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How best to shield wildlife is topic
By JAMES THORNER © St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 2001 LAND O'LAKES -- If Pasco County wants to protect bears and alligators from developers' backhoes, it will have to give its proposed wildlife protection ordinance a healthy set of claws and teeth. That was one of the top messages from the county's first public hearing to consider an animal protection plan that will bind future development. About 35 people showed up at the David "Hap" Clark Government Center in Land O'Lakes on Wednesday night to share their concerns with representatives from the county's wildlife consultant, Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez Rinehart Inc. Glatting is earning $178,000 to come up with a proposed wildlife ordinance by as early as August. The people at the meeting, most representing environmental groups such as Citizens for Sanity, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, said the ordinance will only be as good as the county's determination to enforce it. Pasco will have to do better than it did in enforcing environmental laws at Heron Lake in Land O'Lakes, said Citizens for Sanity founder Clay Colson. Colson complained that homeowners along the lake ravaged the waterfront, one of the community's top bird sanctuaries, in violation of agreements between developers and the county. That case illustrates the weakness of the county's comprehensive land-use plan, the document that's supposed to regulate development, Colson said. "Our comprehensive plan has really been nothing more than a big paperweight," Colson told the consultants from Glatting. The consultants, who were overseeing the first of three community hearings, said the ordinance should use a mixture of financial incentives, public purchases of sensitive land and tougher restrictions to achieve its goal. "This ordinance will result in something, I'm sure, like 'You can't do this and you have to do this," Glatting biologist Jay Exum said. But Exum emphasized that the plan needs broad public support, including the cooperation of developers. In fact, a representative of the Pasco Building Association sat in on the meeting, an odd fish in a lake full of environmentalists. The plan could fail if it were too onerous and time-consuming for county planners to implement, Exum said. The next two meetings, in Dade City and New Port Richey, will take place in February.
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From today's Pasco Times |
