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Public will get say on preserve

The Southwest Florida Water Management District will host the Sept. 29 meeting on Cypress Creek Preserve.

By JAMES THORNER
Published September 22, 2005

LAND O'LAKES - Hikers, bikers and horseback riders who pound the trails on the 7,400-acre Cypress Creek Preserve will have a say about how to improve that swath of wilderness in Land O'Lakes.

Want to request more trails, bigger campgrounds or more accessible gates? The public can make suggestions at a workshop at the Land O'Lakes Community Center at 5401 U.S. 41.

The meeting, hosted by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, starts at 6 p.m. Sept. 29.

The preserve hugs an 8-mile length of Cypress Creek between State Roads 54 and 52. Dozens of miles of trails, some paved, crisscross the property.

The preserve's two main entrances are on Parkway Boulevard, north of Pine View Middle School, and at the Cypress Creek Water Treatment Plant east of Ehren Cutoff.

The northern end of the property is home to the Cypress Creek well field. Each day, to serve the Tampa Bay region, more than 1-million gallons of drinking water are pumped from beneath the preserve.

With comments gathered at the workshop, the water management district will update the preserve's management plan written in the early 1990s.

The district allows what it calls "passive recreation" on the property. In addition to pitching a tent at two marked camp sites, visitors can fish, skate, bicycle, hike and ride horses on the land. Hunting and motor bikes are banned.

But it's pretty much every person for himself. Unlike most state parks, the property has no rangers. Wild animals - mostly deer, alligators, turkeys and aquatic birds - are commonplace.

"We don't really have what you might call park staff, so our ability to supervise use is limited," the water district's Gene Kelly said.

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 01:03:19]