by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Summer vacation is an opportunity to take a break from the routine and enjoy a change of scenery. Bill Barnett Jr., who spends most of his days working at his family’s jewelry store at Independent Square, got a big dose of both this summer.
A friend of Barnett’s owns a consulting firm in South Florida that helps developers meet state and federal environmental requirements.
“He had a couple of projects and needed some people, so he called me and asked if I’d like to take a little vacation,” said Barnett.
It was quite a change from working in the jewelry store.
“We were definitely out in the marsh. We were wading in waist-deep swamps and had to take 4-wheel drives to get just about everywhere we needed to go,” he said.
The first project was to capture gopher tortoises for relocation. The species is protected by the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“The first thing we did was build a pen,” said Barnett. “Then we set up some traps. All you have to do is dig a hole in front of where the turtle lives and put a bucket in the hole. When the turtle crawls out of his hole, he doesn’t see the bucket, so he falls right in. We had to check the buckets every day. Otherwise the poor turtles might drown if it rained.”
Barnett said he helped relocate about 30 gopher tortoises during the project.
The crew also did some wetland restoration on their “vacation.”
“There is a plague of melaleuca trees down there,” he said. “The trees drink about 1,000 gallons of water a year and they repopulate so fast that there are millions of the trees. They are very hard to kill. If you uproot one, it can re-root if you don’t lay it down the right way.
“We all got a nice course in chemical spraying and safety. Then we went out there with machetes and all day long we were hacking and slashing and spraying chemicals.”
He added that he also got to see a lot of Florida’s native wildlife on the trip.
“We saw a lot of snakes. We saw wild boar, alligators and white-tail deer. We were hoping we would see a Florida panther, but we never did. There are only about 100 left down there,” said Barnett.
The 29-year-old said his two weeks in the swamp was an enjoyable change of pace.
“It was nice to get outside for a while,” said Barnett. “The switch over to manual labor was kind of fun. Here at the store, heavy lifting is a 10-carat diamond ring. Down there, we were throwing around 60-pound timbers.”
In addition to getting some sunshine, fresh air and exercise, Barnett said the experience also gave him a greater appreciation for the environment.
“As soon as I got home, I switched all the light bulbs in the house to compact fluorescent lights,” he said. “They use only 40 percent of the power compared to conventional light bulbs, so they can save you some money on your light bill and help us use less fossil fuel in the power plants.
“I would definitely consider myself an environmental enthusiast now. I really didn’t understand what it was all about, but I learned a lot. It’s an important issue.”
Barnett might be going back to South Florida after construction begins on the development projects.
“The government requires that someone be on-site during construction to make sure none of the protected animals are run over by bulldozers,” said Barnett. “If one pops up, I’ll have to run out and rescue him.”