The Wicked Ditch Will Never Die: the On

felt justifiably proud of their efforts, they also understood that their fight was far from The Wicked Ditch Will Never Die: The over. Profound questions remained over the On-Going Controversy over Rodman shape of the 77,000 acre linear park that was Reservoir to take the place of the canal. The rancorous debate over the fate of the Ocklawaha River Steven Noll, University of Florida loomed largest of all. The Rodman Dam David Tedeger, Santa Fe College and its attendant Rodman Reservoir, built as part of the canal‘s infrastructure in the late On January 22, 1991, Governor 1960s, still remained intact and prevented Lawton Chiles and the Florida Cabinet the Ocklawaha from flowing freely. If the signed a deauthorization bill that finally issue of the dam was not solved to the ended the Cross Florida Barge Canal, the satisfaction of Marjorie Carr, if it still Army Corps of Engineers project designed blocked the river, would her years of hard to cut a 107 mile swash across the Florida work be all in vain? After all, her efforts to peninsula. Started in 1964 and stopped in prevent the canal from being built had 1971 by both presidential edict and judicial started as a campaign to save the river itself. decree, the canal lay dormant for twenty The Rodman controversy provided more years, with not enough political the last, longest, and still on-going chapter support to either re-start the project or in a story that began with European officially stop it. Much of the credit for encounters in Florida as early as the 16th halting the canal went to Marjorie Harris century. Though Spanish explorers searched Carr, the feisty Micanopy scientist and for a water passage across the peninsula, it housewife who made it her life‘s work to was not until Florida became an American fight against the canal and its destruction of territory in 1821 that the push for the her beloved Ocklawaha River. Though Carr development of a cross- peninsular canal and the Florida Defenders of the took shape. Throughout the 19th and into the Environment (FDE), the organization she early 20th centuries (during both territorial helped to found in 1969 to galvanize both and statehood phases), Army Corps of public opinion and the scientific community, Engineers personnel repeatedly surveyed fragile aquifer. Tying the necessity of the Florida, looking for the optimal route for a canal to national defense issues in a time of canal. While the engineers determined a war, supporters from Ocala and Jacksonville cross- peninsular transit was feasible, they pushed Congress to approve construction of simultaneously concluded that building it the newly-designed barge canal along the would be difficult, expensive, and probably same route as the defunct ship canal. In July not worth the effort. Supporters of a of 1942, Congress authorized the building of waterway, anxious to develop Florida as a the Cross Florida Barge Canal, but did not center of trade and commerce, latched onto allocate any funds for that project. It would the possibility of building a canal and take twenty-two years for the federal assiduously lobbied Congress for funding government to finally provide funding for and support. However, it was not until the canal- and in February 1964, President September 1935, with a need for jobs in the Lyndon Johnson came to Palatka and wake of the Great Depression, that President oversaw the long-awaited ground breaking Franklin Roosevelt allocated $5 million for for the project. Floridians remained the construction of a ship canal across profoundly divided about the necessity of Florida from Jacksonville on the Atlantic the canal, and by the late 1960s public coast to Yankeetown on the Gulf of Mexico. opinion shifted towards ending construction. This 107 mile long, 30 foot deep gash would Marjorie Carr of Gainesville and her utilize the paths of the existing St. Johns, environmental organization, Florida Ocklawaha, and Withlacoochee Rivers to Defenders of the Environment (FDE), cross the state. Within a year, however, proved crucial in that change. In 1969, FDE construction was halted due to significant sued the Corps of Engineers to stop opposition from Florida agricultural interests construction, and in January 1971, both the concerned about the canal‘s potential for courts and President Richard Nixon ordered destroying the state‘s fresh water supply. work halted on environmental grounds: that Refusing to concede their dreams of continued canal construction would economic growth had failed, canal boosters endanger the beautiful, subtropical re-designed the waterway as a shallower Ocklawaha River. Carr and her allies had barge canal which would not harm Florida‘s won a significant victory by halting canal construction, but it took twenty more environmental issues and concerns, activists agonizing years to turn canal lands into a cling tenuously to the memories of their state park. Even with that accomplishment, hard-won political victories (like stopping however, Rodman Dam still blocked the the Cross Florida Barge Canal) and hope flow of the Ocklawaha, making Carr‘s they can re-energize. 2 success incomplete.1 In the summer of 1991, the Florida The on-going controversy over the legislature began the process of preparing to fate of Rodman reservoir reflects broader decide how to best utilize the land once issues surrounding both the political and designated for the Cross Florida Barge environmental history of modern Florida. Canal but now cumbersomely labeled the FDE‘s success in stopping barge canal Cross Florida Greenbelt State Recreation construction represented a watershed and Conservation Area. When the federal moment in the state, as citizen activists government turned the canal property back showed their ability to shape public policy. to the state of Florida in 1990, it mandated It seemed to portend a prospect where that it be turned into a park for the benefit of concern for Florida‘s fragile ecology would state citizens. As the initial part of that become a paramount issue in determining process, the state legislature established the the state‘s political future. But the Canal Lands Advisory Committee (CLAC), continuing Rodman deadlock indicated an advisory board composed of politicians another path, one directed by conservative and interested citizens, whose input would politicians more concerned about help shape the future status of the canal development than the environment. The lands. In recognition of her importance to impasse over the ultimate disposition of the the issues surrounding the disposition of the dam and reservoir, and the fate of the property, the legislature appointed Carr to Ocklawaha River itself, reveals much about serve on the committee, representing ―the the nature of the political culture in the public at large.‖ CLAC‘s primary Sunshine State in the late 20th and early 21st responsibility lay in creating a master plan centuries. With the tide seemingly for the best use of the land. That meant irrevocably turning away from balancing a variety of competing interests, articulated during more than a year of local hands of state officials. In many respects, public meetings. For Carr and many in FDE CLAC validated much of Carr‘s there was not much to debate. They felt environmental vision. Yet, it abdicated its such passive recreational pursuits as hiking most important responsibility by refusing to and canoeing should stand alone at the address the contentious issue concerning the center of the greenway experience. On the ultimate disposition of Rodman Dam and the east side of the canal cut, however, many of Ocklawaha River. Instead, it voted for yet Putnam County‘s residents remained another study on what to do with the dam, steadfast in their demand for the retention of this time proposing a three year review Rodman Reservoir as a bass fishing under the auspices of the St. Johns River paradise. Spending the weekend trolling on Water Management District. This new a motorized bass boat, they saw ―something review would once again examine the usual magic about the shout of the adult female technical, environmental, and economic when she realizes she has caught her first cost-benefits of the reservoir. The proposal fish. Take them to Rodman reservoir and left many members of FDE howling in enjoy life.‖ All of this was rather alien to protest at what they saw as just another Carr and her allies. For them, fishing was round of delays. With Marjorie Carr now something better experienced on the free- weak with emphysema at the age of seventy- flowing, densely canopied Ocklawaha with a seven, FDE officials plaintively conceded ―canoe or johnboat, . .not a noisy two-cycle their leader would not live to see her dream smoke-belching gasoline guzzling outboard fulfilled. After the meeting, David Godfrey, engine‖ on what they saw as the flat and FDE‘s Ocklawaha Restoration Project unappealing waters of the stagnant Rodman Director plaintively announced that ―the reservoir. river will not be restored in her lifetime. On September 17, 1992, CLAC met This decision today means that action may in Ocala to issue its final report on the future not even begin in her lifetime‖ (Panel: Study of the Greenbelt, now called the Cross Rodman September 18, 1982). Florida Greenway. As an advisory board, its The September committee meeting recommendations held considerable weight represented an important transitional but the ultimate fate of the land rested in the moment. Besides wrestling with the issues associated with the deauthorization of the considered by some as one of the best bass canal itself, it also introduced state senator lakes in America. In July, the Senator George Kirkpatrick of Gainesville to the encouraged Dan Canfield, a professor at the debate. A member of the state legislature University of Florida‘s Department of since 1980, the fifty-three year old Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, to conduct Democrat quickly became the face of the yet another study–this time specifically movement to retain Rodman Reservoir.

Load more