Just as OSFR’s Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson began a movement to generate songs (now nearly 100) about the Santa Fe River, Bob Knight has published the first book about this river. The book is listed as:
Knight, Robert L. Florida’s Santa Fe River and Springs: An Environmental and Cultural History. Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, High Springs, Florida. Alta Printing, Gainesville, Florida, 2022. 219 pp. Color photographs, maps. $70 from Florida Springs Institute, High Springs, Florida
What do you want to know about the Santa Fe River? Whatever it is, you will likely find the answer in this fact-filled book.
The Santa Fe River is included in books on Florida’s rivers, books of maps, Florida’s springs, and in at least one novel as well and a book of photographs, but to our knowledge there is no other book dealing entirely with the river and its history. Knight is a careful researcher and documents well his statements, stemming perhaps from his training as a scientist. His career as an environmental scientist and aquatic ecologist has resulted in many publications dealing with water issues in North Florida and this carries over in the many scientific analyses of the status of the river, polluted and diminished from earlier times. The book is very well-edited and I could find only one pseudo typo, more a capitalization inconsistency.
Environmental and cultural issues aside, Knight examines the early origins of Florida going back some 300 million years ago when Florida broke from Africa and drifted to its current location. We see the Santa Fe began forming perhaps 16 million years ago when the water receded from Florida’s last emergence from the ocean after several periods of complete inundation.
Being an avid scuba diver, Knight is familiar with the treasure trove of fossils lying on the bottom of the Santa Fe, and he gives a good rundown on those of the Pleistocene and earlier epochs. He is also a trained archaeologist and gives an excellent summary of the Santa Fe’s long-departed inhabitants. He has directed the excavations (publication pending) at the Tatum Crockett site on the riverbank just upriver from Rum Island, documenting what may be the earliest evidence of humans in Florida.
Just as the Santa Fe is one of the richest fossil rivers in the nation, so it is with Paleoindian remains. The section of the lower Santa Fe from River Rise to its mouth has the largest concentration of Paleoindian tools in the U.S. This and other early indigenous populations are described along with several full-page photos.
As the title “…Environmental… History “indicates, this book is heavy on what has happened to the river to make it less than pristine, and also who is responsible and what lies in the future.
What happened is people: in 1950 there were about 98,500 people living in the Santa Fe basin and 70 years later the number has quadrupled. Over-pumping for agricultural and municipal purposes has dropped the aquifer about 40 feet and has reduced the river flow about 28 percent, and mostly agricultural fertilizer has increased nitrate pollution about 4,600 percent.
By law, our Department of Environmental Protection has the mission of keeping pollution out of the river, and the Suwannee River Water Management District the obligation of protecting water quantity. Both agencies have failed miserably, and Knight exposes their number manipulations, cherry-picking of data and use of inferior science to arrive at the numbers they need to determine how much water can be withdrawn from the river. These illegal shenanigans are the result of political pressure from Tallahassee which dictates that money-making endeavors must take precedence over any environmental issues if there is profit for someone involved.
On page 153 Knight writes “…all pumping reduces spring flows.” To illustrate the point made in the paragraph above, your reviewer was present at a Suwannee River Water Management workshop where the district scientists were discussing declining water levels. A representative of a local cattlemen’s association stated that shutting all the pumps down would not make a difference. The water management people agreed.
Knight states that pumping permits must be reduced by 50 percent and nitrogen by 80 percent if we want to approach a level of restoration of the river. This is not going to happen under our current lack of leadership.
Seen in its perspective of its millions of years of existence, the river has been damaged in only a tiny fraction of that time and even shorter is the time span that efforts have been made to curtail and reverse these impairments. Knight lists some of the environmental groups, including Our Santa Fe River, working to this end. His conclusion is that the future of the river is “murky.”
The river has survived many changes throughout its long history, but some changes have been irreversible, such as the disappearance of the megafauna.
Overall, this is a book for anyone who has any interest in the Santa Fe River, its past, its current unhealthy and deteriorating status, or its problematic future. This book may open new vistas for those who think our springs and rivers are in great condition, and we recommend it wholeheartedly.
The ode below is on the back cover of the book and was written by Knight. This is an eloquent synopsis of his book. Poetry can say everything a ponderous tome can say, but much quicker and more beautifully.
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
