Florida’s freshwater springs — the largest concentration of such springs on the planet — are dying, and our elected representatives and state officials are permitting that to happen. But now there’s something we, the people, can do to slow and even reverse that pattern of destruction.

I’m considered an “old timer” because I first visited Ichetucknee Springs before it became a state park, and I’ll never forget my first visit. My two friends and I were the only people at the headspring on a clear autumn day when the leaves were just beginning to turn color. The water was clear as glass and shimmered and sparkled like an earthbound star.

I received a message that day, in the form of some ghostly voices borne on a gentle fall breeze — a message that, in hindsight, bound me to the Ichetucknee forever. This emotional kinship with a spring is something that I think many of us feel here in the Springs Heartland of Planet Earth.

More from Lucinda Faulkner Merritt:

Legal system isn’t set up to protect environment

The slow death of a small spring

Why aren’t water laws protecting water?

Much later in life, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several nonprofit groups that have been trying to save Florida’s springs. What I’ve learned is horrifying: The state of Florida is very good at promoting the illusion that it’s protecting our springs, but the reality is completely different. The state is allowing them to die.

In 2020, 89% of voters in the Orlando area approved a Right to Clean Water county charter amendment. The Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis acted quickly to preempt that law, understanding that it could threaten the profits of major special interest donors to their political campaigns — never mind that clean water is a common interest, not a special one, and never mind that our state’s tourist-driven economy depends upon clean water and a healthy environment.