{"id":109757,"date":"2026-01-08T00:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109757\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T00:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T00:33:11","slug":"new-bill-could-lead-to-restoration-of-north-florida-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109757\/","title":{"rendered":"New bill could lead to restoration of North Florida river"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Florida
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Old Florida State Capitol, now a museum, with the new Capitol in the background. By Roberto Galan via iStock for WMNF News (2022).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tListen:<\/p>\n

A bill filed Monday could lead to the restoration of North Florida\u2019s Ocklawaha River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawmakers behind the bill are calling it \u201ctheir region\u2019s Everglades restoration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate version of the bill (SB 1066)<\/a> was filed by Republican Senator Jason Brodeur and the House version (HB 981)<\/a> by Republican Representative Wyman Duggan.<\/p>\n

The bills would require the Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan for restoring the Ocklawaha River, which is a tributary of the St. Johns River, to a \u201cnatural, free-flowing state\u201d by 2032.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would provide grants and establish a local advisory council to focus on an outdoor recreation plan, economic development, and transition needs for property owners and businesses affected by the restoration project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Margaret Spontak is the executive director of the Great Florida Riverway Trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She says the reason this bill is different from past efforts is that it not only focuses on restoration, but also on people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have now looked at well, let\u2019s look at how this is going to affect the people aspect of things, the users that currently use the reservoir, landowners, recreators in the area.\u201d Spontak told WMNF.<\/p>\n

The legislative session starts January 13th. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Old Florida State Capitol, now a museum, with the new Capitol in the background. By Roberto Galan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,7834],"class_list":{"0":"post-109757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-restoration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}