WAFC Local News – March 06, 2026, 8:32 AM
Transcript
I’m Charles Murphy reporting. Governor Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet approved an easement of four parcels of land that cover nearly 11,000 acres along the Caloosahatchee-Big Cypress Corridor in Hendry and Collier Counties. The lands will connect the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and the Big Cypress National Preserve to Dinner Island Wildlife Management Area. The properties are the Catherine Island property of 5,024 acres and the Oka-Lakotse Slough property of 5,972 acres. Clades County’s Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Beth Barfield, says they need help for their high school track program this spring. She noted they have fiscal constraints, as many small counties do. Since there is no local track meet scheduled this year in Moorhaven, there is no opportunity to raise funding. The funds are donated from businesses and private individuals. They can use it for transportation, for track team meets, registration requirements and jerseys. She says all sports need revenue to survive. This year we do not have a home track meet and therefore the revenue that is generated from those home track meets is way down, obviously. If there’s no track meet, there’s no incoming money. So that program is looking for donations. We’re looking for anyone that wants to contribute to that program to help our student athletes. South Florida’s extreme drought is the worst in 25 years, with minimal relief from recent rains. Karen Curtis reports. The South Florida Water Management District Board of Governors hearing from Ryan Rossi with the Water Management Coalition, talking about the state’s shrinking water supply. We’ve got 7.5 million people that live in South Florida. We simply cannot be in a situation every year, as I’ve said many times before, where we potentially need a tropical storm to fix some of these water supply issues. South Florida’s extreme drought is expected to persist until June, when the hurricane season begins. The district has issued water shortage warnings for parts of South Florida, including Miami-Dade County. Karen Curtis, Miami. Glades Region Fire Chief Geraldine Jaramillo told Belgrade City officials to obey the ban on outdoor burning. She wants residents to be very careful because conditions are dangerous and are getting worse. There is a burn ban, like serious burn ban. We have a dry out right now and we plead with the community to please abstain themselves from doing any type of burn. She says only agriculture burns are currently allowed in the Glades. A large housing project in Glades County is moving forward. The lakefront estate currently has 525 acres. The developer has a contract with 125 acres adjacent to the property and 900 acres across the street. Yadel Perlstein predicts it will bring in a lot of jobs for this area. Commercial jobs coming to Tolke Chobi, originally we believed this was going to bring a few thousand jobs. They’ve asked for a $5 million grant from the state. Adam Deutch says the Commerce Department is supportive. That the project is going to create about 2,000 permanent jobs, which we do believe. And this is just the first phase of the project. We own another 160 acres and we’re in contract for another 900 acres neighboring this property. So we do believe that it’s going to be a tremendous number of jobs. I’m Charles Murphy, WAFC News.
Recorded from the WAFC daily newscast (Glades Media).