Has One Florida Dam's Day Finally Come?

Has One Florida Dam's Day Finally Come?

Page 3

As David White (formerly the FDE’s Ocklawaha River coordinator and now directing Gulf of Mexico restoration for the National Wildlife Federation) explains: “Congress didn’t officially deauthorize the canal until 1990, at which time the Forest Service said to the state, ‘Okay, when are you gonna get all this water off our land?’ Transferring ownership of the structures to Florida was going to take a while, so the Forest Service gave the state a five-year special-use permit, a binding contract that required it to remove the structures ‘in a reasonable amount of time’ or the U.S. could do it and charge the expense to the state.”

Meanwhile, the Forest Service apparently lost the permit. No one appeared to even know about it until 1999, when White unearthed it with a state record request three months before it was to expire. This precipitated a lengthy environmental review by the state and a Forest Service record of decision for dam removal, but in the face of pressure from the bass-tournament lobby, the Forest Service refused to act. 

 

The result is an aging, festering impoundment called Rodman Reservoir (though it provides no one with water) and, alternately, Rodman Pool (though there’s no swimming because of the alligators). Despite a forecast for strong winds, we found it waveless on April 10. 

No one unfamiliar with the unspoiled reaches of the Ocklawaha, the lost fish and wildlife, the lost springs, the 16 miles of ruined river, or the 10,000 acres of drowned forest would call the impoundment ugly—especially now that the water was coming back up and covering some of the muck and rotting timber. The previous winter Rodman Reservoir had been drawn down, as it is about every three years, to kill the alien vegetation, especially hydrilla, that depletes oxygen and impedes bass-boat traffic. Herbicides are also used, though sparingly these days. All this and the operation of Buckman Lock between the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers costs state taxpayers about $1 million per annum.

Nor is Rodman lifeless. As we paddled out from Kenwood Landing, the “oinks” of pig frogs rose from hundreds of acres of spatterdock. Boat-tailed grackles and red-winged blackbirds perched on dead cattails. In open water large alligators floated, distinguishable from the floating logs only by their slow passage or, when motionless, their eye ridges. A mature bald eagle hunched on a dead snag. On lower snags anhingas in breeding plumage dried their wings. Ospreys hovered. Gar and catfish swirled. And low, glitter-painted bass boats with huge outboard engines screamed up the flooded riverbed.

Like most manmade impoundments in the South, the reservoir exploded with bass in its early years, then started dying, choking on the rich biomass of decaying timber and forest duff. In 1985 the oxygen-swilling stew of bacteria and rotting vegetation killed an estimated 8.5 million fish; three years later it killed an estimated 2.5 million. Rodman defenders tell me major fish kills don’t happen anymore, but Karen Ahlers says they’re just not reported. “Two years ago we [the Putnam County Environmental Council] discovered a big gizzard-shad kill,” she told me. “The lock tenders wouldn’t let our guy take photos.”

Since 1971 the sole justification for the dam has been bass-boat traffic and bass tournaments—not bass fishing itself. It’s all about going fast in absurdly overpowered boats. The dam and lock shut out most endangered manatees, and if they get back into the system in big numbers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service might insist on speed limits. If all you want to do is catch bass, you’ll have better luck floating the Ocklawaha or St. Johns or driving to some of the 200,000 acres of natural lakes within 25 miles of the reservoir. “The impoundment duplicates something we have a tremendous amount of,” says Audubon’s Charles Lee. “And the dead river under it is something that’s comparatively scarce.” 

As president of Save Rodman Reservoir, Inc. and from his seat on the Putnam County Commission, Ed Taylor crusades to “SAVE Rodman From Evil Destruction,” as his card puts it. The impoundment was “as good as gone,” he brags, until he started supplying “facts” about its tournament value. The Congressional effort to restore Clean Water Act protection to unnavigable waters that feed navigable ones is actually a plot by environmentalists and their federal allies to seize control “over all the watersheds in the United States,” he warns his fellow bass boaters.

Why, I asked Taylor, should Florida taxpayers cough up $1 million a year to maintain a dam that serves no purpose? “Well,” he replied, “one of Governor Jeb Bush’s aides stopped me in the hall one day, and he asked me the same question. I said, ‘We’re standing in the capital building built in the middle of woods that deer and bear used to roam. Let’s take it down.’ He walked off and never did speak to me again.”

Every Florida governor since Reubin Askew (with the exception of the current one, Rick Scott) has strongly advocated removal of Rodman Dam. In 1995 Governor Lawton Chiles ordered it taken out. It didn’t happen. Every time removal appeared imminent, Florida lawmakers—whipped up by local politicians like State Senator George Kirkpatrick (R-Gainesville), State Senator Jim King (R-Jacksonville), and Gainesville Mayor-Commissioner Rodney Long—convinced their colleagues to keep the dam “in its natural state,” as Long put it. 

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Author Profile

Ted Williams

Ted Williams is freelance writer.

Type: Author | From: Audubon Magazine

Comments

reply to Ted Williams

Mr. Williams, as I clearly stated, and again you take out of context and miss-quote, the numbers in my comments are not "mine" and not made up, all are from reliable sources. A list of these sources have been submitted to Audubon Magazine. I trust this was forwarded to you. My comments also cited information on the cleansing action monitored through the Lake Watch program at University of Florida at Gainesville, which is not information given to me by Ed Taylor, as you state, Mr. Williams. Ted Williams does tend to have a hard time reading information and responding to what was stated.
The time frame of 75 to 100+ years for re-growth of the forest is from a study done by the National Forest Service. I quoted from that study, it is not just my opinion. The area you refer to that was cleared in the 1960's was not underwater for 44+ years. Some logic should prevail here.
What none of the "rebuttals" to my comments has addressed is who will pay the $25.8 million cost (which was from 2007, may be more now) for restoration, in these dire economic times, with local, State and Federal budgets all being cut.
Another concern that I have is that if there is to be any kind of consensus on what will occur ultimately with Rodman, there needs to be constructive conversation between the opposing viewpoints, not disparaging and discrediting comments. I encourage constructive conversation and some working together. This environment is all of ours, and for the future generations. I cherish the environment and believe everyone responding does as well.

An Ecological Slum

Ms. Lawler: I took nothing “out of context.” You cited and posted incorrect information. And I corrected it. I never imagined that the numbers were yours; if they had been, I’d have noted that you have no more credibility or credentials than Ed Taylor. Taylor is not a “reliable source” as Karen Chadwick, Paul Nosca and others clearly demonstrate here. Nor is Florida DEP a “reliable source” for reasons I explained. The notion that a river meandering through naturally forested wetlands could somehow be “purified” by a thermally polluted, fetid, de-oxygenated stew of decaying alien vegetation and herbicides is preposterous. No ecologically literate person could believe this. If Lake Watch makes that claim, it provides us only with information about Lake Watch, not the reservoir. I have no doubt that the U.S. Forest Service (not the “National Forest Service”) estimated 75 years for re-growth. So what? Even if that estimate were accurate (and it clearly is not, because being underwater would not retard regrowth as is evident by the rapid regrowth just during the drawdowns), do you contend that we should not think about the generations who will enjoy this naturally renewed forest 75-100 years hence? That’s only one human lifetime. Again, $25.8 million is a terrific deal as dam removal goes. Check out the removal costs of equally useless dams that are coming down all across the U.S. What’s more, removal is a money maker. It would be an investment that would pay for itself in only 19 years even if you didn’t add all the values of a restored natural river and just figured the cost of maintaining the reservoir ($1.3 million a year). If you did add those values, removal would pay for itself in a year or two. What we absolutely do NOT need at this point is more “conversation” between those who value wild rivers and those who do not. It is impossible by nature for such talk to be “constructive.” Dam fans have been talking since the 1960s. The time for talk is over. Now is the time for action. You may “cherish the environment.” But you obviously do not cherish the NATURAL environment. A slum is an “environment.” And Rodman Reservoir is an ecological slum.

Ocklawaha River, Florida

The 30 September 1968 completion of Rodman Dam caused the loss of 21 river miles of free-flowing riverine ecosystem. Florida's peninsula was blessed by the Creator with thousands of lakes but very few swift-flowing streams of any considerable length. The 'pre-Rodman Dam' 56-mile long 'Silver-Ocklawaha River' was unique in this state by virtue of having one of the world's greatest-flow 1st magnitude artesian spring groups (73 degree F Silver Springs) as its supreme headwaters with unimpeded access for fish and other aquatic life--located more than 50 miles above tidewater influence.

So, what did they build that

So, what did they build that one for?

Ocklawaha River striped bass fishing back in 1955

Read this Fred Langworthy report that appeared in the Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal newspaper (28 August 1955, page 14):
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kYUfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qswEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1...

Striped Bass of the Ocklawaha River, Florida

Largemouth bass exist and naturally reproduce in all of Florida's 67 counties. Trophy largemouth bass (10-lbs and over) are caught from time to time statewide.

Striped bass, however, have a completely different life history. Back in 1961 fishery biologists determined that only two river systems in Florida--the Apalachicola-Chipola and the St. Johns-Ocklawaha--contained naturally reproducing stocks of native striped bass. Stripers in Florida are riverine fish which require about 50 miles of cool, free and swift-flowing large streams for successful spawning. Adult striped bass, which can weigh beyond 30 lbs, also require closeby access to water temperatures no greater than 80 F (such as artesian springs). Rodman Dam reduced the spring-fed, swift-flowing Ocklawaha River upstream from the tidal St. Johns River estuary to a length unsuitable for striper spawning. Since 1970 the St. Johns River basin has been stocked with hatchery produced striped bass. No other tributary streams of the St. Johns River meet the stripers' strict spawning requirements.
https://sites.google.com/site/ocklawahaman/striped-bass-of-the-ocklawaha...

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