Some people believe that when a parcel of land doesn’t have tall buildings on it or other dense uses, it should be pure and pristine and the way that God intended.
That is usually not true. And that is particularly untrue of the property known as the Kanner PUD. The Kanner PUD was an old farm where tons of debris were strewn and buried. Perhaps today farmers are good shepherds of their land, but that is a recent phenomenon. For years, farmers would throw their old machinery, garbage, and chemicals in unused sections of their property. They didn’t care that those chemicals would leach into the ground water and pollute. Perhaps, at an earlier time, they didn’t even know about such things.
More recently after farming on that parcel ceased, others who owned the property didn’t seem to care about rusting cars with crank cases full of oil, gas tanks with fuel, or other old machinery strewn about that had been improperly dumped there. Some with the loudest voices against building the Costco PUD are those whose relatives made a fortune by selling off the land but felt no compunction at not having cleaned it up to be good shepherds to our birds and animals.
This “range” is not full of antelope and deer that play. The Kanner PUD has been used as a dump and, as the pictures show, they even discarded things into the wetlands and supposed ponds. Most of those ponds were dug by the “farmer in the dell” not to attract native species but to drain the land and hold the water for irrigation. There are 130 slides showing the degradation to that property. It will all be cleaned up before the PUD is built but isn’t it a shame that it is not in the pristine state claimed.
Let’s not have a holier than thou attitude toward this mess which was created by the past owners and not the present ones. There is no good stewardship by anyone except the current owners. You look at the photos and you decide. Pristine Florida prairie or exotic toxic dump? Don’t be fooled by silly platitudes.
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We need to move on and have actual people living there and businesses operating. This is an urban area, and the land is owned by a responsible party that, rightfully, wants to make a profit. After all the additional money they will have to spend on this “Garden of Eden,” they are entitled to it.
Please carefully look at all 130 photos received through a public records request which are attached. It is important that we all understand what is at stake. Don’t be fooled by a group of people who want to prevent a cleanup because they want you to believe that there is only goodness and light on the property now.
You can find the photos here. It had to be in four files because of the amount of detail: