Rodman Reservoir EXPOSED! A Water Level View

Before we get to this ...

...or this, 

...we should have a history lesson on the "Cross Florida Barge Canal".

I'll make it brief, not like that Art History course you slept through took in college.

Depending on your source, the idea for a ship canal cutting through North Central Florida and connecting the Gulf to the Atlantic goes all the way back to colonial times.

All we need to know for this post is that after many false starts, the canal project actually got going in the 1960's with a ceremonial dynamite blast by then President Johnson.

The canal plan was to use existing natural waterways like the St.Johns River and connect them with man made canals. This would also require the construction of locks and dams...all pretty standard barge canal construction stuff.

In 1971, after much lobbying by people concerned that the canal would threaten both Florida's aquifer and ecology, the "Cross-Florida Barge Canal" project was killed by ...(you may find this surprising) ... Richard Nixon.

By that time miles of canal and several locks, had been constructed and the beautiful, wild Oklawaha River had been dammed creating Rodman Reservoir. Rodman would supply water to keep the canal depth consistent for barge travel.

There, that's the history snapshot. I'll sneak in little tidbits along the way as needed.

Strangled by the dam, the Oklawaha slowed and began flooding springs and thousands of acres of cypress wetlands.
As the river backed up behind the dam, a forest-river ecosystem died and a stick filled artificial impoundment was born.

These cypress forests exist today as weather beaten stumps and snags… a silent testimony to the forest that was... and may be again.

For the record, if you haven't sniffed this out by now, I am staunchly "anti-dam".  This is a controversial subject and I'm not going to engage in any back and forth debates in the comment section with people who take the "save the dam" tack.

This is my blog, and you get my opinions when I opinionate, which I intend to do in this series of posts.

If you don't like it, get your own dam blog.

This post and a few to follow describe a day spent paddling around in the old Oklawaha River channel.  Keep in mind thatthe area I explored is usually under about 7 feet of water.

Rodman Reservoir has slowly been drained of much of its water over the past few months by the FWC.

Drawdowns like this can rejuvenate a lake by exposing the lake bottom to the air and Sun.  

Exposure reduces the thick black oozy muck that accumulates on the bottom over time. The muck has the consistency of pudding and from what I experienced, several feet deep in many areas.

Once exposed, it dries in the sun which greatly reduces the muck volume. Some of it oxidizes with the air, some simply blows away as dust, and some is utilized by the rapidly growing pioneer plant species that grow during those 3 months of drawdown.

Muck like that robs oxygen from the water as the organics decay, smothers submerged plants, and prevents spawning by fish like Largemouth Bass, Bluegills, Redear Sunfish, etc.

Those fish need a sandy bottom where they can fan out a dish-shaped nest to lay their eggs in.

This is where I spent most of my time.

The canal itself was pretty busy with bassboats zooming off for a day of fishing, and let's face it, canals are generally not really interesting ... the whole straight and narrow thing is pretty boring.

So, let's get started ...

Next Rodman post: Life among the dead.