Rob Williams: MFLs fail to protect beauty, rare species of Ichetucknee

Published: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Monday, March 31, 2014 at 10:55 p.m.

'The Ichetucknee and its run, the most beautiful landscape in the world.

Archie Carr, A Naturalist in Florida

So says a bronze plaque at the entrance to Ichetucknee Springs State Park. It was a canoe trip down the beautiful Ichetucknee that convinced Gov. Jeb Bush to create the first Florida Springs Task Force to consider how we could protect this priceless part of our heritage for future generations.

Florida's constitution proclaims that it shall be the policy of the state to protect ... its scenic beauty. Surely the Ichetucknee qualifies for that protection. Florida law also says the water management districts may give consideration to aesthetic and scenic values in setting the minimum flows.

But there is little beauty to be found in the Suwannee River Water Management District's final report on the minimum flows and levels (MFLs) for the Ichetucknee and lower Santa Fe rivers. While there is an acknowledgement that the growth of algae can alter the aesthetics of the river, in general beauty is dismissed from consideration because there is little quantitative information linking aesthetics and flow suitable for the establishment of MFL criteria.

In short, there are no metrics for beauty. The best the district can do is to conflate the aesthetic values with recreational values. The district measures recreational values in terms of how many inches of clearance there are between a tuber's posterior and the bottom of the river. It would be funny, if the result was not so tragic.

The district's minimum flow rule for the Ichetucknee provides that flow will be at least 343 cubic feet per second (cfs) 50 percent of the time. However, over the last decade, the actual median flow of the Ichetucknee as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey has been only 285 cfs. Yet the district's recovery plan has a goal of only restoring 3 cfs to the river.

The problem is that the more water there is for the rivers, the less water is available for big utilities and agribusiness. MFLs are seen as the way the district can squeeze the last few cubic feet of water per second out of water bodies in sharp decline.

The public is then reassured by being told something that is patently untrue: that the rivers' ecosystems will not be significantly harmed by giving out still more permits.

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Rob Williams: MFLs fail to protect beauty, rare species of Ichetucknee