What Is Happening to Our Springs, and What Can We Do About It?

Florida's priceless jewels—the freshwater springs that exist here in one of the largest concentrations if not THE largest concentration in the world—are in trouble.

Springs that I remember being crystalline blue are now tinged with green, victims of rising pollution levels. Springs that used to draw tourists and swimmers have quit flowing and dried up entirely, victims of increased withdrawal of water from the aquifer by water bottling companies, agriculture, and an increasing human population.

What's worse is that there doesn't appear to be any kind of coherent statewide agreement that the degradation of our springs is a huge problem that needs to be fixed.

Our legislators are too afraid of angering business, agribusiness, and private citizens to put in place any new protections that might save our springs.

Most of our water management districts view their roles as being limited to issuing permits to whoever wants our water, never mind the effects on the environment.

Bureaucratic territorialism rears its ugly head whenever federal involvement or help is mentioned.

For all their good intentions, local environmental groups are limited in their abilities to influence collective vision and/or legislation.

Probably the worst part of the whole situation is that any kind of protective action that might do some good gets bogged down in arguments about scientific data.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, let me assure you that I am not anti-science. As someone who struggled for the first 18 years of her life with recurrent tonsil infections, I would never have made it to ripe old age if it hadn't been for the scientific advancements that brought us antibiotics. Science is a wonderful system for investigating the natural world, but we have been sold a bill of goods if we have come to believe that science has all the answers—it doesn't.

For every piece of data that "proves" a water permit will not adversely affect a local river or spring, there exists another piece of data that "proves" said permit will do damage.

So since it's the new year—traditionally a time for looking forward as well as backward—I will make a prediction:

The fate of Florida's springs, and the solution to Florida's potential water wars, hangs in the balance of spirit, not science.

The questions of who owns the water, who can have access to it, who can charge for it, whether or not it should be moved or removed, and whether or not our springs are worth preserving for future generations, are not questions that can be answered by science. These are ethical, moral, and even spiritual questions at their cores, and the only way I think we can come to agreement about what we need to do is to elevate the dialogue to include the ethical, moral, and spiritual considerations that surround our use of natural resources and stewardship of the planet.

Luckily, some of our best-known religious leaders are beginning to speak out about such problems. Just this past week the Pope gave an address titled, "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation," in which he made the following points:

"Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources?" the pope asked Friday. "All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development."

"Technologically advanced societies must be prepared to encourage more sober lifestyles, while reducing their energy consumption and improving its efficiency," while preparing "sustainable strategies to satisfy the energy needs of the present and future generations," he said.

While researching Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and popular pastor of a huge megachurch in California, who has acknowledged that environmental stewardship is an important issue for Christians, I discovered the Evangelical Environmental Network's web site. The organization aims to "educate, inspire, and mobilize Christians in their effort to care for God's creation, to be faithful stewards of God's provision, and to advocate for actions and policies that honor God and protect the environment."

His Holiness Urgyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, recently launched a web site dedicated to the environment and what we can do to help it. Karmapa is providing leadership through publications, conferences—and even graphic design and jewelry design—to encourage people to become more aware of the environment and more active in protecting it.

So I remain hopeful—even in the face of multiple reasons to doubt!—that Floridians can agree that our springs are worth saving, even though that will mean some very fundamental changes in the lifestyles to which we have all become accustomed.

If we can't preserve the best our environment has to offer us here, where can we expect it to be preserved? If we can't do it now, then when?

And, isn't it really true that the way we treat the environment reflects the way we treat ourselves?

P.S. Here's another blog entry that deals with these questions, from the Ecological Buddhism blog.

Sunshine State Water Wars (Part Two)

There is disturbing news in today's High Springs Herald:  The Florida Legislature, in its ultimate wisdom (sorry, my sarcastic streak is showing!), has unanimously passed a bill that conceivably could give developers and the water bottling industry exactly what they want—control of Florida's water supply.

The bill takes away the authority for making decisions about state consumptive use permits (think trucks hauling water away from your favorite local river or spring) and environmental resource permits from multi-member boards that are required to hold public meetings, and gives the authority to only one person—the executive director of the governing water management district. In effect, this bill completely cuts the taxpaying public out of the dialogue about water use.

But wait, there's more. The bill (Senate Bill 2080) mandates that consumptive use and environmental resource permits will only be considered by the water district's governing board if the executive director DENIES a permit.

In other words (and, yet again) the deck is stacked in favor of the folks who would—little by little, year after year, in small increments that over a number of years could wreak havoc on Florida's rivers and streams and springs—pipe all our water away for their own monetary gain.

People who think this law is a bad idea have until this coming Saturday, May 16, to call the governor's office and urge Governor Crist to veto this bill. The phone number is 850-488-7146.

The bill started life in Florida's House of Representatives as House Bill 2080. Here is the email I sent to Governor Crist earlier this week about that bill, believing that old platitude that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar:

"Dear Governor (and possibly soon-to-be Senator) Crist,

Please provide us with some much-needed leadership on Florida's complicated water issues; please either veto or do not sign HB 2080.

HB 2080, as I understand it, will make it more difficult (if not impossible) for Florida's citizens (who are not business owners or members of water management district governing boards) to have input into how our water is used.

The main problem with Florida's water issues, as I see it, is that as a state we have not yet decided whether water is a RESOURCE that is needed by everyone, or a COMMODITY that should be sold to the highest bidder.

I don't think anyone who lives in Florida--business owner or not--wants to live in a state with dried-up springs, unhealthy rivers, and bad water. It does seem, however, that as a state we are taking many actions that will, cumulatively and eventually, lead us in that direction.

Florida desperately needs a leader who will articulate a vision for the conservation and preservation of our rivers and springs, so that our children and grandchildren won't wake up one day and bemoan what they have lost.

Please be brave enough and visionary enough to take a strong stand in favor of Florida's one-of-a-kind water resources. Your leadership on this issue could one day assure you an honored place in our history books. Thank you."

Sunshine State Water Wars (Part One)

Trouble is brewing here in the Land of Flowers, and it's something I'd bet that none of us who grew up here ever thought we'd see—a war that will eventually determine who, or what agency or business, controls the state's water supply.

I grew up in Orlando, about two hours south of where I live now. Although Orlando is an inland city, I felt as if I grew up surrounded by water, with lakes too numerous to count—where my dad went fishing almost every weekend—and springs and rivers in wild abundance. With its limestone-based karst topography, Florida has the largest concentration of first-magnitude springs in the world. Back in 1957, when my family moved to Florida and I started fifth grade, the idea that the state would one day face a water shortage would simply have made us all laugh. 

Fast forward (and, looking back, it's amazing how fast a forward it is!) to 2009, and much has changed. There are springs here in the Sunshine State that have now dried up or been fouled by pollution, lake levels that are shrinking, and lakes that have disappeared; and when I moved to my house near the river, I was shocked to find that there were four new requests for water bottling facilities on one 3-mile stretch of the Santa Fe River—not including the one water bottling facility, run by Coca-Cola, that has been up and running near Ginnie Springs for many years now.

I could go off on a tangent about how we all need to drink water, but how we don't all need to drink bottled water, and how bottled water is frequently no more pure or nutritious than water we get from the tap, and how the cost of bottled water is really higher per unit volume than the cost of oil—but you get the drift.

The threats to our water supply don't stop with the water bottlers, however. Recently the St. Johns River Water Management District, over in Palatka, approved a request in favor a permit that would end up extracting 5.5 million gallons of water daily from a springfed tributary that feeds the mighty St. John's River. The idea behind this approval, as near as I can tell, is that the people who live in Central Florida need the water for their lawns and golf courses more than the river needs it.

Will Florida follow California's model of piping water hundreds of miles in support of rampant growth and development? It seems we are headed in that direction.

There are quite a few citizens, however, who object to such a course, and I am heartened that they are making their voices heard. Somewhere along the way, though, business and development have twisted state laws in their favor, so it's hard for the water management districts or the courts to take tough stands in favor of conservation and environmental protection. Somehow, this needs to change.

One tangent I will happily go off on is how decisions about our water and our environment get made. Every environmentally-related hearing I've ever been to (and I haven't been to that many) has seemed to devolve, at some point, into opposing sides arguing "science." One side will cite statistics and "facts" to prove their point; the other side will then dredge up their own statistics and "facts" that prove the exact opposite.

Now, I am not stupid enough to write off science completely; as a childhood sufferer of frequent bouts of tonsillitis, I know I'd be dead if it weren't for antibiotics and other scientific advances. But science is, after all, a human system, and as a human system it's subject to human foibles and fallibility. Indeed, we determine the outcomes of scientific investigations largely by the questions we choose to ask. Bad questions bring bad outcomes; better questions bring better ones.

So I'd like to suggest that one key to ending our water wars might be to learn to ask better questions. Instead of getting bogged down in statistics, how might our discussions be different if we chose, instead, to step back a bit and ask some bigger questions: What kind of life do we want for our children and grandchildren? How do we give a place at the conference table to the flora and fauna of ecosystems that will be affected by potential water withdrawals? Is water a commodity that should be sold for private gain, or a resource that everyone needs to survive? If water is a resource, what are the ethical implications of piping a resource away from one area and toward another? Why are we even talking about piping water if we aren't practicing massive conservation efforts first? Do any of us—business people, developers, private citizens—even want to live in a state without springs or healthy rivers?

And finally—given that Florida's rivers and springs are true wonders of the natural world, is it too much to ask that our citizens and businesses make some sacrifices in order to save them?

Last year, one of my Buddhist teachers, Khenpo Ugyen Tenzin, came to Gainesville to give a weekend seminar to the meditation group to which I belong. Over the course of the weekend, there was some discussion about environmental issues, so on the Sunday morning when I drove Khenpo-la into Gainesville for the teachings, I took him on a quick detour to see the small spring that's about five minutes from my house. He thanked me for taking him there, and told me that the place was "very unusual."

Later that day, I asked him to pray for our rivers and springs, and explained that they were threatened by the water bottlers. Khenpo-la asked me if I didn't think there was a legitimate need for bottled water. "Yes," I said, remembering how power goes out after a hurricane and how natural disasters and wars can make it impossible for people to get fresh water. "But if all the water is pumped away, then what will remain for the people who live along the river, and for the plants and animals that the river supports?"

Khenpo-la thought for a moment and then said, "I will pray, then, for an auspicious balance."