Three enormous bridges are about to open for Wekiva Parkway traffic. The parkway crosses east and west through spring-soaked wilderness of the Wekiva River basin: a wedge of wildlands – including Seminole forest, Rock Springs preserve and Wekiwa Springs park – in a vice of metro Orlando.
“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.
Sand buries Little Wekiva River, residents suspect I-4 construction tampabay.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tampabay.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.