Tag Archives: alligators

The Incredible Wildlife, C-44 Reservoir/STA

-Road to the C-44 Reservoir pump station, speed limit is 25 miles per hour.Keeping you up to date…

I’ve had the chance to go back out to the C-44 Reservoir/Storm Water Treatment area on February 19, 2022, and it is a sight to see! The wildlife! I shared many of these photos on Facebook; I am posting on my blog for posterity. I hope you enjoy.

C-44 R/STA Wildlife video SFMWD

C-44 Reservoir Filling Up

SFWMD Press Release CERP C-44 R/STA ribbon-cutting, Dec.6, 2021

-Empty apple snail found at C-44 R/STA evidence of Snail Kites!WHITE PELICANS

The drive to the Reservoir from Citrus Boulevard is long and slow; on your way you pass the Storm Water Treatment Area that consists of six cells. During an earlier visit, I saw numerous endangered Everglades’ Snail Kites flying over looking for apple snails. I learned at SFWMD Governing Board meetings that the birds had many successful nest here.

When I visited just last week, I saw a large flock of white pelicans! What a treat, I have never really seen them before. Maybe once in Sebastian. They are huge and I noticed they have black markings under their wings. They were flying around in groups overhead, like modern-day pterodactyls. So cool.

DEER

Almost immediately after seeing the white pelicans, I saw deer. I was careful to stay my distance and could see them running along the storm water treatment of Cell 2. They looked healthy and happy as there is plenty to eat and there is no hunting allowed at the Reservoir/STA.

INDIGO SNAKES

One of the main reasons you have to go slow is the federally threatened Eastern Indigo Snake. Snakes often warm themselves on the pavement. As a kid there were many indigo snakes in St Lucie Estates in Stuart. They are docile, large, and a striking blue/black in color, just beautiful. My mother used to bring them to my brother, sister and I to look at. Today there are hardly any. I saw no indigos during my C-44 Reservoir/STA visit but I did see a friendly black racer. He or she was warming right at the base of the pump station at the reservoir.-Panoramic view of the giant C-44 Reservoir. About two and a half miles across in every direction.

ALLIGATORS

Alligators are also in on the new real estate and can been seen warming themselves along the edge of the Reservoir. This photo is by Sean Cooley, SFWMD Communications Director who I was with this day. These alligators must have walked up a thirty foot berm and then down into the reservoir! “Build and they will come!” Love it!

-The ACOE is filling up the C-44 Reservoir to its second level. Five feet each time, for three times, to reach fifteen feet. The reservoir will be monitored for safety and integrity throughout 2022.

-Pump Station S-401 brings water in from C-44 Canal-A view from the top of reservoir’s edge looking east over pump station confectioning canal, and STAs in distance -Sean Cooley and I at the reservoir as it fills up. Sean is communications director for SFWMD and previously worked for Audubon.Evening falls…the alligators fall into sleep to awake for a new and wonderful day at C-44 Reservoir/STA.

WATCH THIS GREAT SFWMD YouTube Wildlife Video of C-44R/STA

The Once Incredibly Long Reach of the Loxahatchee…

Excerpt Loxahatchee, 1839 Map of the Seat of War, Florida, Gen. Zachary Taylor

Page 48, Landscapes and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades, McVoy 2011

“The Loxahatchee River,” Seminole for “River of Turtles.” What a beautiful name. A name, a river, I really know very little about…

Let’s learn…

First, we must note that that today’s Loxahatchee River, located just south of Stuart, is the antithesis of the St Lucie River. Whereas the St Lucie’s watershed has been immensely expanded, the Loxahatchee has been amputated.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing about the Loxahatchee, a river that partially lies in Martin County. However the majority of this once great river lies in Palm Beach County, home to over 1.2 million people!

Let’s go back….

First, we have to think about where the Loxahatchee originally flowed, before drainage. The Loxahatchee’s story is an incredible one as the Loxahatchee was connected to the Everglades.

Look at the image below from Landscapes and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades, McVoy. Note the red drawn outline that represents the natural edge of the Everglades. Now look at the “arm,” the red formation in the upper right hand side of the image. This is what is called the Loxahatchee Slough, now gone, but today its remnant is Grassy Waters. This gigantic slough was indeed connected to the Everglades and in high water times the flow from the Everglades rose to swell inside the Loxahatchee Slough feeding the Loxahatchee River. Incredible! Today this gone. It, like everything else in South Florida has been channelized, drained, for agriculture and development. We drive over these now dry lands thinking this is the natural state. It is not, these lands were once a mosaic of the Everglades, our River of Grass.

So think about this for a moment.

The Loxahatchee River “ran” from the coast, near Jupiter, to the Everglades. The river has been minimized, the slough is compartmentalized, but one remaining piece of this Loxahatchee Reach to the Everglades still alive is today’s Aurthur R. Marshal Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.

This important refuge is easy to recognize as it is the “top oval,” in the images.

It is considered” the last northernmost portion of the unique Everglades. With over 221 square miles of habitat, the Loxahatchee Refuge is home to the American alligator and critically endangered Everglades snail kite. In any given year, as many as 257 specie son birds may use the Refuge’s diverse wetland habitats.”

These lands/waters are owned by the state through the South Florida Water Management District but are managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. You will find the most intact remaining tree islands here. Deer and other wildlife live on these tree islands and sometimes in the early morning as the sun rises, the deer stand on the levee while bicyclists go by!

To the South Florida Water Management District the refuge is known and functions as Water Conservation Area 1, just west of Parkland, Florida.

When I drive south on Highway 95 from Stuart to the South Florida Water Management District, I often wonder what these lands will look like one hundred years from now. Quite a thought isn’t it? What do you think? Who knows what will happen; but let’s continue to get to know the Loxahatchee!

Southern Path to the Loxahatchee River: Time Capsule Flight, Todd Thurlow: (https://jacquithurlowlippisch.com/tag/history-of-the-loxahatchee-river/)

The Amazing Dupuis Alligator March; Too Many to Count Indeed! SLR/IRL

I love alligators. Their population comeback is one of the great success stories of Florida conservation. They are an ancient and modern-day inspiration. https://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/alligator.pdf

The video I am sharing today was filmed by the late Dr. Dale Hipson. Born and raised in Stuart, Dr Hipson was an avid wildlife lover, and very involved at the Stuart Heritage Museum. http://www.stuartheritagemuseum.com

Through the help of my mother, Dale’s family, and the community, I share one of Dr Hipson’s most famous videos from 2006 filming what seems to be hundreds of alligators marching across Powerline Road in the Dupuis Wildlife Area. I recall asking Dr Hipson why they were all crossing the road. “They are seeking more water,” he said, “levels change abruptly all the time.”

In the video, Dr Hipson and Shirley Corley’s “amazements” can be heard in the background. The video is quite delightful, even funny at times, and deserves to be reintroduced to the public. I know you will enjoy it.

Go Gators!

(video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRbOjKbbfk0)

Dupuis, FWC: http://www.myfwc.com/viewing/recreation/wmas/cooperative/dupuis

*Thank you to Treasure Coast Multi-Media for transferring the original VHS to digital formant!http://tcmultimedia.net

#5 PAC “Committee to Protect Florida,” Inside the Alligator Pit, SLR/IRL

JTL vs the Political Machine, A Retrospective, Part #5

When I saw my mother yesterday, she said, “Jacqui, I think you need to stop writing about those PACs…I get it now…” One of my Grassroots Team members implied that I may ruin my reputation for running a clean campaign, and compromise my chances to run again, with all the harsh comments coming in on my recent posts….My husband looked at me wide-eyed over a glass of wine: “I thought you tried to keep your campaign out of the blog…?” Joe Catrambone, CEO of the Stuart Chamber, who I like very much, sent out a group email saying: “Jacqui isn’t accepting defeat very well! Speaks volumes doesn’t it!!!”

For those of you who are uncomfortable, or think I am a sore loser, please don’t fret. Today will be my final day investigating those who spent time and money to affect my loss for Martin County Commission District 1.

I do apologize to the Stuart Chamber as they really don’t belong in the category of reptiles as they chose not to send out a negative post card against me, just for Doug Smith; I was simply trying to make the point that the influence of Tallahassee affects home.

Early on, in my own head, I knew that whether I lost or won, I would be reporting on the outcome dynamics of the campaign in my blog. Writing on this issue is all part of my river journey. I know what I am doing, and it will be shared. These insights in time will help us get closer to saving our dying river…

Mom, “don’t worry,” I will stop taunting the alligators very soon! 🙂 But first we must try to see the truth behind the scenes.

Here we go:

Our last PAC to add to the previous three days of postings: Write in Candidate Chase Lurgio; Martin County Firefighters Union’s “Citizens for Public Safety;” C-Pac; and “Committee to Elect Real Conservatives;” (all ridiculous names) and today’s”Committee to Protect Florida.”

So when we look at the third negative post card that came out against the JTL campaign, we see on the bottom it reads: “Paid electioneering Communication for by Committee to Protect Florida, PO Box 102005 Tallahassee, FL 32302.” It is yet another ad full of lies, but I do appreciate that they used two of my favorite pictures of myself, my younger looking real estate head shot from 2007 and the hysterical “piranha photo” Ed took of me in Peru along the Amazon River.

So let’s quickly do what we have learned and look up this PAC on the Florida Division of Elections website by COMMITTEE: http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/committees/

This PAC’s chairperson is Mr Roger “Rockie” Pennington. Mr Pennington is a very well-known in Tallahassee politics. I first heard about Mr Pennington, when I was told in the last campaign cycle that he ran Doug Smith’s campaigns. At the time I wondered why Doug would use someone from Tallahassee….

Rockie Pennington owns Southern Campaign Resources, and according to his website “has been a fixture in Republican politics for nearly four decades.” You can read more here: http://www.southerncampaigns.com

Let’s look up who contributed to his PAC: ironically the Florida Chamber of Commerce at over $100,000 dollars, Florida Jobs Pac, $50,000. These are the same PACs that gave money to C-PAC and Committee to Elect Real Conservatives from yesterday with sprinkles of the sugar industry.

But what is even weirder is when you look up “Nature Coast Conservatives” that gave the lion’s share of the donations, $100,000s of dollars. This PAC is run by Roger Pennington’s partner in Southern Campaign Resources, Mr Mark Zubaly who is listed along with Rocky Pennington on the bio page of Southern Campaign Resources.

As the bio states “(Mark) is a partner in two Tallahassee-based companies that count at least one-fourth of the Florida Legislature among their clients: Southern Campaign Resources, a political consulting and lobbying firm, and Summit Communications, a media production firm. He also serves as the campaign consultant to a number of Florida’s city, county and judicial elected officials.”

http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/

And yes…Mark Zubaly was also Rockie Pennington’s PACs treasurer…

Of course as you dig deeper the money keeps going and going and going….

So The Doug Smith Campaign had its own campaign manager with his own PAC with his own partner funding the PAC from his own PAC that uses many of the same questionable donors that were linked to, C-PAC, and the # 2 post card of Josh Cooper who ran opposition research for the Governor. On top of this there was the Firefighters Union PAC, Citizens for Public Safety, sending out positive post cards for Doug Smith, sending out negative post cards against JTL all the while building signs, placing signs, making negative phone calls against JTL, pulling up opposition JTL signs, and waving….

I’d say we did pretty well considering our opponents! What an alligator pit!

I feel like we’re in a Carl Hiaasen book! We don’t even need to go to Miami!

In conclusion, The Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch Grassroots Campaign lost to this Political Machine by 2.9% or 677 votes…raised considerably more money and had considerably more diverse support. Supported a clean river and land purchase south of lake…in any case, did not support the status quo…

Wow! What a race!

It was exciting!

And now that we know who we’re in the pit with, maybe next time we’ll get them on their backs and Protect Florida For Real.