Cross-Florida Barge Canal — EATING FLORIDA

Believe it or not, the idea for a canal across the Florida peninsula first surfaced in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries with the Spanish conquistadors. Hurricanes and English pirates lurking along the Florida coast had taken a terrible toll on their heavily laden treasure ships. So, they reasoned, why not dig a canal from the west coast of Florida across country to the east coast. Thus protecting their heavily laden treasure ships from natural disasters and human predators. Considering the primitive state of technology in the late 1500s and early 1600s, a cross-Florida ship canal was pure fantasy. In 1818 Secretary of War John C. Calhoun once again proposed a canal in order to reduce losses due to shipwrecks and piracy. Again, the concept was determined to be technically infeasible. But by the early 20th Century the idea was definitely within the realm of possibility. At least as far as technology was concerned. Economics and protection of the environment proved other matters entirely.

By 1920, support for the canal was so strong that proponents in the two favored termini, Jacksonville on the Atlantic and Yankeetown on the Gulf, agitated the State Legislature so successfully that a feasibility study was prepared. Which found the idea singularly without merit in terms of economics. No problem. Not if you live in the Florida world of realpolitik. The canal’s supporters devised a simple but effective strategy. They hunkered down and prepared to outwait their opponents. Knowing full well that, in politics, economic feasibility exists purely in the eyes of the beholder. At least if those beholders are members of the Florida Legislature. After all, sizeable numbers of legislators change every session and those who are re-elected change their minds much more often than that. Especially where well-heeled political campaign contributors are concerned. Politics, the All-American Grease Machine. A sad but true tale in every state of the Union. Then and now.

In a burst of twisted inspiration, canal supporters saw a golden opportunity during the teeth of the Great Depression, especially in the dark days of 1932. They swung into high gear, forming the important-sounding National Gulf-Atlantic Ship Canal Association. With members from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, they collectively bowed toward that Mecca of Pork, Washington. In heart of the Great Depression who but the Federal government had the cash to bail out their state economies with huge infusions of canal construction money? Pork barrel politics at its very finest. Belly up to the trough, boys. Let’s all get fat.

In May 1933 the Florida Legislature, smelling the first fruits of victory, established the Ship Canal Authority, a special taxation district headquartered in Jacksonville and comprised of the six counties standing to benefit the most from canal construction. The Authority issued bonds and the line was drawn in the sand. Savvy Ed Ball, always the first to smell a financial windfall at the expense of the environment, tested the wind and smelled sure victory. Ed jumped on the bandwagon and bought Ship Canal bonds as though they were actually worth something.

The proposed route was designed to run in a dredged channel through the St. John’s River, from Jacksonville to slightly south of Palatka. From there a new canal would be dug overland to the untouched and pristine Ocklawaha River. The lower reach of the Ocklawaha would be dammed, straightened, and channelized to just south of Silver Springs, where the route would cut straight across the countryside in a concrete-sided canal 35 miles long to the Withlacoochee River and then into the Gulf of Mexico at Yankeetown. All in all, it was enough to excite the Corps of Engineers into a state of near-permanent arousal. Locks, dams, canals, pumping stations, and dredge and fill up the wahzoo. It was the stuff of a District Engineer’s wet dreams. Who gave a wood rat’s ass about damage to the natural environment? Who cared about that real costs exceeded the benefits? No one. Or so it seemed to the canal’s enthusiastic supporters.

With Florida’s Senator Duncan Fletcher and Louisiana’s always savvy Huey Long pushing the project with all their considerable political might, President Franklin Roosevelt fell into line and backed the project under the then freshly passed emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The Corps rubbed its hands together in gleeful celebration and then without hesitation hired 4,500 men and established five Florida base camps from which to stage construction. That’s when the shit hit the fan, so to speak.

Not long after passage of the Relief Appropriation Act, all three Florida mainline railroads, as well as the smaller short-line carriers, started screaming bloody murder. They had belatedly realized that a sizeable portion of the freight hauled through a cross-Florida ship canal would be at their direct expense. And to everyone’s genuine surprise their cries of outrage were supported by a prestigious and well-respected Federal agency, the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Historically, the USGS has been a largely apolitical agency whose long-standing practice was to stay on the scientific high ground well above the stink and slime of the pork barrel, unlike the Corps, which rolled and reveled in nasty slop-pit political deals that stank to high heaven from the time of George Washington to the present.

The USGS reported that the canal, as designed, would cut nearly 90 feet into the precious Floridan Aquifer, the main source of fresh water to the central and southern parts of the State, cutting in half the underground water used by 50 percent of the State’s population. The canal would also effectively eliminate the potable water supply of the cities of Silver Spring and Rainbow Spring. As a direct result of those freshwater losses, the canal would open the Floridan Aquifer to massive saltwater intrusion at both east and west coasts and cause unprecedented ecological disaster.

                                   KA-BOOM!

The USGS report was a heavy artillery barrage from a totally unexpected source. Suddenly, canal supporters were on the run and looked vulnerable. Which is always the kiss of death in vicious, cutthroat Washington. Look like a winner and every politician and ass-kisser in the Capital crowds around, desperate to be your friend and snarf up a piece of the action. But look like a loser and you’re standing alone, like you’re carrying the Ebola virus and AIDS at the same time. Hey, that’s how our national Capital has always worked. It was business as usual in Pork-Barrel Heaven. No more, no less.

Roosevelt’s Congressional opponents chose that moment to rap the President on the knuckles and teach him a hard political lesson. That he could not initiate major public works projects without first getting approval from the people who controlled the purse strings — none other than the U.S. House of Representatives. So the House refused to appropriate the necessary funds and that was that. Or so it seemed.

The canal concept was resurrected once again in 1942 at the beginning of World War II, supposedly in response to the presence of German submarines skulking off the Florida coast in the hopes of cherry-picking the heavily-laden, slow, and cumbersome freighters. The canal’s supporters also showed considerable political acumen when they had the beast re-engineered to modify its most objectionable features. The new canal emerged as a barge channel rather than an ocean-going ship canal and would be limited to a 27-foot slice into the Floridan Aquifer and cost only $45 million. But Congress refused to take the skillfully dangled bait. The war effort in Europe and Asia had priority for men and materials so nothing was done. But the idea was still alive. Even though it didn’t look particularly healthy at the time.

Sharp-eyed Florida businessmen who were holding on to what appeared to be worthless canal bonds, led by fearless and crafty Ed Ball, saw 1960 Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy as a potential ally in their desire to make a killing on their investment. They used their political contributions and clout to garner Kennedy’s support for the Barge Canal. I mean, think about it. The Canal was a perfect pork barrel, public dole type of project the always spend-happy Democrats loved. Of course, Kennedy would back it, especially if there was some “objective” evidence supporting it.

Ever up to the task of charade, skulduggery, and shell games, the Corps of Engineers quickly produced a phantasmagoric benefit-cost analysis that demonstrated the Federal government’s $165 million investment in the canal would produce a five percent annual return to Florida’s economy. Which amounted to $8.25 million each year in excess of project costs. Yeah, right. And don’t we all believe in the Tooth Fairy and that whores have hearts of gold. Those guys either were on a major LSD trip or they were lying through their teeth. Duh. Those were the only real choices. What an outstanding work of fiction that benefit-cost analysis was. How the Corps engineers and economists got up in the morning and could look at their faces in the mirror without vomiting I’ll never know. But like it or not, the result was clear. The near-dead Canal suddenly roared back to life. It was resurrection city. Praise the Lord and buy more canal bonds.

That’s when a trio of dedicated environmentalists began a monumentally uphill struggle to defeat the enormous power of what had become a Federal steamroller. From Gainesville, a sluggish little college town, Marjorie Harris Carr, Jack Ohanian, and David Anthony started waging an all-out war against odds so monumental they couldn't be classified as low as staggering or enormous. They were determined to stop the Barge Canal and refused to back down from what looked like certain defeat. Marjorie Carr was a respected ecologist in her own right and the wife of internationally famous University of Florida biologist, Archie Carr. Jack Ohanian was a physicist with the University of Florida and David Anthony a biochemist in the University’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. All three were very active members of the Alachua Audubon Society and possessed stellar reputations for personal integrity and professional courage.

That their opponents were legion and incredibly powerful at both national and State levels went without saying. Chief supporters of the Canal included the State’s Canal Authority, the successor of the Ship Canal Authority, the pro-development Florida Cabinet, an institution with a long and rich history of environmental rape and pillage, and the Florida Board of Conservation, later to become the Department of Natural Resources and which functioned as the mouth-piece of the politically powerful — remember, trees don’t vote — rather than exhibiting any foolish and ill-founded desires to protect the State’s precious environmental heritage for its citizens. And of course, we can’t forget the inestimable Jacksonville District Corps of Engineers, a group of technocrats that never met a river they thought couldn't be improved with locks and dams or canals and never met a tree they didn't think looked better sawn into as many board-feet as possible. Along with them came the Corps’ slight-of-hand economists who could add two plus two and get eight point two-five million, or whatever number it took to manufacture a positive benefit-cost ratio.

In February 1964, with the requisite Congressional funding and approvals in place, President Lyndon Johnson triggered the dynamite explosion in Palatka that signaled the beginning of the Cross Florida Barge Canal construction. The project would ultimately destroy nearly 50 miles of what had been the least developed and most unspoiled stretch of the beautiful Ocklawaha River and eliminate 42 square miles of adjacent pristine river swamp and hardwood hammock.

The Corps of Engineers immediately galvanized into action and began constructing the canal, channel, and lock and dam system. Accomplishing their goal would bisect the lovely Ocala National Forest, reduce the flow of the crystal clear Silver Springs, cut potable water production in the Floridan Aquifer, and turn the Ocklawaha and Withlacoochee Rivers into artificial channels carrying increasingly turbid waters practically devoid of indigenous wildlife. All for the express purpose of satisfying the greedy but politically powerful Canal bondholders. Like that good old boy, Ed Ball, who never saw a tree or a spring he didn’t try to convert to money in his pocket.

Since we talking about what was happening on the ground, imagine this nightmare working in broad daylight: a monster, 310-ton diesel-powered, crawler-crusher machine whose only mission in life was to devour the ten square miles of pristine wetlands and diverse forests between what would become the Rodman and Eureka Dams. Its single goal: to make room for a sterile, 13,000-acre reservoir south of Palatka and, to top it off, a lock and dam that would connect what has come to be known as Rodman Reservoir with the St. John’s River to regulate the passage of barges and other water craft.

Between 1962 and 1969, the indefatigable Carr, Ohanian, and Anthony had organized the Barge Canal opposition, the Florida Defenders of the Environment (widely known as the FDE). They worked without rest at night and through one weekend after another educating members of the growing environmental movement and the general public to the very real threats posed by the Canal to the State of Florida and its inhabitants.

But the Corps was also busy. Perhaps a third of the canal was completed between 1966 and 1969. Three of the Canal system’s five locks were finished by mid-1969. With the adjacent lock and dam in place, Rodman Reservoir immediately began to fill with water.

But disaster wasn’t far off. By late 1969, some 3,000 acres of the Reservoir were covered with an out-of-control growth of water hyacinths. Which the Corps started killing with chemical sprays. The only problem with that solution was the dead vegetative material sank to the bottom of the Reservoir, adding to the already huge biological oxygen demand generated by the organic materials crushed and partially buried by the crawler-crusher mentioned above. Whether the Corps liked it or not, Rodman Reservoir was well on its way to a condition of rapid eutrophication. In other words, biological death, courtesy of chuckle-headed and clueless engineers at the Corps.

In 1969, the national Environmental Defense Fund sued the Corps to stop canal construction pending a determination of the “Total social costs and real social benefits.” Which meant that someone either knew or strongly suspected that the Corps had cooked the benefit-cost books. Hey. Corps economists cooking the books? What a shocking allegation that was. Also in that year, the EDF published a groundbreaking report on the environmental destruction that was being caused by canal construction that captured the public’s attention and galvanized the Canal’s opposition into action.

But perhaps the most important event at that time in terms of real world consequences for the Canal was passage of the National Environmental Protection Act, which at that time was a law with teeth. After several years of intense political activity locally, Statewide, and nationally, the EDF succeeded in a way no one thought possible. In 1971, the President’s Council of Environmental Quality in Washington, D.C., identified the Cross Florida Barge Canal Project as the top priority on its cancellation list. President Nixon shocked absolutely everyone in the country when he directed the Corps to abandon its Florida canal construction activities in 1971 and cease and desist all further involvement.

I remember the electric thrill that jolted me when I first heard that decision. Reluctantly, I have to admit that might have been the only Presidential action of Nixon’s that I supported as non-self serving or non-destructive to the country’s best interests. Well, there’s always the possible exception of his China gambit and several pieces of legislation that no good Republican of today would support — such as a national healthcare program that the idiot Democrats scuttled, led by none other than Ted Kennedy.

Despite a Federal judge’s 1974 ruling that Nixon had exceeded his power in canceling the Barge Canal project, in that the project had been authorized by an Act of Congress, construction was never resumed. For the first time in living or historical memory, the State of Florida, via Governor Reubin Askew and the publicly elected members of the State Cabinet, voted in favor of the environment and against development. They opposed all future work on the Canal and recommended that the existing portions of the project be dismantled and the dams and reservoirs be back-filled with dirt.

In 1985, the Cross Florida Barge Canal Project was dropped from Congress’s list of appropriated projects but with the recommendation that the existing structures must be maintained in place indefinitely. On November 28, 1990, President George H. W. Bush deauthorized the Cross Florida Barge Canal project and changed the purpose of the previously designated lands to recreation and conservation by signing Senate Bill 2740 into law. Several months later, on January 22, 1991, Governor Lawton Chiles and Cabinet of the State of Florida signed a resolution agreeing to the terms of that Federal deauthorization act. Their action led to the creation of the Cross Florida Greenway State Recreation and Conservation Area that in 1998 was officially renamed the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway in honor of the main individual who organized and spearheaded the long struggle to kill the Cross Florida Barge Canal project.

Today visitors can have the distinct displeasure of viewing Rodman Dam’s thousands of acres of hyacinth-choked water and drowned trees. It’s a bitter reminder that a blood-sucking monster with political connections has many lives and isn’t dead until it’s buried without its head and heart. Which it isn’t, even to this day. Another critical lesson is that the natural environment can never be put back the way it was prior to being raped and pillaged, no matter how hard we try or what lies the civil engineers and water managers tell us.

Implications

We can’t close the book on the Barge Canal without tipping our hats to three most extraordinary people: Marjorie Harris Carr, Jack Ohanian, and David Anthony. Despite heart-stoppingly enormous odds, by their single-minded dedication and determination they have shown all environmentalists the way. Committed individuals who organize to fight the actions of powerful and politically connected insiders who are in cahoots with the State and Federal governments to destroy the environment can make a real difference. The combination of highly motivated grassroots organization, credible evidence complied by respected members of the scientific community, a few sympathetic political leaders (especially U.S. Senator Robert Graham), and well-focused legal actions can result in victory. It’s a lesson no one who is concerned about the environment can afford to forget. In truth, their names and their story should be enshrined in a large granite memorial along the canal route in recognition of their inspiring, selfless dedication, and real-world accomplishments.