I started Protect Rural Florida after stumbling across something I had never even heard about as a Florida native. Historic cattle dipping vats.

These vats were used decades ago to treat cattle with arsenic based chemicals. Many were built in the 1920s and 1930s. Some were filled in. Some were forgotten. Some are still sitting in the woods or on land that has changed hands many times.

What we do not have is a clear, public, statewide map showing where all of these sites are located.

Families in rural Florida rely on private wells. We deserve transparency. We deserve to know where documented cattle dip vats were built. This is not about panic. It is about access to information.

I am asking the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Legislature to create and publish a publicly accessible, statewide inventory and interactive map of all known historic cattle dip vat sites.

This is a reasonable first step. It does not require immediate cleanup funding. It does not assign blame. It simply provides the public with accurate information.

You cannot protect what you refuse to map.

Rural families matter. Our groundwater matters. Transparency matters.

Learn more at: https://sites.google.com/view/protectruralflorida/cattle-dipping-vats
FB/TikTok: @protect.rural.fla