Hello, all this truly needs your attention. Yet another waterway will be taken for the corporate rich at the expense of a small community.
Monica
Help Needed: Proposed Fish Farm Near Lake Swan
Posted by: “Karen Orr” thibeau48@bellsouth.net
Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:06 am (PST)
Y’all,
Do you have any references on fish farm pollution? Caviar in
Melrose/Keystone. I understand most of the Keystone Lakes are gone
because of the sand/gravel/ cement plants. Swan Lake is one of the
few remaining nice areas.
Any help you can give, any information you can share, would be
greatly appreciated.
Karen
———— ——— ——— ———
This is a commercial fish farm to raise sturgeon and harvest their
eggs to sell as caviar throughout the world. The firm is Canadian.
They have bought the land (32-40 acres) and are appying for the
permit to pump water. I went to the city council meeting in Keystone
Heights today to find out the details. They have ag zoning on the
property ( so they will not be taxed at a commercial rate). The
problem is the amount of water they will be pumping out of the
acquifer for the continued maintenance of their operation. It will
take 1.5 million to fill their tanks. They are applying to pump out
150,000-450, 000 gallons of water a day. The tanks of fish have to
have fresh water constantly pumped through. The water supposedly
gets “recirculated” but they don’t say how. The start out by
building buildings that house the fish tanks, adding buildings as
they add tanks. they will hire a total of 4-10 people, not clear
whether they will be local or not.
No conversation about traffic flow, trucks, etc.
The meeting I went to was about water use. The city of keystone if
filing a letter of protest against the project, as it could draw
down lake levels throughout the area. ANYONE who wants to send a
letter of protest must send it before December 15th to the St.
John’s Water management (maybe the address is in the paper, not
sure), so the city of Keystone was getting together to vote on
sending a letter. The city of Melrose does not have a board, but
individuals were writing their letters protesting a water permit to
allow a commercial project to draw this amount of water.
any further info can come from: Carl Buz Century 21 352-475-1269.
The attorney representing this company is Frank Fields-from Isaacs
Realty. He looked sheepish and guilty at the meeting. Not sure if he
owns the land or not that the company bought.
Write a letter soon if you want to save your lake !!!!!!
Please forward to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks, Brae
