A few weeks ago, I drove to the small, old town of High Springs, about 30 miles north of Gainesville. Then I kept driving, leaving the city for several miles until I reached the last state park in Florida.
Park No. 175 is Ruth B. Kirby Gilchrist Blue Springs, formerly a family-friendly roadway that the state purchased in 2017. It was a popular place for swimming, kayaking, and canoeing before the state acquired it, and it’s still popular now.
People flock to this park near the Santa Fe River because the water is so clear. Turtles and fish seem to float in the air. Gainesville artist Margaret Ross Tolbert once told me that soaking in this spring “jumps into wonderland. “
But as I walked through the door, what caught my eye and left me was a series of symptoms that rhymed along the main path. They were divided into 3 teams of four, covered like the old symptoms of Burma Shave.
“Do you like our springs?” asked the first blue sign. So let’s be cautious,” said the next. “Resist the urge,” says the third, followed by “Fertilize. “
Another set read: “Less water is used/at home and on the farm/protects our springs/from further damage. “Then came the final set: “It doesn’t matter how / you ship / respect our sources / when you vote. “
When I saw the first signs, I thought it had to be a message from the park. That last set convinced me that it wasn’t like that.
Our political leaders tend to be too friendly to polluters to recommend that they keep a blank when they vote. Do you know how they passed this pro-polluter bill that talks about blank water but doesn’t do much about it?At least now we can buy bigger bottles of wine to drown our sorrows, so that everything balances out, right?
Finding the writer of this poem on the side of the road required a few phone calls. When I found out, what he said reminded me of everything that is overlooked.
Every time our governor and legislators announce that the state is spending millions to reclaim ecologically sensitive lands, they avoid mentioning an undeniable fact: lands that have been preserved can still be destroyed through movements that take positions beyond their borders.
It’s the turn of the horror movie “When a Stranger Calls,” where Carol Kane is told that the threatening calls are coming from an aspect of the house. Evil comes from OUTSIDE the park.
Gilchrist Blue Springs has what’s called an engaging story.
It was once owned by a St. Petersburg business magnate, Ed. C. Wright, who was named after some 20,000 acres in the state. He handed the deed to the parcel to his longtime assistant, a little woman named Ruth Kirthrough who liked to drive a gold Cadillac.
They were secretly in love. Spring was a gift of commitment. Despite several attempts, the couple never managed to marry. Wright will have had Roald Amundsen’s worst case of bloodless feet in this aspect.
When Wright died, unmarried and childless, at age 77, his will named Kirby as executor of his $50 million estate. He sold some parcels to developers for structure and others to the government for preservation purposes. But she clung to the spring, a position she enjoyed so much that she opened it to the public to share its wonders.
In 1971, he convinced his nephew to move his family there to manage the space. After her death in 1989, they worked hard to achieve the look she wanted.
“It’s hard to maintain nature these days,” a relative told me in 2013. “It’s a daily war against the water and the watershed. “
This has remained true since the state purchased the property. Merrillée Malwitz-Jipson of the environmental organization Our Santa Fe River told me that Gilchrist Blue was injured by a punch from a water bottling plant and some nearby dairies.
Our Santa Fe River and its allies have filed a lengthy lawsuit, but they have been unable to stop the Suwannee River Water Management District from renewing a permit for Seven Springs Water. The company has been granted permission to pump nearly one million gallons of water a year. They sell this water to Nestlé for bottling.
The advantages for the state come with this gigantic withdrawal of a public resource: a one-time permit application payment of $115. The CEO of Nestlé spends more than that on a single silk tie.
Since both springs draw water from the same aquifer, the result of this great suction noise coming from Ginnie Springs is that the water flowing through Gilchrist Blue loses its flow. Over the past 20 years, the aquifer has grown 3 feet.
Meanwhile, five nearby dairies dump polluting nutrients from fertilizers and animal waste into the same aquifer, he said. “The state of Florida is spending a lot of taxpayer money on cleanup, to collect from those businesses,” he said.
Ultimately: The state’s efforts to protect Gilchrist Blue by purchasing assets for $5. 25 million failed due to moves that state and local government allowed to occur outside the assets boundaries.
Imagine you spent $100,000 to buy Ruth Kirby’s gold Cadillac, only to find that she had put sand in the fuel tank. I’d be pretty upset, wouldn’t I? Something similar is happening here.
That’s where Gainesville photographer John Moran comes in.
Moran is best known for a photograph he took titled “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. “
One night in 1990, Moran climbed a cliff overlooking Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Gainesville and peered into the water with a flashlight. I expected to see a few dozen alligator eyes.
“I was stunned to realize that I was looking for a bunch of pairs of eyes staring at me in the coming darkness,” he told me. This is the picture he took.
When Moran exhibits this photograph at art exhibitions, other people ask him if he was scared and he says no. But then he tells them that if they buy a copy, he’ll allow them to claim that they helped him on set, fending off hungry alligators with a canoe paddle.
Moran spent decades running for the Gainesville Sun and is now inducted into the University of Florida School of Journalism Hall of Fame. But I think he’d be remembered for his 2012 Springs Eternal project.
For this traveling exhibition, she collaborated with artist Lesley Gamble and designer Rick Kilthrough to “inspire Floridians to put a price on our resources and the varied ecosystems they support. “It documents a vanishing wonder, gradually tired through a thousand straws stuck in the ground and a thousand dirty nitrogen resources.
Moran’s paintings documenting Florida’s glorious springs are what led him to worry about the degradation of Gilchrist Blue Springs.
“For many years, it has hurt our hearts to witness the decline of our beloved springs,” he told me. “But we all feel the power of words and photographs to motivate positive change. “
He tried to warn park visitors that his movements were affecting the water, which is the park’s main attraction. With money from the Florida Springs Council and permission from the park’s neighbor, Moran composed and installed those rhyming signs. He chose this format, he explained, because short messages tend to be more memorable.
“I think the kids in the back seat of the family car, screaming the lines while their parents drive the family car for a day in the springs,” he said, “and then taking that message home with them. “
There’s only one challenge with Moran’s wise signage strategy: it’s just for one park. We love it so much more.
What’s happening at Gilchrist Blue Spring is the same thing that’s happening at each and every state park with springs, said Robert Knight of the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute.
Knight has been reading Florida Springs for more than 30 years, so he knows it. From Wakulla to Silver, Wekiwa, etc. , everyone is struggling.
“We’re killing our springs,” he told me.
All the resources on which the state has spent a lot of money have evolved to such an extent that the state is reluctant to resolve them.
Twenty-four years ago, Florida had an official government task force tasked with drawing up plans to revive the springs. But the task force has been reluctant to crack down on those responsible for her disappearance, he said.
“They knew what the disorders were,” Knight said. The other people who polluted or dried up the aquifer “were sacred cows, so they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted. “
Still, he says, “it would be great if the state at least reported what’s going on. “
Some of the effects have been dramatic. Clay Henderson, who literally wrote the book about land preservation in Florida (“Forces of Nature,” that’s great, buy five copies for your mom) told me he remembers his formative years when he swam in White Springs, which is part of the Stephen Foster Folk State Park.
Pumping from a nearby phosphate mine depleted so much water from the aquifer that the spring stopped working in the 1970s. Now, he says, “it’s dry as a bone. “
It is only the national parks that suffer from external problems. Volusia County learned that the hard way when it acquired Gemini Springs near DeBary in 1994, said Pat Northey, who spent 20 years as a county councilman.
“We used to swim in Gemini Springs when the park opened,” he said. “Then one day, the fitness branch came here, took samples, and discovered feces in the water. They stopped everyone from swimming and we haven’t gotten them back since. .
The pollutants come from septic tanks in a nearby housing development, he said. Now, the county is working with DeBary to try to move those citizens to a sewer line. Maybe one day the water will be clean enough for swimming. Once again.
Springs is the only type of park where what’s inside the fence breaks through what’s outside. The pollutants we haven’t stopped have also broken up rivers and lakes owned by taxpayers. And beachfront parks are wasting floor in front of the weather to replace them, you know. , this challenge that our legislature is addressing by removing references to that factor from state law.
I think we want to put up more Burma Shave posters, still around the state Capitol. I’m Edgar Allan Poe-et, but I’ve tried:
“You can’t be green/Write checks/If you don’t stop/They’re polluters. “
Wait, I can do better!” The parks we save/Will be wasted/If we pollute/He will be annihilated. “
No? So how about “Take Money/Polluters/That Turns You/A Bunch of Looters. “
I, Ruth Kirby, would like that one.
by Craig Pittman, Florida Phoenix April 4, 2024
A few weeks ago, I drove to the small, old town of High Springs, about 30 miles north of Gainesville. Then I kept driving, driving out of town for several miles until I reached Florida’s last state park.
Park No. 175 is Ruth B. Kirby Gilchrist Blue Springs, formerly a family-friendly roadway that the state purchased in 2017. It was a popular spot for swimming, kayaking, and canoeing before the state acquired it, and it’s still popular now.
People flock to this park near the Santa Fe River because the water is so clear. Turtles and fish seem to float in the air. Gainesville artist Margaret Ross Tolbert once told me that soaking in this spring “jumps into wonderland. “
But as I walked through the door, what caught my eye and left me was a series of symptoms that rhymed along the main path. They were divided into 3 teams of four, covered like the old symptoms of Burma Shave.
“Do you like our springs?” asked the first blue sign. So let’s be cautious,” said the next. “Resist the urge,” says the third, followed by “Fertilize. “
Another set read: “Less water is used/at home and on the farm/protects our springs/from further damage. “Then came the final set: “It doesn’t matter how / you ship / respect our sources / when you vote. “
When I saw the first signs, I thought it had to be a message from the park. That last set convinced me that it wasn’t like that.
Our political leaders tend to be too friendly to polluters to recommend that they keep a blank when they vote. Do you know how they passed this pro-polluter bill that talks about blank water but doesn’t do much about it?At least now we can buy bigger bottles of wine to drown our sorrows, so that everything balances out, right?
Finding the writer of this poem on the side of the road required a few phone calls. When I found out, what he said reminded me of everything that is overlooked.
Every time our governor and legislators announce that the state is spending millions to reclaim ecologically sensitive lands, they avoid mentioning an undeniable fact: lands that have been preserved can still be destroyed through movements that take positions beyond their borders.
It’s the turn of the horror movie “When a Stranger Calls,” where Carol Kane is told that the threatening calls are coming from an aspect of the house. Evil comes from OUTSIDE the park.
Gilchrist Blue Springs has what’s called an engaging story.
It was once owned by a St. Petersburg business magnate, Ed. C. Wright, who was named after some 20,000 acres in the state. He handed the deed to the parcel to his longtime assistant, a little woman named Ruth Kirthrough who liked to drive a gold Cadillac.
They were secretly in love. Spring was a gift of commitment. Despite several attempts, the couple never managed to marry. Wright will have had Roald Amundsen’s worst case of bloodless feet in this aspect.
When Wright died, unmarried and childless, at age 77, his will named Kirby as executor of his $50 million estate. He sold some plots to developers for construction and others to the government for conservation. But he clung to the spring, a position he enjoyed so much that he opened it to the public to share its wonders.
In 1971, he convinced his nephew to move his family there to manage the space. After her death in 1989, they worked hard to achieve the look she wanted.
“It’s hard to maintain nature these days,” a relative told me in 2013. “It’s a daily war against the water and the watershed. “
This has remained true since the state purchased the property. Merrillée Malwitz-Jipson of the environmental organization Our Santa Fe River told me that Gilchrist Blue was injured by a punch from a water bottling plant and some nearby dairies.
Our Santa Fe River and its allies have filed a lengthy lawsuit, but they have been unable to stop the Suwannee River Water Management District from renewing a permit for Seven Springs Water. The company has been granted permission to pump nearly one million gallons of water a year. They sell this water to Nestlé for bottling.
The state benefits from this gigantic withdrawal of a public resource: a one-time permit application fee of $115. The CEO of Nestlé spends more than that on a simple silk tie.
Since both springs draw water from the same aquifer, the result of this great suction noise coming from Ginnie Springs is that the water flowing through Gilchrist Blue loses its flow. Over the past 20 years, the aquifer has grown 3 feet.
Meanwhile, five nearby dairies dump polluting nutrients from fertilizers and animal waste into the same aquifer, he said. “The state of Florida is spending a lot of taxpayer money on cleanup, to collect from those businesses,” he said.
Ultimately: The state’s efforts to protect Gilchrist Blue by purchasing assets for $5. 25 million failed due to moves that state and local government allowed to occur outside the assets boundaries.
Imagine you spent $100,000 to buy Ruth Kirby’s gold Cadillac, only to find that she had put sand in the fuel tank. I’d be pretty upset, wouldn’t I? Something similar is happening here.
That’s where Gainesville photographer John Moran comes in.
Moran is best known for a photograph he took titled “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. “
One night in 1990, Moran climbed a cliff overlooking Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in Gainesville and peered into the water with a flashlight. I expected to see a few dozen alligator eyes.
“I was stunned to realize that I was looking for a bunch of pairs of eyes staring at me in the coming darkness,” he told me. This is the picture he took.
When Moran exhibits this photograph at art exhibitions, other people ask him if he was scared and he says no. But then he tells them that if they buy a copy, he’ll let them claim they helped him on set, knocking down hungry alligators with a canoe paddle.
Moran spent decades running for the Gainesville Sun and is now inducted into the University of Florida School of Journalism Hall of Fame. But I think he’d be remembered for his 2012 Springs Eternal project.
For this traveling exhibition, she collaborated with artist Lesley Gamble and designer Rick Kilthrough to “inspire Floridians to put a price on our resources and the varied ecosystems they support. “It documents a vanishing wonder, gradually tired by a thousand straws stuck in the ground and soiled by a thousand nitrogen resources.
Moran’s paintings documenting Florida’s glorious springs are what led him to worry about the degradation of Gilchrist Blue Springs.
“For many years, it has hurt our hearts to witness the decline of our beloved springs,” he told me. “But we all feel the power of words and photographs to motivate positive change. “
He tried to warn park visitors that his movements were affecting the water, which is the park’s main attraction. With money from the Florida Springs Council and permission from the park’s neighbor, Moran composed and installed those rhyming signs. He chose this format, he explained, because short messages tend to be more memorable.
“I think the kids in the back seat of the family car, screaming the lines while their parents drive the family car for a day in the springs,” he said, “and then taking that message home with them. “
There’s only one challenge with Moran’s wise signage strategy: it’s just for one park. We love it so much more.
What’s happening at Gilchrist Blue Spring is the same thing that’s happening at each and every state park with springs, said Robert Knight of the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute.
Knight has been reading Florida Springs for more than 30 years, so he knows. From Wakulla to Silver, Wekiwa, etc. , everyone is fighting.
“We’re killing our springs,” he told me.
All the resources on which the state has spent a lot of money have evolved to such an extent that the state is reluctant to resolve them.
Twenty-four years ago, Florida had an official government task force tasked with drawing up plans to revive the springs. But the task force has been reluctant to crack down on those responsible for her disappearance, he said.
“They knew what the disorders were,” Knight said. The other people who polluted or dried up the aquifer “were sacred cows, so they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted. “
Still, he says, “it would be great if the state at least reported what’s going on. “
Some of the effects have been dramatic. Clay Henderson, who literally wrote the book about land preservation in Florida (“Forces of Nature,” that’s great, buy five copies for your mom) told me he remembers his formative years when he swam in White Springs, which is part of the Stephen Foster Folk State Park.
Pumping from a nearby phosphate mine depleted so much water from the aquifer that the spring stopped working in the 1970s. Now, he says, “it’s dry as a bone. “
It is only the national parks that suffer from external problems. Volusia County learned that the hard way when it acquired Gemini Springs near DeBary in 1994, said Pat Northey, who spent 20 years as a county councilman.
“We used to swim in Gemini Springs when the park opened,” he said. “Then one day, the fitness branch came here, took samples, and discovered feces in the water. They stopped everyone from swimming and we haven’t gotten them back since. .
The pollutants come from septic tanks in a nearby housing development, he said. Now, the county is working with DeBary to try to move those citizens to a sewer line. Maybe one day the water will be clean enough for swimming. Once again.
Springs is the only type of park where what’s inside the fence breaks through what’s outside. The pollutants we haven’t stopped have also broken up rivers and lakes owned by taxpayers. And beachfront parks are wasting floor in front of the weather to replace them, you know. , this challenge that our legislature is addressing by removing references to that factor from state law.
I think we want to put up more Burma Shave posters, still around the state Capitol. I’m Edgar Allan Poe-et, but I’ve tried:
“You can’t be green/Write checks/If you don’t stop/They’re polluters. “
Wait, I can do better!” The parks we save/Will be wasted/If we pollute/He will be annihilated. “
No? So how about “Take Money/Polluters/That Turns You/A Bunch of Looters. “
I, Ruth Kirby, would like that one.
Florida Phoenix is a member of States Newsroom, a grant-funded, nonprofit news network and donor coalition as a 501c public charity(3). Florida Phoenix maintains its editorial independence. Please contact Editor Diane Rado if you have any questions: info@floridaphoenix. com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he has won national and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020, the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is a co-host of the podcast “Welcome to Florida. ” He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.
Florida Phoenix belongs to States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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