comment to stop turning holy and and rotenburger into water storage area and keep public acess comments need to be in to

[Eric Kimmel]

RE: Fwd: Keep our public lands as was intended such as Holey Lands Rotenberger as well as 3A, #B Frannie Tayor and al the lands that were set aside for conservation and wildlife
Thu, Feb 8, 2018



-----Original Message-----
From: looprd <looprd@aol.com>
To: rick.scott <rick.scott@eog.myflorida.com>; Brooke.McKnight <Brooke.McKnight@FreshFromFlorida.com>; Communications <Communications@FreshFromFlorida.com>; christine.small <christine.small@dep.state.fl.us>
Sent: Thu, Feb 8, 2018 7:19 am
Subject: Keep our public lands as was intended such as Holey Lands Rotenberger as well as 3A, #B Frannie Tayor and al the lands that were set aside for conservation and wildlife


To our Governor and all of our Florida Legislatures and Cabinet i have copied and pasted comments that i am using that explain our families concerns.. we have many year experience in these lands hunting, fishing, camping airboating frogging and just enjoyed the area and also have witnessed the adverse consequences of poor water management , too long of hydro periods and stacking of water leading to loss of natural hammocks tree islands and wildlife. This project not only impacts the areas they plan to stack water but will further erode the habitat and natural flow through the Big Cypress and ENP. These projects will only further add to our water troubles that not only stem from Sugar Corps but also the water coming in from North of the lake.
Thank you for Consideration of my comments and those i attached below that go into some better detail
Eric Kimmel 17345 SW 296 St Homestead Fl. 33030 ph 305-345-4202 Email Looprd@aol.com
In response to several queries by environmental advocates, I am "pasting" and "attaching" a list of basic arguments/talking points to use in opposing conversion of the Holey Land and Rotenberger into reservoirs or stormwater treatment areas. Share, with other environmental advocates (I'm sure I missed somebody -- but I don't mean to miss any environmental advocate. We need all the help we can get to defend HL and Rotenberger. MLM

1- Holey Land and Rotenberger are publicly owned wildlife management and recreational lands that provide habitat for fish and wildlife and that are open to the public to hunt, fish, boat, hike, camp, watch or photograph birds and animals, gaze at stars, or just sit and do nothing.
They are located on the northern border of Water Conservation Area 3, adjacent to the Miami Canal and bordered on the north by A-2 and A-1 reservoirs, and on the east by the A-l reservoir and STA-3/4.

2- In a statewide referendum, Florida voters approved in the late 1960s/early 1970s levying a tax to buy “conservation lands” and “environmentally endangered lands. Johnny Jones, then executive director of the Florida Wildlife Federation, led the campaign to support acquisition. The purchases made also included an area called "Brown's Farm" that was given up when Everglades Restoration program formally began and is now Stormwater Treatment Area 2. That “deal” also included a "guarantee” that Holey Land and Rotenberger would be preserved as a wildlife management area and remain open for public use.

3- Outdoor recreation puts $5.8 billion dollars into the state economy annually. People like to play outdoors -- it's a boon to Florida’s tourism economy; the state’s residents also like to play outdoors, which is why Floridians continue to vote to preserve recreational lands. If the "state’s" elected officials won’t or don’t defend publicly owned wildlife refuges and recreational areas, what’s next on the "auction bloc”? Publicly owned beaches? State parks? State forests?

4- The Everglades is not just a "marsh" -- it includes tree islands, ridges, uplands, ponds. The Everglades is literally a mosaic of supporting landscapes. The Holey Land and Rotenberger are an integral part of that mosaic, with uplands and marshes, supporting a variety of native wildlife, fish and birds and were the first acquisitions for preservation/restoration in the long effort to “save, preserve and restore the Everglades” and to replenish the underlying aquifer that sustains and supplements public drinking-water supplies for the heavily populated urban coasts.
South Florida’s urban utilities use a variety of technologies, including reverse osmosis, to provide drinking water. All of them are more expensive than protecting the ability of the Everglades’ wetlands to recharge and replenish is underlying aquifers.

5- Florida owns more than enough land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to store and to filter and reduce nutrients in the runoff from farms in the EAA that trigger stinky algal blooms in South Florida’s canals, rivers, ponds and estuaries. Much of the state-owned land that could be beneficially used to store and filter water for Everglades Restoration, however, is currently leased to farmers. The leaseholders DO NOT own the land they lease from the state, but the terms of their leases may require compensation for “early termination.”

6. - The title and control of state-owned lands is vested in the Florida’s elected governor and elected Cabinet members, who act as "trustees" of the Internal Improvement Fund. Florida’s governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture – all of whom are elected – comprise the Cabinet. The "trustees" are the only entity that can sell or lease state-owned the land. For many years, Florida's governor and Cabinet have quietly and routinely voted to extend EAA leases beyond their original expiration dates. In the Nov. 6thgeneral election the governor and Cabinet members will stand for re-election or have announced they will be seeking new offices.

7- There is NO current plan to seize/condemn privately owned land within the EAA. In fact, Florida’s taxpayers have built and continue to finance the operation of one of the largest drainage systems in the world to ensure farmers can continue to farm in the EAA.
Farmers that own land in the EAA are free to sell or not sell their land. In recent years there have been a number of sales in the EAA, including sales to a large Midwest-based agricultural corporation.
When the South Florida Water Management District sent letters to landowners offering to buy, trade or swap lands within the EAA (in order to route farm runoff south through the EAA instead of discharging gluts of water east and west into the estuaries) EAA landowners banded together to say “No, we won’t sell.”
Yet, only a few years ago, US Sugar offered to sell all of its land to the state and South Florida Water Management District. The Legislature choked on that proposed deal, but the SFWMD still holds an option to buy the entire U.S. Sugar Corporation -- land, mill, refinery, railroad and what's left of the citrus groves ravished by greening.

8- The state-owned, but leased, lands within in the EAA are well located to expand existing STAs and/or to build above-ground reservoirs to hold and "clean up" water that will be routed into the Conservation Areas (and on to Everglades National Park).
It is hard in Florida to acquire lands, such as the Holy Land and Rosenberger, and harder-still to preserve, protect and manage them for public use. It SHOULD NOT BE NECCESSARY to sacrifice any of the state’s wildlife management and recreation lands, when the state owns but is leasing more than enough land to hold and filter EAA farm runoff.