Wakulla County must protect its valuable waters (Tallahassee Democrat) Many years ago, public meetings, forums and particularly Leon and Wakulla county commission meetings raised the issue of clean water. The risk to the degradation of the water quality, and the noticeable chemical increase in nitrates and phosphates, did not stop at the Tallahassee sewage treatment plant. The risk was from Wakulla County-sanctioned application of sludge from that water treatment plant. Heavy tanker trucks brought minimally treated Leon County waste to Wakulla to spray on a field next to Rehwinkel Road. The risk was that citizens were inadequately and inaccurately informed about the enormous cave system funneling water to our Wakulla and Spring Creek springs. The risk was that nobody realized sinkholes were not safe places to throw car batteries, cars and household garbage. Geologists, hydrogeologists, biologists and chemists presented facts. They appeared before elected officials with results of dye trace studies and ground-penetrating radar studies. Even that was not enough to open eyes. These were red flags. Risks outweighed benefits of doing business as usual. When the tipping point came, it did not take a rocket scientist to understand the orange blob on the Wakulla County map next to Rehwinkel Road indicated unsafe nitrate levels. Those nitrates were flowing into the Lost Creek area and underground south to the coast. They had been imported from Tallahassee. Yet, some Wakulla commissioners insisted that there was no threat because all that water “just flows out into the Gulf.” Thankfully, the risk to our wetlands, to our sinkholes, to the economic health of the county outweighed the naysayers. By 2005, citizens and scientists (sometimes the same) worked hours to create a local risk management ordinance. Their efforts convinced a majority of Wakulla commissioners to adopt the Wakulla Wetlands Protection Ordinance. This ordinance was heralded throughout the state for its forward thinking about the future risks to our waters. This protection took into account all possible risks, all scientific explorations and sinkhole cleanups. The conclusion: Federal and state protection zones or buffers were indeed inadequate for our particular county. Why? The soil in Wakulla County is particularly porous. It is sand. Sand, without roots that hold it in place, without an adequate canopy above it, provides almost no vital protection to wetlands or the wildlife within. Government buffers or setbacks in place are a “one size fits” all approach and are not good enough for Wakulla County. Current Wakulla officials claim regulations are not always applied fairly and consistently. This unfair situation creates a risk, they state. It is a risk many will take to apply a fair standard to the protection of life. The Wetlands Protection Ordinance is pro-life. If anyone can do a proper risk analysis to determine what the actual cost to the loss of one developer might be versus the risk to the health of our fresh water, now is the time. We are at risk of being bullied into believing there might be a lawsuit if voters reinstate the local protection zones or buffers our commissioners took away. We are at risk when a uniform state regulation (the same for South Florida’s concrete paradise as for Wakulla’s sensitive ecosystem) cannot sustain a clean water source for our fish nurseries. Federal and state government have done a couple of things right: Almost five-sevenths of the county is protected with a wildlife refuge, state and national forests and state parks. Ask yourself why? If you listen to our elected officials the mere presence of these conservation lands poses a risk. Why? They cannot be developed. Does that mean the rest of the county should be drained, filled, fragmented and degraded? If you are willing to take that risk, you do so knowing that the natural habitat that is destroyed will be insufficient to sustain our wildlife. We risk diminishing our ecosystem only to have a higher cost later to try to restore what we lost. Or we realize that Wakulla County has the most scientifically researched spring system — or karst system — in the world. That research is valuable in its own right. Can we seriously risk shoving all that information aside? Can we really risk ignoring the job our buffers are doing now to filter impurities? We must, for our grandchildren’s sake, continue to provide local control of what we hold dear in Wakulla County. There is only one way for Wakulla County to keep and improve our unique ecosystem. We must reinstate local control by voting Yes on Referendum A. We can also ask anyone running for office in Wakulla and Leon counties what they will do to protect our aquifer, and then hold them to it once elected. Madeleine H. Carr is retired from Tallahassee Community College and is a founding member and current president of Friends of Wakulla Springs State Park. Contact her at maduswiss@gmail
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:58:09 +0000
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