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Preserve the preserve

Pinellas County's 8,500-acre Brooker Creek Preserve needs to be protected from encroaching utility and recreational uses.

For years, Pinellas County residents have believed that all 8,500 acres of the Brooker Creek Preserve were preserved - that is, protected from development or other harm. They believed it because the county government told them so, beginning in the 1980s, as the land was assembled and public access to it strictly controlled.

In 1991, the county wrote to groups like the National Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy, seeking an organization that would help the county establish "a nature preserve to assure the preservation, enhancement, restoration and maintenance of the native plant communities and wildlife."

In 1994, the county's real estate manager wrote, "It is a wonderful piece of property that has been acquired for endangered lands and well field protection. This property will be devoted to environmental education, research, nonintrusive human access and habitat preservation."

Yet fans of the preserve worry that Pinellas County now considers the land a convenient place to build utility and recreation facilities.

It isn't hard to find a reason for their concern. In 1999, the county cleared 10 acres of preserve land to build a water treatment facility. In 2003, the county leased 38 acres to a youth sports association for athletic fields. The Times recently reported that 46 acres have been scraped clean for construction of a water blending plant, offices and water storage tanks 60 feet tall. The county is working on plans for an equestrian facility with stables and corrals. Now it wants to activate three capped wells in the preserve, which contains wetlands and threatened plant species, to pump irrigation water to a private golf course.

Pinellas officials offer two defenses. First, they say they carefully chose these projects and locations to minimize impact on the preserve. Second, they say about half the preserve acreage was purchased by the Pinellas County Utilities Department and it was "always understood" that Utilities could use the land for water projects.

The Brooker Creek Management Plan, adopted by the county in 1993, doesn't say that. It says facilities in the preserve should be limited to an environmental education center, trails and a biological field station. Not a word about water plants or horse stables or athletic fields.

The county seems to be trying to rewrite history. Utilities director Pick Talley even suggests the utilities' land was hijacked for the preserve and perhaps now should be removed so it can be properly used. However, the record shows that the county assembled the preserve acreage when it was in danger of residential development and did so to protect the Lake Tarpon watershed and county well fields, and to preserve a piece of natural Florida for research and limited passive recreation. If the county wants to use the land for other purposes, county officials should seek the public's permission, amend the management plan and, oh yes, rename the place.

Because the public understands: A preserve is a preserve.

[Last modified May 25, 2006, 05:30:06]