One would have to dig deep into the barrel to find a good reason to overrule the legion of reasons to get rid of the Rodman Dam on the Ocklawaha. The other necessary action to fix the Ocklawaha is to restore Silver Springs and this will be accomplished mostly by stopping the unnecessary over-pumping which is wrong and which should never have been permitted in the first place.
The decline of the Ocklawaha is due to both the dam and the killing of Silver Springs, a principal contributor to the river. For this we need a semblance of leadership to fill the absolute void currently in the St Johns River Water Management District, the Florida Legislature and the governor’s office.
To counter this void we need to put the Right to Clean and Healthy Waters Amendment into our constitution in 2024.
This is crucial.
Read the original article with photos here in the Florida Times Union.
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
The Cross-Florida Barge Canal was halted in 1971 by President Nixon due to environmental concerns, but the dam — and the damage — remains. The Rodman Reservoir, the artificial lake created by the damming of the river, smothers 20 freshwater springs and has flooded thousands of acres of floodplain swamps critical to what scientists call the hydrologic cycle.
But there is a silver lining in the cloudy waters impounded by the dam. There is a considerable body of economic data and studies from economists, scientists and tourism experts that show that breaching the Rodman/Kirkpatrick Dam would provide Northeast Florida and North Central Florida with significant economic benefits, as well as environmental benefits to the people of Florida, fish and wildlife.
Dr. Bob Knight, the executive director of The Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute and now in his fifth decade of working to preserve and protect Florida’s springs, believes we could attract upwards of 1 million visitors a year back to that area. We could also possibly see from 500 to 1,000 manatees return to the Silver River with breaching the Rodman Dam.
