TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

State Pitches In On Purchase Of Rare Habitat

ADVERTISEMENT

By JULIA FERRANTE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 12, 2007

GOWERS CORNER - The county environmental lands program will be reimbursed for half the cost of buying two environmentally sensitive tracts in central Pasco County.

County officials received word last week that they had been awarded a Florida Communities Trust grant of nearly $800,000 to defray the cost of a 111-acre tract along the upper Pithlachascotee River and an adjacent 11-acre parcel.

Rene Wiesner Brown, the program manager, said a state panel placed the project in its top 10 among a record 118 applicants. County officials applied last year for the grant but did not get it.

Pasco officials paid about $1.1 million for the larger upper Pithlachascotee parcel, which sits northeast of the intersection of State Road 52 and the Suncoast Parkway and includes trails, rare sandhill areas, portions of the riverbed and a giant cypress tree. They paid about $426,500 for the adjacent parcel, which includes a house that could be used as a nature center and a trail head for access to a larger environmental preserve.

The sandhill and scrub areas are considered "globally rare and imperiled" by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Brown has said. Species common in such areas include gopher tortoises, deer, bobcats and scrub jays, although no scrub jays have been seen on the property.

Pasco voters in 2004 approved a 1-cent sales tax increase in part to help fund the environmental lands program. Officials expect to collect $39 million in the 10-year life of the tax for land acquisition. The money is to be used as leverage for state and federal grants and donations.

Reporter Julia Ferrante can be reached at (813) 948-4220 or jferrante@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT