The Fed Proposes Preserving Land North of the Big "O"

Lake Okeechobee, at 730 square miles, is the largest freshwater lake in Florida. Thousands of truckloads of toxic mud containing arsenic and other pesticides have been removed from the lake's floor. Some of the contamination comes from sugar cane farming. The South Florida Water Management District, found arsenic levels on the northern part of the lake bed too polluted for use on agricultural or commercial lands.

Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar announced in January plans to preserve 150,000 acres in the Kissimmee River basin north of Lake Okeechobee. The goal is to put 50,000 of those acres in federal ownership and negotiate conservation easements to keep the other 100,000 acres as ranchland or natural areas. Florida has a mandate to clean up water flowing into the lake from the north, in part to help preserve such endangered species as the Florida panther.

The pronouncement by Salazar is just another in a long line of efforts to protect the Everglades, an ecosystem that once stretched from the southern Orlando area all the way to the southern tip of Florida. Former Gov. Charlie Crist proposed buying all of U.S. Sugar's 187,000-acres in the Everglades as a conservation measure, however, the state purchased just 26,800 of that acreage, "instead of reconnecting the severed link allowing water to flow between Lake Okeechobee and the rest of the Everglades farther south," according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.