With the exception of its northern border with Alabama and Georgia, Florida is entirely surrounded by water. The state’s world famous sandy beaches make up about 825 miles of that coastline, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. But wetlands comprise several hundred more miles of the Florida coast. And contrary to popular belief, the majority of those wetlands are not salt water, but fresh water. Their source is the outflow from the gigantic Floridan Aquifer that underlies Florida. But as Florida’s population has grown, the size and condition of those wetlands seems to be on the decline. That’s the subject of a new book by noted naturalist and photographer Benjamin Dimmitt. It’s entitled: “An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands.” In it he documents – in both words and images – the profound changes in the Chassahowitzka National Refuge on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
“Not only is the area being impacted by rising sea levels, but there is resource mismanagement. So that while we have rising sea levels, we also have excessive amounts of water being pulled out of the aquifer and that allows salt water to come in more quickly. Which is why over short periods of time, this place went from being lush and beautiful to decimated.”
The refuge sits about 70 miles north of Tampa. But more significantly, it’s a mere 25 miles west of the fastest growing metropolitan area in America. It’s called “The Villages.”
“If The Villages wasn’t there, drawing so many millions of gallons of water out of the aquifer every day, all this flooding and sea level rise at the Chassahowitzka wouldn’t be happening.”
Dimmitt worries the same fate is in store for all of Florida’s freshwater wetlands on both the Gulf and the Atlantic coasts.
“If the storms continue and the seas continue to rise, the coastline where there are no beaches will continue to be soaked with salt water and there will be total loss of an ecosystem and will turn into a salt marsh.”
A situation that would prove fatal for the plant and animal life that now calls those wetlands home. And Dimmitt says such salt marshes would be far more easily overtopped by storm surges, thereby endangering human communities inland. It’s not a pretty picture. And there are many such somber images in his book.
