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Highlands Today

Lake Denton Group To Work On Long-Range Solution

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: February 16, 2009

SEBRING - The Lake Denton Citizens Advisory Committee has decided to draft a long-range management plan for this exceptionally clear lake, where public access was closed for eight months and is now restricted.

The seven-member committee, appointed by the Highlands County commissioners in October 2007, voted unanimously Thursday to launch the planning effort.

The committee also accepted the offer of The Phoenix Environmental Group Inc., to work with the committee on drafting the plan at no charge.

Russell Danser of Sebring, president of Phoenix Environmental, offered the firm's services pro bono as a "technical advisory team."

Clell Ford, county lakes manager; Erin McCarta, assistant lakes manager; and Vicki Pontius, director of parks and recreation, also will be assisting the committee.

"In the past," said committee member Terry Burkholder, "what we have done is react to problems." He said a management plan would be based on detailed information so that problems can be anticipated and "when they come up we can make intelligent decisions."

Committee members accepted Danser's recommendation that the management plan, which would go to the county commissioners for adoption, have four main goals: conservation of natural resources; protecting private property rights; planning public access and recreational opportunities; and developing a plan that can "be implemented in a fiscally responsible manner."

The committee set a goal of delivering the proposed plan to the county commissioners in nine months.

Commissioner Don Bates, who chairs the meetings as a non-voting member of the committee, scheduled meetings to work on the management plan for 5 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month in a conference room at the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center.

While the committee's meetings are public, the committee decided to send e-mail invitations to members of groups concerned with lakes, including the Highlands County Lakes Association, the Friends of Istokpoga, and the Lake Istokpoga Management Committee.

Danser said that while the management plan will be "site specific" for Lake Denton, the more public input the better as the committee works on recommendations for the county commissioners.

While the committee is looking at a long-term plan, Pontius said it will probably have to make a recommendation before summer on preventing people from swimming off the county's 40-foot wide public access road to the lake.

"Swimming is not allowed, this is not a permitted swim area," Pontius told the committee.

In August 2007, the county commissioners voted 3-2 to close public access to the Lake Denton due to complaints from homeowners. Complaints included alcohol and drug use at night on the county's public access site, illegal parking that clogged Lake Denton Drive, and rude and obscene behavior by some people who used the county's lake access point.

Public access to the lake was closed from mid September 2007 until Labor Day weekend of 2008.

Based on the committee's recommendations, the commissioners reopened public access on a limited basis last summer, from Memorial Day through Labor Day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Parking was limited to nine spaces and a gate was installed.

Through the summer season, a county attendant collected the $25 fee for scuba divers, charged only on Saturdays, Sundays and weekends, and turned away people intending to swim off the county's 40-foot wide access to the lake.

Public access was again closed between Labor Day and late November, when it was reopened, with no fees, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.

Since September 2007, virtually all scuba divers have been getting into Lake Denton through the Baptist church camp, located next to the county's lake access point. The non-profit church camp charges divers $10 for lake access.

Swimming off the county's public access road has not been an issue since the summer of 2007, Pontius said, but could become a problem with the arrival of summer weather. The county no longer has an attendant monitoring its lake access point.

"We're going to have to look at that again before summer," she said.

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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