A Tough Year for Everglades’ Nesting Birds

Abandoned stork nests, Jetport S colony, WCA 3A, as presented 5-11-23 SFWMD GB

Today I am going to put aside the St. Lucie Canal to discuss another very important subject, the birds of the Everglades. Since the late 1800s drainage, farming, and development  has drastically altered the avian environment. As we try to restore what we can, each year the SFWMD reports on nesting outcomes in SFER or the “South Florida Environmental Report.” This is done in “Water Years” that run from May 1 of one year to April 30th of the next.

At the May 11th, 2023 meeting of the South Florida Water Management District, I asked a question to presenter Lawrence Glenn about the “Ecological Conditions Update.” Mr. Glenn was explaining sensitivity to water/food levels and why it had been observed that hundreds to thousands of wood storks and white ibis in Water Conservation Area 3-A of the Everglades had evacuated their nests abandoning their young.

Mr. Glenn’s chart specifically focused on wood storks (WOST) and white ibis (WHIB).  I inquired about other birds nesting in the Everglades. Mr. Glenn explained that for purposes of this scientific report wood storks and white ibis were the sentinel species.

~Note the decline of these species nests below below.

On May 24, 2023, about two weeks after the governing board meeting, I received an email in response to my question from SFWMD avian expert Dr. Mark Cook.  I had had the pleasure of meeting and flying with Dr. Cook in a rare banner-nesting year, in 2021. Dr. Cook who oversees the SFER nesting bird reports gave an in depth explanation to my question about “other birds,” and how the science works. Thank you to the SFWMD and Dr. Cook for allowing me to reprint below. I wanted to share it with you!

Wood storks, roseate spoonbills, white ibis, courtesy SFWMD

 

Subject: Following up on your question about nesting in the Everglades (May GB)

 

Good morning, Ms. Thurlow-Lippisch.  At the May Governing Board Meeting you asked Lawrence Glenn if there were other types of birds nesting in the Everglades aside from white ibis and wood storks.  Dr. Mark Cook has responded to your question (below).

 

Yes, we have about 14 species of wading birds nesting in the Everglades, all of which are monitored to some degree for the wading bird report.

 

However, there are four species that are used specifically as indicator species to gage restoration success of the freshwater Everglades and to help guide water management: white ibis, wood storks, snowy egrets and great egrets. Multiple aspects of their reproduction are monitored including nesting effort, timing of nesting, location of nesting and reproductive success (numbers of offspring produced per nest). Of these four species, the stork and ibis are particularly useful for understanding the health of the everglades because they are tactile foragers (feed by touch) meaning they need higher densities of prey to feed effectively compared to the visually feeding egrets and in turn their nesting patterns are highly dependent on getting the water right – the right amount of water at the right time and place. Historical hydrological conditions were particularly conducive to successful nesting of these two species. A good example of this was the relatively wetter conditions on the coastal marshes and western prairie marshes in Everglades National Park that promoted good prey production and allow for early nesting of storks and massive super colonies of white ibis in the coastal colonies.

 

For Florida Bay we have a single indicator species, the roseate spoonbill. This pink beauty is also a tactile forager and as such is highly sensitive to hydrological conditions within the coastal marshes of eastern Florida Bay. This species was almost exclusively restricted to nesting and foraging in Florida Bay but within the past decade it has moved inland to the freshwater Everglades probably because sea level rise has increased water levels in the coastal foraging areas. This species is generally doing poorly in the bay but relatively well in the freshwater Everglades.

 

As predicted given the relatively dry antecedent conditions, this nesting season has not been a great year for the five indicator species. Nesting effort (numbers of nests) was about average but nest success has ben very low for all species except perhaps the snowy egret. White Ibis and great Egrets started abandoning nests in March-April probably because prey was limited in the Everglades after last year’s extensive drying of WCA-3A. In addition, extensive rain-driven reversals (loss of concentrated prey) in April finished off many of the remaining ibis and egret nests and led to the complete abandonment of wood stork nests in WCA-3A and significantly reduced their nests in ENP. Surprisingly, snowy egrets seem to be doing quite well, possibly because they are feeding in the STAs or elsewhere. My colleagues from University of Florida, who monitor nesting on the ground, have reported very poor growth rates of nestling and high levels of starvation in all species except snowy egrets. Nesting data are currently being processed and will be available as soon as possible.

Roseate spoonbills, courtesy SFWMD
Group shot, SFWMD
Great Egret, SFWMD
Snowy egret, Audubon

 

 

 

Two 1924 “Extreme Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Events” Affecting Completion of the St. Lucie Canal

I want to thank Tony Cristaldi of the National Weather Service, Melbourne, Florida, for writing and sharing historic weather information that gives strong insight into why in 1924 the St. Lucie Canal was so damaged that its completion date has been “clouded in history,” and thus the subject of my most recent blog posts.

The October 1924 Cuba hurricane is the earliest officially classified Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on the SSHS. According to Tony Cristaldi, NWS Melbourne: “Heavy rain fell along, and well ahead (north) of its center, with between 1 and 2 FEET falling across SOFL from Oct 18-23, and this is only part of the story….” Image: courtesy of Wiki.

The Great Rain of 1924, Postponing the St. Lucie Canal 

Storm Damage that Almost Destroyed the St. Lucie Canal

Mr. Cristaldi’s message is below. It is a fascinating read! Tropical Storm #9’s rainfall levels; the Great Cuba Hurricane’s immense rainfall-interestingly, a hurricane who later would be declared a Category 5 Storm; and the combined 1924 rain levels in our region of today’s Treasure Coast of up to three feet !

Thank you Tony for this wonderful documentation -as together we learn all we can for the 100 Year Anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal -coming up in 2024 even though the storm damage pushed its “opening” to 1925 or 1926 and maybe later….

Below: Letter National Weather Service’s Tony Cristaldi:

“Hi Jacqui,

I’ve been an avid reader of your blog for a few years now. I did a some research into this rainfall event, and learned a few things. This was one of two separate extreme tropical cyclone rainfall event which impacted SEFL in October of 1924.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Atlantic_hurricane_season

The first, a moderate strength (60 mph) Tropical Storm (#9), was centered over the Gulf of Mexico, well to the west of Florida, but was part of a prolonged wet period which produced between 5-15″ of rainfall up and down the entirety of the Florida east coast from October 4-10.

The second, which occurred only days later, was the infamous “Great Cuba Hurricane of 1924”. Heavy rain fell along, and well ahead (north) of its center, with between 1 and 2 FEET falling across SOFL from Oct 18-23.

While I could not find daily/monthly rainfall totals for the PSL/Stuart area, there are records avaialble for Vero Beach for that month. 25.01″ of rain fell there that month, including almost 12″ from the first system and nearly 9″ from the second (during the 2-day period where 15″ fell at Stuart).

Given the heaviest rainfall totals occurred south of Vero Beach during both events, one can probably assume that between 2.5 and 3 FEET of rain fell near the Inlet entrance that month, a truly historical month in terms of weather.”

Tony Cristaldi
National Weather Service
Melbourne FL

Thank you Tony! And for readers, you can conveniently follow NWSMelbourne  for today’s hurricanes and rainfall events. I know I do! Obsessively!

1924 Storm Damage that Almost Destroyed the St. Luice Canal

Florida Memory, Everglades Drainage District, St. Lucie Canal, undated.

Over the past year, I have been trying to learn everything I can about the history of the St. Lucie Canal. Details are hard to find, especially because the canal has served two masters: Florida’s Everglades Drainage District (1916-1930) and the USA’s Army Corps of Engineers (1930 to present).

I would be remiss if I did not thank the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers for making many outstanding and rare historical documents available to me.

In light of next year’s 2024 “100 Year Anniversary” of the St. Luice Canal, it is my hope that with sufficient access to historical documentation, the present and following generations will continue work to undo the massive ecological damage of the St. Luice Canal; this can only be accomplished with full understanding of its history.

Today, I focus on an ACOE 1954 document entitled:

Basic Considerations, Partial Definite Project Report, Central and Southern Florida Project For Flood Control and Other Purposes, Part IV, Lake Okeechobee and Outlets, Supplement 4–Design Memorandum, Effects of Fresh-Water Discharges Through St. Lucie Canal

The succinct history in this slender document really helps give insight into my previous post, The Great Rain of 1924 and the Postponement of the St. Luice Canal. The Storm of 1924, that occurred in October of the year the canal was “completed” caused serious damage to the St. Lucie Canal and was then followed by famously destructive hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 and then another serious storm in 1930. After such a run of Mother Nature’s wrath, the canal that had been built as the primary control outlet for Lake Okeechobee became too much for the state and thus the federal government took over.

In an alternate universe of my dreams, the St. Lucie Canal was overcome by Mother Nature. She shoaled in the manmade cut through her upland pine and pond cypress forests with the raging waters of Allapattah Flats. Lake Okeechobee was never diked and flows free as God intended. Wildlife abounds. Ofcouse that is not what happened, Humankind, the great controller, had another plan, and thus our world today…

Begin transcription of ACOE document:

c. History–Surveys for a canal route which would allow excess water from Lake Okeechobee to be released in St. Lucie River were made as early as 1905; however, construction was not begun until 1916. The location chosen was selected because it presented the shortest and least expensive route to tidewater. Original construction of the canal to a capacity of 5,000 cubic feet a second with Lake Okeechobee at elevation 15.6 feet was practically complete in 1924 by the Everglades Drainage District. It was controlled by two dams, one near the lake and the other near the lower end. Local runoff from the storm of October 18-21, 1924, overtopped the spoil banks in several places, cut deep channels into the canal, and carried a million yards of eroded material into the channel. The channel capacity was reduced to about 70 percent of the 5,000 cubic feet a second design flow. The spillway at the lower end of the canal was not opened prior to the storm and a channel about 65 feet wide was washed out around the dam down to a bottom elevation of -4 feet. Serious shoaling from local inflow also resulted from the storms of 1926 and 1928. The design capacity of the canal became available after excavation by the drainage district of about 2,000,000 cubic yards of deposited material in 1927 and additional 1,000,000 cubic yards in 1928. However, sand bars formed during the storm of 1930 and channel capacity was again reduced. In 1930 the United States accepted control of Lake Okeechobee as an authorized project and since that date the canal has been maintained and operated by the Corps of Engineers. Construction of fixed spillways at 16 inflow points along the banks of St. Luice Canal was initiated in 1933 in order to prevent sediment from entering the canal. The locations of those spillways are shown on plate 1. Crest elevations were below natural ground but high enough to provide stilling basins in the wash channels upstream. A constricted section about 6,000 feet long, in which the bottom width was only 65 feet instead of 155 feet as designed, was left in the canal near the lower dam. In 1937 that construction was removed and the waterway improved to provide a navigation channel 6 feet deep. The River and Harbor Act of August 26, 1937, provided for replacement of obsolete structures at locks Nos. 1 and 2 in the canal by a new lock and spillway at the site of the lower dam. The main spillway was completed in 1944 except for the Trainter gates. Temporary wooden flashboards were used until the seven steel Trainter gates were installed in 1950. The canal was enlarged in 1949 to provide a navigable depth of 8 feet and a discharge capacity of about 9,000 cubic feet a second with lake stage at 15.6 feet.

End transcription…

Cover
Page 3, History w/ my notes
Spillways map referred to in text

Next post, I will continue with Section 5. “Discharges through St. Lucie Canal.”

 

 

The Great Rain of 1924 – Postponing the St. Lucie Canal

The condition of this October 23, 1924 Stuart Messenger article makes it difficult to read, but it is important to the history of the St. Luice Canal whose 100 year anniversary is coming up next year in 2024.

In my research, I have noticed the final date of construction of the canal varies in historic documents. Sometimes I see 1925 or 1926. I have chosen to use 1924 because that is the official date used by Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection.

This article entitled “Storm Damage Comparatively Light—Heaviest Rain in Fifty Years,” may shed light on why the completion date of the Everglades Drainage District is hard to pin down.

The bolded line under the headline reads: “Fifteen Inches in Two Days–Trains Stalled for Several Hours–Roads Out North and South–Canal Around Locks–Local Damage Very Light–Wires Kept Open With Few Interruptions.”

Trying to be optimistic, the article begins:

“Stuart is back to normal and is counting up its comparatively small losses after the heaviest rainfall in history. Fifteen inches of rain fell in less that forty-eight hours. Rainfall for the past week has been particularly heavy. On Saturday it rained steadily all day and far into to the night. Sunday’s rainfall was heavy and continuous, all day Monday the downpour continued in to early hours of Tuesday morning…”

~The railroad washed out at Rio…

~The river is the highest within the memory of the oldest inhabitants and backed up over the sea wall both north and south of the county bridge…

~The St Lucie hotel dock went out…

~The river washed away fifteen feet of high ground in front of the hotel annex…

~Reports from the west lock on the St. Lucie canal are to the effect that the canal has cut through around the lock and is digging  a wide channel…

~Homes on the South Fork were inundated…

~Water is pouring into the river from the back county in an immense volume. …

Archives, Sandra Henderson Thurlow, Stuart Messenger, 10-23-1924

The erosion cutting around the lock of the St. Lucie Canal creating a wide channel would have spelled failure for controlling the waters of Lake Okeechobee and surrounding basins. Water pouring in from Allapattah Flats known as the “back county” would have exacerbated an already very dangerous situation.

Lost in time, today we read about an October 23rd, 1924 storm where Stuart, Florida experienced a major rain event ironically occurring right around the time the St. Lucie Canal was being completed or was “complete.” Maybe that is why some articles say the canal was finished in 1925 or 1926 when it was really first completed in 1924? It is important for me to get the date right.

If only it had never had never been completed…

 

 

48 Years Ago: “Summary of Progress”- Final Report on the Special Project to Prevent Eutrophication of Lake Okeechobee

48 Years Ago: Summary of Progress…

A look into Florida State Archives

Leading up to 2024’s “100 year anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal,” Ed and I visited the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee. We had called ahead and the archivist had set all aside having to do with the “Final Report on the Special Project to Prevent Eutrophication of Lake Okeechobee.” This very important document, published in November of 1976, was key in directly and indirectly improving the situation of the St. Lucie River and all the Everglades. Its research faced head on the deteriorating health of Lake Okeechobee; documented the importance of Kissimmee River restoration for nutrient reduction and water quality;  called for the halting of back-pumping into Lake Okeechobee from the Everglades Agricultural Area south of the lake; and even inquires implementation of Best Management Practices by the Agriculture industry and stricter rules for sewage management from developing cities.

The seven pages of the document I share today is from the summary and is part of the lead up to the Final Report. As is always the case, the final report is  much more polished. The seven pages of the 1975 “A Summary of Progress of the Special Project to Prevent the Eutrophication of Lake Okeechobee,” is not. You will see handwritten corrections and notes in the margins. A very powerful way to view a working document. “Old school” for sure!

Forty-eight years have passed since this homework led to the famous 1976 publication “The Final Report on the Special Project to Prevent Eutrophication of Lake Okeechobee.” The working document’s historic value cannot cannot be underestimated. Reading it is like looking back into the mirror of time. Here is reflected how much progress has been  made, and how much more still needs to be achieved.

“Lake Okeechobee water quality has been declining noticeably for about twenty years, and the is now best be described as culturally eutrophic…” ~1975 

Today’s 1975 summary of progress led up to 1976  “Final Report…” I will be sharing more of both in the future as we approach the 100 year anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal.

Lake O’s Original Shoreline-Today a Remnant of the “Once Great Forests of Indiantown”

Today is a follow up to my recent post: “The Once Great Forests of Indiantown.” In response, my dear friend and well known engineer Dr. Gary Goforth commented:

“Jacqui, there is a beautiful linear park containing a diverse sample of trees similar to what was in the historic Barley Barber Swamp: the Lake Okeechobee Ridge Park. The park is the last remnant of the original shoreline of Lake Okeechobee. The Rafael E. Sanchez Memorial Trail runs throughout the length of the park and is a part of both the Big Water Heritage Trail and the Great Florida Birding Trail. The trail runs along the original sand/muck berm that was constructed along portions of Lake Okeechobee before the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes washed them out. Access is along US41 just north of the St Lucie Canal.”

The park in Port Mayaca, Martin County – next to Indiantown, is open from dawn ’til dusk, so yesterday afternoon, Luna and I went for a walk in the Rafael E. Sanchez Memorial Trail that Gary told us about. It was fascinating!

The skinny forest was stunning and even with the modern noise from the old Connors Highway ringing in my ears, it took me back about a hundred years. As I walked, I thought: “The park is the last remnant of the original shoreline of Lake Okeechobee; the trail runs along the original sand/muck berm that was constructed along portions of Lake Okeechobee before the 1916 and 1928 hurricanes washed them out…” 

Soon after 1928, the state and federal governments’ answer materialized into the  Herbert Hoover Dike, -forever altering the living-lake, shrinking it and blocking it from expanding.

Lake Okeechobee, SFWMD 

Today I share Luna and my walk through this amazing remnant forest. Once periodically flooded, now dry, Luna and I saw only a few very tall and beautiful cypress trees. But we could imagine the old shoreline full of them with their knees pushing forth from the earth. Luna and I also saw massive strangler-figs and oaks and even the famous white moonvine that once graced the pond apple forest south and east along the lake. Luna and I also saw many cabbage palms. The leaning/curving palms, seeking light, were really beautiful. Certainly a hundred years ago the flora and fauna was very different, but Luna and I did get a “glimpse” and for that I am thankful.

For perspective, the FPL cooling pond lies to the east. The park goes on for six miles well beyond my image below. I hope you’ll check it out! Thank you Gary for your comment and for expanding my knowledge of the once great forests of Indiantown.

Raphael E. Sanchez Memorial Park address

FPL cooling pond/ Barley Barber Swamp are located to the east of the linear park.
Luna walking amongst leaning cabbage palms, giant strangler-figs, cypress and oaks. Dogs are allowed on a leash.
A tall cypress tree-maybe some relation to the Barley Barber Swamp?!

Who was Rafael E. Sanchez who must have inspired this wonderful park?

Palm Beach Daily News, October 6, 1994.
1855 vs 2023 Todd Thurlow. The beginning of the park can be seen in southwest corner.

Killing the Heart of Barley Barber Swamp


Photographed on eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. May 1917. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/49347

Every time I post, I learn something.  After reading “The Once Great Forests of Indiantown,” Stuart’s multi-generational resident, and dear friend of my mother, wrote:

“Jacqui, about 1968-9 my 4 hunting buddies and I went hunting in Indiantown in the Barley Swamp, there were huge cypress trees laying over?? Also walking through woods we came up on a mountain,”large Indian mound.” I have never found anyone who knew about the mound. Mid 70s I built a house that all the interior was don w/cypress from Barley Swamp, a sawmill north of Okeechobee cut it. Years later I was talking to a man I built for and he said his brother worked for FPL digging the dike, when digging, he found a carved stone face about 3x2x10 that “I thought looked like images found in Mexico and south,” I guess FPL might have dug up that mound…”

Photographed in a jungle at the southeast corner of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. Spring 1929.https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/50408.

I’d like to thank Boo for his comment questioning why there were gigantic felled cypress trees in Barley Barber Swamp as late as 1968/69.  I had written in my blog that according to a 1930 Stuart News article, most of the cypress and pine trees five miles NW of Indiantown were timbered from 1920 through the later years of the 1930s.

Well, my brother Todd and I went back and tried to deduce a theory. The theory is that the timber companies, as reported in the July, 19, 1930 Stuart News article, had cut most of the trees “five miles west of Indiantown,” but no matter how they tried, their trams and tracks and axes and saws could not reach the deep interior of the swamp. Its heart! So some of the largest trees, as Boo, notes, were felled later, leading up to Florida Power and Lights digging, construction and diking of its Indiantown cooling reservoir.

For perspective, Todd shades below the visible dark river shape of Barley Barber Swamp over a 1940s Department of Agriculture aerial. The shaded area is 3078 acres or 4.81 square miles.

Below, in these Florida Department of Transportation aerials from 1971, at a lower altitude, we can clearly see the Barley Barber Swamp and encroaching agricultural lands that have already been cleared and de-stumped.

The remaining and distinctive thimble shape of Barley Barber Swamp remains today as seen in the 1971/Google Earth 2023 comparison. This would have been just two or three years after Boo Lowrey and his hunting buddy visited the area in 1968/69 and witnessed the giant cypress trees lying on their sides.

Todd also created a remarkable slider for comparison.  

By 1974, the remaining cypress forest of the once great Barley Barber Swamp was being burned, smoke rising to Heaven, to make way for the reservoir as can be viewed and compared in the slides below.

Heartbreaking. But as I am often told such is “progress.” I disagree.

And the Indian Mound? Of course it was right were the FPL reservoir was today. Boo saw it before most of it was drowned. It is no reach to make this deduction as  Big Mound City is known worldwide as “the largest prehistoric Native American earthwork in southeastern Florida.” It was huge and lies a few miles south from Indiantown, not far from the lake, in J.W. Corbett Wildlife Area. These were ancient “cities” along Lake Okeechobee. In fact, when Indiantown was named “Annie” in 1915, long after the native people were gone, the year the St. Lucie Canal was started, there was actually an Everglades Drainage District survey documenting the road from Annie to Big Mound City. Indiantown to Big Mound City? Not far at all.

Flight over Big Mound City just south of Indiantown

I hope this sheds light on the history of the heart of the “once great forests of Indiantown,” and unfortunately, how they were killed.

BarleyBarberGLOPlats c. 1855 underlay juxtaposed to 2023. created by Todd Thurlow website eyeonlakeo.com

*Thank you to Boo Lowrey and Todd Thurlow who made this post possible!

5-3-21

From FPL’s website. I came across this after I wrote my blog post and  felt I should share.

Also a great image showing how the swamp lay right in the middle today’s FPL cooling pond-from Wikipedia’s article on Barley Barber Swamp.

Barley Barber Swamp/FPL -via Dept. of Interior as stated in Wiki.

The Once Great Forests of Indiantown

FPL cooling pond east of Lake Okeechobee, Indiantown, was once a gigantic cypress forest. April 21, 2023 – Ed Lippisch.

Even though I am obsessed with water, my first love is trees. Because the trees are gone we forget that deforestation was occurring at the same time as the building of the St Lucie Canal – and was equally destructive.

Because the cypress and pine forests of our area were logged prior to the first ariels taken by the Department of Agriculture in 1940, there is really no visual record. But we have clues.

1940 aerials DOA, FL. Indiantown is marked just above the “dip” in the St. Lucie Canal. Click on image to enlarge. UF Libraries.
Long leaf pine forest image 1930s, Florida Memory

A recent article shared with me by my mother got me thinking about our region’s “once forests” again. The long title of the article from mom’s archives reads: “Hammons Sawmill Employs 300 Men, Big Business at Indiantown Has Hum of Activity, Largest  Industry in This County is Run by Texan Men.”  The Stuart News article is dated Saturday, July 19, 1930 and it really gets one thinking about how extensive our cypress and pine forests once were.

The article begins:

“The biggest and busiest operation in Martin County is the plant of the Long Leaf Lumber Company, five miles northwest of Indiantown.

There, in the woods, 300 men are busy daily, cutting timber, sawing the busy logs into boards of many shapes and sizes, curing the refinished lumber and shipping it to all parts of the world… enough timber for ten years….”

“Five miles northwest of Indiantown” puts one about at today’s Florida Power and Light plant, so recognizable from the air. It is located west of Highway 710  also known as Warfield Boulvard. As far as cypress trees are concerned, we know an extensive cypress forest connected to Lake Okeechobee existed in this area prior to it being converted into a cooling reservoir for FPL in the 1970s. Today what is left is a thumb known as “Barley Barber Swamp.”

So a clue, cypress just outside the marsh of Lake Okeechobee, yes, but what about the numerous pine trees and were there any long leaf pines as the article notes the Indiantown sawmill of 1930 was run by a Texan “Long Leaf Lumber Company?” 

5 miles NW of Indiantown connects to about FPL thin yellow line – Hwy 710, Google.
Everglades Drainage District -St Lucie Canal c. 1916-1924. Note pine trees. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/335250#!

Pines were very prevalent as we see in old photos and reports of the digging of the St Lucie Canal, but the best clue I know of mentioning long leaf pine trees lies in an abstract, No. 12386, of Indiantown. These lands can be traced to the 1850 Swamp and Overflow Lands Act; Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund; the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway; the Southern States Land and Timber Company; The Land Company of Florida- Seaboard Railway; and in 1925 to the Indian Lumber Company. Certainly this 1855 survey map below from the abstract is a snapshot of the surrounding area pre-drainage.

Original land survey with trees and other natural features- 1855 of today’s Indiantown sec. 6&5. Abstract 12386 Thurlow & Thurlow

Back then, as now, there were a lot of land shisters and one them of that era according to the abstract was J.H. Vaughn who in 1910 made an agreement for someone to “examine” 2000 feet of long leaf pine and 90,000,000 of cypress. He acted as a representative for Southern States Land and Timber Company but was later called into court for false representation, so perhaps he is not a trustworthy source. Perhaps Southern States Land and Timber -the company that first planted sugarcane at Canal Point blossoming into today’s sugar industry- and owned just about all the lands of Martin, Palm Beach and other- was so powerful they framed him? I don’t know. In any case, the very broad swath of lands mentioned in his agreement clearly refers to”long leaf pine.” If it wasn’t long leaf some could have been virgin slash pine or “yellow pine” that can live up to 400 years old.

Page form Abstract No. 12386, courtesy of Thurlow & Thurlow

So whether it was virgin cypress, virgin long leaf pine, or virgin slash pine, or another type of pine when was it timbered, some of it was cut in Martin County, Florida, near Indiantown.

According to the same abstract, in 1924, after all the lawsuits, the lands that make up today’s Indiantown went back to Southern States Land and Timber Company, or it was theirs the whole time. Crazy land deals! Eventually, they gave permission for the The Land Company of Florida to cut the timer.  And then in 1926, Indian Lumber Company was “given” land to erect a sawmill at Indiantown.

(First you drain the land, then you cut the timber, then you develop it and name it after something that is no longer there.) Sorry!

So the article says 1930 and the abstract says 1926….

I think we can safely say that most of the cypress and pine forests in and surrounding Indiantown were cut in the 1920s and 1930s. I think this is important to remember. It’s not just the canals that killed the St Lucie River. It was also the cutting of the trees. Thousands of acres of trees. Great forests. Home to wildlife beyond our imagination.

Next time you’re are driving around out there, imagine the once great forests of Indiantown. They must have been a sight to see!

Famous 1913 Harshberger vegetation map marks forest surrounding today’s Indiantown in 1913. Look west of “Allapattah Flats.”

-July 19, 1930, Stuart News, Martin County, FL., courtesy Sandra Thurlow.

Image from video Barley Barber/FPL story byTodd Thurlow.
Image of a cypress forest, Florida Parks.

Ed’s Aerial Update 4-21-23-SLR/IRL

Date: Friday,  April 21, 2023

Time: Around 11:30am

Pilot: Ed Lippisch

Location: Confluence of the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon; St Lucie Inlet; Roosevelt Bridge; west of Jupiter Narrows; western Martin County lands near Green Ridge and other areas; S-308 Port Mayaca; Palm City SLR area.

Conditions: No discharges from Lake Okeechobee. ACOE stopped April 15, 2013. There have been two major rain events in the past weeks.

Ed’s Aerial Update 4-19-23 SLR/IRL

Hello readers. I’m a bit behind, but wanted to include! Great reference and baseline aerials. now that L.O. discharges have been halted. JTL

Date: Wednesday,  April 19, 2023

Time: Around 12:15pm

Pilot: Ed Lippisch

Location: Confluence of the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon; St Lucie Inlet; Roosevelt Bridge and Palm City Bridge areas.

Conditions: No discharges from Lake Okeechobee. ACOE stopped April 15, 2013. There have been two major rain events in the past weeks. But not as much as in Ft Lauderdale!

Adding Insult to Injury-C-23, C-24, C-25

A portion of the St Johns Marsh 1958  https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00071784/00007/images/151

As we know, next year is the 100 year anniversary of the St. Luice Canal. Dug by the Everglades Drainage District 1916-1924, the canal was turned over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1930 following the horrific 1926 and 1928 hurricanes and the U.S./Florida decision to build the Herbert Hoover Dike. During the 1930s through the fifties the canal was widened and deepened and repurposed as a cross state canal conveniently allowing even more discharge water from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie River.

According to a November 4, 1954  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Central and Southern Florida Project report by Colonel H.W. Schull Jr.

“For quite some time, local interest in the Stuart-Palm City area have been very bitter and adamant concerning the release of water in the St. Lucie estuary. They have made numerous complaints to this office about the releases of muddy water and its effect on sport fishing in the Stuart area, as well as the effects of shoaling in the vicinity of Palm City. In November 1953, the local people formed the St. Lucie-Indian Rivers Restoration League, which has become appreciably influential; the League has now grown to the estimated membership of 1,250. The situation in the Stuart-Palm City area has become by far the most sensitive of any in the Jacksonville District. This office has received complaints from the league following practically all discharge periods. Full-capacity discharge is entirely untenable to local interests. Last spring, the League threatened to use all possible influence to block the 1955 fiscal year appropriations for the Central and Southern Florida Project unless they could obtain a definite commitment “to relieve the area of excessive flood discharge and its incidental damages.” It was brought out that if unable to obtain such a commitment local interest were prepared to attack the appropriations as discriminatory, to withdraw from the 17-county Flood Control District by legislative action, and would proceed with damage actions in the Federal Courts….”

And that was only 1954…

By 1959 the Stuart News ran articles quoting the St. Lucie-Indian River Restoration League and the Martin County Water Conservation Committee. These articles shared by historian Sandra Henderson Thurlow, reveal continuation of bitterness and exasperation by the St. Lucie-Indian River Restoration League now together with the Martin County Water Conservation Committee.

By 1959, the “Great Flood” of 1947 had set in motion the enormous and expensive Army Corps’ Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project adding to the already built canals of the Everglades Drainage District – such as the St Lucie Canal. To complicate Martin County’s drainage issues, the Minute Maid Corporation bought 5,300 acres of St Johns River Marsh land fifteen miles from Ft. Pierce in neighboring St Lucie County. Also booming was ranch land north and west of Cocoa. Many were excited about draining the land and building Florida’s post-war economy. This would be at the expense of the St. Lucie.

It was the hope of the St. Lucie-Indian River Restoration League and the Conservation Committee that the Army Corps would build a gigantic reservoir west of Sebastian, Vero, and Ft. Pierce to hold the water that would be drained from these lands but instead the Army Corps decided to build C-25, C-23, and C-24 alone. “No reservoir. Too expensive.”

Excerpt from Stuart News, April 9, 1959. Proposed reservoir that would hold the waters of the drained southern St. Johns Marsh. Instead the land was never bought, and the reservoir never built.

Today these St. Lucie C-canals drain the lower St. Johns Marsh and and a large portion of St Lucie County into the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. These canals, like the C-44, or St. Lucie Canal, can operate in any direction, and they are all connected, taking in water and then discharging wherever the engineers desire…

C-25, north of Highway 68 and west of Ft. Pierce, dumps into the Southern Indian River Lagoon at Taylor Creek in Fort Pierce; C-24 and C-23 discharge into the mid and lower north fork of the St Lucie River. As they are all connected so the water can be made to go through any outlet. Most water exits through the St. Lucie River heading to the St. Lucie Inlet,  Martin County – carrying with it a collection of agricultural and development pollutants.

The St. Lucie-Indian River Restoration League and the Martin County Water Conservation Committee fought hard for the St. Johns Marsh Reservoirs-also called a CONSERVATION AREA, but they were never built.

The League and Committee were so furious with the effects of all the canals  that they filed a suit for injunction against direct ad-valorem tax levies by the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District, the equivalent of today’s South Florida Water Management District. But the League did not prevail. The League expressed that one of the reasons this case did not succeed may be linked to “the Judge Chillingworth murder case occupying all of judge Judge Smith’s time.” Ironically it was the Chillingworth family that founded Palm City Farms.

Ernest Lyons, editor of the Stuart News wrote: “So that is why Martin County must demand now that the priorities of be changed on the project, making the reservoir purchase and construction No. 1 and the safety valve into Fort Pierce harbor (C-25) No. 2.

Otherwise we are going to wake up one of these days a find the beautiful St. Lucie, whose South Fork is now a drainage canal for the floodwaters of the Kissimmee River Basin has had its North Fork turned into a drainage canal for the St Johns River which historically flowed the other way.

Martin County is going to be made the dumping ground for another vast drainage area unrelated to this county unless our Congressmen, County Commission, State Representatives and other official demands that this scheme be changed by altering the priorities to do “first things first.”

It is kind of ironic that we continue to fight over reservoirs today.

The Stuart News, March 5, 1959.
The Stuart News, April 9, 1959.
The Stuart News, April 13,1961.

I recently visited the lands that the SFWMD has purchased north of Highway 68 to restore/ build a C-25 reservoir and storm water treatment area as part of ACOE’s  Indian River Lagoon South, CERP.

Ed’s Aerial Update: Last Day of Discharges after 83 Days

Documenting the Discharges – 2023- to St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon from Lake Okeechobee.

ACOE STOPS DISCHARGING AFTER 83 DAYS…

Date: Saturday, April 15, 2023

Time: Around 12:30 just before  low tide

Pilot: Ed Lippisch

Location: Confluence of the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon; Roosevelt Bridge area; S-80 St Lucie Canal; S-308 Port Mayaca at Lake Okeechobee.

Conditions: After months of almost no rain, Sewall’s Point received 5 inches last week-thus you see the really dark runoff along with discharges from Lake Okeechobee. 

AFTER 83 DAYS, the ACOE, with the recommendation of the SFWMD, is halting discharges! Very good news.

The Draining of Allapattah Flats-C-23

Recently I wrote a post entitled: “Learning the Beauty of Pre-Drainage Lands – St Lucie Canal.” One of the most prevalent natural features asked about is “Allapattah Flats.” I recall hearing the mysterious words “Allapattah Flats” while growing up in Martin County. Now, almost 60 years later, I recognize I really do not know what they were…

Page 1, EDD 1915 St Lucie Canal Survey Lake Okeechobee to Okeechobee Atlantic Divide, Florida Archives. Click to enlarge and view Allapattah Flats.

What I mostly heard about as a kid was not “Allapahttah Flats” but “Allapattah Ranch.”  Although Allapattah Ranch was a boon in the 1950s, it was part of the total drainage and destruction of this enormous and magnificent swamp documented on many old maps like “Map of the Seat of War in Florida,” compiled by order of Bvt. Brigr. General Z. Taylor in 1839. Through the centuries many words were used for Allapattah Flats -all alluding to alligators like Al-Pa-ti-o-kee Swamp below, or just Halpatiokee. Obviously, there was a lot of fresh water on the land.

Excerpt 1839 Map of the Seat of War, Z.Taylor

In a 1952 Stuart News article shared from Sandra Thurlow’s archives, reporter Ernest Lyons  entitles his 1952 news article “Griscom Bettle’s Allapattah Ranch Has 4,000 Acres Under Water Control, Lush Grass on Marin Highway.”  Lyons article is a great learning tool. He goes on to explain that 23,000 acres of land was purchased from the Southern States Land and Timer Company around 1947. The land being drained and developed is “six miles deep” along Martin Highway and extends “four miles west from Marin Hammock.” It contains pine ridge land serrated by maiden cane sloughs that “bite” into muck, sand, and clay soils -shells and marl deposits- once an ancient seabed. The lands are so flat -when it rains – the water just spreads out.

Lyons has an easy way to remember Allapattah Flats’ location. It is described as a “long marsh extending down back of Ft. Pierce to the St Lucie Canal.”

There were 2 – 4 feet muck deposits atop marl under 1 – 3 foot of water. The muck is what  the landowner is after. He wants to drain and then churn this ancient sea up so soft  green grasses can grow on the rich exposed land for cattle.

These thousands of year old “Flats” were separated from the east coast on one side and from Lake Okeechobee on the other. Likely the Green Pine Ridge on the east and the Orlando Ridge on the west.  Lyons states the ridges themselves were 8 -12 miles wide!

At this point the article goes into the controversial C-23 canal…

This canal was so controversial. A bad thing for the St. Lucie River. The locals had already had tremendous problems in Bessey Creek and around Palm City with shoaling and fish leaving the area. Now on top of the St. Lucie Canal there would be the C-23 canal. Lyons talks about how the C-23 is being built as an “emergency canal” as part of the Central and South Florida Plan of 1948 post great flood of 1947.

Lyons explains how C-23 starts at the first curve above Bessey Creek Bridge and then cuts through slough depressions again and again between pine ridges. The ACOE is ameliorating the worries of the public by promising “controls” that are to be established every few miles to regulate the water through the Flats.

Bessey Creek and a newly constructed C-23 looking southwest in 1965. Photo archives of Sandra Thurlow.

C-23 was started in 1951 and completed in 1961, nine years after this Stuart News article was written in 1952. What a shame that so much was destroyed and so little saved of the wondrous Allapattah Flats. They really were a part of the Everglades itself. Thankfully some restoration began in 2014 and continues.

Click on image to enlarge:

Bessey Creek flows into the St Lucie River. Here a newly constructed C-23 photographed in 1965. Allapattah Flats sprawl south and west of canal. The creek is the exiting point for C-23 into the St Lucie River. The canal was built between 1951 and 1961. As land development and farming of the surrounding lands has increased so has the pollution from the canal. (Ruhnke-Photo archives of Sandra Thurlow)
Summary of C-23 written by FDEP in 2000. See map for location of C-23 canal.

*1924 is the 100 year anniversary of the St Lucie Canal AKA C-44. C-23 was built later ’51’-61′ as people continued to drain the area; C-24 ’58-’62; C-25 ’49-62. These dates are from the SFMWD and may include land acquisition.

Full 1839 Z. Taylor map showing pre-drainage lands
Time Capsule Flight ALLAPATTAH FLATS-ALIPATIOKEE SWAMP

Ed’s Aerial Report 74 Days After Discharges Begin

Documenting the Discharges – 2023 to St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon from Lake Okeechobee – 74 days! 

Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Time: Around 11 am

Tide: High at Sewall’s Point

Pilot /Photographer: Ed Lippisch

Location: St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, St Lucie Inlet, Nearshore Reefs, Atlantic Ocean, Sailfish Flats, Jupiter Narrows, S-80 St Lucie Lock and Dam in St Lucie Canal (C-44), and S-308 at Port Mayaca at Lake Okeechobee

Hope giving “Seagrass Restoration Report” Power Point by Michael Yustin:  Martin County Seagrass Restoration Project Thank you Michael for sharing!

Present discharge updates inn top banner: eyeonlakeo.com website – Todd Thurlow