places Facebook Page. It will be important to assure these meetings are well attended by citizens who speak up in favor of retaining valuable conservation lands.
