Water farm helps prevent harmful freshwater discharges to the coast

Posted 2/14/22

Fifty years ago, the Evans Properties land was part of a cattle ranch …

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Water farm helps prevent harmful freshwater discharges to the coast

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FORT DRUM – Fifty years ago, the Evans Properties land that straddles the borders of Okeechobee County, Indian River County and St. Lucie County was part of a cattle ranch.

Twenty-five years ago, the land was planted in citrus and known for producing delicious grapefruit.

When the citrus industry was devastated by citrus canker and citrus greening, some farmers sold out to development, what farmers call the “last harvest.” But the Evans family chose a different kind of farming – water farming.

Karson Turner
Karson Turner
Ben Butler
Ben Butler
David Hazellief
David Hazellief
Scott Water Farm ribbon cutting
Scott Water Farm ribbon cutting
Scott Water Farm
Scott Water Farm

On Feb. 11, the South Florida Water Management District,  the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Evans Properties celebrated the completion of the Scott Water Farm Project, designed to hold more than 29,000 acre feet of water (about 9 billion gallons) per year  on 7,500 acres of privately-owned land. The project will pump water from the C-25 canal and store it on wetlands that allow the water to percolate into the earth, recharging the aquifer.

Florida Representative Toby Overdorf said, when combined with the Bluefield Project, the Scott Water Farm will hold back 17.8 billion gallons of water that “will never see our precious Indian River Lagoon.”

The Scott Water Farm project is a public-private partnership, involving land in two counties and two different water management districts.

“This is another way of farming,” said South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member Ben Butler. “We need more projects like this.

“Every year we get 50-plus inches of rain. As the State of Florida adds more and more people every day, along with that comes rooftops and asphalt,” that cause increased runoff, he explained. That water winds up in canals and results in harmful discharges to coastal estuaries. The water stored on the water farm “stays right here in the basin” recharging the aquifer, he explained.

The public-private projects happen in half the time as the government projects, save the taxpayers money and keep the land on the tax rolls.

“The reality is we have too many rooftops being built, too much concrete being poured,” said Hendry County Commissioner Karson Turner, who chairs the County Coalition for the Responsible Management of Lake Okeechobee, the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries and the Lake Worth Lagoon. But every local government still wants more economic development for their community, he added.

Okeechobee County Commissioner David Hazellief said while the water from the northeast corner of Okeechobee County does not flow into Lake Okeechobee, there are many other projects in Okeechobee County that are doing a lot to reduce the nutrient load that goes into the lake.

Ron Edwards, of Scott Dispersed Water Management, thanked the Evans family.

“Water is a problem in Florida,” he said. “He have lots of it, but not at the right place and the right time,” said Edwards. The Scott Water Farm project holds the water so it can recharge the aquifer, instead of being sent to tide via the Indian River Lagoon.

Edwards said they are working on another project on the Evans Properties that will include a deep water reservoir with a stormwater treatment area (STA). As with the water farm project, this will involve both SFWMD and St. Johns Water Management District. This is where the excess of water comes together and could be accessed if we had a place to put it,” he explained. The project will be a complicated one, involving three counties, two water management districts and the Department of Environmental Regulation.

“We can save water we’ve been wasting all this time,” Edwards said.

water farm, Evans Family, Scott

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