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Highlands Today

Debut Conservation Connection Event A Hit For County

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Milt Lacy of Lake Placid looks at a back flow preventer for sprinklers at the Conservation Connection Day on Wednesday at the Highlands County Agri-Civic Center in Sebring.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: June 26, 2008

SEBRING — An enthusiastic crowd of more than 200 people filled the parking lot of the Agri-Civic Center Wednesday for the first-ever Highlands County Conservation Connection community festival.

"We will definitely have another event, because it was a good community event," said Corine Burgess, the natural resources specialist for the county's Soil & Water Conservation District.

Representatives of 17 county, regional and state environmental agencies not only passed out information and answered questions, but also had displays and handed out dozens of "give-aways." The crowd would have been much larger, many festival goers said, if it was held on a Saturday instead of a week day and if it also was held in the winter instead of during the heat of late June.

"We're definitely going to put on another one and it will be either in the fall or the winter," Burgess said. "And we're going to try very hard to see if we can have it on a Saturday." Erin McCarta, Highlands County's lakes management assistant, was one of the most sought after people at Wednesday's event.

McCarta said more than 35 homeowners on Little Lake Jackson and the canals connected to it gave her an earful of complaints about the lack of dredging that's been going on for two years.

"We want to see if they (county natural resources department) can do something about dredging the canals and also in the waterway that goes under the bridge (under U.S. 27) so we can go from Little Lake Jackson to Lake Jackson," said John Barrett.

Angelo Verderame, a transplanted Connecticut resident who also lived in Tennessee for 12 years before moving to Sebring six years ago, said he enjoyed everything about the conservation festival, especially all the information and give-aways and brochures he picked up on gardening.

"I came because I'm interested in learning about agriculture in this county and also the growth in this county," he said as he strolled from booth to booth with two friends.

"I took the master gardener course (from the county extension office) and I really liked it, I recommend it to people," said Verderame.

Verderame has a large garden on his four-acre lot off Moon Ranch Road in Sebring and said he picked up a lot of information on his hobby at the conservation festival.

"And I liked everything here that they had about the environment, saving water, things like that," he said.

Many Agencies
Agencies at the festival ran the gamut from two water management districts to Highlands County's 4-H, lakes association and parks and recreation department, from Florida's Fish & Game and Forestry departments to three soil & water conservation districts, including Dade County's. One of the most popular booths was staffed by the South Florida Water Management District.

"We've had about 40 people stop in," Victoria Nowlan, the water district's community outreach and media relations specialist, said at 11 a.m., with the 3-hour festival still set to run one more hour.
Most people wanted information on how to conserve water and how to plant "Florida Friendly" lawns with drought-tolerant plants.

Also, Nowlan said, a handful of people filed complaints about people they suspect are blatantly violating the water-use restrictions imposed to combat the drought.

"Several (of the complaints) are permitting issues (for people with a permit to draw well water), and so I'll turn those in to our Regulation Department at the Okeechobee Service Center," Nowlan said.
The other complaints were on residential water users in the Sebring area who are watering their lawns way above the drought restrictions.

"For those, I'll turn them over to the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and they will investigate them." While South Florida Water Management District serves this area, violations of water-use restrictions are handled by the Southwest district, she said.

To reach Jim Konkoly, call 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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