“It’s really a travesty,” said Deborah Shelley, who was the manager of the state’s Wekiva River Aquatic Preserve from 1987 to 2017. She noted that pollution from sewage and fertilizer holds the river system’s health under chronic distress. But the mass of eroding soil gorging and displacing the Little Wekiva is unsurpassed in her memory as a single act of harm.
“It is one of the most devastating events that has happened to the Wekiva over the years,” Shelley said.
The Wekiva River is one of two rivers in Florida with a federal Wild and Scenic designation. The Wekiva system, including springs, tributaries, wetlands and forest, and crowded by metro Orlando and suburban Lake County, has been one Florida’s most costly and challenging environmental treasures to protect.
Little-wekiva-river
Florida
United-states
Seminole-county
Lake-county
Wekiwa-springs-state-park
Orlando
Wekiva-river
Washington
Orange-county
University-of-central-florida
Wekiva