Ecotourism, history and activism to sustain Silver Springs

It is 1873, in Silver Springs, Florida. Civil-war era abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe is clutching her skirts, slowly lowering a laced-up black leather boot into a wooden boat about the size of a pioneer wagon. At the vessel’s widest point, two flat plank seats cross the middle of the boat. Between the two planks, inserted into the boat’s floor planks, is a thick glass panel enclosed by a simple wood frame.

The vessel was one of the first glass-bottom boats to carry affluent tourists over the headwaters of one of the world’s largest artesian springs, according to documents in the Silver Springs Museum. Images of the first glass bottom boats may be viewed in the museum.

The Silver River’s spring settlers regaled its Caribbean blue waters replete with wildlife. After a stagecoach line entrepreneur, Hubbard Hart, saw the spectacle, he built a 2-story wooden steamship and began guiding tourists on river excursions launched from the port of Palatka. Trees scratched the boat sides as it flowed down the narrow Ocklawaha River. The boat reached a confluence at the Silver River and after five more maritime miles, opened into a 400-foot wide, gleaming springhead pool. Under the surface, artesian wells dispensed primeval spring water from the Floridan aquifer, karst, and labyrinth of caves. 

Although Stowe was known for her classic novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she wrote enthusiastically about her visit to Silver Springs. The work was published in magazine articles and drew many tourists, making the spring Florida’s premier nature tourism site. 

Stowe’s 1873 journey began at her winter homestead on the St. John’s River in modern-day Jacksonville. She spent two more days on the steamship, the Ocklawaha, until it reached the springhead. Once inside the glass bottom boat, a guide steered Stowe’s craft from its stern, holding a tall post topped with a yellow flaming flare. As the boat skimmed the jungle green calm spring, Stowe looked through the glass at the clear cool waters. 

“What a sight was that! There is nothing on earth comparable to it,” wrote Stowe. “…Floating through an immense cathedral where white marble columns meet in vast arches overhead and are reflected in the grassy depths below…the transparent depth of the water gave the impression that our boat was moving through the air. Every pebble and aquatic plant we glided over, seemed in the torchlight, invested with prismatic brightness.”

Because Stowe was so widely read in America and abroad, New Englanders and wealthy Europeans traveled to Florida to see the springs for themselves. Today, tour boats glide over the same waters. 

But, if Stowe visited today, her experience would haunt her. She would return to her homestead on the river and write a feature about the loss of clarity, fish -- and about the introduction of a new species throughout the springs—shock green-colored algae. In Stowe’s time, the rivers were teeming with striped bass and eels; manatees, or large sea cows; big claw river shrimp and channel catfish. But today, a dam on the Ocklawaha River blocks most of the marine life from ever reaching the springhead.

If Stowe were here today, she would have probably taken to social media to tell her followers that the beautiful spring she had visited had been degraded to a third-less of its original flow. She would have tweeted that the spring was now far from pure.

Today’s environmental scientists call the columns she described limestone substrate. Most of the aquatic plants were eelgrass, which look like wide emerald-colored ribbons of variegated grasses waving with the currents.

It is September 2018, at Silver Springs State Park. Twenty-year-old Cassidy Brosemer slides her foot, with a white canvas Roxy sneaker, onto the Chief Charlee Cypress. The Chief is an electric-powered 1960s-era wooden, glass-bottomed boat. Brosemer takes a seat on a green bench in front of the glass panel, which is surrounded by a wooden frame. The glass and frame dominate the vessel’s core, from nearly its bow to almost its stern.

Brosemer, a willowy blonde whose face is spritzed with freckles, is a descendant of the Beecher family, a cousin seven times removed from Harriet Beecher Stowe. She and about 20 others sit on the benches in front of the glass table on the bottom of the boat. She discusses her camping trip to the park. Her father is a resident of Silver Springs, a town just outside the park’s entrance. The boat trip on the Cypress was her first to view the springs.

The Chief looks like a pontoon boat topped with a lozenge-shaped sleeping porch the size of a community bus. Double stacked windows are its walls; 12 portholes the sizes of scuba masks crown the boat. Positioned on a wooden chair in the front of the boat is Oscar Collins, an African-American dressed in a white, pressed dress uniform, with epaulets on each shoulder. Over his head is a stiff black captain’s hat. He welcomes the visitors with a handheld microphone.

As the historic boat slides away from its landing, Brosemer leans forward, her eyebrows lift, and she says enthusiastically, “Wow!! The spring is so clear!”

Three children on the opposite seat, each about ten years old, point to the glass and shout together, “Turtle!” another calls, “blue fish!” The turtles are as large as Frisbees. The blue fish are mullet. The gar fish are easily identified, with their long bottleneck-shaped noses.

A closer look reveals trouble. Oozing poison green algae coats the tops and sides of about 30 percent of the eelgrass, and lays like oily fuzzy fibers on top of the substrate in areas closer to the surface of the spring.

The Chief moves over what looks like an underwater cave that opens onto the surface of the water. Inside the cave are hues of sapphire, cobalt, and then lapis and a lighter shade of turquoise. The bottom of the cave glistens with nearly porcelain whites and ice-blue aquamarines lined with what looks like sparkling diamond dust. The bottom of the spring is where the water originates, or the vent to the Floridan aquifer, said Collins.

“We call this spring the Devil’s Kitchen. It looks like a pot boiling,” said Collins.

Pearl-shaped bubbles rise, following each other to the surface. A second spring is called the Blue Grotto; it looks like a bowl of pure glowing neon blue. Over a third spring, called Mammoth spring, large grey rock formations are visible, revealing caves.

Brosemer said, “I want to snorkel and go inside the underwater cave.”

Indigo-colored fish, the size of large shoes, through translucent emerald grasses. Collins said at certain moments, the sun would refract in the spring water, and cast rainbows over the substrate.

The glass bottom boat tours are a classic attraction at the park, a tradition of cultural heritage and historical value. A ramp for kayaks was added near the springhead when the attraction merged with the park in 2013. Swimming is not permitted in the headwaters basin, but boating is, according to the Silver Springs State Park brochures.

Although Silver Springs appears to be in good health—with its waters wondrous shades of blue gems and clear as much as 80 feet below, the springs are dying, according to conservationists at the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute in High Springs, Florida. Most of the state’s drinking water is pumped from the springs. Nitrates originating from more than a few sources runs off of the land and pollutes the water. The nitrates spring from an upwelling of manufacturing facilities, homes, public buildings, farms, and golf courses. All of the nitrates from the springshed leach into the water and cause the green algae blooms that compromise the health and the future of the springs.

Another debacle for Silver Springs is an upriver dam--the Rodman Dam. Conservationists point to the Rodman Dam as one of the reasons why the spring flow is reduced by 30 percent and for the dramatic decrease in fish and other aquatic wildlife. The menacing structure of cement and steel is situated about 21 nautical miles north of the springs. It blocks the Ocklawaha River’s natural flow, says Paul Nosca, a local native whose fervent war against the dam’s existence takes place in an online blog.

The dam was completed in 1968, as part of what was to be the Cross Florida State Barge Canal project. The planned 107-mile canal was intended to carry boats from Palatka to the Gulf of Mexico and was expected to bring commerce to the area. But environmentalists lobbied against the project, successfully blocking its completion. Some canals at the Gulf coast and the Rodman Dam were the only structures completed before former President Richard Nixon ended the canal project, according to Florida Historical Society records.

Today, the Rodman Dam forms the Ocklawaha Lake, a manmade lake full of striped bass. Sport fishers fight to keep the dam, the lake, and its bountiful stock of bass. But spring conservationists lobby to breach or dismantle the dam.

Brosemer often crosses the Rodman Dam in her white Kia Soul. “If the dam was taken down then the water in the rivers will be higher and more people could see more fish in Silver Springs. The fish should be for everybody,” Brosemer said.  

Like Brosemer and Nosca, Floridians who care about natural resources conservation are becoming more engaged in the protection of Silver Springs, and all of the state’s natural springs.

An increasing spirit of ecotourism, or “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people,” as defined by The International Ecotourism Society, is swirling around the springs.

Within the last decade, efforts to restore and shelter Silver Springs, and more than 1,000 more of Florida’s natural springs, are being led by naturalists, local political leaders, scientists, nature tourism tour businesses, and residents-turned-activists. The springs comprise one of the largest concentrations of freshwater springs on earth, according to institute officials.

Robert Knight, executive director of the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, experienced a watershed moment after he read a document written by three University of Florida professors who monetized the value of Florida’s natural springs for the state’s economy. The report showed how springs-based recreation pumps $85 million to Florida’s economy annually. In the report, the researchers detail annual consumer spending at Silver Springs alone was nearly $74 million.

The single document moved Knight to action. “We started the institute because of that research,” Knight said, following a recent meeting at the institute, housed in an historic brick building in High Springs, a quaint town centrally located to many of the springs. On a wall facing the institute is a breathtaking 3-story-high mural of a snorkeler who looks a lot like Brosemer. Her outstretched pale arms are willowy. Her strawberry blond hair flows in the cool, clear cobalt-colored water. She is wearing a hot pink snorkel mask onto which aquatic greens, a grey fish and a bit of white limestone reflect. A striking caption in white block letters reads Gateway to the Springs--High Springs.

Institute workers have developed extensive science-based reports for about 12 springs. In the report about Silver Springs, its challenges are outlined and solutions to improve its ecology are proposed. The report notes the most significant changes that must be made to reclaim the springshed and to stop the growth of green algae: breach or dismantle the dam, connect wastewater and sewage systems to one infrastructure, and reduce chemicals used on land.

The report is a wellspring, a powerful tool to educate the public about the state of Silver Springs and what needs to happen to restore the springshed. The information can be used in key messages for spring lovers to help save the watersheds.

The Institute’s September meeting was the last in a series of seminars presented to educate locals about the springs’ ecology, wildlife, and restoration. The topic for the day’s seminar was advocacy, or how locals may play a role in saving the springs.

Leading the seminar that day was Heather Obara, an attorney and associate director for the institute. Obara said that although good laws designed to protect the springs are on the books—the rules are not being enforced. Obara urged the 20 attendees to visit their local lawmakers and tell them the springs are an important part of their lives and that they expect the springs to be protected.

“Tell them ‘your story’ about the springs and why they are important to you,” Obara said emphatically.

She urged the group of retirees, a former lawmaker, and neighbors who have enjoyed many years at the springs with their families to speak out about their interests to save the springs.

“E-mails to legislators don’t work, but personal visits do,” she said.

Use social media to tell your friends you want the springs protected, write letters, and attend meetings when decisions are made about the springs, Obara said.

During Brosemer’s recent trip to Silver Springs, she was busy texting beautiful pictures of the springs to her family and friends, and posted images on Instagram. More than 150 years ago, her ancestor, Stowe, wrote about her visit to Silver Springs in a book and in magazine feature articles. Because social media is a part of our everyday lives, posting images of the springs along with messages about how important it is to save them will inform others that the springs are in need of rescue.

Some example messages are: “Ask our local lawmakers to please build wastewater infrastructure that is connected and doesn’t leak into the springs watershed,” or “Rodman Dam needs to be demolished so our springs can rise to the water levels they are supposed to be.”

“Everyone can communicate in some way to help save the springs,” said Obara. “In speaking out and for the springs, you will give them voice.”