Miles away from everything, far from houses and farms, Mosaic decided to build an up-scale resort with award-winning golf courses as a showplace for reclaimed land potential. The result is Streamsong, a golf and spa resort on a 16,000 acre property near Fort Meade, Florida. The resort includes a 216-room hotel and two golf courses built on the site of a former phosphate strip mine. Fishing on various lakes and clay-shooting are also offered.
The image above shows the golf courses and the resort building on the left. The golf courses receive high ratings in the golfing world. Below is seen the building as it appears from the air, facing east.
Continuing northeast from the area southwest of Bartow, one passes over the developed areas of Wimauma, Sun City and Ruskin up to the Alafia River, the Riverview gypstacks and the huge, coal fired power station for Tampa Electric Company.
Sun City Florida
Big Bend Power Station is located on Big Bend Road on nearly 1,500 acres in southeastern Hillsborough County, close to Apollo Beach. It has four coal-fired units with a combined output of more than 1,700 megawatts. The first unit began service in 1970; the second and third generating units were added in 1973 and 1976, respectively; and Unit Four was added in 1985. A natural gas- and fuel oil-fired peaking unit was installed in 2009 to provide additional power during periods of peak demand.
In 2000, TECO Energy was fined $3.5 million for making changes to emissions producing facilities without installing new updated pollution controls. This led to the switch from coal to natural gas in one of its plants by 2004 and optimization of pollution controls in another. These changes were enacted to drastically cut emissions, notably sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.
Since 1998, TECO has invested $1.2 billion in improvements to the company’s systems, including the re-powering of the previously coal-fired Bayside Power Station to natural gas and the addition of pollution controls on a second, reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 91 percent and carbon dioxide levels by 20 percent from 1998 levels.
In spite of this, in a recent study in Florida, the top polluting power plant is Duke Energy’s Crystal River Plant, which is now retired. The second most polluting power plant is TECO’s Big Bend in Apollo Beach. (source, USFnews)
There is plenty of coal left at the TECO Big Bend Power Station
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-