of a lack of rain in the Okefenokee Swamp became clear on our third trek, when we put in at Turner Bridge boat ramp just north of C.R. 6, south of the Georgia border. We actually violated one of the cardinal rules of boaters on such rivers: boat upstream so that, in case of a mechanical breakdown, you can simply float downstream to where you put in. After launching our boat at that boat ramp and going downstream around several bends, we very suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a very shallow part of the river, full of rocks and threatening white water. When our boat got stuck on some of the rocks and would not budge, we had to take everything out of our pants pockets, jump into the waist-deep water, and pull the boat off the rocks into a side channel.
I remember asking my guide at one point in that task, “Do I need to be worried about gators and moccasins since I cannot see below the surface of the dark water?” “No,” he reassured me, “but you do need to be worried about Deliverance-type people,” referring to the movie about canoers who encounter some very bad people on just such a river in Georgia. I assumed my guide was joking, but I did look up onto the high banks from time to time. Because boaters may have to jump into the water at unexpected times, wearing boots or old tennis shoes is recommended. You don’t want to bloody up your feet with the sharp rocks on the bottom.
Cary got into the water to pull the boat off the rocks.
Something that surprised me in the Upper Suwannee, which extends down to Ellaville, was the fact that the water coming out of the small springs along the river was not as clear as we had expected, but rather quite dark. Megan Wetherington, water resources engineer for the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD), explained to me that the darkness of the water was due to the river’s entering, then exiting the spring. When groundwater levels along the river are at record low levels, any sudden rains can cause minor flooding, which in turn causes the springs to backflow. For example, at White Springs the river has been known to flow back into the springs for several months at a time. Because the tannic river water is the last into the springs, it is the first out, thus the darker look to it.
Different entities own the land on both sides of the river down to the Gulf. The SRWMD owns some of the land, manages other parts, and also leases some. Owning it, of course, is the best way to preserve its condition, and the SRWMD hopes to continue its purchasing projects since even when private owners agree to certain rules for using their land, their heirs may not agree to such terms. Florida officials began buying land throughout the state in the 1920s, and then in the 1960s used a five-percent tax on recreational items to buy even more. When Reubin Askew was governor (1971–1979), voters approved a $240 million bond issue that established the Land Conservation Act. In 1999 the Florida Forever program became the largest land-acquisition program in the world. The purchase of hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the state and the intention of keeping that land undeveloped forever, which will greatly benefit our shrinking water resources, sharply contrast to the nineteenth-century practice of selling off immense parts of the state to developers, some of whom could buy it for as little as twenty-five cents an acre. When legislators realized that the Florida Forever program was set to expire in 2010, they voted to extend it through 2020, thus setting the stage for the state purchase of thousands of more acres in the ensuing decade, subject of course to financial crises in the state.
We noticed that the water along the way was warm enough for people to float down the river in inner tubes, but the threat of alligators clearly deterred them from trying it out. They probably knew that, while alligators usually eat fish, they have been known to attack animals and humans. The gators will often lie still on the bottom of a lake or river and therefore cannot always be easily seen, although a skilled guide can point out the telltale bubbles over a submerged reptile. Because a gator can resemble a log, a fish seeking cover will stay by that “log” until the gator catches the fish in its powerful jaws. The gators we saw on that upper part of the river were relatively small, with none of them above eight feet in length, indicating that fish were not as abundant as in downriver spots, where much bigger gators lurk.
The signs for “Still Hunt” along the river indicated to hunters that they were not to use dogs in their hunt for game. Dogs make such hunts much easier, as they track down the animals or herd them to where the hunters are waiting. Hunt clubs along the lower part of the Suwannee are private enclosures where hunters pay fees for the right to kill animals—sometimes very exotic, foreign ones exported from overseas in order to give hunters the chance to kill animals not usually seen in Florida.
Old measuring poles, some made of metal and quite tall, can be seen at various strategic points. Today the newer measuring poles have radio transmitters that can send signals back to the headquarters via satellite. The river has about ten to twelve measuring places where scientists can determine its depth and the volume of its flow. They measure the depth in feet above mean sea level; when the depth reaches seventy-seven feet, that is considered flood level, and inexperienced canoers need to be careful. The level of the river depends on rainfall, which can vary dramatically from section to section. Because the Okefenokee Swamp supplies most of the water in the upper river, rain there can dramatically alter the depth, and, of course, the water in the Upper Suwannee will flow down to the lower levels and therefore affect the whole length of the river. When the water depth is high, the current will run much more quickly; during low-water times, canoers may have to portage over low, rocky areas.
We would see different kinds of measuring poles along the way.
Even if Florida experiences a drought, as happened in the early 2000s, the Suwannee can still flood up and down its length if Georgia receives an abundance of rain. If Georgia gets a sustained drenching for even just a few days, knowledgeable residents along the river expect it to rise significantly. The waterway experienced major flooding in 1948, 1973, and 1998. My guide told me that a major flood on the river can be expected every twenty-five years, a medium flood every five to ten years, and a minor flood every two years.
What I did not expect at any point on the river—but which pose a real problem for the unwary—were fire ants, especially balls of fire ants floating along on the water. The ball, with the queen in the middle, is constantly rotating, preventing the ants from drowning. If a boat plows into such a ball, the ants can quickly rush over the sides and into the boat, causing much anguish (or worse if the victim is allergic to the venom) as they attack humans and crawl into everything in the boat.
The Florida section of the Upper Suwannee, which extends down to Ellaville, while relatively isolated and infrequently visited by most boaters, was the subject of a major dispute. First, some background is needed. Different organizations in the past three decades or so have been formed to preserve the Suwannee from the kind of development that has irreparably harmed other rivers. For example, in 1977 concerned citizens led by a tireless leader, Helen Hood, formed the Suwannee River Coalition to act as a “watchdog” and advocate for the river. One of the results of that group’s lobbying was the designation two years later by the Florida Legislature of the Suwannee as an Outstanding Florida Water (OFW). To be named such an entity, a body of water had to have “exceptional recreational or ecological significance and [officials had to determine] that the environmental, social, and economic benefits of the action outweigh the environmental, social, and economic costs,” according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection website. From then on the river was to incur no “significant depredation.” Authorities also prohibited wastewater discharges, storm water runoff, and dredge-and-fill operations if those actions caused serious harm to the waterway.
The OFW designation was to expire for a fifty-mile stretch from Highway 6 to Suwannee Springs in the early 1980s. The force behind the suggested expiration was Occidental Chemical Company (Oxy), which has operated a large phosphate mining company at White Springs. If that part of the river were allowed to lose its OFW designation, Oxy could discharge far more pollutants into
