Lee Commissioners broke ground Tuesday on the county’s first certified green building – an 11-thousand-square-foot interpretive center at the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve.

The building represents the culmination of more than 3 decades of effort. Work to preserve the slough began in the early 1970’s when a group of students, led by long-time southwest Florida educator Bill Hammond, held a letter-writing campaign that blossomed into a tax referendum.

“You don’t get these things done overnight. It takes persistence, and know how to build relationships in the community.”

An all-volunteer group called ‘The Friends of Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve” has collected nearly 350-thousand-dollars toward construction of the more than three and a half million dollar interpretive center…including 200-thousand from the South Florida Water Management District.

The Slough is a 9-mile long, 22-hundred acre wetland adjacent to Six Mile Cypress Parkway in Lee County.