Santa Rosa celebrates protection of 400+ acres for preservation, recreation
Santa Rosa County's commissioners don't always look like they're having a whole lot of fun together when facing the public in the meeting room at the county's Administration Building in Milton.
But get three of them on canoes for a short weekday trip down Big Coldwater Creek and you've got smiles all around.
Those commissioners, a few folks representing nearby Whiting Field, a rag tag pack of media members and the men and women of the Trust for Public Lands spent a couple of leisurely hours Thursday paddling the creek to celebrate the conservation of precious woodlands acreage.
"Sometimes you need to take a breath and enjoy the outdoors and the fruit of your work and say thanks to the people getting it done," said Doug Hattaway, the Trust for Public Lands Southeast Land Conservation Director.
Since 1974, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land has dedicated itself to purchasing private land and turning it over to entities like Blackwater River State Park to manage it in perpetuity.
In the last 10 years, the Trust for Public Land has helped protect and conserve over 13,000 acres of land in the Wolfe Creek Forest and Blackwater River State Forest. Its most recently brokered deal allowed Santa Rosa County in January to enter a purchase agreement to obtain 435 acres of woodland property just to the west of Whiting Field that will be protected and utilized for passive recreation.
"When we buy the land we don't intend to own it forever. We bring both private and public funds to the table," Hattaway said.
By acting as a principal in the purchase of land, the Trust For Public Land assumes the risks of ownership along with the costs of buying, holding and selling the land it gets, a news release from the organization said.
"We can move quickly in the marketplace," it said. "We may option a property or assume ownership until the agency obtains the resources to acquire it, or until environmental cleanup or other issues have been resolved."
In North Santa Rosa County, one of the primary focuses of buying up land to preserve it serves the secondary but equally important function of building a buffer between residential development and Naval Air Station Whiting Field, where military helicopter and fixed wing aircraft training take place nearly round the clock.
Clear Creek runs through the Pace-area property and its prominent feature is a 37-acre natural lake.
The county actually got the property for nothing. The Navy put $1.5 million in Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration funds into the land acquisition and another $1.5 million came from a state defense infrastructure grant.
Following the January purchase of the 435 acres, Randy Roy, Whiting Field's community liaison to Santa Rosa County, estimated that about $45 million has been invested since 2005 to purchase the thousands of acres around Whiting Field that have made its relationship with the county "the gold standard in community outreach and collaboration."
"They are the best at base buffering initiatives," Roy, who also made Thursday's canoe trip, said. "When the Department of Defense looks out across the playing field, Santa Rosa is the one they point to."
County Commission Chairman Sam Parker, who attended a gathering ahead of the canoe trip but did not make the voyage as commissioners Colten Wright, Kerry Smith and Ray Eddington did, pointed out that the area around Whiting Field is not the only section of Santa Rosa County that benefits due to the work of the Trust for Public Land.
He pointed to the county's 2023 purchase of 545 acres, most of it along the East Bay River, that will forever act as a sanctuary for threatened and endangered species and a natural setting for quiet walks through the woods.
Related: Santa Rosa buys 545 acres to preserve salamander habitat and offer recreational options
In that deal three parcels, two large ones along the river and a third one adjoining the Navarre Soccer Complex, were obtained using a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The purchase was termed, in government speak, "the Creets Landing Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander: East Bay River Preserve land acquisition."
The Trust for Public Land is in the midst of brokering another deal to further buffer Whiting Field and also provide passive recreational opportunities to Santa Rosa County residents. Hattaway said another 102 acres that touch on Big Coldwater Creek is destined to become the latest addition to Blackwater River State Forest.
The Thursday canoe trip was sponsored by Adventures Unlimited, whose crews insured that the 50 or so canoers and kayakers got in and out of the water safely.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Trust for Public Land celebrates conservation in Santa Rosa County