by Lucinda Faulkner Merritt
Communications Coordinator, Ichetucknee Alliance
At a meeting of the Suwannee River Water Management District’s (SRWMD’s) Board of Directors on May 14, 2019, I listened as several members of the board publicly questioned the assertion that agriculture is the largest source of water pollution in North Central Florida. The board members’ doubting questions fly in the face of the findings of another state agency, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
It was painful for me to watch the SRWMD board’s discussion because it’s a familiar but unproductive pattern of “pointing fingers” that I’ve watched in numerous meetings about our water problems. Rather than facing and admitting to a problem—that agriculture is the biggest source of water pollution in this part of Florida—the board members eagerly blamed other pollution sources (population growth, people on septic tanks, etc.). But accurately recognizing the source of our water pollution problems is absolutely necessary if we are going to find effective solutions, because there are no solutions without the participation of agriculturalists.
A closer look at the big picture of agricultural changes and increasing water pollution in North Central Florida is revealing. We need more than just a knee-jerk or even a “snapshot” analysis of our water woes. We need to consider how agriculture in this area has changed over time.
Agricultural Changes Since the Mid-20th Century
Agricultural practices in the Suwannee River Water Management District have changed since some of us first experienced an almost-pristine Ichetucknee River in the middle of the 20thcentury. These are our area’s changes that I can think of right away:
- The switch from timber harvesting to row crops that was made possible by center pivot irrigation systems, with subsequent increases in water and fertilizer use.
- The increase in the number of cows on dairy farms in North Central Florida that resulted from a state dairy buy-out program in South Florida that was prompted by water pollution concerns.
- The arrival of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
- The replacement of family or legacy farms with “industrial strength” agricultural operations run by corporations located outside of Florida.
Anecdotal Observations From Long-Term Residents. In response to a question I raised on the Alliance’s Facebook group discussion page, Joy Towles Ezell of Perry posted a revealing response about changes she has observed in the western part of SRWMD. I quote with her permission:
I’m 71, born in 1947. When I was growing up, Taylor and Dixie counties were cattle/long leaf pineland, on open range – no fences. We were cow hunters and had brands. Big pastures of native grasses and long leaf pine forests which were control-burned every other year and the pines were grown for lumber or turpentine, and selectively harvested, not clear cut. If extensive cutting was done, we left at least 2 long leaf pine seed trees per acre. The farmers grew their own vegetables, corn, hogs (many had hog claims), chickens, some had domesticated turkeys, and ducks.
Most lived fairly self-sufficiently. It was mostly cattle people, farmers, and fishermen. They weren’t rich in $$$, but were all pretty much the haves. The only commodity we really needed to buy was flour; we used cane syrup and honey instead of sugar. We had corn and corn meal.
Few roads brought few visitors or tourists.
The pulp/paper mills cranked up in 1954 and changed everything. After they started, it was the haves vs. the have-nots. They cut out the long leaf, killed the old oak trees, cut the hardwood and cypress, and planted loblolly and then hybrid pines with 1100 trees per acre.
Poisoned our air, water, river, and Gulf. Killed the fishing business. I remember the day they poisoned the Fenholloway; there were many thousands of dead fish at Foley and all along the river and out into the Gulf.
Back then, there were no huge farm fields, no irrigation rigs, no golf courses until the late 1950s/early 1960s. The springs were popular gathering places, with a few sulfur water bottling companies in our area. Those springs are dried up now, or nearly dried up.
Drastic changes in my lifetime. I’d surely love to leave a clean environment for future generations, but I’ve failed in that endeavor. I tried, at least I can honestly say that.
I see the new toll roads as the final killer of North Central Florida. Too many people will be using up too many resources too fast. Taylor and Dixie counties will look like Sun City Center. People on lower fixed incomes than those in The Villages will move into subdivisions and trailer parks that the local people can’t afford, and demand more services of all kinds that these counties currently do not provide. It’ll be the poor man’s Villages over here. I’m sorry I can’t leave a more positive comment.
Another long-term resident posted:
In the early 1980s you could drive between Branford and Mayo and not see a single dairy cow. Now you will see hundreds if not more. As has been mentioned, the federal govt. helped get most of them out of south FL because Lake O was so polluted. The USDA paid something like $800 per cow. They said, “Come to North Florida, the land is cheap, there is an inexhaustible supply of water, the land readily drains, and we’ll make sure you don’t lose money.” It wasn’t long after that nitrate levels started spiking up in Troy, Convict and Lafayette Blue Spring.
Timber to Row Crops. The switch from timber to row crops that Ezell describes was made possible by the invention of the center pivot irrigation system in 1940. The system went into initial production in 1952, was refined and improved, and is now used internationally. Florida’s flat terrain lends itself easily to the use of center pivots that hastened the replacement of timber by row crops that require fertilizer to give profitable yields. Center pivots are now common throughout North Central Florida.
Increased Numbers of Cows. According to an article published in The Gainesville Sun on June 20, 2004, a state-sanctioned buyout plan that was prompted by increasing pollution in Lake Okeechobee pushed cows from South Florida dairies into North Florida.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, Suwannee County dairies climbed by three between 1987 and 1992, to 36, while total cow numbers spiked by nearly 2,500, to 5,900.
Dairy experts say the data show that while North Florida farm numbers remained relatively constant during the Okeechobee buyout, their sizes began to mushroom.
Lafayette County also saw a similar trend, with farm numbers increasing by seven to 42, and cattle numbers climbing by 1,800, to 11,700.
Total operations in Gilchrist during the five years immediately after the buyout declined, though cattle numbers jumped by 1,500.
By contrast, dairies in Okeechobee County shrunk by 13 during the same period, to 30; Cattle numbers declined, to 36,000 from nearly 45,000.
While the North Florida surge in cows likely brought economic vitality to a rural region of the state, it also helped increase nutrient pollution in the Suwannee and surrounding rivers, some environmentalists say. (“Squeezed in S. Florida, dairy farms flourish here”)
The Advent of CAFOs. Livestock farming has undergone a significant transformation with the advent of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that keep large numbers of animals, usually of a single species, in confined areas. By the mid-2000s, CAFOs dominated livestock and poultry production in the United States.
The manure from CAFOs is a significant public health threat that includes nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, pathogens such as E. coli,growth hormones, antibiotics, and more (Understanding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Their Impact on Communities).
According to Food & Water Watch, in 2012 Florida ranked 28th in the United States in the numbers of all animals (199,072) in CAFOs, 9th in the numbers of layers (chickens), 12th in the numbers of dairy cattle, and 19th in the numbers of broilers (chickens).
In 2013, I attended a meeting of the Water Policy Advisory Council for Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. At that meeting, Wendy Graham of the Water Institute at the University of Florida summarized research that showed that agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs) were ineffective in high recharge areas of the Suwannee River Water Management District for dairies, poultry farms, row crops and Bermuda grass. Given the extremely porous nature of the limestone beneath our feet throughout most of North Central Florida, that finding is not a surprise.
The Influx of Out-of-State Corporations. North Central Florida is experiencing an influx of farming operations that are run by out-of-state owners, many of whom are coming here for our free water and as a result of water supply problems in other states. Rural water users on wells—whether they are homeowners or agriculturalists—pay only for the cost of electricity or gasoline-powered generators to pump their water. Unlike urban residents who pay for the water they use, rural residents pay no fees for the water itself.
Why are out-of-state owners significant? My intuition tells me that they will not have the same vested interests in protecting our springs and rivers as our in-state agriculturalists do.
I think many of our family and legacy farmers love our springs as much as our water defenders do, but they either don’t realize or don’t want to admit how much they are contributing to water pollution. It is also possible that they have not been given clear, comprehensive information by our state agencies (Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Department of Environmental Protection) about how much agriculture contributes to that pollution. They may also be unaware of the research that indicates ineffectiveness of BMPs for certain crops in areas of karst (porous limestone) terrain where the Floridan aquifer is unconfined (high aquifer recharge areas).
So Who Are the Biggest Polluters? The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s BMAPs Tell the Tale
In Florida, the state agency charged with protecting water quality is the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). State laws require the DEP to develop Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) for defined areas so that water pollution in those areas can be brought into compliance with state standards.
Nitrate is one of the most significant pollutants in SRWMD and it comes from a variety of sources that include agricultural and urban fertilizers and human and animal waste (septic tanks, wastewater treatment areas, farms and ranches, and biosolids or sewage sludge spreading areas).
I started searching for district-wide information about the largest sources of water pollution. It turns out that information is not easy to find. There is, however, some specific information in the BMAPs that gives strong clues.
I looked at DEP’s Basin Management Action Plan for the Lower Santa Fe River, including the Ichetucknee, where I found breakdowns of water pollution sources for three impaired Outstanding Florida Springs. For each of those springsheds, agriculture was the primary source of nitrogen loading to groundwater, as follows:
- Devil’s Complex (at Ginnie Springs Outdoors): Agriculture was 81%*; septic tanks were 6%.
- Hornsby Spring: Agriculture was 77%*; septic tanks were 5%.
- Ichetucknee Springs: Agriculture was 56%*; septic tanks were 14%.
*Totals include farm fertilizer, permitted dairies (where they exist), and livestock waste. This information is on pages 27-28 of the June 2018 BMAP.
I also looked at DEP’s Suwannee River Basin Management Action Plan for the Lower Suwannee, Middle Suwannee and Withlacoochee River sub-basins. Again, for each of those sub-basins, agriculture was the primary source of nitrogen loading to groundwater.
- In the Lower Suwannee River Springshed, 85% of the nitrogen came from agriculture (63% from farm fertilizer, 14% from dairy livestock waste, and 8% from livestock waste). In comparison, septic systems contributed 3%, wastewater treatment facilities 3%, urban and sports turfgrass fertilizers 4.3%, and atmospheric deposition 5%. These percentages are taken from Figure 5 on page 34 of the BMAP.
- In the Middle Suwannee River Springshed, 84% of the nitrogen came from agriculture (57% from farm fertilizer, 13% from dairy livestock waste, 4% from poultry livestock waste, 10% from other livestock waste). In comparison, atmospheric deposition accounted for 10%, septic systems 3%, urban and sports turfgrass fertilizers 3.1%, and wastewater treatment facilities 0.2%). These percentages are taken from Figure 6 on page 35 of the BMAP.
- In the Withlacoochee River Springshed, 85% of the nitrogen came from agriculture (76% farm fertilizer, 1% poultry, 8% other livestock waste). In comparison, atmospheric deposition was 9%, septic systems 4%, and urban turfgrass fertilizer 2%.
These percentages are from Figure 7 on page 35 of the June 2018 BMAP.
The Big Question: How Do We Move Forward?
The first step toward solving any problem is admitting that there is a problem.
For agriculturalists: Because there is no solution to water pollution problems without the participation of agriculturalists, it’s vitally important that they recognize and admit to the role they play in that pollution.
For water defenders: Because farmers and ranchers often interpret our identification of water pollution problems as personal attacks, and because that interpretation is one of the quickest and most effective ways to shut down dialogue that could lead to solutions, we need to do a better job of stressing commonalities and the need to work together for solutions.
Interconnections and Responsibility. All of us who live in North Florida—farmers, ranchers, business owners, water defenders, individual homeowners, everyone—are connected to each other because of our mutual dependence upon the water in the Floridan aquifer that we all need. That same water is what feeds our springs, so we are all connected to the springs as well as to each other.
I cannot look at this web of interconnections without coming to the conclusion that we all need to be working together as allies (instead of arguing with each other) to make sure that our water supply is clean enough to drink and plentiful enough to prevent saltwater from intruding into our drinking supply and irrigation wells. This doesn’t mean that we all need to agree on every single thing, just that we respect each other enough to be able to agree to disagree while, at the same time, we creatively brainstorm ways to keep our water supply safe and clean.
It’s up to us. We can continue our patterns of denial and “us vs. them” labeling, in which case we may well face unpleasant consequences sooner rather than later. Or we can choose to be courageous, admit our problems, recognize our common interests, and agree to work together to make needed changes that will ensure future water security for us, for our children, for our farms and for our springs. Some of those changes are going to be difficult and some will undoubtedly be expensive. We all need to acknowledge those facts, too, so we can help each other move forward without fear.