WPTV: Local ranchers work to keep water clean by preventing runoff

Article Posted on November 14, 2019

By Michael Williams

They have called St. Lucie County home since 1937. More than 80 years later Adams Ranch, west of Fort Pierce, is doing its part to protect our environment.

Mike Adams greeted us on the 14,000-acre spread one recent morning. He’s part of four generations that have raised beef cattle on the land. He told WPTV anchor Michael Williams, “It is so important for us to be good neighbors.”

Protecting paradise on this ranch means keeping cow waste and fertilizer runoff— triggers for algal blooms—from pouring into the watershed that feeds the St. Lucie River and local estuaries.

A big part of that effort includes managing water across the ranch. The family constructed a series of canals decades ago to do just that.


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