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Legislation would help safeguard Florida springs
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Location: Blogs Now We're Talking |
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| Posted by: Joe Byrnes |
3/8/2007 1:41 PM |
Any day on the Rainbow, someone said, doesn't count against you.
Photographer and underwater filmmaker Glen Lau, the award-winning creator of "Bigmouth," quoted that line to me recently at the dedication of the Florida Bass Conservation Center near Webster.
Lau should know. He has recorded more than 15,000 hours diving in Rainbow Springs. So even though the west Marion resident is 71, you've got to subtract about two years.
The next day at dawn, I was on the Rainbow myself, holding against the current of time, watching a huge sun ascend between the cypress trees and casting my line into a golden mist rising from the water.
The river, however, isn't holding its ground, especially not against increasing levels of nutrients from farming, golf courses and housing developments. How much, indeed, will be lost when the crystal-clear Rainbow loses its luster!
At the bass center's dedication, Lau had brought his friend Homer Circle, the renowned fishing writer, who, by the way, was recently selected for induction into the International Game Fish Association's Fishing Hall of Fame.
"He and I both gave up a day of fishing to come here because we felt it was important," Lau said. "It's an important beginning."
The FBCC - the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's $17.5 million state-of-the-art, indoor hatchery with 63 ponds - will enable research and triple the state's capacity to carefully stock its waterways.
Lau is letting the FWC sell some of his bass prints and videos to benefit the center. Public awareness is important, he told me. "People need to get involved. They need to say, 'We need good fishing. We need clean lakes.'Ê"
The center will help ensure the future of Florida's freshwater fishing, but the true guarantee of that future is the health of the state's lakes and rivers.
To its credit, the county government is changing policies to protect the water in Rainbow and Silver springs. And in the past two months, state Sens. Steve Oelrich, R-Cross Creek, and Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, filed bills designed to safeguard those and other springs.
Oelrich's bill (SB 1486) would form a broad-based Florida Springs Commission to study the problem and develop a statewide plan during the next four years.
Argenziano's bill (SB 2636) would get right down to business. It would order protection zones for Rainbow Springs and a few other springsheds by July 2008, require local comprehensive plan changes holding nitrates to current levels and, by July 2010, establish nutrient limits and management plans.
It would prohibit regular septic tanks, waste water disposal, landfills and other problem uses where groundwater filters to the springs.
On that recent Saturday, I drifted into the maidencane at East Blue Cove. Its banks, which had been piled high with shrubs and trees, were largely cleared in preparation for the Rainbow River Ranch development.
On a circle of pale sand at the edge of the weeds, a pair of Florida largemouth bass - a stout female and a smaller male - were spawning. One of them, with its nose tilted to the bottom, glinted silver and green in the sunlight.
I sat in my boat and watched the underwater drama.
The day, I think, added weeks to my life. But every day and year that we put off protecting Florida's springs does count against the Rainbow River.
Argenziano, at least, seems to understand the need to act and to act now.
Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or (352) 867-4112.
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Re: Legislation would help safeguard Florida springs |
By Stan on
3/7/2007 12:59 PM |
Hey Joe,
Finally something I agree with you on!!!! |
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