What does Ocala have going for it? What makes Ocala special? What about Silver Springs? Where else will you find something like that? Short-sighted “leaders” do not realize the treasure they have. They think only of money.
If Mike Register takes the time to look, he will see that the spring’s flow has already declined and that this reduction has already harmed the spring and the wildlife that depend on it. About 32 per cent, Mr. Register.
If James Gooding takes the time to think, he will realize that indeed the city will have to conserve and reuse more water in the future, no matter what. This will happen with more development and people, no matter how fast you kill Silver Springs.
We would ask the City Council where they would stop reducing the flow. How many tiny cuts can the elephant take until it bleeds to death?
If the city leaders think they can rely on the science of the water management district to protect their river, they are living in a bubble.
So much has been written about the shortcomings of the St Johns River Water Management District they have to be aware of the situation. Just last week a respected water scientist called on Executive Director Ann Shortelle to step down for not providing leadership, and there have been ethics charges and complaints of corruption against governing board chairman John Miklos.
Go to this link to read this sad, sorry story in the Ocala Star Banner.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-
City sides with regulators on reduced Silver Springs flow
Karen Chadwick said in her petition against the water agency that allowing an additional 2.5 percent decline in flow would damage the river. The Ocala City Council voted 4-0 Tuesday, with a councilwoman absent, to support the water district.
The reduced flow would essentially allow additional groundwater pumping. At current pumping rates and expected population growth, the water district staff estimates the new flow levels will be exceeded by 2024.
The council intervened at the request of Assistant City Attorney James Gooding, who told them that water district board member Fred Roberts asked the city to intervene on behalf of the water district.
Gooding said that given the new flow standards, the city’s costs to provide water to customers will increase by millions of dollars because the water district will require the city to conserve and reuse more water in the future. He also said if Judge E. Gary Early rules against the water district and does not allow any additional flow declines, it would cost the city a lot more.
Mike Register, the water district’s division director for water supply, told the City Council that the district is confident its calculations are correct in how much the spring’s flow could decline before it harmed the spring and the wildlife that depend on it.
The spring’s flow has decreased 32 percent since the 1930s. Much of the decline, environmentalists say, is due to overpumping of the aquifer. The water district contends the reduction is because of a long drought.
Only Mayor Kent Guinn asked that someone explain the springs’ fluctuations in flow over the years.
None of the other council members asked questions about the flow issue.
Councilman Matthew Wardell asked if the petition would impact the state funding the city receives to pay for hooking residential properties up to the city’s wastewater treatment system.
Under the new Minimum Flow Levels, the spring flow could drop an additional 17 cubic feet per second (about 10 million gallons per day) without doing significant harm to wildlife in and around the 4.5 mile-long spring and river, the water district says.
In 2013, the water agency staff proposed a Silver Springs MFL more stringent than what it is proposing today. The water agency also announced about that time that it had miscalculated and had issued too many pumping permits, making up about 20 cfs of flow in the spring. Eventually, the agency backed away from that admission.
Register said the agency’s scientists now use much better computer modeling to evaluate the data, justifying the lower proposed MFL.
Reach Fred Hiers at fred.hiers@starbanner.com and 352-397-5914.
Kayaking on the river is lovely. You’ll see monkeys, gators , turtles and birds!
They are not fl. natives. I guess when the water runs out we will all have to move north and show them how the south did it. We lost all of are wells in my whole subdivision. Can we have a wall built around fl.?? Greed, greed and more greed. Where do you think the sink holes came from??? Hell just turn fl. Into a cement jungle that WILL help the OZONE, OH WHO CARES ABOUT NATURAL HABITATS IF YOU CAN SELL IT, SELL IT. MONEY AND GREED. YOU WON’T BE HERE TO DEAL WITH IT, BUT MY ANCESTERS AND FUTURE ANCESTORS WILL.
There you go!! MONEY MONEY!! I will never support any elected politician never!! Just looking for the way to sell out their voters. They do NOT care about human life not even their own children talk about greed LOL! possible stoppage of gene pool may take a few years for them to die off using their own polluted infected water.
Time to move outa here quickly!!
Remember the slaughter house in Marion county which was BULLIED IN around the same time as the BULLIED IN Fort White back yard chicken coops under protest from neighbors in Marion county.
WE the people have no say. Really NO say at all.
We the people of Floriduh have the sorriest, crookedest, do nothing corrin brown, teddy yoyo, billy nelson, BUT we YOU have voted them in ’cause they talked a big story. So I guess we can’t really complain about a damn thing. And still they will get voted back in by money (OR crooked election). I have lost respect. And so should you all.
We have to replace these carpet baggers with stewards. The water (mis)management districts are a collection of politically corrupt representatives from development. There are huge ethical questions in their cronyism and personal financial gain.They are quite literally giving our water away to corporate interests.
Unfortunately, No surprise here.