Correct - excellent book. And the author is from WaPo and consulted on the podcast episode, also a product of WaPo. Fair warning: reading the US Soldiers' physical description of Osceola sounds homoerotic is today's vernacular. That's pretty common based on how conventions in language have changed and is why so many contemporary readers of letters try to argue that historical figures like Lincoln were closeted. Their letters sound off to today's ear,but was the convention of the time.
I’m 40% of the way through the book and so far it is fascinating. One thing I kind of didn’t realize is how relatively recent Florida’s development is. One thing that strikes me is the complexity in assessing large scale developers like Flagler and Broward and others. On the one hand, they were extraordinarily greedy and in many cases did significant environmental damage. On the other hand, they opened up a world the common people could move into. It’s also a reminder that the common wisdom of a given time might turn out to be not so wise. Like the people who wanted to drain the Everglades thought that they were doing a good thing with sound environmental practice. I will say while some of those actions might be dismissed as what was thought right at the time, the most disgusting to me was the harvesting of millions of birds merely to get the feathers for hats. At least during that time this practice was criticized and eventually halted.
You are correct in that there is a lot of complexity in making contemporary judgment s. But the harvesting of the bird feathers for hats. That was heartbreaking, I agree. Just reading your post brought back the intense feelings of pain I felt when I listened to it. I tried to tell my wife and she told me to stop talking.
On a lighter note, the recentness of Florida’s development reminds me of a favorite saying from my daughter’s college Miami University, which often gets confused with the University of Miami. They love to remind people, “We were a university when Spain owned Florida.”
That's funny. I love to remind my Anglo friends that were not in a part of the current United States that was in English colony, that it was Spanish. And of course, your daughter's alma mater has a winning record versus our Gators in bowl games with our former coach playing a big role.
Seen from another perspective the old days weren’t so long ago in FL. There were Native Americans in S. Fl eking out a subsistence living without much contact well into the 20th century - the Tamiami trail was completed in ~ 1929 which opened the area up. I wandered all the Big Cypress starting in the early 80s and saw evidence of NAs in places. I saw what I thought were remnants of dock posts in Northern BC. Tried to convince myself they were from Brown’s Trading Post but I dunnno. I spent quite a few nights in our Ochopee bunk house that had Micosukee neighbors that lived in a cluster of thatched-roof chickees (mosquitoes were horrendous) and most of them didn’t or refused to speak English. As horrendous as that period was and it included the murder of bird warden Guy Bradley in 1905 at the hands of plume hunters, it was not without a small pale silver lining as it helped bring about the modern day conservation movement Guy Bradley - Wikipedia.
Thanks - just put it on hold at the library. Had tempted me before. I started American Prometheus last night to prepare for the Oppenheimer movie. Did not realize it is 750 pages. Don't think I will finish in time
The book does cover that incident. The interesting thing about Bradley was that he was hired by a conservation group and yet somehow had ability to issue tickets and arrest people.
Yea - coming back to me. And IIRC, he was pretty reckless in taking on people that deserved it, but who might respond violently
status update. berms have been reinforced and raised to hold more water to prevent less discharge to the east and west costs. lake typically staged up to 15.5 max before and now being staged to 16.5 (16.3 on Wednesday with inflow incoming with each storm front) with new operational protocol to stage it up to 17.0. releases to the coasts will begin when it hits 16.5 and that will flood the downstream with nturients for a spring time red tide bloom when the waters warm. The added depth significantly changes the ecological nature of the lake as the depths of flooded areas increase being the useful depths for birds and vegetation that is spawning grounds for many of the fish. upsetting that this is the proposed protocol and solution to prevent the south discharge that would impact a single threatened bird. this explains why I have seen so many more wading birds in currently flooded areas on the west coast that would normally be dry this year. the only way things can get this clustered is politicians being involved. they (ACOE) are not listening to the environmentalists and the engineers. Millions of birds aren't feeding on Florida's largest lake. What is going wrong? (msn.com) Lake Okeechobee was consistently high in 2023, and the liquid heart of the Everglades is so high now that it's inhibiting growth of the aquatic plants that form the basis of the world-class largemouth bass fishery. Although parts of Florida suffered through drought conditions last year, the lake hovered around 16 feet above sea level. The worry now is that high lake levels are further crippling plants in the lake, and more El Nino rains could mean releases to the Caloosahatchee River. The high water levels also affect other wildlife. "It's got some really big problems right now because when the lake gets this deep basically the submerged aquatic plant zone, it is virtually gone," said Paul Gray, a water quality scientist for Audubon of Florida. "We'd like to have 40,000 or 50,000 acres but maybe there's 1,000 or 2,000 acres. And those are like the sea grasses and so that's where the bass fishery spawns and that's where the crappie fishery spawns." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has since 2008 worked to keep lake levels between 12.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level to provide flood control and water supply to farms and urban areas. But with the Herbert Hoover Dike being reinforced and beefed up over the past decade, the Army Corps has let the has let the lake go above that 15.5 feet threshold; and future management protocols will allow the lake to get 17 feet or higher.
Once the sunlight can’t reach the grasses they die. Only thing left is a bottom of muck. Sugar cane farming runoff is the elephant in the room that no one wants to address. How the hell can you ignore it! Thanks DeSantis and every other Florida governor before him. Also need to get rid of the Rodman damn and let the Oklawaha river flow freely.
it is decades of accumulated nutrients from sugarcane and cattle and dairies that has created a legacy pollution sitting in the bottom of the lake and making it a toxic bomb that feeds redtide on both coasts when released in high volumes. right now, they can't release south because it will raise the water levels for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. the sediment from that legacy pollution and all the spraying if the invasive vegetation has created a muck layer that prevents the infiltration into the groundwater table that used to happen when the lake had a sandy bottom. that adds more discharge to have to manage as the lake doesn't perc like it used to. I have found sources that indicate that they are raising the lake level to provide more water for municipalities to use for growth. that water demand needs to be met from desal and not by destroying what is left of Lake O. This author references the supply side shortage in the clip below. if the new LORS does raise the management levels, they went the opposite direction of what the author recommended for the health of the lake. good paper that says it better than I can here if you want to read it. I agree with most of the material in this paper. and make no mistake, DeSantis could have a large influence here if he wanted to exert it. Boggles my mind how Captains for Clean water can continue to support him and ignore the reality of what is happening. I quit donating to them when they refused to even discuss the facts of the issue with me. TP-232/SG154: Managing High Water Levels in Florida’s Largest Lake: Lake Okeechobee (ufl.edu) STORING MORE WATER IN THE LAKE At this time, the Corps has not announced what, if anything, will be done with the LORS 2008 regulation schedule once rehabilitation of the Herbert Hoover Dike is complete. The main reason for holding the lake low under LORS 2008—to protect a weakened dike—will no longer exist. A recent independent report by the University of Florida indicated that in order to meet the goals of CERP, which include providing water for Everglades restoration and meeting the water-supply demands of a growing population in the lower east coast of Florida, an additional 1.46 to 1.76 million acre feet of storage is needed, beyond what the agencies plan to build in CERP. While a careful evaluation will be required to weigh pros and cons given the multiple features of the region (estuaries, littoral zone, water supply, Everglades), reverting to the prior WSE schedule would increase the lake's ability to store more than 500,000 acre feet of water. That is nearly a third of the "missing" water needed for CERP to meet all of its originally intended restoration objectives. The Corps will need to conduct a new EIS if it attempts to change LORS 2008. Perhaps when considered in the context of CERP project storage features, managers will be able to identify a schedule that is less harmful to the lake and estuaries than WSE, and more beneficial for sending water south to the Everglades.
That is incredibly informative. Based on my reading, ACOE "clients" are obviously political leaders. Moreover, in terms of protecting the budget, more is more, meaning they look for things to make sure they are active again, especially big projects, to justify future budgets
"The Everglades were considered something of an evil scourge, unproductive land not fit for human habitation, something like the upside down in "Stranger Things". The land was just viewed as hopelessly flooded, a mistake by God or maybe created by an evil supreme being, to be conquered by man if he ever could figure out how." Of course this is "Atypical" of American attitudes in the 19th and first 1/2 of the 20th century. If you can't cut it down, burn it, sell it and make money off it ................. Worthless. Thats why so few virgin forests are left and many of our countries natural wonders have been dispoiled. Who says Gov't sucks, if it wasn't for the Gov't there would be no national parks and you would have 20 story condos in Yellowstone, Niagra Falls would be a water slide and all the redwoods would be charcoal by now.