Read more about the article Florida’s Springs – Dying of Thirst

Florida’s Springs – Dying of Thirst

By Robert Knight, PhD Published in Underwater Speleology, Vol 51 No3 Autumn 2024. Clear, pure groundwater is the basis for life in Florida’s artesian springs. Remove flowing water and a spring is a sinkhole, a stagnant window into the dark limestone underworld. A spring’s functionality or “life” declines when its flow decreases, and it increases in proportion to flow. The living assemblage of plants and animals characteristic of a Florida spring is directly dependent upon the quantity…

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North Florida, South Florida vie to be most-polluted region

By Dr. Robert Knight. Published in the Florida Specifier April/May 2023. Given the Environmental disaster that has continued to engulf the estuaries and beaches on both sides of the state, South Florida's guacamole-filled coastal waters are receiving the state and national press they deserve. But thanks to on-going releases of nutrient-laden water from sugar plantations, ranches, and other intensive agricultural operations; toxic floating algae, starving manatees, and rafts of dead fish continue to slime the once-blue waters,…

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Read more about the article The death of North Florida’s springs

The death of North Florida’s springs

By Robert Knight. Published in Orlando Sentinel, January 28, 2023. Once compared to the greatest hydrological wonders of North America, including Niagara Falls and the Mississippi River, North Florida’s springs in the 1850s were praised for their extreme water clarity and complex ecology. Like the Everglades in South Florida, artesian springs in North Florida continue to delight millions. Increasingly “discovered” by tourists and recreationalists from Florida and beyond, healthy springs provide waders and swimmers with the cool…

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Read more about the article Too Polluted to Drink
Closeup shot of a man pouring a glass of fresh water from a kitchen faucet

Too Polluted to Drink

For too many families, North Florida’s once pristine groundwater may be unsafe to drink. One nasty pollutant is nitrate, a principal ingredient in synthetic agricultural and urban fertilizers, and in animal manure and human waste. In the past 100 years of rapid development, the ambient concentration of nitrate throughout the Floridan Aquifer has risen from a baseline concentration of less than 0.05 parts per million (ppm) to 1 ppm, a 20-fold increase. As with most environmental variables,…

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