The huge, negative public response to Southwest Florida Water Management District’s (SWFWMD) staff recommendations to set the flow level for the Homosassa River at 5% of its "estimated average" flow of 152 cubic feet per second (cfs) or 144.4 cfs has, so far, delayed the scheduled Board vote of approval.

Questions and criticisms of the findings, omissions and methodology have come from experts in water management and commercial fishermen, state regulators, public park managers, engineers, boaters, HRA’s volunteer reviewers and other of our members, and even from SWFWMD’s hand-selected peer review team. It was a huge response to a technical manual over a very short time span.

So far on the supporting side, there is the lone voice of the county director of Water Resources who appears to have only read the two-page executive summary and asked for clarification on the parameters and salinity terminology before sending in a letter of approval. Concurrently, there has been an outpouring of opposition to the proposed flow rate being recommended for the Chassahowitzka River system, an 11% reduction. The Chassahowitzka is approximately five miles south of the Homosassa and it draws from the same aquifer whose water source is rainfall over the same 270-square-mile springshed.

Both the Homosassa and the Chassahowitzka are first-magnitude spring systems, two of four along a thirty-five mile span of our coastline, with only 27 first-magnitude springs in the entire state of Florida. Springs such as these are rare.

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