The Activist Angler Shared This Story & part of it is here: Residents all across Florida were outraged recently when the St. Johns Water Management District (SJWMD) board of trustees voted 6-2 to give even more of the state’s fragile water supply to a Niagara Bottling facility in Groveland. Even angrier were those who live on and around the Clermont Chain in Lake County. That 15-lake system, designated years ago as one of Florida’s Outstanding Waters, has been plagued by low water for years and is slowly turning into little more than swamp. Lakefront property is no longer lakefront and connecting canals are impassable or nearly so.
“Guides are gone and so are marinas and boat businesses. Hundreds of people who are paying taxes for waterfront property don’t have water anymore,” said Dave Burkhardt, who has lived on Lake Crescent for more than 25 years and is the owner of Trik Fish line company.
“And yet this is supposed to be a highly protected system.”
The Clermont Chain is near both Groveland and the Green Swamp, a massive wetlands system that serves as headwaters for the chain and links to the Floridan Aquifer. And while many of Florida’s chains and lakes have suffered from low water during the past decade, none have come close to drying up the way that the Clermont has. Read on at their website; http://www.activistangler.com/journal/2014/2/13/sjwmd-bureaucrats-give-away-more-of-floridas-water.html
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