Piece by piece, Peace River lost

In the 1940s, Kissengen Spring had become a major recreational site for the region. The spring went dry in 1950 amid a phosphate mining boom. (Photo provided)

Mines, farms, housing sacrificed resources

By GREG MARTIN
Staff Writer

Nature created the Peace River during a time when oceans were receding and woolly mammoths roamed the earth.

But it took mankind only five decades to erase 136,000 acres of the rivershed's wetlands, 343 miles of its streams and at least one prolific artesian spring.

What was lost Since the 1940s: 136,000 acres of wetlands drained and converted to other land uses. 31,000 acres of the lost wetlands disappeared after the Clean Water Act and Florida's mandatory phosphate mine reclamation law passed in the 1970s. Phosphate mining accounted for 13,000 of the lost acres. 343 miles of streams converted into ditches and canals, or lost. 600,000 acres of native uplands converted to farms, phosphate mines and cities. 600 acres of coastal marshes and mangroves lost. -- Source: Peace River Cumulative Impact Study

Those resources were ditched, drained, excavated or filled in by cattle ranches, citrus groves, vegetable farms, phosphate mines and urban development, a Peace River Cumulative Impact Study shows.

The study was published February by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The study compares aerial photographs taken of the 2,350-square-mile Peace River watershed in the 1940s, 1970s and 1990s. The snapshots reveal how drastic changes have occurred in a relatively short period.

The changes have contributed to declines in the quality and quantity of the water flowing from the Peace's headwaters near the Green Swamp, east of Tampa, to its mouth at Charlotte Harbor.

The decline has been subtle but noticeable, according to Jim Kelly, 78, a retired fishing guide whose parents founded the Eagles Nest Lodge in Solana.

"I can remember as a young boy going out on that dock and that water quality was so pure and clean, I could see the line on a snook's side," said Kelly. "Now, you'd have a hard time even seeing the snook."

Early aerial photos of the 105-mile-long river show it to look much like a tree. Off the main trunk extended about a dozen major branches, some as long as 30 or 40 miles.

Each branch had its own set of smaller "second order" streams and capillary-sized "first order" streams.

The landscape was also dotted with a myriad of forested wetlands, marshes and ponds. Some were connected by streams, some isolated.

In later aerial photos, several major streams appear severely truncated and countless wetlands are missing.

Headwater Impacts

In the 1800s, the uppermost Peace River was formed by a creek that meandered through a series of lakes.

The lakes, now mostly surrounded by residential developments, remain perched on plateaus that step down from Lake Hamilton, located along a ridge northeast of Bartow.

Man began changing that landscape as early as 1910, when the meandering headwater creek was replaced by the Peace Creek Drainage Canal. The goal was to remove water and open up wetlands to agriculture.

The Peace Creek canal now drains stormwater from the Winter Haven area.

And the Peace River's main channel now starts at the confluence of Saddle Creek and the Peace Creek Drainage Canal just north of Bartow.

Saddle Creek drains Lake Hancock, which has become polluted with effluent (treated wastewater discharge), nutrients and algae, according to the study.

Aerial photos of Lake Hancock in the 1960s show a plume of suspended sediments flowing into the lake from a phosphate mine.

After the area was mined out, the lake continued to serve as a receiving pond for municipal effluent until the early 1990s.

The lake is now spoiled with enough "unconsolidated deep organic muck" to cover 12,000 acres one foot deep, according to the study.

And water quality declines stemming from periodic discharges from the lake can be detected as far downstream as the Peace River Water Plant, according to water district scientists.

Mining the Creeks

In the 1940s, the river was also fed by two major streams, Six Mile and Bear, located northwest and southwest of Bartow, respectively. They were bulldozed for residential development, phosphate mines and chemical plants by the late 1970s.

On the east side of the Peace south of Bartow, a series of nine short creeks that were present until the 1940s are now gone. They appear to have been shaved off the river's main channel by phosphate mines.

Farther south, and west of Fort Meade, about half of Little Payne and Payne creeks also disappeared amid phosphate strip mines.

Some of the mines were excavated before the state adopted mandatory mine reclamation laws in 1975.

However, most of the mining in the Payne Creek watershed has been conducted since the 1970s, after both the state reclamation law and U.S. Congress's Clean Water Act were adopted.

Throughout the entire Peace River watershed, 22 percent of the original stream channels were erased or channelized, the study indicates. Many of the streams were lost in urban centers, such as Bartow and Punta Gorda.

However, the stream losses in the Bartow and Payne Creek areas, where phosphate was dominant, are more than double the losses anywhere else in the basin, according to the study.

Urban developments also consumed other chunks of the resource. In the lower Peace River, marshes and mangroves declined by 600 acres or 22 percent.

In the 1940s, wetlands took up 25 percent of the Peace River's landscape. That number has declined to 15.6 percent since then.

Now, most of the remaining wetlands are located in the middle and southern portions of the watershed, the study indicates.

Phosphate's Philosophy

The impacts occurred because, years ago, people didn't realize the value of conservation, said Dee Allen, reclamation superintendent for the Mosaic Fertilizers phosphate mining company.

"I think the philosophy of everyone was different then than it is today," Allen said. "Before regulation, you could take out wetlands and now you have to put them back and, some that are ecologically significant, you have to preserve."

As awareness increased, the mining industry improved its ability to reclaim mine sites and restore wetlands, she said.

However, Tony Janicki, an ecologist who has provided expert testimony in Charlotte County's litigation against phosphate mining, pointed out that phosphate mining wiped out 60 percent of the streams in the Bartow area and 52 percent in the Payne Creek watershed.

"That's ridiculous," Janicki said. "That's a shame, let's put it that way."

Janicki pointed out it took litigation from Charlotte County to get the mining industry to replace excavated streams with reasonable facsimiles.

"That was the thing I was really hammering (in the phosphate hearings)," Janicki said. "I mean, these guys were allowed to just take streams off the landscape. If any other industry tried to do that, they'd be laughed out of the room."

Hope Springs for Kissengen

Another lost piece of the Peace puzzle was Kissengen Spring, located a few miles south of Bartow on the east side of the river.

Until the 1940s, the spring pumped some 20 million gallons of clear water into the river each day. It also served as a popular recreational site.

However, the spring ceased flowing in the 1950s amid a phosphate mining boom. The spring went dry because excessive pumping of well water for the mining drained down the Floridan aquifer by some 60 feet, according to the study.

Ever since then, water in the upper Peace has drained down sinkholes and crevices in the karst limestone beneath the riverbed.

Because of the sinkholes, the river has ceased flowing in a 10-mile stretch in five of the last seven years.

By implementing practices to capture rain water and recirculate it through the mining process, the phosphate industry has cut its pumping in half since the late 1970s.

However, pumping for agriculture and urban developments increased to keep the aquifer too low for Kissengen Spring to flow, according to the study.

The bowl-shaped basin that once served as Kissengen Spring's swimming area is now dry. However, in the bottom of the bowl is a funnel-shaped hole called a "sink."

During a recent visit to the spring, cool spring water could be found in the sink.

"It was a garden of eden, flush with fresh water," said Charles Cook, a DEP permitting specialist based in Homeland, as he dipped his hand into the water.

Cook, a life-long Bartow resident, has taken a personal interest in the geology of Kissengen Spring.

Now that man's impacts are known, society should focus on recharging the aquifer by restoring wetlands and reducing pumping, he said.

Water district managers say the economic cost of reducing pumping sufficient to make Kissengen flow again would be astronomical.

Cook, however, remains hopeful.

"I say we get what we give," he said.

Calculating Costs

The lost streams have resulted in diminished flow, declining water quality and degraded wildlife habitat, according to Janicki.

Even first order streams, which form the tips of river's branches, provide habitat for important micro-organisms such as mayflies and caddie flies, he said.

In their larval stages, such creatures break down leaf matter into organic carbon. That forms the bottom of the food chain, he said.

In virtually all levels of the Peace River system, "fish showed adverse effects" stemming from mankind's activities, noted Dr. Tom Fraser, a fish scientist, in the DEP study.

Even smaller wetlands and streams that only flow during wet periods serve as nurseries for juvenile fish, Fraser said.

Such minnows serve as prey not only for sport fish, such as trout, bass and snook, but also for wading birds, he pointed out.

"A channelized stream is not the same habitat for fish," he said. "All you have to do is go look at the (channelized) Caloosahatchee River. It's extremely limited."

Fraser also estimated that some 15 freshwater species may no longer be suited to survive in the Payne, Joshua, Prairie and Shell creeks because they are tainted with the discharges of highly mineralized well water from citrus groves, vegetable farms or phosphate mines.

Also believed missing from the modern Peace River is "tape grass," an aquatic plant with long, velvety green blades.

The grass may have disappeared as the mineral content increased and the water darkened, he said.

Horse Creek, one of last Peace River tributaries to remain relatively pristine, now has more fish species and abundance than the main channel of the Peace, the fish study states.

The river's remaining natural areas also provide habitat for protected species, including bald eagles, scrub jays, sandhill cranes, red cockaded woodpeckers and wood storks, according to the study.

But most of those remaining natural areas "are threatened by citrus, phosphate mining and urban development," the study states.

Restoration Limited

The Southwest Florida Water Management District has launched two major projects to restore the upper Peace River, at least to a minimum flow of just 6 inches of water during dry seasons, said Mark Hammond, resource management director for the district.

One project calls for increasing the level of Lake Hancock and restoring wetlands downstream. The goal is to filter the lake's water before it drains into the Peace.

The other also calls for restoring Peace Creek canal wetlands to store Winter Haven's storm water for release during dry periods.

The district is also working to map the sinkholes in the upper Peace. The district hopes to determine whether berms can be constructed to divert water now draining down the holes, Hammond said.

But restoring other Peace tributaries is currently beyond the district's capability, he said.

"Those (upper Peace) projects will be quite expensive," Hammond pointed out. "They're a five- to 10-year effort.

"Anybody can only take on so much," he added.