Friday at 5 o’clock is the deadline to submit comments on the minimum flows and levels for the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee rivers.
The water districts have continued their practice of seeing just how much water they can get away with taking from the river. Knowing the river is damaged, knowing that it needs restoration, knowing they are doing even more damage, they continue to destroy it bit by bit so we can accommodate more people, more industry, more bottling plants, more irrigation wells.
Please write to them and tell them to stop. Tell them we want them to leave the river alone.
We do not need more wells pumping water from these springsheds. We do not need more housing developments. We do not need more people. We do not need a broader taxbase. We do not want these things. . We do not want to read your convoluted rationalizations and complicated formulae. We do not want to hear your contrived justifications for destroying our rivers. What we want is for you to protect our rivers and you can get a great start by just leaving them alone.
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
I am a 6th generation North Floridian. I have a place on the Santa Fe River that I’ve been swimming, snorkeling and kayaking and fishing since 1967. This river and it’s springs are part of my very soul. I’ve seen the aquatic vegetation gradually disappear, and it’s breaking my heart. If not left alone to recover, everyone will suffer and lose, not just the beauty, but the very water we drink. This insane cycle of allowing increasing withdrawals from the aquifer has got to STOP!