South
Florida
Beef -
Forage
Program
"Article of the Month"
November 2005
The Lake Okeechobee Protection Program
Pat Miller, Okeechobee County Extension Dairy/Water Quality Agent
Do you live or operate a cattle operation in the Lake Okeechobee drainage basin? Have you been made aware
of the Lake Okeechobee Protection Program?
Back in April, 2000, I wrote an "article of the month" for this webpage speculating about where we in
agriculture were headed relative to the concern over phosphorus runoff into the lake and the apparent
regulation heading our way. At that time, we talked about the soon to be distributed BMP manual for
cattlemen developed by the Florida Cattlemen's Association and the soon to be developed stringent water
quality regulations. Both have happened.
This manual was a proactive effort by your cattle industry to "get a jump ahead" of regulations and
demonstrate the industry's true concern to be a part of the solution. I encouraged you then, and do
now, to obtain a copy if you have not and look it over. Everyone is doing BMPs in some form or other,
you just might not realize it. And you might find some suggestions that would not only reduce your runoff,
but improve your profitability. It behooves the industry, to document its efforts to address this issue,
and using and documenting the use of BMPs is a very favorable step toward that end.
So why bring it up again? Those of you who operate in the basin have another tool available to you to
document and establish BMPs you need to be aware of, if not already. It is called the Lake Okeechobee
Protection Program. What is it? It's a non regulatory, voluntary, incentive based program designed
to reduce phosphorus discharges to Lake Okeechobee. Essentially, the State of Florida has developed
this program to give producers an incentive to establish BMPs. The carrot is cost share.
For your participation you receive a conservation plan and any associated engineering for BMPs provided
at no cost to you. Cost share for eligible landowners can include 50% from USDA and 25% from FDACS.
Perhaps as importantly, another carrot is you receive a presumption of compliance with water quality
standards by establishing and maintaining your selected BMPs and keeping records.
The stick: Once monitoring for compliance begins, if you are not on record as having participated in
the program, you will be subject to monitoring and the expense of doing so will rest on your shoulders.
Producers in the basin need to be aware of the availability of this program, they need to understand
it and evaluate it for their own sake. At minimum, producers should either get a Cattlemen's BMP manual
and look it over to decide what they are already doing and get it documented, and what further they could
do, or maybe get it out again and review it and renew your efforts in documentation.
To learn more about the program, contact the FDACS Office of Agricultural Water Policy in Okeechobee at
863-462-5881.
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