By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing a new federal national wildlife refuge in Central Florida, part of which would be in southern Osceola County.

Charles Pelizza, a refuge manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, on Monday presented the proposed project to the Osceola County Commission.  The newly protected area would be the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area.

The area under consideration, according to Pelizza, extends from mid-Osceola County southward to the northern shoreline of Lake Okeechobee, encompassing approximately 1 million acres. The initial phase of the project – a study – is to identify 150,000 acres that would be obtained from willing participants: 50,000 acres through fee title purchase and 100,000 acres through conservation easements, leases, mitigation banks and cooperative agreements.

Pelizza said the refuge would be a partnership among federal, tribal, state and local governments as well as with ranchers, non-governmental conservation organizations and other stakeholders to protect, restore, and conserve environmentally important natural habitat and associated wildlife.

The refuge, as proposed, would be in portions of Polk, Osceola, Indian River, Okeechobee and Highlands counties. The targeted area is located within a larger 4.5 million-acre landscape that extends from the southern outskirts of the Orlando metropolitan area south through the Kissimmee River Valley to Lake Okeechobee and southwest to Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Big Cypress Preserve.

Pelizza said many agencies and organizations have been working to conserve this landscape and that this effort produced what is being called the Greater Everglades Partnership Initiative.

“The thing that is driving this project is the stewardship of the ranching community – they want to make sure the ranching heritage is protected,” Pelizza said, adding that the proposal received U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service national office approval in August.

Pelizza also said the project would emphasize habitat for the black bear and the Florida panther and would provide public hunting and fishing opportunities in the Lake Wales area, something that the area lacks now.

Public meetings are planned on the proposal and will be announced. Additional local outreach meetings also are being planned.

“We know there will be a lot of questions and concerns, as well as meaningful input so a group comprised of already-established partners is working on a communications plan,” Pelizza said.

County Commissioner Michael Harford said that while he likes the idea of conserving land that is part of the system that drains into the Everglades, he is worried about the financial impact to county property tax revenue if and when a significant amount of private land becomes public land, and therefore tax exempt. He said the impact, if the refuge proposal were to be fully implemented, would cost the county about $894,000 in lost property tax revenue.

Pelizza said a significant amount of land that would become part of the refuge would remain in private hands, such as in conservation easements, where property taxes would still be paid.

Commissioner Frank Attkisson asked how much of the proposed refuge site would be in Osceola County. Pelizza responded that a majority of the site would be in Polk and Osceola counties along the Kissimmee River but that more specific numbers were not available at this time, given that the initial step on the road to the area becoming a refuge is the study.

For more information, e-mail questions to EvergladesHeadwatersProposal@

fws.gov or mail questions to Proposed Everglades Headwaters NWR and Conservation Area, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, PO Box 2683, Titusville, FL 32781-2683. You also can call 321-861-2368 for more information.