Old Florida ranching family faces New Florida challenges
Source: Palm Beach Post, by Susan Salisbury
October 08, 2007
The Seminole Indians are their neighbors to the south, and cowboys still herd the 1,200 Brangus cattle that roam their property.
That much hasn't changed since the 1930s, when the late J.W. McDaniel founded a family dynasty on an isolated 6-square-mile ranch in southeastern Hendry County.
Today, Granddaddy Mac's four grandsons run the McDaniel Ranch, which he and their late father, Robert McDaniel Sr., built from the wilderness.
But these days, the McDaniels are dealing with complex issues that didn't exist when the ranch was founded.
Chief among them is the unglamorous subject of storm water, which the family is handling with a 10-year, multimillion-dollar project that features 44 miles of levees - some more than 12 feet tall - and 2,700 acres of water retention areas.
It's the largest privately funded water treatment project in the state, and officials say it won't be long before all the other landowners in the area will have to revamp their water systems, too.
Then there's the lawsuit brought by a Palm Beach Gardens resident and developer who bought 3,000 acres of the McDaniel Ranch in May 2005 and wants to buy most of the rest of it for an equestrian community.
The McDaniels say they no longer want to sell him any more land, and the parties are embroiled in a contract dispute.
It's a sign of increasingly complex times influencing an old and venerated way of life in Florida.
The McDaniel Ranch covers 18,340 acres, much of it preserved natural area.
Endangered or threatened species including Florida panthers, wood storks, Everglades snail kites, burrowing owls, crested caracaras, Florida black bears and other wildlife such as deer roam the land, which is two hours from each coast.
But Bobby McDaniel contends it's not so remote anymore.
"There's a Publix in Fort Lauderdale on State Road 84 that's only 50 minutes away," he said.
Comparisons to 'Dallas'
All four McDaniel brothers - Bobby, 54, John, 51, David, 50, and Jeff, 47 - are involved in the cattle and citrus operation and live with their families in houses they had built on the ranch.
Their mother, Mary, also has a house there, and a house for Bobby's mother-in-law is under construction. John's wife, Karen, manages the office, and their son, also named John, works on the ranch.
The vast stretches of idyllic scenery, from native cypress stands to stately oaks dripping with Spanish moss to, of course, cattle, remind some visitors of Dallas, the nighttime TV soap that ran from 1978 to 1991.
"We're not like Dallas," said Bobby McDaniel, president of McDaniel Ranch Partnership. "We all have separate houses. We have some space."
Growing up on the ranch, the McDaniels rode to grade school in Clewiston each day with the Seminoles. After school, it was time for man-sized chores that included herding cattle.
"When I was 5 or 6, I had a Shetland pony named Blondie that I rode to help round up the cattle. She was the meanest thing," Bobby said.
Although cattle was their business when they were children, the McDaniels have had to change tactics to survive.
"Cows don't cut it anymore. We have them and they're pretty," John McDaniel said. "They don't make money. You need to diversify."
They lease 5,700 acres at $325 an acre a year to vegetable growers including Pero Family Farms of Delray Beach and Thomas Produce of Boca Raton. The farmers use management practices designed to reduce phosphorus levels in their water runoff.
Cattle pasture and natural areas account for 6,700 acres. Like other cattle ranches in Florida, it's a cow-calf operation, meaning calves are sold to feedlots in other states, such as Texas, where they are fattened before slaughter.
An orange grove for juice oranges that are sold to Southern Gardens Citrus for processing takes up another 1,000 acres.
All of it is run by the brothers, plus 10 employees and some day workers.
Complex water system
These days, Bobby McDaniel calls himself "the water boy," because much of his time is devoted to the wetlands water treatment system that's nearing completion on their property.
"I personally staked out all of it," McDaniel said.
"This is a water retention area," he said, pointing to a wetland. "When water flows through the vegetation, it pulls out the phosphorus. It's a cascading system. When it gets to a certain height, the water flows to the next area. We are holding 150 percent more water than the water management district requires."
Nearby, huge piles of dirt removed as part of the excavation form small hills. The family plans to sell it as fill.
The McDaniels started working on the project after the Seminoles on the nearby Big Cypress Reservation complained that the phosphorus content was too high in the water running off the ranch into the reservation.
"They said, 'Go get an engineer,'" said Bobby, who holds a degree in animal science from the University of Florida.
The brothers did, and also hired consultants and attorneys. They did most of the earth-moving themselves, however.
Just the leasing of bulldozers and other equipment costs $37,000 a month.
They've received no public funding for the project but have worked closely with the South Florida Water Management District, the agency that has authority over water quality and supply projects.
It is the state's largest privately funded storm water treatment system, said Paul Whalen, owner of Jupiter-based TAC Environmental Resources Consulting Inc., who coordinated the project.
"It's 100 percent functional today," Whalen said.
Finishing touches remain, and completion of the bulk of the system is expected by the end of the year.
After heavy rains, 60 diesel-fueled pumps remove excess storm water from the agricultural fields and put it into the cascading system.
The water is cleansed in pre-treatment and detention areas that allow sediment to settle and wetlands plants to remove phosphorus before the water enters environmentally sensitive areas such as the Big Cypress Swamp, Whalen said. The goal is to reduce phosphorus in all the water leaving the McDaniel property to 50 parts per billion.
Commitment draws praise
Ron Bergeron Sr., president of Bergeron Land Development in Fort Lauderdale, said his firm built many of the Everglades restoration projects. He was not involved with the ranch's project but toured it recently.
He said the McDaniels' project is unique in that they are paying for it themselves, without any state or federal dollars. He doesn't know of any other private entity that has undertaken such a project.
"They have done a fabulous job in regards to compliance to water quality," Bergeron said. "They have taken it upon themselves to build a system, which is something I have not seen anybody else do.
"If everyone did what the McDaniels are doing, we would be in very good shape in Florida," Bergeron said. "These four young men are trying to maintain their heritage and culture. I applaud them."
All the other agricultural landowners in the area eventually will be required to upgrade their water systems as the McDaniels are doing, said Bob Brown, director of the water district's environmental resource regulation department.
Meanwhile, plans remain on hold to build houses on 3,000 acres of the ranch bought in 2005 by Edward Garcia of Virginia Beach, Va.-based The ESG Cos.
Garcia's lawsuit, originally filed in federal court last year, was dismissed there and refiled in Hendry County, where it is making its way through the system, said Joel Zwemer, a Fort Pierce attorney who is among those representing the McDaniel family in the case.
"They do not wish to proceed forward with a contract with Mr. Garcia and his group," Zwemer said. "They don't believe he has complied with the contract to date."
Andrea Kilmer, a vice president with ESG, Garcia's company, said a contract to buy the entire working ranch, except for the McDaniels' residences, was entered into in 2004.
"There are certain things that the McDaniels had to do to be in compliance with the contract," Kilmer said.
"They have not performed pursuant to the contact. We believe they may have experienced seller's remorse. We are still interested in purchasing the ranch."
The brothers say they want to keep the land but admit it's difficult to make a profit, especially with the expense of the water project.
"There's a lot of ranches who if they had to do this, they would be bankrupt," David McDaniel said. "If the ranch wasn't paid for, we couldn't keep it."
And leaving the ranch isn't something the McDaniels want to contemplate.
"To a lot of people, it's just dirt. To us, it's home," he said.
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