Edison Farms
Purchase & Restoration

Location

Protecting Estero’s Future by Acquiring and Preserving Edison Farms

EDR Article August 2010

A coalition of national, state and local environmental and civic groups have united in their support of the public acquisition and preservation of the 4,000-acre Edison Farms site just east of I-75 south of Corkscrew Road. The Estero Council of Community Leaders, the Brooks Concerned Citizens, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Collier County Audubon Society, Audubon of Southwest Florida, CREW Land & Water Trust, Florida Wildlife Federation and The Trust for Public Land have formed a coalition in support of this effort.

On August 12^th The Coalition testified in support of the purchase before Lee County's Conservation 20/20 Conservation Lands Acquisition and Stewardship Advisory Committee (CLASAC) that subsequently voted unanimously to nominate Edison Farms for acquisition.

CLASAC is a 15-member citizen's advisory committee appointed by the Board of County Commissioners. This committee, along with a sub-committee, recommends to the commissioners which properties should be purchased for permanent conservation. Only properties with a “willing seller” quality for the Conservation 20/20 program. If the commissioners agree, the Division of County Lands then will initiate the negotiation process.

Earlier this year the state’s “Florida Forever” land acquisition program ranked the property and contiguous Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) area as #3 statewide in the Partnerships and Regional Incentives Projects category.

Representatives of Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed (CREW) Land & Water Trust and the Calusa Land Trust announced they will contribute $100,000 and $10,000 respectively towards the purchase of this land. Pledged donations from community and other organizations will help Edison Farms chances for approval by the Committee and the Board of Commissioners. We would urge all Estero community organizations to adopt resolutions in support of this acquisition and consider pledging some funds, no matter how small, for the acquisition.

Conservation 20/20 funds were committed in 2009 for the acquisition of a select group of properties using phased acquisition over the next several years. All Conservation 20/20 nominations received since January 1, 2009 have only undergone a preliminary evaluation that would add qualifying properties to a list held for future purchase when funds became available again. As a result of the preliminary evaluations, CLASAC has retained a total of 28 nominations, including Edison Farms. About $20 million per year is raised for the Conservation 20/20 program by a special property tax levy approved by the voters of Lee County in 1996.

Because of the size of this property, funding will be necessary from a number of public and private sources, local, state and national. Because of the slow economy most of these projects will be paid off over several years, not all at the time of purchase.