WOKC Local News – February 12, 2026, 7:41 AM
Transcript
WOKC News. Canal is closed. With WOKC News, I’m Charles Murphy. The Florida Fish and Wildlife and South Florida Water Management District temporarily closed the Zipper Canal this week to facilitate nearby restoration work. The canal is located between Pierce Canal and the Kissimmee River in Lake Okeechobee, adjacent to the Pierce Buckhead Canal and the Buckhead Pump Station. The canal will reopen no earlier than the end of June. The Pierce Canal will not be impacted. Signs were posted at both ends of the Zipper Canal informing voters of the closure. It is necessary to provide heavy equipment for a nearby muck removal project. Miami-Dade is expected to vote early this year on whether to build a trash incinerator. Why is that news in Okeechobee? Currently a portion of the Miami-Dade waste stream is being sent by train and truck to the Okeechobee County landfill. Fort Pierce has protested these garbage trains that are standing on the railroad tracks near residential neighborhoods causing odor problems. Bernice Yanez spoke against the incinerator at a Miami-Dade Commission meeting. An incinerator pollutes. An incinerator is not recycling. Recycling is when you have a material, you do some kind of processing, you have that material back, like glass becomes, you recycle it into glass, cardboard can be recycled into another paper product. To take plastic and say you’re recycling and you’re getting energy is like I eat food and I eat s**t so I also recycle. I don’t think it makes sense. Lake Okeechobee improvement again the focus at the lake coalition meeting this month. Henry County Commissioner Raymond Iglesias says they need to have their plans ready to demuck the lake. He says we must be doers of the word and not just talkers. If the lake hits a 10-foot lake, if we get mud exposed, we need to be prepared to demuck. We need to be prepared to burn. We need to be able to be prepared to suction dredge. But we can’t sit up here just talking about things if they happen. We need to be prepared to do them when the time allows. Dennis Lee is with the anti-sprayers. He says the FWC continues to spray too much even during low water. Every day they’re killing nature and the life that tries to come back. An Okeechobee woman sentenced to 18 months probation for child neglect, a third degree felony. Leandra Sanchez, young child, ingested cannabis in her home and went to the hospital. She had THC gummies at her home that she somehow ingested. Sanchez allegedly lied to law enforcement about having marijuana in her home and asked an older child to destroy them. The maximum sentence for this was five years and she scored three years in prison. Court records do note that Sanchez had no prior brushes with the law. Florida Department of Transportation hosting a public hearing next week for another segment of State Road 70. This one will be from Lonesome Island Road to County Road 721 in Brighton. The meeting will be held at the town of Lake Placid Government Center next Tuesday night starting at 5.30pm. St. Lucie County Commissioners are figuring to allow some ranch-style fences in residential areas. Certain fences on dirt roads that are private roads could include cattle wire, chicken wire and razor or barbed wire. So the problem is now it’s this crazy free-for-all. It’s 2026 turns into shootings and everything else. That’s Joshua Bradley who spoke at a hearing before the planning board. He questioned these proposals. This is a county issue. Huge county issue. A county doesn’t want to get involved because it’s a private road. And we’re going to put in any fence that we want to put in the way he sees it, the way I see it, even though there’s a 1970s whatever private road agreement, the county doesn’t want to enforce it. The property must be at least one acre in size and have a dwelling unit on it. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).