Neighbors Object To Caladium Farm Forming In Wetlands
By DOUG CARMAN

AVON PARK — The pending formation of a new caladium farm and possibly a fireworks storage facility in the wetlands near Little Red Water Lake has outraged several neighbors.

Nancy Pitcher, one resident who lives down a street from the wetland area, said she believed the development, particularly a ditch that Pitcher said was being made deeper, may have contributed to its drying. If approved, the new fireworks storage, she feared, would further threaten the wetland area.

“We’re really concerned about it,” Pitcher said. “Apply Murphy’s law ...  If anything were to happen there, due to the incendiary nature of the scrub we’d be burned out so fast before the fire department would get here.”

Thursday, a bulldozer and several steel structures were standing near the southeast part of the area, which looks more like a muck bed than the lake Pitcher and neighbor Richard Hornbeck described from last year.

Little Red Water Lake is located on the southern extremity of Avon Park, between Lake Sebring and Lake Letta off of S.R. 17. The wetlands are located northeast of the lake, off of Claradge Avenue.
According to several of the neighbors’ recollections, the wetlands began draining early last year and was “bone dry” by October. Well before then, Hornbeck said he was able to catch a 19-inch bass from the shore, now a damp plot of dirt and shrub behind his trailer.

“I fished through here,” Hornbeck said as he showed a straight recession through the soil before the bushes. He said that used to be a canal.
Ben Oswald, who passes the wetlands area each day when leaving his house, said he used to see wading birds, alligators and osprey when he moved near Little Red Water Lake two years ago.

Saying he had a background in biology and ecology, Oswald thought the damage was already done.

“As far as the wetland’s concerned, it’s gone, that’s just the truth of it in my opinion,” Oswald said.  “That’s all I can tell you about it.”
Hornbeck, who owns a shallow water well that he said could be affected by the wetlands’ draining, would not accept that fate. “Bulldoze that stuff and put it back,” he said.

Highlands County Zoning Supervisor Gary Lower said that the property has generated several complaints, but it is not in any violation from a zoning aspect.

The part of the wetlands area being developed into a caladium farm is zoned AU. The county’s code states that such land can hold such structures including one-family dwellings, farms and housing for farm labor personnel.

Development on a wetland area requires an approval from both the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Department of Environmental Protection. Lower said the property has these permits.

The fireworks storage structures, however, were not yet approved. A public hearing was originally scheduled for Feb. 13, but this has been “deleted” because of an internal glitch with the county’s system and the owner needs to reapply, Lower said.

If the neighbors object, “they need to air their concerns to the board,” he said.

Erin McCarta, the Lakes Management technical assistant for the Highlands County Soil and Water Conservation District, performed a separate investigation Thursday afternoon.

Compelled by Nancy Pitcher and several others who addressed her during a Natural Resources Advisory Commission meeting Wednesday, McCarta went to the wetlands area to examine the ditch they complained about. She said she found nothing suspicious.

“It looks like he recently cleaned it out in years past ... I doubt seriously that it will have an impact drying out the wetland.,” McCarta said.  She explained that the water levels are low because of the current drought, which has kept water from draining from the neighboring lake into the wetlands.