Decades after a Florida canal project was abandoned, advocates are trying to reunite 2 rivers

PALATKA, Fla. (AP) — It was supposed to be Florida’s version of the Panama Canal — a shortcut for boats to pass through the middle of the state from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf instead of navigating around the peninsula. But work on the Cross Florida Barge Canal was stopped in 1971 over environmental concerns.

Since then, a dam and reservoir built for the aborted canal in northeast Florida has drowned a chunk of the Ocala National Forest, put 20 springs underwater and disrupted wildlife crossings, including some used by migrating manatees.

Every couple of years, when state workers empty the reservoir to clean out muck, those lost springs reemerge and cypress saplings begin growing on previously submerged land. For several months, the area returns to its natural state.

The latest drawdown of Rodman Reservoir, the first in six years, started in October and ended in early March. But environmentalists want to permanently open the 7,200-foot (2,200-meter) Kirkpatrick Dam and reunite the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers with Silver Springs, one of the largest spring systems in the U.S.

“By removing the dam, we would reunite the waters,” said Nina Bhattacharyya, executive director of Florida Defenders of the Environment. “We would have springs reemerge. Wildlife would be able to move back and forth — migratory fish, manatees and so much more. Removal of the dam would really fix a wrong that was created decades ago.”

A legislative setback, and vows to keep fighting

The latest effort to make that happen, after decades of trying, failed last week when lawmakers didn’t pass a bill before the legislative session ended that would have supported a $70 million project to restore the Ocklawaha River by opening up the dam over four years.

Advocates for restoring the river said they plan to regroup and identify the best strategy for moving forward, but they remain optimistic given how close they came. The measure had passed the Florida House and was awaiting a Senate vote before the session ended last week.

“While the bill did not receive a final vote in the Senate this session, the strong bipartisan support it earned reflects growing momentum for restoration,” Bhattacharyya said Monday.

During the drawdowns, what used to be on the 9,500 acres (3,844 hectares) of submerged land becomes visible. Bear and deer tracks are spotted. Wild turkeys and sandhill cranes return to the dried-out land. Thousands of drowned and ghostlike cypress, palm and maple tree trunks reveal themselves as the water drops.

“It’s haunting, like a graveyard,” Karen Chadwick, a charter boat captain, said recently as she maneuvered her boat among decayed and graying tree trunks jutting from the water.

There are also concerns about the safety of the dam, which is past its life expectancy. Advocates for opening the dam say a structural collapse could endanger hundreds of nearby homes.

“Something is going to happen, maybe next year, maybe in a couple of years,” Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur, the legislation’s sponsor, said last month during a committee hearing. “Something has to be done.”

‘This system is a national treasure’

Nature filmmaker Mark Emery told Florida lawmakers recently that the Ocklawaha River was unique as it was historically fed by the extensive Silver Springs system. But huge schools of mullet and catfish have disappeared from Silver Springs since the dam choked the flow of the river and reduced the number of fish getting into the springs, he said.

“This system is a national treasure,” Emery said. “Hundreds of millions of gallons of fresh water feed and cool the river. Before the dam, you had a direct waterway to the ocean with small springs all along the way.”

Some angling groups oppose anything that would permanently empty Rodman Reservoir, saying it has become a world-class fishing spot and supports a local economy of largemouth bass fishing, camping and birdwatching in rural Putnam County, which is among Florida’s poorest counties. Supporters of emptying the reservoir say it will remain an outdoors haven, if not more so.

Plus, the reservoir reduces nutrient levels in the water and could be used as an alternate water supply at a time when Florida’s population is booming, Steve Miller, president of Save Rodman Reservoir, told lawmakers in February.

“There’s a bigger picture than what is being shown,” Miller said during a legislative hearing. “Don’t gamble away on speculative outcomes.”

Fixing misguided projects

While the construction of the dam was a mistake, locals have made the best of the situation by creating businesses geared toward outdoorspeople, said Putnam County Commissioner Joshua Alexander.

“We have created chicken salad out of chicken,” Alexander told lawmakers. “We are not a rich economy, and I believe it would affect our economy.”

A restoration of the Ocklawaha River would be part of a long history in Florida of restoring a natural environment that was upset by a misguided public works project.

The Everglades in South Florida had shrunk to half its size due to water supply and flood control projects by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before a multibillion-dollar effort was launched at the start of this century to restore the network of wetlands. Similarly, the corps dredged the Kissimmee River and installed canals in the 1960s to reduce flooding in the interior part of the state, but ended up upsetting the floodplain’s ecosystem of birds and fish. Efforts to restore the river were launched two decades ago and completed in 2021.

“Nature is very resilient,” Chadwick said, “if you just get out of the way and let it do its thing.”

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

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