Silver Springs

Over the years, pollution in the form of high nitrates and low flows due to drought and over pumping of ground water have combined forces, resulting in an obvious decline in the health of Silver Springs and Silver River. This page from SJRWMD’s website mentioned ground water withdrawals as being one of the reasons for low spring flows. “Increased groundwater withdrawals can reduce the hydraulic pressure in an aquifer, causing water levels to decline and spring flows to decrease.”

A map of the Santa Fe River springshed for May 2008 is shown below. In this springshed delineation, the springs are grouped by location. Many of the springs are close together and individual springsheds overlapped and were not readily distinguishable. The springshed for Poe Springs includes much of the karst limestone plain from High Springs south to SR 26 and I-75 near Gainesville.

In January 2013 the State agreed to take over Silver Springs and turn it into a Florida State Park .

Hopefully state leaders, environmental regulation agencies, businesses and citizens will combine efforts to return Silver Springs to a much healthier state. The brown algae clinging to the eel grass is an obvious indication of an unhealthy system.  Articles in local newspapers have been voicing the same concerns. 

DEP recently issued a report stating nitrates need to be lowered by 79% in Silver springs to lower pollution to and return the systen to a healthy level. The details are on pages 62 and 63 of this report.

There is a lot of great information available in the TMDL Report: Ocklawaha Basin; Silver Springs, Silver Springs Group, and Upper Silver River. Follow this link and navigate to PAGE  9 FIGURE 1.7  to see the DEP Silver Springs springshed.