15,000 Beef Cattle Ranch Under Scrutiny Over Water Extraction
By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com
Cattle ranching has become Frank Stronach’s new business venture. The Canadian billionaire and founder of Magna International, is in the midst of a controversial bid to house a 15,000 beef cattle operation in north-central Florida. The contention lies in how much natural resources it will take to keep the cattle operation going. It’s been suggested that it will extract 49 million liters of water daily from the state’s Sliver Springs water aquifer.
Stronach’s Adena Springs Ranch would be modelled utilizing state-of-the art technology and management practices such as rotational grazing, abattoir operations for his organic grass fed beef operation. The ranch is expected to scale upwards to 25,000 acres and utilize more ground water than the population of the City of Ocala at 55,000.
The proposed bid has outraged environmental groups who are deeply concerned with the sustainability of the City’s water and the overall environmental impact due to the mega ranch. The Florida Conservation Coalition is one of the leaders in the protest against the bid noting “water is the lifeblood of Florida's economy and essential to our health and quality of life. We must stand up and speak out for our water-ways, or we risk losing them."
The Adena ranch has until Aug. 26 to renew their application for the proposed 49.2 million liter per day water extraction permit. The regulatory agency who will either decline or approve the bit will look at "whether the water use is in the public interest" and whether it would "harm other water users or the environment,” said Hank Largin in a statement.
Adena management maintains that the proposed bid would provide Florida with good economic and environmental benefits.