We Can't Fix Nature, or Our Mistakes

As I have said in another Hub, my favorite book, and one of my favorite movies is “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. This is mostly because I’m a natural born Floridian, and have spent much of my time growing up in the swamps and forests, hunting and fishing. “The Yearling” really captures the essence of a boy growing up seeing much of the same things I did growing up. The Ocala National Forest includes the areas described in Rawling’s books. I have hunted those areas and visited her home, many times.

Back in the mid 90’s my Father and Mother bought a Cottage in the Ocala National Forrest, right up the ridge from the Rodman Reservoir. This area used to be called, and is still sometimes as, Lake Ocklawaha. I have spent many a beautiful day fishing the lake, riding the trails on four wheelers, and relaxing under the shade trees. My kids have grown up there, spent summers, vacations, and some Holidays enjoying the freedom of the woods and the outdoors. My Mother found some of her most happiest times there prior to her very early trip home. Some of my fondest memories of my family have come from that place, and those woods.

The Forrest has changed some in the past ten years. When we first bought the property there, we loved going hunting right down the road. We loved riding the trails, and exploring the woods. Changes in the politics of the National Forrest have created new trails for riding, along with mandatory daily fees and registration stickers on the bikes. This was done for more revenue. Then they changed all the street numbers. Why? It doesn’t make sense. Now they want to drain the lake. Again I ask why? Here’s the History .

The Rodman Reservoir is in actuality part of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. It also has many other names, such as “the ditch to no where”, “the big mistake”, and “Florida’s Blunder”. This Dream of a cross state canal started in the 1600's when Spain owned Florida, and drifted into the 1820’s with John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. They have all dreamed of cutting time off of sailing around the peninsula to get to those Gulf ports. In 1825, Florida set up the first Canal Committee, and in 1826 received funding from the Congress for surveying the project. Being in a hurry, 108 years later, when Roosevelt was looking for projects for his “New Deal”, and he started the digging off in 1935 with a remote detonation blast from Washington.

So began the removal of dirt from some 77,000 acres in Duval, Marion, Putnam, Clay, Citrus and Levy counties. It did spur the economy on during the Depression, but the money didn’t last long. Within 10 months the entire $5.5million propagated was spent, and only 3% of the work was completed. During WWII Congress still dreamed of cutting across, so they decided to cut costs by only making the canal 12' deep which would only handle barges. President Johnson, again with a remote blast detonation, began the work in 1964. To make a long story less boring, in the 70’s, a new Environmentalist stirred and Marjorie Harris Carr made a big stink about how the birds, fish, and the trees were being affected. By this time the Country had invested $70million in the project, with only a third of it done. After some studies and a lot more money spent, it was decided that it wasn't a feasible project.

After that, the project just stopped. All funding, commissions, and attempts were stopped. You can still see where they stopped work at Eureka, Fl. In my opinion, it was a nightmare that anyone with any sense or knowledge of Florida, would have never attempted. There are many instances of these projects where we as people thought that we could either help nature, or tame it here in Florida. This wasn’t the only canal that was tried. A less ambitious project was the Kissimmee River. The State was going to jump river to river, across, but in order to make it useable, the river was straightened and trenched. Now it’s one of the most stagnate bodies of water in Central Florida. Again, we couldn’t leave it alone.

Now they want to fix it. They want to put the curves back in the Kissimmee River, and they want to demolish the Ocklawaha locks, putting everything right. Well intentioned, but WRONG. Leave it alone!! Why do we as humans have to fix everything? The planet does just fine without us fiddling with it. You drain the lake, you create a mud hole, this doesn’t mention the fact that you will flood the old Ocklawaha River basin, killing more acreage of trees, animals, and other vegetation, than you are trying to create. This does not mention the fact that the mosquito population will explode to make those counties affected uninhabitable for years. We made a mistake; another would be trying to fix it. Let God handle nature, I guarantee he’ll do a better job than us.