Christopher Meindl remembers going on family trips as a child to Ocala, where they’d visit Juniper Springs.
“It’s a fabulous looking place,” Meindl, who is associate professor of geography at the University of South Florida, told WLRN.
At the age of 10, Meindl went with his father and brother on a canoe trip six or seven miles down the Spring Run. He found the trip scary due to having to push the canoe from shallow to deeper waters, but it’s also where his fascination for water resources began.
Florida is home to more than 1,000 freshwater springs, places where water bubbles up from the ground and runs off the landscape. Like Meindl and his family, people have been drawn to interact and enjoy springs for centuries. More recently, the cold bodies of water have become an attraction for residents and tourists alike. Throughout time, springs have also been subject to debates over how best to utilize and protect them.
READ MORE: Advocates say so far, Florida’s new plans to heal polluted springs fall short
In his early days teaching a college course on Florida springs, Meindl started to get a lot of questions that he didn’t have the answers to from his students. As he sought answers, he said he often found something lacking in Florida Springs literature both articles and books.
“They were always missing something as far as I was concerned,” he said. “It’s not just about science, water quality and water flow. It’s not just about the historical uses of springs [or] just about what threatens them, the politics and policy associated with water management in Florida, and it’s not just restoration. It’s all of these things put together.”
As a response to his predicament, Meindl spent a decade researching springs in the state and put together a comprehensive overview of them. He just debuted first book Florida Springs: From Geography to Politics and Restoration.
Meindl recently spoke with WLRN about his work, which will be featured at the Miami Book Fair Sunday, where he will give a presentation.
The following Q&A has been edited for brevity.
WLRN: Florida has one of the largest concentrations of freshwater springs on Earth. How have people used springs throughout time, particularly Native Americans? Why have these communities been drawn to them?
Meindl: There’s sometimes a bit of misunderstanding. Sometimes people think that Native Americans were instantly drawn to Springs and that they lived near them all the time. And that may have happened in some cases, but in other cases, not so much. Very often they were used for ceremonial purposes as gathering places where people from widely disparate environments would congregate and engage in trade. There’s archeological evidence along some of the springs on the St. Johns River that shows tools and other kinds of things made out of stone and other materials that are not from that area. We’ve also found evidence that places have been used as burial grounds and even housing from time to time, but almost never continuously settled. When we think about ancient Native Americans that’s a long period of time. And, so sometimes they may have lived near springs for a long period of time, but then at other times they went away for one reason or another, and we’re not entirely certain why.
WLRN: In your book you mentioned how there’s often a disconnect with politicians. They think there’s one thing wrong with springs, but the reality is another. You have outlined in your book how the restoration of springs in Florida has been tied to politics. Can you explain that connection?
Meindl: This one has gotten me into a little bit of hot water with springs advocates, people I deeply respect for their work in trying to get politicians to do things to help springs. Part of the problem is with the scientific community. We don’t have enough data [because] we haven’t been monitoring springs for a really long time. Many times we can’t make definitive statements about what’s going on. For example, we might have just a handful of isolated measurements of spring flow at a particular spring. In a few springs, we have some measurements of spring flow going back to 1898, but that’s rare. There’s only a few springs that have really old data like that and it’s usually just one measurement from 1898 and maybe not another measurement of spring flow for another 20 years. We know that spring flow changes throughout the year. And, by the way, the equipment that those people were using a long time ago is not the same equipment we use today. So, how much faith can we put into those measurements? We have to be very careful with them.
So, even the scientific community sometimes has a problem definitively describing what’s going on in Florida Springs. And that lack of perfect understanding is a problem for decision makers who look at that and say, “Well, if we don’t know exactly what’s wrong, then how do we fix it?” Sometimes politicians can use that to hide behind inactivity, which I think they did for a long time, or worse, what happens if we latch on to an explanation that appears to make sense at one point in time, but subsequent investigation suggests that maybe things are not as clear cut as we thought?
READ MORE: ‘Stop issuing every single permit,’ advocates say. Will Florifa protect its fragile springs?
WLRN: What are some of the main threats that Springs in the state face today?
Meindl: Number one, Excess algae in many springs is a problem. While springs have always had algae in them and it’s fine, they haven’t always had excess algae. It is a problem because it basically turns out the lights on the rest of the plant community and when the rest of the plant community can’t have access to the sun, they don’t get to do their photosynthesis thing. They die, wither away, and all that’s left is algae. When those other plants go missing, so do all of the other animals that depend on those other plants. Some people think it might be tied to changes in water quality like with excess nitrogen, which is what the state thinks right now.
Christopher Meindl
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Courtesy Of Christopher Meindl
Number two: reduced spring flow. I think it is pretty clear that many springs are producing less spring flow, less spring water than they used to. Some people say it’s due to natural changes in rainfall. Maybe it’s due to our increased groundwater pumping. Some people want to blame water bottlers and say, “Oh, they’re the problem with Florida Springs. They’re sucking all this water out of the ground, putting it in bottles, selling it to grocery stores,” and they make a fortune while our springs are withering. I think that is a problem on the Santa Fe River and the springs associated with it, but I don’t think it’s nearly as much of a problem elsewhere.
Number three: overcrowding. We have been fruitful and multiplied, and there are now at least 22 million of us and we have about 140 million tourists every year. Many of them do go to Florida Springs. The excess use of Florida Springs is starting to become a problem. People like to float on the inner tubes down the Ichetucknee River, sometimes these places can become more crowded than urban swimming pools. It’s a problem when too many people are in springs, particularly shallow water portions, and they start trampling vegetation that doesn’t have a chance to recover. Then again, that vegetation goes missing and also the animals that count on it.
WLRN: What are some of the solutions or things that need to happen to enhance the life of Springs?
Meindl: When you go out of state and you drive back into Florida, you see the signs that don’t just say Florida state line. They now say, “welcome to the free state of Florida.” We all like freedom and nobody likes being told what to do. I get that, right? None of us. However, if there are going to be 22 million people living here, plus 140 million tourists every year, there need to be restrictions on our freedom. Because if there are not, then we will continue to watch springs suffer. So what do I mean by restrictions on freedom? One of the things they did at Ichetucknee, and maybe we should do in other places, is in shallow areas, keep people out of them. Let them do the inner tube thing in deeper waters because where there’s deeper waters that people want to get out and splash around their feet can’t trample the vegetation.
We could maybe also do things like assess additional fees for water use. When water is free, then people use it and waste it. When it’s more expensive, we’re a little more careful with it.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Protecting Florida’s Parks & Ecosystems – Nonfiction
WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 24 at 1 p.m.
WHERE: Miami Book Fair at Miami-Dade College Wolfson Campus – MAGIC Screening Room (Building 8, 1st floor)
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