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Senate Bill Would Limit Counties' Say On Farmlands

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By NICOLA M. WHITE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 10, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - A bill that critics charge would strip Hillsborough County of its oversight of sensitive wetlands sailed through a Senate committee Wednesday.

It boiled down to a fight between farmers and environmentalists.

Fans of SB 1376, sponsored by Sen. Charles Dean, R-Inverness, said the bill would make agriculture more economically viable for Florida farmers, who increasingly feel pressured to shut down their milking parlors and sell their orange groves as residential growth creeps to rural areas.

A key provision to making farming more affordable, however, is in easing local authority about how farmland is used and how much county officials charge for permits and the like.

Essentially, the bill prohibits county governments from regulating anything farm-related that is already regulated on the state and federal level. It also eliminates a county's authority to enforce its rules that apply to farms.

In Hillsborough County, this means the local Environmental Protection Commission would not be able to set rules about wetlands preservation on agricultural lands, a point of contention with county officials and environmentalists, who pride themselves on the county's relatively strict 20-year history of overseeing wetlands.

About 66 percent of Hillsborough's wetlands lie on agricultural land.

Home to marsh-loving wildlife, wetlands provide a natural water filtration system and are home to some protected species. Hillsborough's wetlands shelter the state's largest breeding colony of roseate spoonbills and 50 percent of the state's nesting white ibis.

"It's actually going to be devastating to Hillsborough because it takes two-thirds of our wetlands out of our control," said Rick Tschantz, general counsel for the county EPC, after the committee meeting.

Committee members voted unanimously to move the bill forward. It has two more committee stops before it hits the Senate floor for a full vote.

To Lutz activist Denise Layne, the bill would make it easier for farmers to turn their land into subdivisions and strip malls, not preserve it for agriculture, because state laws governing wetlands tend to be more lax than the county's.

"They'll be running like the dickens to the state to develop their land," she said.

Two Hillsborough County residents tried to make the case for wetlands preservation at the Senate Agriculture Committee, to no avail.

"Any little small wetlands that we cannot protect is going to affect us all the way down," said Pam Clouston of Lithia, who drove five hours to Tallahassee to testify.

"We fear if you take away local control, we're going to lose our voice," said Kelly Cornelius, also of Lithia.

That local voice, however, has led to too many burdensome regulations for Florida farmers, said Ben Parks, a lobbyist for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.

He said he understands that environmentalists care about the land, but said farmers do, too.

"We just don't want to be regulated out of business," Parks said.

"We were the original stewards of the land, not the environmentalists."

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.

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