KISSIMMEE -- In what could end up as one of the most ambitious environmental projects in the nation, The Nature Conservancy said Friday that it plans to restore 337,000 acres of wetlands along the Kissimmee River and keep developers off another 300,000.
The project calls for paying ranchers along the river never to build on their property. Under these "conservation easements," cattle could keep grazing on pastures that are not turned back into wetlands.
The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group that works with government agencies to protect wildlife habitat, also would compensate the ranchers for maintaining the restored wetlands.
The project could cost $700 million and could take years.
To pay for it, The Nature Conservancy hopes to tap into as much as $472 million available to Florida farmers during the six-year life of the $190 billion farm bill President Bush signed into law last month. The rest would have to come from state grants and private donations.
The idea of buying conservation easements to keep land out of the hands of developers hasn't been tried on this scale in Florida, but it's not unique.
If successful, this program would be the third-largest restoration effort in Florida history, ranking only behind the Everglades and Kissimmee River projects, said Doug Shaw, a hydrologist with The Nature Conservancy, which is based in Washington, D.C. All told, The Nature Conservancy wants to protect more than 600,000 acres stretching from the headwaters of the Kissimmee River in Osceola County to Lake Okeechobee in South Florida.
Besides permanently keeping development from much of the Kissimmee River basin, restoring the wetlands will help improve the water quality of Lake Okeechobee and ultimately the Everglades. Ranchers who participate in the program will have to abide by certain rules, including a ban on using fertilizers that contain phosphorous.
The wetlands, which are to be restored by filling in ditches and canals that now drain the pastures, will also provide new homes for wildlife, including the Florida panther, black bear and an array of wading birds.
A high-ranking U.S. Department of Agriculture official who was on hand for the announcement and a tour of the area Friday said he is optimistic the program will get a good portion of the money it needs through the federal farm bill. Roughly $50 million for Florida will be available for the 2002 budget year, which begins in October. However, is it impossible to know how much the Kissimmee River project will get until Congress begins considering the USDA's budget, said Paul Anderson, a spokesman for Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.
This is the first time that conservation money has been part of the farm bill, which has traditionally existed to subsidize American farms. There was a $35 million pilot project in the 1996 version of the bill, and roughly $50 million has been spent since then on conservation, said an aide to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
"I don't see any reason that we can't help them," said Mack Gray, the USDA's deputy undersecretary for Natural Resources, the division in charge of doling out the conservation money.
But even if the money is available, the program can't succeed unless a majority of the ranchers agree to participate. That's because the restoration must take place on an enormous scale rather than piecemeal if it is really to help Lake Okeechobee, Conservancy scientists said.
Officials with the Conservancy and USDA concede the program is not a done deal because of the history of mistrust and confrontation between agriculture and environmental groups. Ranchers and farmers, however, are concerned about the environment, too, Gray said.
"We hear the term, 'the environment is important to everyone.' Well, The Nature Conservancy gives us a chance to prove that," Gray said.
Still, Conservancy officials concede they have a much greater chance of buying development rights nearer Lake Okeechobee than they do closer to Kissimmee, where land prices have skyrocketed as development has crept outward from Orlando.
The Conservancy and the USDA already have teamed up on a pilot project that would protect 3,700 acres on two ranches in Highlands County. The cost of buying the easements and paying the ranchers to maintain the wetlands is about $4 million, said Robert Bendick, director of the Conservancy's southeastern region. The USDA is paying for half, and much of the rest is coming from an anonymous Palm Beach County couple.
Cary Lightsey, a sixth-generation Floridian who owns the 3,500-acre XL Ranch in Highlands, is selling development rights to 2,000 acres of it. Eventually, he'd like to have the Conservancy buy the rights to the rest, which would allow the ranch to stay in his family's control.
"Everywhere we look, there's development going up and land being drained -- it really scares us," Lightsey said. "We're all behind the program, and we're telling a lot of our neighbors that this is good for you.
"If you're a bona fide rancher, this is what you want to do."