Millhopper Flatwoods

Rapid Ecological Project Assessment

Alachua County Forever

 

Draft Date:                             February 16, 2003

Matrix Score:                         6.98 of 9.44

Size:                                        1,732 acres

Number of parcels:                13

Number of owners:                11

Number of buildings: 8

 

Location/Description:

            The 1,732 acre Millhopper Flatwoods (MHF) Project is one of two remaining wildlife corridors that may prevent San Felasco Hammock State Park (SFH) from becoming a habitat island.  The project area extends from the southeast corner of San Felasco Hammock State Park (SFH) to US 441 across from the Hague Flatwoods.  From the Hague Flatwoods there are two possible connections to the Santa Fe River, either through the Murphree Wellfield and Northeast Flatwoods, or up Rocky Creek, Map 1.  Existing and proposed single family residential development and the necessity for wildlife to cross US 441 has greatly decreased the viability of this option as a high quality wildlife corridor for many species.  

On a smaller scale the project would preserve the connection between SFH and Blues Creek, San Felasco County Park and the Devil’s Millhopper State Park.

            Approximately 934 acres of the MHF project area, known as the Weiss tract, is within the City of Gainesville.  There is a development proposal on 215 acres of this property.  If approved, it would allow 415 single family residential units.  The remaining 798 acres of the project area are in unincorporated Alachua County. 

The Blues Creek Ravine (06025-000-000, 06025-001-000) and Fox Pond (06032-000-000) parcels were placed on the Active Acquisition list by the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners after being recommended by the Land Conservation Board (LCB). 

            The Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT), a private non-profit land trust active in Alachua County, and the Trust For Public Lands, a national non-profit land trust, successfully received Florida Communities Trust funding for the acquisition of the above parcels. The Blues Creek Ravine parcels have been successfully acquired and the County is working with the ACT to determine if it is feasible for the county to take over management of the property.  One issue that must be resolved is a viable access location for Blues Creek Ravine that is acceptable to the neighbors.  Alachua County Forever and ACT staff have been working with the University of Florida to obtain a lease from the State for an access area on the south side of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) property.  The University is willing to enter into an agreement with the county, but is requiring that the county take over maintenance of NW 71st Street.  Because this would be prohibitively expensive, staff is pursuing other options.  Another option is to access the property via Millhopper Road through the acquisition of either the Smith or Yeomans property.  Staff believes that obtaining viable access to ACT’s Blues Creek Ravine tract must be a precursor to the County committing to the management of the site.

The Fox Pond parcel is on the San Felasco Hammock State Park, Acquisitions and Inholdings List.  The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Recreation and Parks (DEP) representatives wish to purchase Fox Pond with Acquisitions and Inholdings funds, so it can be managed as a part of SFH.  They are also actively pursuing the acquisition of the adjacent Winters property. 

The MHF project is a combination of two projects from the Alachua County Ecological Inventory Project (KBN Study); Fox Pond and Millhopper Flatwoods, KBN 1996.  The purpose of the KBN Study was to identify, inventory, map, describe, and evaluate the most significant natural biological communities, both upland and wetland, that remain in private ownership in Alachua County and make recommendations for protecting these natural resources, KBN 1996.  The Fox Pond project was ranked 5th of 47 projects evaluated in the county, and categorized as high, and the Millhopper Flatwoods project was ranked 23rd  and categorized as average, KBN, 1996.

The KBN Study summarized the Fox Pond Project by stating, “This is a small area of high quality, mature, mesic hammock forest that has three sinkhole ponds, a seepage creek, and a Spanish mission archeological site.  It is also a connector between San Felasco Hammock State Preserve and the wetlands in the Millhopper Flatwoods area to the east”, KBN 1996.

 The Millhopper Flatwoods project was described as follows, “This is a diverse area of relatively mature and undisturbed forest within a rapidly urbanizing part of the county. The pine flatwoods is natural second growth forest that has had no site preparation work such as bedding, but has also lacked fire for several decades. The swamps and hammock areas are mostly in good conditions. The area provides much of the headwaters area for Blues Creek, which flows into San Felasco State Preserve”, KBN 1996.

Protecting Water Resources:

Fifty percent of the MHF site is located in the confined aquifer zone of Alachua County, and the remaining 50% is located in the perforated zone.  The confined aquifer zone is defined by Macesich as a zone of relative aquifer confinement that stretches from north-central Alachua County southeastward comprising most of the eastern half of the county.  It is a region of higher elevations underlain by at least 10 feet of clays or clayey sands of the Hawthorn Formation which form an aquiclude to the Floridan Aquifer System.  The perforated zone is an area underlain by clays of the Hawthorn Group perforated by numerous karst features that allow direct access to the aquifer, Macesich, 1988.

According to the St. Johns River Water Management District’s Aquifer Recharge Map for Alachua County, 100% of the MHF project exists in a high aquifer recharge area where 12 inches or more of water is recharged to the aquifer on a yearly basis.  According to Aucott 1988, the project is located in an area where greater than 10 inches of water per year is recharged to the aquifer.

Approximately 47% of the MHF project is wetlands, contains hydric soils, or falls within the FEMA 100 or 500 year flood hazard zone.

“This is an area where the Hawthorne Formation is getting thin, but still provides enough of an aquiclude to support a perched water table and stream formation.  The area is the headwaters of Blues Creek, which flows through the Fox Pond area and into San Felasco Hammock, where it goes into a swallow hole and into the Floridan Aquifer in the Big Otter Ravine”, KBN 1996.  “Fox Pond is made of two adjacent sinkholes, and there are two more ponds, each consisting of one sinkhole.  Each of the sinkholes is approximately 5 acres in area at the surface, and is filled to the surface with water.  All of the water here enters the Floridan Aquifer.  The sinkhole ponds overflow into Blues Creek, which crosses the property”, KBN 1996.

Protecting Natural Communities and Landscapes:

Natural Communities

Wet Flatwoods

Mesic Flatwoods

Bog

Baygall

Upland Mixed Forest

Upland Pine Forest

Basin Marsh

Bottomland Forest

Depression Marsh

Basin Swamp

Shrub Swamp

Dome Swamp

Sinkhole Pond

Seepage Stream

Other

Old Field Pine Plantation

Rough Pasture

Improved Pasture

Farm Pond

Low Density Development

The above list of natural communities is from the KBN Study, KBN, 1996.  The quality of the natural communities ranges from fair to excellent, KBN, 1996. 

Eighty-seven percent of the project site is within the Florida Ecological Greenways Network (FEGN) un-named priority 6 project area.  This greenway connects San Felasco Hammock State Park to the Santa Fe River via Hague Flatwoods, Murphree Well field Conservation Area and the Northeast Flatwoods.  The Florida Ecological Greenways Network is a decision support model to help identify the best opportunities to protect ecological connectivity statewide.  It was developed by the University of Florida for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  GIS data on land use and significant ecological areas were integrated in a process that identified a statewide Ecological Greenways Network containing all of the largest areas of ecological and natural resource significance and the landscape linkages necessary to link these areas together in one functional statewide network, Hoctor et al., 2002. 

The MHF project is one of two possible wildlife corridors that could connect San Felasco Hammock State Park to the Santa Fe River, thus avoiding the biological isolation of the Park.  The key acquisition to make this connection viable is the Weiss property.  However, there is a development proposal on 215 acres of the 934 acre Weiss Property.  This residential development proposal would allow 415 residential units and preserve the wetlands but not the corridor.  Even if the Weiss property was acquired or protected, the density of existing residential development and the lack of a viable wildlife passage across US 441 are major obstacles to the viability of this corridor. 

There are no Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas within the MHF project area. Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas were developed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC).  They are private lands containing habitats critical to the continued survival of populations of inadequately protected plants and animals, Cox et al. 2000.  These lands are essential to providing some of state’s rarest animals, plants, and natural communities with the land base necessary to sustain populations into the future, Cox et al.,1994. 

Ninety-five percent of the site is within the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) priority 5 Habitat Conservation Priorities.  FNAI’s Habitat Conservation Priorities prioritize places on the landscape that would protect both the greatest number of rare species and those species with the greatest conservation need, Florida Natural Areas Inventory, June 2001.

Twenty- eight percent of the MHF project is delineated by FNAI as either pine flatwoods (18%) or upland hardwood forest (10%) Under-represented Natural Communities.  FNAI Under-represented Natural Communities are those natural community types that were inadequately represented on conservation lands in Florida.  A natural community is considered to be inadequately represented if less than 15% of the original extent of that community is currently found on existing conservation lands.  Under-represented natural communities include, seepage slope, upland hardwood forest, pine rockland, tropical hardwood hammock, sandhill, scrub, upland glades, and pine flatwoods. This data was developed by the Office of Environmental Services, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and FNAI, FNAI, December 2001.

Protecting Plant and Animal Species:

Common Name                     Endemic/ Large                   Fed/State               FCREPA/FNAI             Observed

                                                Home-Range                         Status                    Designation

Amphibians

Flatwoods Salamander                        -/-                            T/-                           R/S2S3                                   SM

Gopher Frog                                          -/-                            -/SSC                      T/S3                                        SM

Striped Newt                                         -/-                            -/-                            R/S2S3                                   SM

Reptiles

American Alligator                              -/-                            T/SSC                     -/S4                                         SM,K

Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake    -/-                            -/-                            -/S3                                         SM

Eastern Indigo Snake                          -/-                            T/T                         SSC/S3                                   SM,K

Florida Box Turtle                                X/-                          -/-                            -/-                                            K

Florida Crowned Snake                       X/-                          -/-                            -/-                                            SM

Florida Pine Snake                               -/-                            -/SSC                      SU/S3                                     SM,N

Gopher Tortoise                                   -/-                            -/SSC                      T/S3                                        F

Peninsula Mole Skink                          -/-                            -/-                            -/-                                            SM

Short-tailed Snake                                X/-                          -/T                           T/S3                                        SM,N

Spotted Turtle                                      -/-                            -/-                            R/S3?                                      SM

Birds

Cooper’s Hawk                                     -/-                            -/-                            SSC/S3                                   SM

Little Blue Heron                                  -/-                            -/SSC                      SSC/S4                                   SM,K

Snowy Egret                                         -/-                            -/SSC                      SSC/S3                                   SM,K

Swallow-tailed Kite                              -/L                           -/-                            T/S2                                        F,K

Wild Turkey                                          -/L                                                                                                           F

Wood Stork                                          -/-                            E/E                          E/S2                                        SM

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron            -/-                            -/-                            SSC/S3?                                 SM

Mammals

Bobcat                                                   -/L                           -/-                            -/-                                            F

Florida Black Bear                                X/L                         -/T                           T/S2                                        F

Northern Yellow Bat                            -/-                            -/-                            SU/-                                        SM

Sherman’s Fox Squirrel                       -/-                            -/SSC                      T/S3                                        F

X= Endemic, L=species with large home ranges according to the Closing the Gaps in Florida’s Wildlife Habitat System, S= observed by Alachua Co. EPD staff and/or an LCB subcommittee member, SM= documented on the Species Models maps created by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, F= Focal species used for the most detailed analyses in the Closing the Gaps in Florida’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation System, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, 1994, N= Florida Natural Areas Inventory Element Occurrence, P= potential for species based on habitat types, K=documented in the Alachua County Ecological Inventory Project.

Listed plants found on the property according to the Alachua County Ecological Inventory Project include needle palms, royal fern, cinnamon fern, and greenfly orchid.  Staff observed southern lady fern and angularfruit milkvine in addition to the above mentioned species.

Exotic plants found on this property include: Chinese tallow trees, two species of exotic bamboo, water hyacinth, alligator weed, air potato, cogon grass, wisteria and English ivy.

The FFWCC 2001 bald eagle nest data shows no bald eagle nests on the MHF site, and one nest in San Felasco Hammock State Park, approximately 1.5 miles from the project area.

Approximately 73% of the site is within Regional Biodiversity Hotspots. The purpose of the Regional Biodiversity Hot Spots maps, developed by FFWCC, is to “convey more detailed information on the known locations of as many components of biological diversity as possible, regardless of whether or not they fall within proposed Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas, to help meet the need for conservation information at regional and local levels”, Cox et al., 1994.

Achieving Social and Human Values:

About 63% of the MHF site is a Priority 1-5 Natural Resource-based Recreation Area, Knight, et al. 2000, and about 87% is a priority 6 Ecological Greenway.  The Natural Resource-based Recreation map was developed by FNAI in collaboration with DEP, FFWCC and the Florida Division of Forestry.  The recreation potential of a site depends on available road access, presence of a water body or beach, proximity to urban areas, and size of the site.  “These criteria were applied to Potential Natural Areas delineated by FNAI using aerial photography and revised using the 1995 Water Management District land cover data. Sites were ranked by recreation potential.” Knight, et al. 2000. 

The MHF Project is part of the Emerald Necklace Land Conservation Initiative - “a publicly accessible, connected, and protected network of trails, greenways, open space, and waterfronts surrounding the Gainesville urban area”. 

The MHF project is an easily accessible urban natural area located in a residential area.  Its aesthetic appeal and easy access would make it a popular nature based recreation destination that would enhance the complex of natural resource parks in the vicinity.

Management:

            “The hammock and swamp areas will continue to mature and improve in quality if left alone, provided some of the exotic plants are eradicated.  The pine flatwoods areas need a program of prescribed fire if they are to become good wildlife habitat or are going to support the many wildflowers and other herbaceous plants that normally grow in healthy pine flatwoods habitats.  It would be difficult to burn here due to the large subdivisions on both the north and south sides and US 441 on the west side of the pine flatwoods area.  Therefore, the long term viability of this community is doubtful.  Management alternatives to burning, such as chopping or mowing, have been proposed and tried, but they have not been shown to be viable for long term management in the complete absence of fire.  The wetlands here have been drained somewhat by recent development activities (as evidenced by new ditches connected to isolated wetlands)”, KBN 1996.

Economic & Acquisition:

There are 13 parcels and 11 ownerships in the 1,732 acre MHF Project.  The property appraiser shows 8 buildings on their parcel database.  The Alachua County Property Appraisers 2002 Just Value (land value) for the entire project is $7,627,400 or $4,404/ acre. The ACPA’s total value (Just, Miscellaneous and Buildings) for the project area is $9,292,700 or 5,365/acre.  These figures are for comparative purposes between nominated properties, and are not necessarily an accurate reflection of the true cost of the property if acquired by the Alachua County Forever Program. 

            The Blues Creek Ravine (06025-000-000, 06025-001-000) and Fox Pond (06032-000-000) parcels were placed on the Active Acquisition list by the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners after being recommended by the Land Conservation Board (LCB).  The Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT), and the Trust For Public Lands successfully received Florida Communities Trust funding for the acquisition of the Blues Creek Ravine and Fox Pond parcels.  The Blues Creek Ravine parcels have been successfully acquired and the County is working with ACT to determine if it is feasible for the county to take over management of the property.  One issue that must be resolved is a viable access location for Blues Creek Ravine that is acceptable to the neighbors.  ACF and ACT staff have been working with the University of Florida to obtain a lease from the State for an access area on the south side of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) property.  The University is willing to enter into an agreement with the county, but is requiring that the county take over maintenance of NW 71 Street.  Because this would be prohibitively expensive for the county, staff is pursuing other options.  The next most viable option is to access the property via Millhopper Road through the acquisition of either the Smith (06027-032-000) or Yeomans (06029-000-000) property.  Obtaining viable access to the Blues Creek Ravine tract should be a priority; therefore the University of Florida IFAS, Smith and Yeomans properties should be keystone parcels. 

The Fox Pond parcel is on the San Felasco Hammock State Park, Acquisitions and Inholdings List.  The Florida Department of Environmental Resources, Division of Recreation and Parks (DEP) representatives wish to purchase Fox Pond with Acquisitions and Inholdings funds, so they can manage it as a part of SFH.  They are also actively pursuing the acquisition of the Winters property.  The Winters property connects SFH to the Fox Pond property and should be considered a keystone parcel to allow the county the ability to assist the state with the acquisition of the property, if it becomes necessary.

            The Weiss tract should be considered a keystone property because it is the largest undeveloped tract in the project, provides the connection to the Hague Flatwoods, and contains the headwaters for Blues Creek Ravine.

The Keystone parcels are listed below and shown on Map 2:

            UF IFAS          524 acres         06005-000-000

Smith                ~2.9 acres        06027-032-000

Yeomans          4.84 acres        06029-000-000

Weiss               582 acres         06010-000-000

                        79 acres           06009-000-000

                        132 acres         06013-000-000

                        137 acres         06006-003-000

Winters            16 acres           06001-003-000

            Fifty-four percent of the project area is within the City of Gainesville and the remaining 46% is in unincorporated Alachua County.  Sixty-nine percent of the project area falls within the Single Family Residential Zoning and Future Land Use and the remaining 31% (IFAS & Winters) falls in the Agricultural Zoning designation and the Preservation Future Land Use.  This area is seen as very desirable for high-end residential development and is under substantial development pressure.

Literature Citations

Aucott, W. 1988. Water Resources Investigation Report 88-4057. USGS.

 

Cox, J., R. Kautz, M. MacLaughlin, and T. Gilbert. 1994.  Closing the Gaps in Florida’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation System, Office of Environmental Services, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee, Florida.

 

Cox, J. and R. Kautz. 2000. Habitat Conservation Needs of Rare and Imperiled Wildlife in Florida. Office of Environmental Services, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Tallahassee, Florida.

 

Florida Natural Areas Inventory. June 2001. Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment Technical Report

 

Hoctor, T.S., J. Teisinger, M.G. Carr., P.C, Zwick. 2002. Identification of Critical Linkages Within the Florida Ecological Greenways Network. Final Report. Office of Greenways and Trails, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Tallahassee, FL.

 

Knight, G., A. Knight, and J. Oetting. 2000. Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment Summary Report to the Florida Forever Advisory council. Florida Natural Areas Inventory.

 

KBN, A Golder Associates Company. 1996. Alachua County Ecological Inventory Project. Prepared for Alachua County Department of Growth Management, Gainesville, Florida.

 

Macesich, M. 1988.  Geologic Interpretation of the Aquifer Pollution Potential in Alachua County, Florida, Open File Report – 21.  Florida Geologic Survey, Tallahassee, Florida.

 

Florida Natural Areas Inventory. December 2001. Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment Version 1.1