The following information is from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. OSFR has a strong interest in this manner of conserving North Florida’s many endangered springs, many of which are being loved to death. Nichols Spring is on the South Withlachoochee River near Rutland.
Titles indicating special protection areas designated by our water management districts have proven to be of no value when it comes to protection from industry or some business which wants to exploit the water resource.
These designations are make-work concoctions which serve only to promote the false idea that our water protection agencies are doing their job, which they definitely are not.
Hopefully the FWC will be able to enforce the regulations enough to make a difference. We commend and support this effort and hope the protection extends to also prohibit abusive withdrawals and excessive nutrient pollution in our springs, which are far more damaging than loving over-abuse.
Please continue reading after the FWC letter and find comments by OSFR co-founder and long-term president Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson regarding Nichols Spring, on private property long in the Dean family.
Then [please stay with us!] we have a document from the Ichetucknee Alliance regarding a Springs Protection Zone to protect the lower Ichetucknee (largest tributary of the Santa Fe) from harm by over-use of motorized vessels.
Thanks to Terry Phelan and Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson for these links.
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
(Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.) Dec. 1, 2022 Suggested Tweet: First Springs Protection Zone approved for Nichols Spring by @MyFWC Commissioners https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLFFWCC/bulletins/33ae787 #Florida #Sumpter #FWC2022 FWC Commissioners approve the first Springs Protection Zone in Florida at Nichols Spring At its Nov. 30-Dec. 1 meeting, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved a rule establishing a Springs Protection Zone for Nichols Spring and its associated spring run in Sumter County. The Spring Protection Zone for Nichols Spring will be the first created in Florida. Anchoring, mooring, beaching and grounding of vessels was determined to have caused harm to bank vegetation, cypress trees and aquatic grasses in and around the spring. These activities will be prohibited within the Springs Protection Zone. At its December 2021 meeting, the Commission established the criteria and process used to create Springs Protection Zones. FWC staff coordinated with Sumter County officials, the Southwest Florida Water Management District and Department of Environmental Protection to review whether Nichols Spring met the criteria for the creation of a Springs Protection Zone and held a public meeting for interested parties before approval. The public will still be able to visit Nichols Spring but will be prohibited from anchoring, mooring, beaching or grounding a vessel within the spring or along the spring’s shoreline. The public will be able to anchor a vessel outside the protection zone and swim through the small spring run and into the spring. Tubes and rafts are not considered vessels in Florida and may still be used in the spring. |
After reading a few documents about Nichols Spring….
Help Us Establish a Springs Protection Zone for the Lower Ichetucknee River
The Ichetucknee River needs your help to protect it from damage caused by motorized vessels such as boats and jet skis.
Recreational impacts are increasingly damaging our North Florida springs and rivers, and the Ichetucknee is no exception. While the upper part of the river is protected by the state park’s ban on motorized vessels, the Lower Ichetucknee as it flows through Three Rivers Estates has no such protection.
Many weekends, especially holiday weekends, find the Lower Ichetucknee experiencing heavy motorized vessel traffic that results in turbid water and ecosystem damage to submerged aquatic vegetation and to the shoreline. In addition, the danger posed by motorized vessels to wildlife such as Florida’s iconic manatees is well known.
Thanks to a new state law, Florida Statute 327.45, we now have an opportunity to change this situation to provide more protections for our beloved blue river. This law grants authority to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to establish Springs Protection Zones (SPZs) that “restrict the speed or operation of vessels or that prohibit anchoring, mooring, beaching or grounding of vessels to protect or prevent specified harm to first, second and third magnitude springs and spring groups and their associated spring runs.”
In April 2022, a local citizen filed a request to the FWC to establish a non-motorized vessel SPZ for the Lower Ichetucknee. The Ichetucknee Alliance is helping with this effort. Establishing a Springs Protection Zone is a new process and all of us, including the FWC, are learning as this process unfolds.
Part of the process involves gaining public support for the SPZ request. If you agree that the Lower Ichetucknee could benefit from stronger protections, please consider:
- Writing a letter saying why you and/or your organization support establishing a Springs Protections Zone for the Lower Ichetucknee River. You may submit your letter electronically to ichetuckneealliance@gmail.com or by snail mail to the Ichetucknee Alliance, P.O. Box 945, High Springs, FL 32655-0945. We need your letters no later than October 14,2022 please. See sample letters attached **
- Attending an upcoming FWC workshop to get public input on establishing the SPZ. We need large numbers of people who support the Springs Protection Zone to attend. We do not have a date for the workshop yet, but it will be held somewhere in the area where the zone was requested and should be held before the November 30-December 1, 2022 FWC meeting (location to be determined)where we hope to have our request on the agenda. It would also be good if you could attend that FWC meeting.
We expect strong opposition to this request from boating enthusiasts, but the Ichetucknee Alliance has always chosen to take the strongest possible stands to restore, protect and preserve the Ichetucknee. The possibility of fierce opposition does not deter us.
Your support for the Ichetucknee is critically important. Thank you for your consideration of our requests.
**Sample Letters of Support for the Ichetucknee Springs Protection Zone (SPZ)
These are only samples to get you going – pick and choose any parts – add your own words as they will have much more impact. “Lower river” refers to the southern approximately 2 miles of the river as it crosses Highway 27.
Please ADDRESS your letters to Captain Rachel Bryant, FWC, Division of Law Enforcement, Boating and Waterways BUT SEND to ichetuckneealliance@gmail.com.
- I would like to express my support for the non-motorized SPZ for the Lower Ichetucknee River pursuant to FL Statute 327.45. I have seen the harm done to the river and its ecosystem from motorized vessels including_____________________________.
(Destruction of vegetation, harm to river bottom and manatees from anchors/propellers, poor water turbidity after boats pass, oil and gas in water, anchors pulling up vegetation, erosion, etc.)
- I strongly support the non-motorized SPZ for the Lower Ichetucknee River. The FWC Commissioners have been granted authority by the Florida Legislature to establish such zones and I hope you do the right thing and take steps to save this precious natural resource. (Give personal experiences with the river and/or harm from motorized vessels.)
- I am writing to let you know that I am in full support of the SPZ for the Lower Ichetucknee River. The Upper River has been protected as part of the State Park for many years so it makes sense the lower river should also be protected. The Upper river has placed even further restrictions on human use and the results have been outstanding. Please do all you can to prevent further destruction to this delicate spring.
- I am writing to express my full support for the Lower Ichetucknee SPZ. I have seen large craft with outrageous horsepower engines that have no business on this spring run. (List harm to river you have seen.)
- I am a boater and I am writing to let you know I support the non-motorized vessel SPZ for the Lower Ichetucknee. (See #4).
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
-from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, 1971.
