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Progress Report #19: From Ocala to Sanford: 49 miles

Lawton Chiles Walks—and Talks—Through Florida

491 down, 526 to go the Keys

Leaving Ocala, I walked toward Silver Springs and a trip we've planned on the Oklawaha River. Buck Ray, whose family owned Silver Springs for many years and who's still affiliated with the attraction, walked with me part of the way.

Some evenings, after I've finished my walking and talking schedule for the day, I've taken side trips to nearby communities. For instance, I got into Pasco County, visiting Zephyrhills, had a reception in Dade City and then spoke at the big retirement community in New Port Richey.

Another evening I visited Leesburg to be with a group of supporters and took a boat trip on Lake Harris. The people around there are greatly concerned about pollution of the chain of lakes — Lake Harris, Lake Eustis, Lake Griffin, Lake Dora. High concentration of nutrients is causing green algae and they've had several bad fish kills in Lake Griffin. Lake Harris is probably in the best shape but the pollution is even accumulating there. Sources of the pollution seem to be sewage disposal, fertilizer from groves, from peoples' yards and street drainage. It's been going on for years but now it's developing into a major problem. The cities are trying to help solve the problem but they're in a bind needing money for sewage treatment plant improvements. They need tertiary rather than secondary treatment plants to do the job.

All of this convinces me more and more that we desperately need a technological break-through in the area of dealing with pollution problems. We really should be attacking this the same way we attacked the project of going to the moon — an advanced team made up of people from universities, government and industry.

The morning after arriving at Silver Springs, we were up early for the boat trip. It felt pretty good, realizing that instead of pounding the pavement between and in cities all day, I would be sitting and riding on the water. I saw some mighty secluded areas during the day but I wasn't lonesome. With me were Ross Allen of Silver Springs, Oscar Rawls of the Corps of Engineers, and reporters from the Lakeland Ledger, Palm Beach Post-Times and Channel 2 TV. We went down the Silver River into the Oklawaha and from there up to Eureka Dam; then on through the Rodman Reservoir and Dam, completing the trip at the St. Johns Locks. It seems like I've been reading tons of material about the Cross-Florida Barge Canal but this was my first opportunity to see it for myself. When you go down the beautiful Silver River and Oklawaha, the idea that anything should change is certainly upsetting and I think we have to be most careful that Silver River and Springs be protected from damage. I was surprised that the damage further up the river was not really as great as I had imagined it would be. Certain stretches of the river that don't have so much water impounded look like the natural state. I was amazed at the magnitude of the locks that have been completed. The project is about 31 percent completed now; some 65 million dollars have been expended. The question now, I think, is what they can do to minimize damage as they continue the project and how they can make sure they are doing everything possible to protect the ecology of the area.

I saw the tree crusher they call "the monster" which was developed under Corps of Engineers contract to clear out the logs where the Rodman Dam was built. This is a tremendous machine that rolls over the trees and supposedly crushes them into the mud to get rid of them. The contract was for $4.5 million, and it's been a colossal failure. The crusher knocked down the trees and put them in the mud, but for the last year and a half they've been popping up like corks and the corps is now having to spend tremendous sums of money keeping a dredge out picking up the logs, piling them on the banks for burning. The corps people kind of indicated that as they continue their work further south, they're not planning to use the crusher anymore. They're going to use the conventional means of cutting the trees and burning them. I'm afraid this is another case like you see in government too often where somebody's grandiose idea just didn't pan out, and the taxpayer pays.

On the trip I met a young ecologist who is working for the Corps of Engineers, Dave Bowman. He graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in wild life and ecology and told me there were three or four others in his class graduating with the same degree. All but Dave had to go into military service. He had his behind him. He said his job offers were scarcer then bald eagles, and this disturbs me. When you think of how important ecology is to our very existence, it's kind of surprising that there is such little demand for a young man with such expertise. I sure hope the trend is changing. I believe that everyone — certainly government agencies that are putting in projects where it's possible to destroy some of our natural resources — should have ecologists working with them to see that we keep nature's life balance as constant as we possibly can.

Next day I took a short boat trip down the St. Johns with John Mattingly and Clyde Lankford of DeLand and some other friends to Crows Bluff landing. From the landing I walked into DeLand, about seven miles away. After being on the water for a long day, it wasn't so bad being back on my feet. I spent the rest of the day visiting the courthouse, banks and the downtown area going through the hospital (just visiting) and a couple of shopping centers, walking and talking with the people of DeLand.

In the evening I took a quick trip to Inverness, where they had chicken barbecue, pork barbecue and a bunch of people. Bob Gilstrap and Colonel Buckley really put together a great event. I got to dish up the barbecue and meet everyone as they came through the line. There were well over 250 people from all over Citrus County. It was good to see former Sen. Nick Conner, who is now a judge there, and mayors of all the towns. I made a little speech with a downpour threatening to break loose at any moment, but it waited until we were through to start raining. It was a pleasure spending the night with Johnny and Betty Eden. He's been working on a history of the Second Seminole War for a number of years and my visit was very interesting.

We've been telling tourists for many years that no trip through Florida is complete without walking on the sands of world famous Daytona Beach. Well, I'm not a tourist, but I want to make sure my trip is complete, too, so last Friday I made a little side visit to Daytona. It's pretty tough to try to walk and talk with people who are there to sun-bathe and swim, but we stirred quite a bit of interest with our camper and enjoyed a considerable amount of conversation. It suddenly occurred to me that this was as close to a vacation as I would get this summer.

On Saturday I walked in New Smyrna Beach, through the business district and on the beautiful, wide beach. Vic Vandergrifft hosted a coffee reception for me and I enjoyed meeting a number of people from that end of Volusia County, including some of the city officials.

As I approach the half-way mark in my thousand mile walk through our state, I get more and more excited about the reaction I'm getting. I'm getting the kind of enthusiasm that usually leads to success at the polls and I'm getting the kind of knowledge that will help me do a better job after election.