>>This week o NewsNight, with the green light given to a toll road extensio through the Split Oak Forest, a look at what it all means fo the Florida Wildlife Corridor and the conservatio of the state's protected lands.

This week' News in Depth starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mor and welcome to NewsNight, where we take a dee dive into the stories and issue that matter to central Florida and how they shap our community.

First tonight, the Florida Wildlife Corridor and what it means for conservation efforts in our state.

The corridor is comprise of 18 million contiguous acres spanning the state, 10 million of which are protected conservation lands.

State officials want to add hundreds of thousands more acres of conservation easements over time through the Florida Forever Conservation Acquisition Program.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says the 2021 Florida Wildlife Corridor Act is designed to allow animals to migrate freely and support biodiversity.

But the law only encourages and promotes investment in the corridor and does not itself offer protections.

Instead, it relies on a patchwork of protections offered by federal state and local jurisdictions, as well as private owners.

Now, that means even the 1 million acres of protected land in the Florida Wildlife Corridor can be at risk from the unrelenting development pressures in Florida.

Those development pressures were recently illustrated when the Fish and Wildlif Conservation Commission voted 6 to 1 in favor of turning over 60 acres of the highly protected 1,700 acre Split Oak Forest for a toll road extension to serve a rapidly growing area southeast of Lake Nona.

Well, this week I talked with Kevin Spear from the Orlando Sentinel, who's written extensively about Split Oak.

>>East Orange County and East Osceola County are slate for incredible growth.

During the Scot administration.

Ten years or so ago a bunch of local developer types, road builders, state officials, got together in a panel in a forum, and they decided, you know what, we need an expressway out there for a number of reasons.

So with that kind of formal official stamp of approval, this idea was hatched in which an express way would be built from the 417 around the airport heading east or southeast towards Brevard County.

And unfortunately, in that path was split Oak Forest.

>>So state and local leaders and CFX would say this is simply about providing the infrastructure that's required to accommodate that increase in population in an area that was previously sparsely populated.

>>Yeah, all of the development interests out there decided it's not just going to be a nice thing but it's going to be essential to prevent a kind of gridlock that would otherwise occur on surface streets.

>>Orange County voters, though, voted overwhelmingly to back preservation of Split Oak.

When you watch the public comments at various agency hearings on this issue, it seems overwhelmingly that those public comments do not support a toll road extension.

Is that reflective, do you think, generally of public sentiment on this issue?

>>You know, I wondered about that a lot.

And I've spent a lot of time at Split Oak Forest in their parking lot entrance area, asking people why they why they go to Spli Oak, what their interests are, but also what their sense of the Save Split Oak initiative is about.

And to be honest, not many people have the faintest clue that there's a road involved.

And the road is a very complex scenario.

But I think what really sold it on the Orange County ballot was they headline Save Split Oak Forest.

Who doesn't want to save a forest?

And that carried the day in terms of the high numbers of voter approval.

>>And it is just a small corner of the Split Oak Forest that we're talking about, correct?

>>Yeah.

And that small corne is being fought over fiercely.

The road itself would take 60 acres as it angles across the southern in the Split Oak Forest, and there'd be another 100 acres that would be kind of cut off from the rest of the forest.

So it it boils down to about 160 acres.

>>Well, let's talk about this agreement with CFX.

It comes with a compensation package, right?

Tell us about that compensation package.

How does that work?

>>Yeah.

So that the manager of Split Oak Forest is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

They take care of the current split oak and they evaluated this compensation package put forth by Central Florida Expressway Authority and the church, or also known as Deseret Ranches, owning an incredible amount of land.

So here's the package.

If permission is give to cut across Split Oak Forest, then the Central Florida Expressway Authority will provide $24 million.

Keep that figure in mind.

And the church holdings will provide 1,550 acres adjoining Split Oak Forest.

In other words, doubling the size of Split Oak Forest in that $24 million would be spent on restoring and maintaining and managing the 1,550 acres for decades.

>>The Split Oak Fores is sort of an interesting case study, isn't it, into what Florida is facing?

I mean, it's one of the mos highly protected areas of land in the state.

And yet-- >>And yet.

>>It still is getting a toll road put through at least part of it.

I mean, what does that say about the development pressures that face our state and how they juxtapose with the environmental challenges?

>>You know, here we are at 25 million people in Florida, and that's you know, we're going to tack on another 20 million in a couple of decades round about figures.

I think what all of this boils down to is the state of Florid is really terrible at planning.

During the Scott administration, when the governor and lawmakers got rid of an organization called the Department of Community Affairs and their job, and they had some political permission and ability to look out across the landscape and say, you know we need to focus on that, that that in terms roads impact from development and so forth.

Scott and lawmakers gutted the agency.

It really no longer exists today.

So we are in the state of Florida collectively not very good at looking ahead and looking around and figuring out where these points of conflict are going to occur.

>>Kevin Spear there from the Orlando Sentinel.

So let's get into the issue in depth now.

Joining me in the studio this week, Amy Green from Inside Climate News.

Thanks for coming back, Amy.

Good to see you.

Eric Orvieto from the Oviedo Community New joining us for the first time.

Good to see you, Eric.

Thanks for coming in.

And Molly Duerig covers the environment for Central Florida Public Media.

Thanks for coming in as well.

Molly, good to see all of you today.

Molly let me start with you and piggy back on on what Kevin Spear was saying there.

I mean, what does that Split Oak case tell us about the effectiveness, particularly of the Wildlife Corridor Act?

>>So the very first thin I try to help people understand about the Florida Wildlife Corridor is that it's really like a vision an idea, as we heard it's 8 million acres kind of on a ma that's been laid out.

But not all of those 18 million acre are protected right now.

About 8 million acres are not.

And the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act itself kind of creating this designated area a few years back is is quite weak legally.

It doesn't enforce anything.

It doesn't create any new incentives for land conservation.

It's simply it directs FDP to encourage land acquisition agencies to do so.

So I think what's really important about forests in the Florida Wildlife Corridor is really not even so much necessarily what the Florida wildlife corner is or isn't doing.

But I mean, this is an area, as we heard, that was very protected by multiple state agencies and local agencies for 30 years.

This is it's got Scrubb Forest and Split Oak Forest, as is one of the state's most important natural community sites.

And now a toll road is going to go through.

So I think that's kind of the bigger question is what about environmental protection in Florida more broadly.

>>Given those weaknesses that Molly is talking about Eric, I mean, there's an effort in your area is efforts in lots of places, but there's an effort in your area to try to tackl some of those vulnerable places of conservation lands within the corridor.

Tell us about that.

>>Yeah.

So Seminole County has the rural boundary which protects and separate the urban area urbanize areas from the protected east rural area, which is abou 75,000 acres currently.

It would only take a three to two commission vote in Seminole County to move those lines and reduce that acreage.

And while it's been protecte over the years, multiple times, there's a lot of people worried that it won't remain protected.

And so the county is planning to have a referendum on the November ballot this this year to require, if voters approve it, to require supermajority to 1 vote to move those lines, which both conservationists and officials have said is vital to long term protection of the rural boundary.

And much of that rural boundary does reside in the wildlife corridor.

Additionally, Seminole County has created the Seminole Forever program, which will mirror the Florida Forever program, which is one of a number of-- >>Land acquisition programs.

>>Yes, land acquisition, which is the number of land acquisition, one of a number of lan acquisition programs that takes buys land from seller and puts it into conservation.

And that a lot of the land in that is protected in the corridor has been acquired by Florida forever and other similar entities.

And so the Seminole Forever will do it on a smaller local scale.

>>Amy, Molly and Eric's reporting talks about this patchwork of jurisdictions.

We were just talking about that that sort of offered protections to lands within the wildlife corridor.

You've covered the move by the federal government to implement protections in the Everglades watershed, which you've covered extensively.

That's also part of the corridor.

Explain what's happening there at that end of the state.

Yeah, well, this is really important reporting and it's such great work because it really goes to the heart of a lot of the environmental problems and issues that I see, which is this ongoing tension between this explosive growth and development that we have in our state and the pressure that's putting on our natural resources, which are really vital to our tourism based economy.

The effort that you'r referring to, Steve, is one underway in southwest Florid to protect what is being called the Everglade to Gulf conservation area.

And this is a large swat extending from central Florida down through the southwest part of the state, where there where there are concerns about sea level rise and more damaging hurricanes pushing growth and development inland.

And so this is an effort that's aimed at protecting this area that's really an important part of the Everglades watershed, which, of course, is a really large watershed that encompasse a large part of the peninsula.

And also it will expan the Florida wildlife corridor.

>>I mean, what do experts, Molly, sa the stakes are to all of this.

I mean, are there any projections as to what success of the corridor might mean for the state?

>>Yeah, there are.

So a report out earlier this year from the Archbold Biological Station found that if we were to fully protect those nearly 18 million acres of Florida wildlife corridor, it would first of all have some great flood mitigation benefits.

So about two thirds of Florida's remaining natural floodplains that haven't been developed are within the corridor.

So if we were to protect the corridor, that would really help us moving forward with increased stor surge and more inland flooding.

Another really important component pointed out in that report is the wildfire risk.

So Florida's natural environment just historically really depend on regular cycles of wildfire.

So as we keep developing it, it's a lot harder to safely burn.

And so that's the report suggests one way to make it easier, protecting the corridor and prioritizing more clustered development.

So just kind of to Kevin's point, planning being more intentional about where we develop instead of just kind of the sprawling development that we see makes it really hard to control the wildfire.

>>Which we've seen over the decades.

And we'll talk a bit more about that, the flooding portion of this a little later in the show.

Eric, you wrote about efforts to to mitigate issues that we're seeing and strengthened the wildlife corridor.

What kinds of plans are in the works?

>>So there's a number of them.

State Representative David Smith of Winter Springs has said that while there's not going to be a large overhaul to the Wildlife Corridor Act itself, he which doesn't have regulatory teeth in it, it's more to allow for that money to be used for acquisition.

He is looking into ways to strengthen it in incremental ways.

The first one being for conservation easements to make sure that those easements stay in perpetuity, which he has seen as a problem currently.

So he wants to look to see those stay in perpetuity.

And then we'll look annually at other smaller ways to improve the act going forward.

Additionally, Seminole Count officials have been encouraging they've been encouraging developers to build away from the rural areas and the corridor areas and more into the urbanized areas.

They're offering density bonuses for developers who put some land into conservation.

They also are encouraging the process of building up and not out so they can cluster developments away from those those those critical lands and with all of that, they're also have have made sure that the impact of mobility fees are increased around those rural lands.

And then finally, the Wildlife Corridor Foundation itsel has developed a concept called Corridor compatible communities, which allow wildlife flow through specially designed developments.

And that is something that is really interesting going forward.

They're also working the foundation itself is also working with municipalities to target critical areas that can be acquired in conservation.

And one of those that recently occurred was the Yarborough Ranch property in Geneva, which is about 1,300 acres that's right in the middle o Seminole County in the corridor that was unprotected and up for sale.

And Florida Forever, local conservationists, local officials, Seminole County officials all work together utilizin the corridor maps to help that Florida Forever acquisition go through for $34 million and put that into conservation, which has was one of the fastest from application to acquisition processes in the Florida Forever program history.

>>Yeah, interesting.

Let's just wrap this up briefly, Molly, by talking about moves in Orange County.

Orange County has got a six month pause, right, in development agreements.

It's also looking to for ways to control growth that we're talking about here.

Tell us about the reporting you and your colleagues have done on the actions that the county is taking.

>>Right.

So Orange County recently approved a six month temporary pause on accepting and processing new development applications.

So started Tuesday, May 28th, I believe.

So they can rescind it earlier if they want, but about to late November.

No new development applications or some exceptions for planned communities like Horizon West that were already kind of underway.

But basically the idea is to kind of take a minute here while the commissioners and the county work o finalizing the Vision 2050 plan that they've been working on for years, basically an overhaul, a complete overhaul of the county's comprehensive plan and land use code.

So it prioritizes this more planned thinkin ahead sustainable development.

So but in the meantime-- >>The planning part of the puzzle that he was asking about.

>>Yeah, exactly.

And so but as they work on that, they kind of wanted to put things on pause as we've talked about.

Explosive growth continues in the area.

There's also the rural boundary so similar to Seminole County.

Orange County is now moving full speed ahea with trying to get an amendment on this November's ballo to establish a rural boundary.

And pretty soon next month they'll be sending out notices to any property owners within that rural boundary hopeful zone.

And that's a really interesting conversation as well.

They can they can get it on the ballot and we'll see what voters say assuming tha ballot language gets approved.

>>So many issues around growth as our state continues to explode in population, that's likely to continue in the decades to come.

You can find links to lots more information on the Florida Wildlife Corridor, as well as the reporting on the issue from Central Florida Public Medi and the Oviedo Community News.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

It's been a rough couple of weeks of weather here in Florida.

On Tuesday, FEMA announce federal disaster assistance will be made availabl for areas of north Florida slammed by a recent tornad outbreak.

Meanwhile, Citizens Property Insurance asks to hike rates by 14% next year.

Floridians are keeping a wary eye on the tropics.

Meteorologists are predicting a well above average storm season.

And scientists say the severe flooding in south Florida last week could be an omen for the rest of the year.

Days of torrential rain left parts of south Florida submerge as tropical moisture inundated the part of the stat already vulnerable to flooding.

Governor DeSantis declared a state of emergency in several counties.

>>If you go back through Florida history, we've had events like this going back decades of recorded history without question.

I think the difference is if you compare 50 to 100 years ago to now is, as you say, there's just a lot more that's been developed.

So there's a lot more effects that this type of an event can have.

Given how Florida has grown.

>>As Florida dries ou from the latest flooding rains, the National Hurricane Center predicts an extremely active season in the tropics with storms already firing up in the Atlantic basin.

All right Amy, we hear a lot about flooding, particularly in the south of the state.

We see the pictures there.

Quite incredible.

Remind us why that region, first of all, is particularly vulnerable and why we should be watching what happens in that area closely.

And is the governor right that we're simply seeing more of the effects because the area is more developed now?

>>So the first part of the question, why are we seeing these kinds of events?

Well, historically, Florid was characterized by wetlands.

And so we've drained a lot o that water off the peninsula.

And that's made moder Florida possible.

And that' been incredibly successful.

But it's also led to a lot of environmental problems.

And that's why we have this large Everglades restoration effort underway in the state.

Also, our world is changing.

And one of the impacts of climate change in Florida is changes in precipitation and so, you know, for the governor to kind of downplay the role of climate change in an event like this, you know, these precipitation events are related to climate changes and changes in our world.

>>Does the forecastin for hurricane season this year mean that we're at risk necessarily of seeing more of the same, more of what we just saw?

>>So yes and no.

So NOA predicted 17 to 25 named storms for this hurricane season, which is the greatest number of named storms that NOAA has ever forecast for a hurricane season.

So that sounds really scary and that sounds like a lot.

But remember that just because there are 17 to 25 named storms predicted it doesn't mean that one of those hurricane will make landfall in Florida.

So let's stay hopefu that those hurricanes will stay out in the ocean and ou in the Gulf where they belong.

>>Important to note, of course, it's not just South Florida that experiences this kind of flooding.

We saw 2022 after Hurricane Ian serious flooding here in central Florida.

You've reported on FEMA's flood maps.

Right.

They're out of date.

Why are they out of date?

And what difference does that make, Molly?

>>Right.

So we started out on thi project, my colleague Lilly, Lillia Hernandez Caraballo and myself who reported the story.

And we were really intrigued by this one stat stat statistic that I'd foun from the Association of State Floodplain Managers, which is that only about a third of the country has actually been properly flood mapped by FEMA.

It takes a long time to update the flood maps.

It's expensive.

You know, the association has been asking Congress for money to do the job right for years now.

So and as Amy mentioned, yo know, our climate is changing.

So it's very difficult to do the bac and forth of getting the data.

You know, this is a partnership with local governments to get it over to FEMA.

By the time you get it updated.

I mean, the flood plains may have changed, development might have changed already.

But what we really learn in our story that is so fascinating is that it is not saying, you know, if you're not in the worst flood zone on a map, please don't take that to mea you're at no risk of flooding.

Long story short, like those maps are designed as conservative estimates fo insurance for flood insurance.

But really, what we learned talkin to experts time and time again is, you know, it's not designed to tell you for for sure.

Yeah, you're not going to flood here.

>>I mean, with flooding, you know, being such a critical issue, there is actually a new law in Florida requiring more disclosures about a property's flood history.

>>That's right.

And a lot of people are seeing this legislation as a good step toward addressing growt and development in risky areas.

Under this legislation, home sellers will have to disclose for the first time whether they have submitted an insurance claim or whether they've accepted federal assistance associated with flood damage on their properties.

There are loopholes, you know, just because there hasn't been an insurance claim or just because there hasn't been federal assistance doesn't mean there hasn't been flood damage on that property.

But before this legislation Florida was one of 18 states or so that had no flood disclosure requirement for home sellers.

And the state obviousl has this unique vulnerability.

>>As we continue to face this insurance premium issue.

There are efforts to try to bring down those flood insurance premiums, Eric.

>>Yeah.

My colleague Loren Morrish reported on Oviedo's voluntary membership in FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program and community rating system, which it's been a part o since 2008.

Members who perform extraordinary efforts or g above and beyond are recognized with rates being reduced, rate up to 20 to 25%.

And the flood zones are will be updated in Oviedo for propert owners and insurance companies in August, according to Oviedo stormwater coordinator.

So that's a good thing for them.

>>You know, the recently signed Florida budget, Molly, does include an additional, I think one and a half billion on environmental spending.

Critics point, though, to a number of drainage projects that the governor vetoed this month.

What was cut?

>>Right.

So I think roughly two dozen stormwater and drainage improvement projects across the state were vetoed.

And that is concerning to many because as we're talking about, Florida's explosive growth is triggering increased challenges in terms of our water management as we see climate change impacts and more of these inland flooding events, for example, in areas where we didn't see flooding before, those areas that weren't designed to accommodate however many people live there.

Now, you know, these are older systems are becoming overwhelmed and that is going to have a direct negative impact on the flooding that we see.

So it's very important to improve these systems and improving these systems is not an easy task or an inexpensive task.

And so that's kind of what the concern is with the roughly two dozen stormwater and drainage improvement projects.

>>We've talked a lot on this show about the various mitigation measure that the different communities are taking around Central Florida when it comes to stormwater infrastructure.

What is the state of play in the areas that that you cover there in Seminole County?

>>Sure.

So the Oviedo City Council is constantly looking to continue to improve their stormwater infrastructure, whether it's in plans that are solo for that specifically or in larger scale projects.

So they've been working on that.

The City of Winter Spring following the disastrous floods in 2022 and after Hurricane Ian, during which residents told m that they were not informed of flood of flood zone changes and were not told of recommendations to acquire flood insurance, the City of Winter Springs has put up retaining better retaining walls.

They've cleaned out their culverts.

They have performed a citywide storm sewer cleaning program and they're also planning to upsize their storm sewers to allow for a heavier flow to prevent that a disaster like that again.

>>Well, these are really important issues for sure.

And thank you so much, guys, for all your reporting on them >>Meanwhile, we always want to hear your thoughts on the news of the week.

Be sure to visit us on social media at WUCFTV on Facebook and Instagram.

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Before we go, a reminder to be sure to check out more news like content on our website wucf.org/newsnight and also on the WUCF YouTub channel @WUCFTV.

And that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Amy Gree Eric Orvieto and Molly Duerig, thanks so much for coming in guys Thank you.

We appreciate your time.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

From all of us here at NewsNight, take care.

And have a great week.