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PALATKA, Fla. (AP) — Envisioned as Florida’s answer to the Panama Canal, the Cross Florida Barge Canal was intended to provide a direct waterway for vessels traveling between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, circumventing the state’s lengthy coastline. However, construction came to a halt in 1971 due to environmental concerns.
In the decades since its cessation, a dam and reservoir, constructed as part of the now-defunct canal project, have submerged a portion of the Ocala National Forest, submerged 20 natural springs, and disrupted the habitats used by wildlife, including migratory paths for manatees.
Every few years, the reservoir is drained by state workers to clear sediment, temporarily revealing the hidden springs and allowing cypress trees to sprout on the erstwhile submerged ground. During these periods, the landscape briefly reverts to its untouched state.
The most recent draining of Rodman Reservoir, the first such event in six years, began in October and concluded in early March. Environmental advocates are campaigning for the permanent removal of the 7,200-foot (2,200-meter) Kirkpatrick Dam to restore the natural flow between the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers and Silver Springs, one of the nation’s largest spring systems.
“Removing the dam would reunite these waters,” explained Nina Bhattacharyya, executive director of Florida Defenders of the Environment. “By doing so, we would see springs emerge once more and allow wildlife like migratory fish and manatees to freely traverse the area. Eliminating the dam would rectify an ecological misstep made decades ago.”
A legislative setback, and vows to keep fighting
The latest effort to make that happen, after decades of trying, failed last week when lawmakers didn’t pass a bill before the legislative session ended that would have supported a $70 million project to restore the Ocklawaha River by opening up the dam over four years.
Advocates for restoring the river said they plan to regroup and identify the best strategy for moving forward, but they remain optimistic given how close they came. The measure had passed the Florida House and was awaiting a Senate vote before the session ended last week.
“While the bill did not receive a final vote in the Senate this session, the strong bipartisan support it earned reflects growing momentum for restoration,” Bhattacharyya said Monday.
During the drawdowns, what used to be on the 9,500 acres (3,844 hectares) of submerged land becomes visible. Bear and deer tracks are spotted. Wild turkeys and sandhill cranes return to the dried-out land. Thousands of drowned and ghostlike cypress, palm and maple tree trunks reveal themselves as the water drops.
“It’s haunting, like a graveyard,” Karen Chadwick, a charter boat captain, said recently as she maneuvered her boat among decayed and graying tree trunks jutting from the water.
There are also concerns about the safety of the dam, which is past its life expectancy. Advocates for opening the dam say a structural collapse could endanger hundreds of nearby homes.
“Something is going to happen, maybe next year, maybe in a couple of years,” Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur, the legislation’s sponsor, said last month during a committee hearing. “Something has to be done.”
‘This system is a national treasure’
Nature filmmaker Mark Emery told Florida lawmakers recently that the Ocklawaha River was unique as it was historically fed by the extensive Silver Springs system. But huge schools of mullet and catfish have disappeared from Silver Springs since the dam choked the flow of the river and reduced the number of fish getting into the springs, he said.
“This system is a national treasure,” Emery said. “Hundreds of millions of gallons of fresh water feed and cool the river. Before the dam, you had a direct waterway to the ocean with small springs all along the way.”
Some angling groups oppose anything that would permanently empty Rodman Reservoir, saying it has become a world-class fishing spot and supports a local economy of largemouth bass fishing, camping and birdwatching in rural Putnam County, which is among Florida’s poorest counties. Supporters of emptying the reservoir say it will remain an outdoors haven, if not more so.
Plus, the reservoir reduces nutrient levels in the water and could be used as an alternate water supply at a time when Florida’s population is booming, Steve Miller, president of Save Rodman Reservoir, told lawmakers in February.
“There’s a bigger picture than what is being shown,” Miller said during a legislative hearing. “Don’t gamble away on speculative outcomes.”
Fixing misguided projects
While the construction of the dam was a mistake, locals have made the best of the situation by creating businesses geared toward outdoorspeople, said Putnam County Commissioner Joshua Alexander.
“We have created chicken salad out of chicken,” Alexander told lawmakers. “We are not a rich economy, and I believe it would affect our economy.”
A restoration of the Ocklawaha River would be part of a long history in Florida of restoring a natural environment that was upset by a misguided public works project.
The Everglades in South Florida had shrunk to half its size due to water supply and flood control projects by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before a multibillion-dollar effort was launched at the start of this century to restore the network of wetlands. Similarly, the corps dredged the Kissimmee River and installed canals in the 1960s to reduce flooding in the interior part of the state, but ended up upsetting the floodplain’s ecosystem of birds and fish. Efforts to restore the river were launched two decades ago and completed in 2021.
“Nature is very resilient,” Chadwick said, “if you just get out of the way and let it do its thing.”
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