A Call to Prioritize Healthy Springs

CEJ director Patricia Siemen and CEJ staff attorney Rob Williams have written to Hans G. Tanzler, III, Executive Director of the St. Johns River Water Management District, requesting that the District immediately implement a recovery strategy for the springs in the Wekiva River Basin, to restore the established minimum flows as soon as practicable.

They also asked the District to place a moratorium on the issuance of further consumptive use permits within the Wekiva River Basin until a recovery plan and timetable are in place.

From the text of the letter:

Springs face many threats in addition to reduced flows. Nitrate pollution is the primary threat, but the springs ecosystems are also threatened by invasive species and overuse for recreation purposes.  A regulatory regime which starves the springs for water by allowing them only the minimum flow required to prevent “significant harm,” coupled with a policy of allowing the maximum amount of nutrient loading is almost certain over time to lead to the degradation and loss of the springs ecosystems.  Our current regulatory system is flawed in that it manages water flows and water quality separately, an inefficient and ultimately ineffective way to ensure the overall health of our springs.  We need a holistic approach.

Currently, our water rights allocation system places the environment’s access to water on a second tier status, below all human uses. For example, when there is a drought, permitted users’ allotments are not reduced; rather, it is the springs that suffer.  We currently fail to recognize in law the springs’ equivalent right to the ground water they need to perform their ecological functions. This approach rests on an outmoded, injurious perception of humans’ ability to predict and control the natural world, and the perceived right to use the natural world to feed human desires.  The failure of this approach to grasp the scope of relationships that exist among humans and the environment means that it will fail to allow and constrain human behavior as needed to protect the springs.

. . .

We believe that the path forward is to prioritize the need to maintain healthy springs’ ecosystems and set our regulations accordingly.  That starts with allocating enough water to the springs to maintain their historical long-term flows and provide a healthy ecosystem in which their many inhabitants can thrive and evolve.

Read the full letter here.

Rock Springs Run (photo by Jane Goddard)