Manatee County discusses preserve plans

When passersby see heavy equipment on the land set to become the Floyd C. Johnson & Flo Singer Johnson Preserve at Braden River, they might think to themselves, “Didn’t the county just preserve that land?”

That’s the kind of concern Ray Vinson, land management coordinator for Manatee Parks and Natural Resources within the Resource Management Division, hoped to address at a Feb. 4 public meeting at Linger Lodge Restaurant and Bar to discuss the preserve’s future.

Vinson and Michael Elswick, Natural Resources Division manager with the same department, began their talk discussing wildfire management, explaining the preserve will need to use heavy machinery to clear paths of sorts — fire lines —that provide a break in the vegetation and will allow for safe controlled burns to avoid fire exclusion, which is when natural fire doesn’t occur at the natural intervals. Fire exclusion poses risks to nature and human development, Vinson said.

While some heavy equipment work will be necessary, in general the park will remain in its natural form with only a few amenities for the visiting public.

About 50 people attended the meeting, including River Club’s Phil and Pam Burghardt, who own land adjacent to the preserve. They attended to find more information about the future plans.

“We bought the property that we’re on about 12 years ago and we were excited because it was not developed,” Pam Burghardt said. “It was natural. You have all the natural critters that live there. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s private.”

Vinson said the main focus of the county is to preserve biodiversity in the area.

“What we are preserving is habitat for a lot of the species,” he said.

Besides the fire lines, topics of discussion included wildfire mitigation, invasive plant control and future amenities.

Elswick said one of the county’s concerns is invasive plant control. Namely, the county wants to control the invasive Brazilian pepper trees and cogon grass, which can strangle native flora.

 Elswick and Vinson said the county wants the first amenity to be a packed-shell trail that goes through the preserve from the Linger Lodge Road area on the west side of the preserve to the east side of the preserve near Clubhouse Drive. The county hopes to have that trail ready by this summer.

Other planned amenities include a parking lot near Clubhouse Drive, canoe and kayak launches, a pavilion and kiosk. Elswick and Vinson estimated that would be completed next fall.

While the Burghardts said they still had some lingering concerns over the potential of commercial boating services disturbing some of their privacy, they were impressed with the presentation.

“I’m pretty happy,” Phil Burghardt said.

Manatee County closed May 22 on its $3 million purchase of a 32.9-acre parcel from Myarra Property Joint Venture, which includes Neal Communities. The property had been targeted for development.

Instead, the parcel combined with 11.6 acres from the estate of Carl Bergstresser to form the new preserve.

The Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast raised $1,029,000 it gave to the county to go toward the purchase.