For most people, water is only noticed when something goes wrong. A flooded roadway after a storm. Algae blooms spreading across a river system. Retention ponds overflowing into nearby wetlands. Yet long before those outcomes appear, the real story has often already been written underground, within the soil, drainage patterns, and hydrology of the land itself.
That understanding has quietly shaped the philosophy behind many of the stewardship efforts associated with Steve Herrig, a Bradenton-based entrepreneur whose work across the Myakka region has increasingly focused on conservation, restoration, and long-term environmental planning. Whether involving agricultural land, equestrian property, conservation areas, or the Miakka Golf Club project, the underlying approach has remained remarkably consistent: understand the land first, then work backward from the water.
Along the Myakka River, one of Florida’s most environmentally sensitive watersheds, that responsibility carries regional significance. Long before major work began on the Myakka property, extensive environmental testing was commissioned to better understand the long agricultural history of the property and how decades of ranching and land management practices had shaped the site over time.
What environmental experts found was not unusual for historic Florida ranch and agricultural property, but it was substantial. Environmental testing conducted in 2021 identified legacy environmental conditions commonly associated with historic Florida ranching, irrigation systems, agricultural activity, and land management practices dating back generations.Soil sampling revealed high levels of arsenic, petroleum hydrocarbons, and several pesticide-related compounds exceeding residential, commercial, and groundwater leachability thresholds established under Florida’s environmental regulations.
Importantly, these environmental conditions reflected the historical evolution of the property over many decades and predated the current ownership and restoration efforts now underway.Rather than attempting to work around those findings, remediation became integrated into the broader stewardship strategy itself. Impacted materials were removed, stabilized, or isolated through engineered containment systems designed to reduce migration into surrounding soils and waterways during seasonal flooding and heavy rain events.
“As we started testing the property, we realized we had inherited environmental conditions that had existed here since the 1930s,” said Steve Herrig. “A lot of this land looked quiet and untouched on the surface, but like many historic Florida properties, there were environmental realities beneath the ground that reflected decades of changing land use and agricultural history. Once we understood that the responsibility became clear. We couldn’t ignore it. We had to address it in a way that protected the future of the land and the river.”
That process included the use of specialized stabilization materials and drainage infrastructure incorporated into portions of the property where long-term environmental protection required additional safeguards. The goal was not simply regulatory compliance, but a broader commitment to long-term environmental stewardship and proactive land management for future generations.
The larger public conversation surrounding development near the Myakka River is understandable. Residents throughout the region have seen firsthand what can happen when growth outpaces environmental planning, and concerns surrounding runoff, aquifer protection, and river health are legitimate questions for any project within the watershed.
In many ways, those concerns helped shape the water management strategy now being implemented across the property. More than 90 percent of surface water is captured and directed into a network of engineered dry and wet retention systems designed to slow, filter, and naturally treat runoff before it reenters the groundwater system. Sediment, nutrients, and other materials are intercepted through multiple stages of retention and environmental control rather than flowing directly toward the river corridor.
Under requirements established through the Southwest Florida Water Management District, post-development runoff rates cannot exceed pre-development conditions. Extensive retention areas across the property were specifically engineered to reduce both peak stormwater discharge and the overall volume of runoff reaching the river system.
Water quality monitoring has also remained part of the process. In April 2026, ongoing sampling was conducted along portions of the property bordering the Myakka River to evaluate clarity, nutrient levels, alkalinity, and overall environmental conditions as restoration efforts continued.
The findings reflected a river system behaving largely as environmental scientists would expect within a natural Florida blackwater environment. Water clarity measurements showed relatively clear conditions during sampling, while nitrogen and phosphorus levels remained within ranges commonly associated with healthy wetland and river systems in the region. In practical terms, the testing did not indicate the kind of excessive nutrient buildup often linked to algae blooms, deteriorating water quality, or ecological stress.
Part of that commitment to transparency led Herrig and the broader team of environmental consultants, engineers, scientists, designers, and project partners to create The Myakka Initiative as an open platform to document the process as it unfolds and present ongoing environmental findings, testing data, conservation efforts, engineering strategies, and long-term restoration plans in a public and accessible way. Its purpose is not simply to show what the land is becoming, but to transparently document the property’s ongoing evolution, environmental findings, conservation strategies, and long-term stewardship efforts moving forward.
Herrig has also emphasized that much of the land’s natural character still exists today because generations of ranching families and prior landowners preserved large stretches of open space across the region rather than allowing dense development to overtake the landscape decades ago. Current restoration efforts, he says, are intended to build upon that legacy of land stewardship while preparing the property for future environmental resilience.
What ultimately emerges from these efforts is not simply a story about one project, one golf course, or one property owner. It reflects a broader philosophy about how land and water must increasingly be considered together across Florida’s agricultural land and wildlife corridors.
For decades, development often followed a familiar pattern: clear the land, redirect the water, and manage the environmental consequences later. What is happening across portions of the Myakka region suggests a different approach, one where hydrology, ecology, engineering, conservation, and development are considered simultaneously from the beginning rather than separately after the fact.
The objective was not to impose a landscape onto the property, but to work within the environmental character already present. That philosophy now extends well beyond any single property line because the long-term health of the Myakka River will ultimately depend not on one project alone, but on whether stewardship, transparency, and long-term environmental responsibility become part of how the region chooses to grow moving forward.
