The Axis of Unemployment loses another player.  Following Pete Culverson of Pandion Systems and Kerby Green of St Johns Water Management, Connie Bersok leaves DEP having failed to understand reform.  Culverson and Pandion Systems, lost long time funding as DEP Springs Spokesman for a contriversial program headed by Connie Bersok of the old DEP.  Reform of envoronmentalist left political anti growth was targeted by voters in the 2010 election.  Governor Rick Scott met wide approval from an angry public tired of living under "Tyrants" from the environmental political left.  Horror stories abound about the private citizen "taught a lesson" by all powerful Water District and DEP forces.  Today, the new FDEP under Secretary Herschel Vinyard is moving toward actual protection of the environment along with protection of the citizens of Florida.  

 

Taxpayers are tired of hearing that the old anti jobs use of permits was the answer.  Harming both the environment and the economy, old permitting programs that favored Gainesville Utilities are coming under fire.  Harming the environment and harming the economy was a way of doing business with the old Water District programs.  Growing from zero funding to over a Billion Dollars annually in a single water district, anti development forces have recently come under fire.  Voters and the public in general watched as water districts seemed to grow without limit.  

Springs Protection Alliance director Don Browning sees each of the old line supporters of the old permitting system that leave the job as a victory for the environment.  "Just think how great it will be when the old systems like HT Odum springs institute developed by the socialist from last century are stopped."  Kanapaha Sewer plant and the Gainesville Discharge Storm Sewer system are examples of using pollution to foul the springs and then use the resulting algae as the reason to stop economic development.  Environmentalism in sheep's clothing is a threat that almost stopped Florida's economy.  Connie Bersok, Kerby Green, and Pete Culverson may find it refreshing to lose Tax Payer funding of their programs after receiving millions annually for their program efforts collectively.  It will be a long time before millions are given to the anti jobs group who were so effective in using their government jobs to harm Florida's Environment.  Just to defend old practices while pretending to be an environmentalist is enough to lose tax payer funding.  "You will never recover Florida's economy while HT Odum Socialist programs are funded by our tax dollars."

Kanapaha Discharge of Sewer Effluent polluting Spring water from Silver Springs and Rainbow Springs will be a thing of the past if reforms currently under review are implemented.  Adena Springs is an important base for jobs development and the use of Sewer Effluent currently wasted in a long condemned practice of dumping into the aquifer.

 

Ocala Star Banner states that there was a point source discharge from the City of Ocala that was causing the oil slick on the Silver River and Springs.

St Johns Water District studies refused to report on the real point source during Drs Howard t. Odum and Knight studies over many decades.

One of the Recent St John Studies, set a test station within 100 feet of the 60 inch discharge pipe and failed to report the point source. 

Water Czar Don Browning is planning a lecture on the transfer of energy at Silver River and Springs to higher Trophic Levels.  Storm Water Discharge is causing problems with Primary Consumers, the fish and other Bio Mass,  because of the oil slick caused by the City of Ocala and Marion County Direct discharge by drain pipe and sink hole drainage use.  The Oil Slick from Ocala Drainage Wells and the Springs Attraction 17 acres of parking is stoping fish from procreating.  

Knight and Odem have missed the point source pollution reducing bio mass for years some environmentalist claim. 

 

Concerns Raised as to Sexual Side Effects of drinking Sewer Effluent treated waste contaminated with human male and female hormones. Do you have more whiskers? Are you drinking water that is affecting wildlife sexuality?

Citizens question whether legal discharge of Sewer Waste should be corrected if change will cause increased taxes or utility rates.

EPA must not force Florida to Adopt Numeric Nutrient Water Quality Standards.

EPA asks Florida to create standards for nitrates discharged into the Aquifer.

Often taxpayer funded Springs Expert Dr Bob Knight, describes how the Limestone Pipe Line sends billions of gallons of water to natural drains in Marion County. A natural drain to the St Johns river, Silver Springs is choking on Alachua processed sewage waste discharges into the Limestone Pipeline to Marion County.

Brown, Knight, Reiss, etal,2008 Study on Springs
smdraincluster.jpg
Brown, Knight, Reiss, suspect target total nitrogen such as storm water directed to sink holes.

Brown, Knight, Reiss, etal,2008 Study on Springs
smdraincluster.jpg
Brown, Knight, Reiss, suspect Sewer Effluent Dumping is main cause of springs harm.

The above St Johns Water Management documents show drainage wells and a typical cluster near a spring suffer from degradation.

The preponderance of N pollution appears to be from fertilizer sources. While there are 

several reasons to treat this finding as an over-generalization, most of the accumulated 

evidence from mass balance computations and isotopic tracer studies suggests that 

mineral fertilizers, and therefore not septic tanks and wastewater sprayfields, are the 

principal sources of N pollution. However, since fertilizer use is highly diffuse and based 

on hundreds of thousands of individual decisions, control of N from point sources such as 

municipal wastewater effluent disposal activities may be a more cost effective form of N 

load reduction.

Springs Protection.Com Editor emphasis in red

 

Quote from:

Environmental Engineering Sciences 

 

Kathleen A. McKee 

University of Florida Water Institute 

28 April 2008 

 Mark T. Brown and Kelly Chinners Reiss 

Center for Environmental Policy 

Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences 

 

Matthew J. Cohen and Jason M. Evans 

Forest Water Resources Laboratory 

School of Forest Resources and Conservation 

 

K. Ramesh Reddy, Patrick W. Inglett, and Kanika Sharma Inglett 

Department of Soil and Water Science 

 

Thomas K. Frazer, Charles A. Jacoby, and Edward J. Phlips 

Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 

 

Robert L. Knight1 and Sky K. Notestein 

Wetland Solutions, Inc. 

1 

Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences 

 

Kathleen A. McKee 

University of Florida Water Institute

University of Florida Water Institute 

570 Weil Hall 

 PO Box 116601   

Gainesville, FL 32611-6601 

Comments on Alachua Scientist Dr Bob Kinght's "Limestone Pipeline" Article in the Gainesville Sun and the Ocala Star Banner:
Our Opinion
Don Browning is Editor of Marion Sun Times, Silver Springs Working Group. Com and Springs Protection. Com

Dr. Knight is correct, the underground pipe line flows from Alachua to Marion County transferring water to Silver and Rainbow Springs.  Usually a non-point source pollution advocate, Dr. Knight appears to be agreeing with Springs Protection . Com Editors and The U.S. Geologic Survey,  that Pollutants introduced in Gainesville's Alachua Sink hole discharge and Kanapaha Sewer Plant processed sewage waste discharge will impact  Marion County drinking water wells and Silver/Rainbow Springs,because of the Pipeline Flow.  

The big question on everyone mind is, "how much will it cost us in additional taxes and higher utility bills to remove the nitrates introduced in Alachua that flow into Marion County springs and wells"?  How much more can we afford to pay in these economic times?  Should Gainesville and Ocala save money by discharging unwanted contaminants into the pipeline to our wells and springs.  Won't all the discharge of contaminants cause us to lose our clean drinking water and clean springs?  Legislators are taking a close look at the recent science by FDEP that ignores the Hugh Point Source Pollutants being discharged into our underground pipeline.  To the south in Senator Constantine's District, the discharge is even greater with over 200 million gallons daily of processed sewage disposed of, with 50 million by direct discharge into the aquifer.  Florida's pre-eminent expert on Springs and the Aquifer, Dr. Thomas Kwader has long railed against "shortcutting mother nature", by dumping contaminants directly into the aquifer.

The Limestone Pipeline is indeed under close examination by the people of Florida and the EPA.  Urban areas with "big gulp" wells are at the forefront of problems caused to our drinking water aquifer.
The answer to the "500 pound gorilla" is to distribute the draw of public utilities to smaller wells that draw down the water supply much less.  Dr. Thomas Kwader has presented geological models of the reduced harm of more small wells at for example Ocala Utilities or Gainesville Utilities.  In a 6" well, mother nature can supply water taken at that rate by moving water through the aquifer.  In a 24" well the removal is too rapid, Draw Down results and ground water recedes draining surface lakes, swamps, and rivers.

Springs tell the story of draining the aquifer, because Springs are a drain by definition.  Draining out of just 2 Marion County Springs is 1 Billion gallons of water per day.  A billion gallons out of the aquifer day after day is a lot of water.  All of Marion County uses only 88 million gallons daily.  It is not how much comes from a well, but rather how the water is taken that is the issue.

Dr. Bob Knight is correct about the pipeline under ground called the aquifer.  What is discharged into the aquifer in Alachua is just up stream of Marion County/s biggest drains, Rainbow and Silver Springs.  What goes into the ground water in Alachua's Gainesville Sewer Plants comes out in Marion County's springs and Ocala's drinking water wells.

Ocala and Gainesville's Mayors have partnered in an effort to protect our water supply.  It is about time.  No wells between Ocala and Gainesville are even close to the Cities Big Gulp Wells.  Perhaps Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan and Ocala's Mayor Randy Ewers will be successful in spreading out the well withdrawal rate of their cities.  Big Wells suck everything to them like a giant vacuums cleaner.  Pollution dumped several miles away is sucked to the big gulp wells at an increasing rate as underground streams are widened by the flow. Pollutants dumped into sink holes and drainage wells must come out in our springs or wells.  The only alternative is for the contaminants to stay in the aquifer as a time bomb set to explode on future generations.

Dr. Thomas Kwader, the U. S. Geologic Survey agree on recharge and withdrawal principals especially when it comes to pollution and recharge of the aquifer.  The recharge practice of draining storm sewer runoff into sink holes is a prime cause of harm on the Quality Side of the argument.  Perhaps we do have enough water if our springs discharge a billion gallons daily into local rivers, but we will never have enough water if we continue to dump Storm Sewer waste into our sink holes leading to the Floridan Aquifer.  Historically, when sink holes plug up, drainage wells have been dug to take over the drainage job to the underground "pipeline".  

Lets look at Discharge into the pipeline underground.  Gainesville is experiencing "mounding", the opposite of what happens when a big gulp well sucks, Mounding occurs when big pumps force processed sewer waste into the aquifer.  Gainesville and the University of Florida processed sewer waste discharge amounts to over 6 million gallons daily into the pipeline flowing to our springs and wells.  As Dr Bob Knight explains, the water is flowing through an underground pipeline, from one water district to another as an unauthorized inter-basin transfer.  That transfer now carries processed sewer waste with a nitrate level of 10 times what we have in our problem springs.  Added to the contamination load from the sewage plants in Alachua is the storm sewer load of contaminants that flow into a long list of rivers, most notably Sweet water Creek that flowed into the aquifer at the Alachua Sink hole in Paynes  Prairie just up stream from Silver and Rainbow Springs, and Ocala's drinking water wells.

Just before the underground pipe line contaminants from the Alachua Sewer Plants get to Silver Springs, the City of Ocala Utilities drain Billions of Gallons of untreated Storm Sewer water annually into sink holes and drainage wells adding to the Alachua pollution load.

A war is brewing on this subject.  The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency is telling Florida DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection that they must at least set a standard for the Nitrates they are dumping into the aquifer under the pollution discharge rules.  Citizens are at the center of the discussion.

How clean do the springs need to be?  As they discharge into the rivers like the St Johns, does Silver Springs need to be cleaner than the 10 parts per million for nitrates that FDEP allows.  Remember we have a problem at 1 part per million currently and Alachua often exceeds 10 parts per million discharging into the Aquifer Pipe Line.  
 
If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of the Inspector General has their way, Florida's DEP Secretary Mike Sole will have to establish and adopt standards of Nutrient Water Quality Standards.
 
Avoiding standards is how we got into this mess at Silver and Rainbow Springs.  The people are not scientist who know 10 mg/L from 1 mg/L of nitrates.  Sure they can understand that 10 is ten times more than 1, and if you have 1 mg/L in our springs causing a problem you don't want 10 mg/L to be dumped into the underground pipeline just up stream from our springs and wells.
 
Some day we may need to put only clean water into our aquifer, perhaps taking 10 % of the Billion Gallons that rushes out to rivers from our springs.  That would recharge the aquifer with more water than we use in all of Marion County.
 
See Browning Environmental . Com for more on this subject.
 
Best to all,
Your Editor: Don Browning