It's in the water - three conversations

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend – I ate to over-capacity, visited with relatives, had fun taking pictures and had three interesting conversations about water. The discussions, on different days with separate people all seemingly had different subjects yet shared the same thread: Florida's water quality has been significantly compromised and the prognosis for the future is not good unless we make some changes.


Conversation 1

Location: Oviedo, FL

Topic: Lake Hourglass

Living on a small lake near the heart of Orlando has changed me by making more aware of the natural environment I live in and the delicate balance of nature in an urban setting. I have always wanted to know more about my lake, but couldn't find much information. That changed on Thanksgiving because a relative of my wife's cousin's husband actually grew up on our little lake. She told us of swimming in the lake all year long and even water skiing (tough to imagine due to the lakes small size.) The lake was much clearer then, you could see the bottom from the deeper water and you could even feel cold water from seeps in the aquifer, according to our new source. There was a small fish camp, (used as tiny houses today), and when water hyacinths took over the lake our new friend's father painstakingly removed them by hand, all by himself! The water quality went south when the city allowed street drainage to flow into the lake. Later, to combat a growing aquatic weed problem Blue Tilapia were introduced to try to control the spread and today they overwhelm the lake, crowding out native species. The lake she described bore little resemblance to the lake we live on now. Although we love our lake dearly, I've never seen anyone swim in it.

The abundant Tilapia make for easy meals for the Osprey

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Conversation 2

Location: The Elks Lodge, Gainesville, Florida

Topic: The pool at Glen Springs

I was thrilled to get a glimpse into Glen Springs last month but was only able to photograph it with my cellphone camera. Because of that blog, I got in touch with Linda Califf, an Elks Club member who has taken on the challenge of preserving the pool around the spring. She has also researched the history of the spring and the pool, and is actively seeking donations to assist with the site's preservation. Linda and two other Lodge members rotate cleaning the pool every day, unclogging the drainage between the sections and making sure the water flows unimpeded into the creek below. As she toured myself and three others around the pool, she related how far the pool had come, from being entirely covered with algae to being relatively clean in about four months! Almost single-handedly she has improved the water quality and the over all aesthetics of one of Gainesville's most under appreciated cultural resources.

Some history of the springs as published in Linda's brochure on the spring:

• The property surrounding the springs was purchased in 1924 by Cicero Addison Pound (the high school I attended was on land donated by Mr. Pound)
• The pool itself was probably designed by Guy Chandler Fulton, an Architect to the Board of Control from 1945 until 1956
• The pool was probably constructed in 1940
• The pool stopped being used for swimming in the mid-1970s
  

Fall leaves make keeping the Glen Springs pool even more labor intensive

The structure of the former diving board remains intact

Despite this litter on the bottom, Linda and her fellow Elks
have done a remarkable job cleaning up the spring

If you'd like to help with the preservation of the Glen Springs pool,
email Linda at lindacaliff@att.net

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Conversation 3

Location: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park, Cross Creek

Topic: Orange Lake

Two days after Thanksgiving, Mrs. Ephemera and I stopped by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park, as she had never been there before. Walking through the grounds I noticed a path headed in the direction of the lake, which has a boat ramp in another area of the park. I asked an employee of the park, if the path did in fact go to the lake and she informed us that the lake was entirely dry. I had noticed that Cross Creek, which connects Orange Lake and Lake Lochloosa, was dried up, but had not imagined the 13,000 acre Orange Lake would be dry as well. She told us that the well that Rawlings used back in the 1920s and '30s was only 8 feet deep. To reach water today, the same well would have to go down well over 100 feet deep. In addition to a severe drought, over-taxing the Floridan Aquifer (the water stored in subterranean limestone caverns below the state) had led to drastically reduced water levels. She said she had seen vintage images of nearby Silver Glen Springs where the boil over the spring was so strong that it actually shot up above the surface of the lake, a site I've never witnessed at any of Florida's springs.

Images from the State Archives of Florida show what once North Florida's largest lake

Returning home to Central Florida, the Orlando Sentinel happened to be running a two-part series called "Precious Water" about water issues facing the state. Just today, former Florida Governor/US Senator Bob Graham announced a new Conservation Coalition, committed to preserving the state's precious water resources. As I travel around the state, experiencing the natural, historical and and cultural treasures of the state, I see the biggest threat to their survival being over-development, an issue that is directly correlated to the allocation of our water. How we solve the challenges related to this issue will largely determine if Florida will be a place worth calling home in the future.

Today the Orange Lake boat ramp leads only to weeds

Cross Creek, sans water

Discovering more than Fountains of Youth

I came across this post card and was reminded of another Florida spring linked to the legend of the fountain of youth, De Leon Springs in Volusia County. The Florida State Parks website quotes an early advertisement: "tourists were promised a fountain of youth impregnated with a deliciously healthy combination of soda and sulphur." Doesn't sound too delicious to me!

There is also a town in the panhandle named Ponce de Leon Florida, in Holmes County. There you can find Ponce de Leon Springs State Park, where on the same state website it says: "Visitors might well regain their fountain of youth by taking a dip in cool, clear waters" of the spring. 

I also ran across an image of this sculpture, which I have yet to see in person, at Tomoka State Park near Ormond Beach. I was attracted by its kitschy qualities, which once again illustrates a legend of sacred waters flowing from Florida's aquifer as interpreted by a sculptor in the mid-twentieth century.

The earliest humans living on this peninsula found Florida's many bubbling spring to be a gift from the gods. The Europeans who first came here must have been awed by these springs and a whole mythology was created around Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth.  Early settlers established towns nearby these sources of clean, pure water. And in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the myth of life sustaining waters flowing from beneath the earth was used to draw tourists from other parts of the country. The tourism aspect is what has garnered my attention, but what I'm discovering is that the battle for the sacred water in our state is shaping up to be one of the most important issues we face today. 

Finding this place where Florida history and environmental concerns co-exist, has led me to the conclusion that the resource that caused this state to be attractive to so many people for hundreds of years, is at great risk. In today's local paper is an article about the battle for Florida's water in the panhandle. And a second article in the Jacksonville paper brings to light the struggle for water in Florida's biggest river, the spring-fed St. Johns. I find it fascinating that my interest in the past, has led me to this issue about our future.