Update 2025-04-02: Update Rock Bluff Management Plan, renew Woods Ferry River Camp lease agreement @ SRWMD 2025-04-08.

Update 2025-03-29: See also Florida buys Hardee Spring on the Withlacoochee River.

Why not buy the riverfront property?

It’s easy to see why SRWMD would want the Riverview Farms tract: it’s between two Twin Rivers State Forest tracts on the Withlacoochee River in Madison County and directly across from another in Hamilton County.

SRWMD Land Swap: Gopher tortoises for riverfront, Ellaville Tract for Riverview Farms, Why not buy Riverview Farms?

And SRWMD is offering to trade is not riverfront property; it’s the back of the Ellaville Tract. But it still has gopher tortoises on it: a keystone species that harbors up to 300 other species in its burrows.

If you want to stop this land swap, here’s a petition to sign:
https://act.audubon.org/a/ellaville

And call or write your SRWMD Board member and show up at their next meeting.
https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com/133/Governing-Board

Larry Sessions represents the Upper Suwannee Basin, including both these tracts. Harry Smith and Charles Keith are at large. Chair Virginia H. Johns has to consider the entire District.

Even better, if you know grasstops who have the ear of that Board, such as timber company Rayonier and cattle company Lukes Brothers, ask them to contact the Board.

Craig Pittman called gopher tortoise burrows “Nature’s Condo,” in Florida Phoenix, March 27, 2025, Peanut farmer wants Florida water agency to swap forest land: The Twin Rivers State Forest property is full of gopher tortoises and other imperiled species,

Now the tortoises save scores of other imperiled species from certain doom. Their burrows — up to 40 feet long and 18 feet deep — provide a secluded place to live for about 300 kinds of animals, many of them classified as endangered or threatened. Think of these burrows as nature’s condo.

The Ellaville Tract of the Twin Rivers State Forest holds hundreds of gopher tortoise burrows like this one, along with white tail deer and other wildlife. (Photo courtesy of Katherine Sayler of Defenders of Wildlife)

Unfortunately, the sandy soil where the gophers live is the preferred habitat of a predatory species, the Florida developer.

For 16 years, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allowed developers to write a check to the state and then run their bulldozers right over the tortoise burrows, sealing up all the wildlife inside to die.

…

Now the developers are required to get permits to move the gophers before they start construction. This has produced a variety of new problems ranging from the spread of illness among the tortoises to developers who don’t bother to get a permit.

…

The director of Nokuse, Matt Aresco, told me that the state forest property that water district officials want to trade away is an important spot for both gopher tortoises and their frequent tenants, indigo snakes.

SRWMD exchange as part of Ellaville Tract
PDF

Aresco sent me a copy of a 2017 study by the state wildlife commission that found some 440 tortoises on the state forest land. That means it’s like the tortoise equivalent of downtown Tampa.

“For a relatively small property, I’d say 440 tortoises is … a lot of animals,” said Jeffrey Goessling, an Eckerd College biology professor who’s an expert on gopher tortoises and sits on the advocacy group Gopher Tortoise Council.

Craig Pittman details what happened when a different peanut farmer wanted this part of the Ellaville Tract back in 2012. Apparently that deal died because opponents got grasstops such as timber company Rayonier and cattle company Lukes Brothers to talk to the SRWMD Board members. “The savvy environmentalists pointed out to them that the loss of so many gophers on the Ellaville Tract would likely result in even more pressure for the remaining landowners to keep their own gopher populations intact.”

This time, SRWMD’s Lands Committee voted on March 11, 2025, to enter negotiations, for a vote at a later date by the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) Board.

Authorize negotiations with Lee Peanut Farms, LLC for the exchange of the District’s Ellaville Tract for Riverview Farms in Madison County
PDF

SUWANNEE RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT
MEMORANDUM

TO:	Lands Committee
FROM:	Katelyn Potter, Director, Division of Outreach and Operations
THRU:	Hugh Thomas, Executive Director
DATE:	February 18, 2025
RE:	Negotiations for the Ellaville Tract – Riverview Farms Exchange, Madison County

RECOMMENDATION

Authorize negotiations with Lee Peanut Farms, LLC for the exchange of the District’s Ellaville Tract for Riverview Farms in Madison County, in whole or in part to equalize values.

BACKGROUND

In February 2025, received an offer from Lee Peanut Farms, LLC for the exchange of 696 +/- acres of the District’s Ellaville Tract in Madison County for 548 +/- acres of Riverview Farms in Madison County.

Riverview Farms is located along the Withlacoochee River, with 1.3 miles of river frontage, 263 acres in the floodway, and 434 within the 10-year floodplain. The property is adjacent to the District’s Westwood West Tract (to the north) and Withlacoochee Quail Farms Tract (to the south). The property contains a third-magnitude spring known as Stuart Spring. Portions of the exchange property contain mature longleaf pine stands with well-established wiregrass communities. The property is included in the District’s Five-Year Land Acquisition Workplan and Florida Forever Plan, valued for is extensive floodplain, connectivity to existing District lands, and natural communities.

The District’s Ellaville parcels were purchased on December 01, 1988, using Water Management Land Trust funds. The property is part of Twin Rivers State Forest and managed by the Florida Forest Service. The tract suffered significant damage from Hurricane Idalia and all merchantable slash pine timber has been harvested, leaving only 306 acres of merchantable longleaf pine. In 2012, the property was identified and declared surplus by the Governing Board in Resolution 2012-69. The property was removed from monthly reports to the Governing Board but has retained its surplus designation.

The parcels for exchange include portions of 22-1S-11-1551 and 15-1S-11-1529 of District property and portions of 24-2N-10-3027 and 19-2N-11-6241 of the Riverview Farms. Final acreage for the exchange will be determined by the appraised value and used to equalize values on each property, as permitted by 373.089(4), Florida Statues.

The proposed exchange was reviewed by Land Acquisition and Surplus Team and formally recommended to proceed on February 13, 2025.

Staff requests the Lands Committee authorize negotiations with Lee Peanut Farms, LLC for the exchange of the District’s Ellaville property and Riverview Farms in Madison County.

Copies of a triage and summary map of both properties is included.

KCP/ao
Attachments

It’s not clear what Lee Peanut Farms LLC would want for the Riverview property, but that may become clear in the swap negotiations.

One issue is that back in 2012 the SRWMD Board declared the subject part of the Ellaville as surplus. As Craig Pittman points out, they need to fix that.

Map: Ellaville Tract
in the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT)

Where is Riverview Farms? Downstream from Sullivan Launch, before Hardee Spring, about halfway to Madison Blue Springs, highlighted on this map.

Map: Big Context Riverview –WLRWT

WWALS has paddled by there several times, for example July 15, 2023.
https://wwals.net/?p=62938

Movie: Left or right?, 2023-07-15, (36M) 30.5632940, -83.2573070

House on the bluff, 2023-07-15, 11:48:43, 30.5573130, -83.2599485

Movie: Seventh rapids; Foxglove Shoals, 2023-07-25, 11:48:45, (35M) 30.5573130, -83.2599485

The Ellaville Tract is down almost to the Suwannee River.

Max Chesnes, Tampa Bay Times, March 19, 2025, This land swap would give 700 acres of North Florida state forest to peanut farm: Wildlife groups say the Twin Rivers State Forest land is home to gopher tortoises and imperiled species. ,

In a move that has alarmed wildlife advocacy groups, state water managers are considering a land swap that would give nearly 700 acres of North Florida state forest land to a neighboring peanut farming company.

The proposal comes more than a decade after a separate peanut operation sought the same swath of Madison County land within the Twin Rivers State Forest — dubbed the Ellaville Tract — in a similar trade offer.

But that deal never went through: Citing the risk to endangered species on the property, and a bustling gopher tortoise population, federal wildlife biologists urged state leaders at the time to keep the land for conservation.

“If the land being swapped is developed or unmanaged in the future, it will erode protection of several imperiled species,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote in a December 2012 email.

Today, the land’s owners, the Suwannee River Water Management District, say the Ellaville Tract was hit hard by Hurricane Idalia and, if it weren’t for a packaged land deal nearly four decades ago, it’s not the type of land the group would typically acquire.

In exchange for the state forest land, the district would receive roughly 550 acres of Lee Peanut Farms LLC’s farmland along the Withlacoochee River, a waterway that officials say gives the property “significantly higher” value than the high-and-dry state forest uplands being traded away.

…

Four days before the committee’s decision, Katherine Sayler hiked the state forest that could soon be traded.

Sayler, a biologist and Southeast representative with the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, said she and Florida Forest Service staff saw “really clear evidence” of a flourishing habitat: active gopher tortoise burrows a few dozen feet apart, deer tracks, woodpeckers and more.

Even in parts of the property where harvested slash pines were reduced to stumps, Sayler found burrows with signs that tannish-brown tortoises lived inside. Large longleaf pines, remnants of a habitat that once dominated America’s southeastern coastal plains, stretch across 300 acres of the Ellaville Tract.

“This is a very unique ecosystem with tall, beautiful trees,” Sayler said in an interview.

After her hike, Sayler took her observations to the land committee on March 11. As the officials gathered to discuss the land swap, she outlined what she saw on the state forest property: healthy wiregrass beds, longleaf pines and markings in front of burrows where the underside of tortoise shells rubbed against the sandy ground.

“The district has not demonstrated that this parcel no longer has conservation value,” she told them.

The District’s argument includes, according to Tampa Bay Times story:

A spokesperson for the district, Troy Roberts, said the land owned by Lee Peanut Farms has more than 400 acres within the floodplain and stretches for more than a mile alongside the Withlacoochee River — all important features for water managers.

The property also has a spring, called Stuart Spring, that discharges more than 650,000 gallons of water daily, Roberts said. The land has mature longleaf pine trees and healthy wiregrass. It also would connect to other lands owned by the district.

Riverview Farms Property Offer Springs Protection
PDF

Apparently that Stuart Spring is inland and not the same as HAM54012 at the southeast (downstream) corner of the Riverview Tract in this map, at 30.552468 -83.260262. SRWMD defines third magnitude as “Flow Rate in Million Gallons Per Day (MGD)” of “Greater than or equal to 0.646 MGD, up to 6.46 MGD.” 0.646 MGD is 646,000 gallons per day, which rounded up is 650,000.

So Stuart Spring is apparently also a third magnitude spring.

Map: Riverview Farms Withlacoochee River
in the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).

But there are more reasons to keep the Ellaville Tract land, according to the Tampa Bay Times story:

In a letter dated March 10, a top official with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission outlined to the head of the Suwannee River water management board how the state forest land is important for Florida wildlife species.

“The Ellaville Tract is ecologically significant” because it’s habitat for species like swallow-tailed kites, kestrels, eastern indigo snakes, gopher frogs, fox squirrels and the Florida black bear, wrote Jennifer Goff, head of the state’s species conservation division.

“Also of note, previous (wildlife staff) observations on the Ellaville Tract indicate that the tract supports a large, viable population of gopher tortoises,” Goff wrote.

The state led a gopher tortoise population count in April 2017, when they found as many as 440 tortoises on the state forest land, according to Goff.

There are more images below.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

SRWMD March Lands Package

Agenda, SRWMD Lands Committee, 2025-03-11
PDF

MEMORANDUM: Negotiations for the Ellaville Tract – Riverview Farms Exchange, Madison County RECOMMENDATION

Authorize negotiations with Lee Peanut Farms, LLC for the exchange of the District’s Ellaville Tract for Riverview Farms in Madison County
PDF

SRWMD Property Offer

SRWMD exchange as part of Ellaville Tract
PDF

River View Farms Property Offer

Riverview Farms Property Offer, Madison County
PDF

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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