The following is a letter recently sent to the DEP by Dr. Robert Knight of Florida Springs Institute. It lays out the simple truth that the State of Florida is not only not protecting our springs and rivers, they are the cause of the decline in flow and increase in pollution. They are doing this by continuing to issue groundwater pumping permits and allowing excessive nutrients from fertilizers and septic tanks.
This planned failure is bad enough, but is made worse when the DEP sends out representatives such as Adam Blalock to legislative committees to spin and deceive and evade the issues. The DEP’s answer is to make planned-to-fail BMAPs, spend money, and emphasize that they are monitoring the situation. They are able be deceive many of the general public, but not any water scientist who looks at the data.
They are fully aware that their policies are leading to the death of our springs and rivers.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Suwannee River Water Management District, St. Johns River Water Management District
By email
Subject: Re-evaluation of Minimum Flows and Levels for the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers and Springs
Dear Sir/Madam,
The Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute’s mission is to provide sound science and education concerning the ecological health and wise management of Florida’s artesian springs and the Floridan Aquifer. Please carefully consider the enclosed comments as you move forward with fulfilling your responsibility to protect our natural environmental resources.
It is not in the public’s best interest to dry up or pollute any of Florida’s artesian springs. Healthy springs support a vast and abundant assemblage of charismatic and endangered wildlife, nourish our many rivers and lakes during droughts, and are the sought-after playground for tens of millions of visitors each year.
Springs are essential for our local ecology and economy. Our governmental agencies responsible for protecting Florida’s environmental prosperity would be reckless and irresponsible to allow our priceless springs to stop flowing or to experience rising nutrient concentrations.
Nevertheless, your agency and our water management districts are complicit in the on-going decline of Florida’s once crystalline springs. Not content with already permitting nearly five billion gallons of groundwater withdrawals per day from the Floridan Aquifer with the inevitable result that Florida’s springs have already lost a full third of their historic average flows, our water management districts with the approval of DEP continue to issue thousands of new well permits each year.
The simple truth is that every gallon of groundwater that is pumped to the land surface and not returned to the aquifer is one less gallon contributing to spring flow. During dry years with less rain to recharge the aquifer and greater pumping for irrigation, many springs stop flowing entirely and reverse flows, allowing tannic surface waters to enter the underground caves and conduits of the Floridan Aquifer. The springs that feed the Santa Fe River are not immune to this fate. In 2012 several first and second magnitude springs on the Upper and Lower Santa Fe River stopped flowing entirely. These included Worthington Spring, Santa Fe Spring, River Rise, Treehouse Spring, Columbia Spring, Hornsby Spring, Poe Spring, and others.
It is also a documented fact that the springs along the Santa Fe River are discharging an annual load of anthropogenic nitrate-nitrogen between 1,000 and 2,000 tons to the Santa Fe River, and ultimately to the Suwannee River and Gulf of Mexico. Your own data published in the 2013 MFL report documented that there is a clear and significant inverse relationship between river flow and nitrate concentrations. To state the obvious, lowered flows exacerbate nutrient pollution in the rivers.
Groundwater quantity and quality must be considered together as a holistic system to solve these worsening problems.
In 2012 DEP adopted a basin-wide water quality action plan for the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee rivers. That plan required a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen fertilizer loading for the 1,800 square mile Santa Fe Springshed that feeds groundwater to more than fifty springs that flow into these rivers.
In 2014 the Suwannee and St. Johns Water Management Districts completed a multi-year study of the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee rivers and concluded that both waterways were beyond the point of significant harm due to excessive groundwater pumping.
In 2015 the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in association with the Districts, implemented a prevention and recovery strategy to comply with the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee minimum flow requirements.
In 2018 DEP revised the Santa Fe Basin Management Action Plan in the face of the 2012 plan utterly failing to reverse continuing water quality degradation.
In 2020, the Florida Springs Institute completed a three-year detailed study of flows, water quality, and ecological health of the Santa Fe River and springs. This study conclusively documented average flow reductions of 28 percent for the river and springs, well beyond the reductions claimed by the NFSEG groundwater flow model. The real data do not lie – this river is well past the point of ecological harm.
And now, at the end of 2022 the DEP and the Districts are back, revising their failed 2015 MFLs.
In the Santa Fe Springshed 2,100 new well permits were issued between 2015 and 2020. This was after the Districts and DEP assured the public that we had entered a “prevention and recovery” period for these water bodies.
Every well permit that allows more groundwater to be withdrawn from the aquifer also facilitates the application of more fertilizer to ag fields or lawns. The resulting depletion and pollution of our region’s groundwater is a double blow to the health of our drinking water and local springs.
Analysis of the actual USGS discharge data for the MFL stations was summarized and reported in FSI’s 2020 report. Median flows in the Santa Fe River at the US 47 Gauge are down 28 percent for the period 2000 to 2020 compared to flows recorded at that location before 2000. Median flows at this gauge averaged over the past two decades are only about 865 cfs compared to the District’s recommended MFL median flow of 1,122 cfs. The new MFL and the old MFL are not being achieved.[1]
The fact that the District’s draft MFL at US 47 authorizes a flow reduction of 114 cfs (74 MGD) while actual, multi-decadal flows are already 257 cfs (166 MGD) lower than historic flows, proves that this new MFL is already violated and not in the public’s legitimate best interests. FSI recommends that this new prevention and recovery strategy mandate restoration of 201 cfs (130 MGD) of lost flows by substantially reducing all existing water use permits in the region.[2]
Large springs that were never observed to stop flowing in the past, have stopped flowing multiple times during recent drought periods. Springs that were translucent-blue 25 years ago are now green-brown and most of their plants and fish are gone. Rivers and springs that were pristine as recently as 40 to 50 years ago are now terribly polluted and depleted because of poorly regulated human activities.
The science is clear – the aesthetic and economic health of our local rivers and springs is being lost as groundwater withdrawals and fertilizer inputs increase, one gallon and one pound at a time. The springs that provide the base flow of the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers are suffering a “death by a thousand cuts”.
For the health and vitality of our region’s priceless springs, we recommend that no new wells be permitted, and no expired permits be re-issued until a greater volume of existing groundwater use is eliminated from those existing permits.
We respectfully request that DEP use its authority to expeditiously restore the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers and Springs.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Knight, Ph.D., Director
Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute (“Tenant”)
23695 US 27
High Springs, Florida 32643
Office: (386) 454–9369
Cell: (352) 538-6620
[1] Florida Springs Institute 2020. Santa Fe River and Springs Environmental Analysis Phase 3: Final Report: Environmental Data.
[2] Florida Springs Institute 2021. Blueprint for Restoring Springs On The Santa Fe River.
