Watch above: Retired Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Michael Hill discusses the Dead Lakes Dam on the Chipola River. (Jiselle Lee/WUFT News)
WEWAHITCHKA, Fla. — If it weren’t for the faded “CLOSED TO NAVIGATION” sign on the bridge where the dam used to be, fishermen in the Florida Panhandle wouldn’t know Dead Lakes was once near dead.
The name of Dead Lakes, on the Chipola River, conjures a stagnant, barren wasteland. That’s what it became in the decades after it was dammed in 1960 to keep water levels high. At first, sport fishing was better than ever. But fishing “declined appreciably” by the late 1970s, according to a state-commissioned report. The water became choked with weeds. Striped bass vanished. After poor maintenance led to a boater’s death, locals voted to tear the dam down.
The state removed the dam in 1987. The watershed gradually recovered, and fish could spawn again. Today, underneath thousands of dead tree trunks that dot the deep blue water lies a fisherman’s playground, teeming with life.
The waterway was “brought back from the dead,” nonprofit American Rivers wrote. And that’s only because the dam is gone, said Michael Hill, a retired state biologist who led the research team that produced the report.
SPECIAL REPORT: Dam Love Affair
Florida is home to 1,071 of the country’s dams and reservoirs. Ninety-four of them are designated as “high hazard,” which the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) defines as “likely” causing loss of human life and extensive property damage if the dam were to fail. The structures, many of them deteriorating, were constructed through the 20th century for many different purposes.
One of those purposes is to pool water in a reservoir, which Wewahitchka residents thought would keep water levels high enough to fish for snail-eating shellcracker or red-ear sunfish year-round.
“Their goal was to keep the lake full all the time, not realizing that the fish didn't live here year round,” Hill said. “But when they put the dam in, the fishery started falling off.”
Many of America’s biggest dams are used to store water for cities. Reservoirs in Florida, however, mostly serve as recreational attractions. But all dams can fail.
In 1889, excessive rain broke the South Fork Dam near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing at least 2,200 people. A wall of some 14 million gallons of water rushed toward the town, as if “Niagara Falls had collapsed,” one historian wrote. The water was so forceful that it destroyed 4 square miles of the city in 10 minutes, according to historical accounts.
Near Los Angeles, an 180-foot tower of water rushed toward northeastern L.A. County when the St. Francis Dam burst, killing 400 Californians in 1928 — largely regarded as the worst American civil engineering disaster of the 20th century.
The engineer in charge took responsibility for human error in the design and, after retiring in disgrace, said he “only envied those who were killed.”
Dam failures in the United States are not uncommon. In fact, at least one U.S. dam has failed every year (except two) since 1900, according to a report by the National Performance of Dams Program. Florida accounts for 13 of the failures. Only about 4% of the country’s incidents end in fatalities. But as dams get older and upkeep becomes more expensive, weather threats and infrastructure failure increases their risk.
Engineers have traditionally measured flood risk in “100-year events;” the models predict certain areas have a 1% chance of intense, abnormal flooding in any given year.
When a dam fails, the magnitude of flooding that could happen goes past any reasonable model, said Lori Spragens, executive director of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.
“It’s much more catastrophic and harder to plan for,” Spragens said.
Failures could prove disastrous for the unknown number of Floridians with houses downstream of aging dams.
While most states require documents known as emergency action plans, or EAPs, to help prepare for the worst and keep people informed, Florida is one of 13 states that do not require them. Complete with key contacts, a map of flooding areas and instructions for different scenarios, they’re meant to prepare emergency managers for deadly, and rare, events.
Lack of an EAP could mean lack of preparedness for flooding, a fact of life in Florida historically and now. If a dam classified as high-hazard is also in unsatisfactory condition, it is more likely to fail.
Every so often, engineers will inspect dams to decide if reclassification of risk is necessary. These inspections also note addresses in flood zones though there’s no legal requirement in Florida to notify those homeowners if their property is listed.
On average, the most recent reports examining the condition of Florida’s high-hazard dams are more than a quarter century old, according to a WUFT News analysis of available data.
Beginning in August 2023, WUFT News requested copies of Florida high-hazard dams’ most recent inspection reports and EAPs through the Florida Public Records Law and federal Freedom of Information Act from Florida’s DEP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, both of which regulate dam safety in Florida.
While there’s no formal requirement to charge journalists for records in the state, especially when they are tied to public interest, the DEP provided a quote of $1,665 — which would be the most expensive public records fee paid in WUFT history — for these documents and has refused to waive or reduce it.
Meanwhile the Army Corps has yet to even locate the records after over a year, citing an increased volume of requests after Hurricane Ian.
Dams be gone
The toppling of Florida’s dam at Dead Lakes became part of a national trend to restore rivers and tear down dams that do more harm than good. More than 2,000 dams have been removed across the nation, according to American Rivers.
Last year, California removed the largest set of dams to ever fall, with a goal of restoring salmon populations in the Klamath River. National interest surged, too, with the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, pledging $733 million in federal funds over five years to either repair or remove decaying dams that block fish migration in every United States region, including the southeast.
Wewahitchka, the Panhandle town best known for Tupelo Honey, was divided about removing Dead Lakes dam at first. But a turning point came when an elderly couple’s boat was sucked into a malfunctioning dam structure, according to a 2000 Tampa Bay Times article. Only the wife survived.
After the dam’s removal, it took decades to fully restore the Chipola River, which had low dissolved oxygen levels, unsuitable for fish. But those levels eventually rose, allowing fish to resume migratory patterns.
The long-term results are resounding, Hill contends. There are now far more fish and healthier ones, too.
“Sometimes putting in a dam makes sense,” Hill said. “But there are several that don’t, and those should be removed. And that’s an ongoing battle.”
Florida: The Fishing State
Not everyone is convinced spending tens of millions of dollars ripping out Florida’s dams is a good move. The fishing lobby is part of what has the state holding tight to its dams and reservoirs.
The state’s extensive network of canals, rivers and coastlines has made waterfront living part of the coveted life in Florida. Access to water — and fish — is synonymous with being a Floridian. Even the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission claims the state to be the “Fishing Capital of the World”.
Near Palatka, a 7,200-foot-wide dam is a fossil of the Cross Florida Barge Canal — a defunct project launched in the 1930s to allow ships to cross through the middle of the state. Because of lobbying efforts by environmentalists like Marjorie Harris Carr, the founder of the Florida Defenders of the Environment, then-U.S. President Richard Nixon stopped construction. Today, remnants of the project riddle Florida’s rivers, including the ever-controversial Rodman Dam along the Ocklawaha.
Enter Steve Miller, leader of a pro-dam coalition called Save Rodman Reservoir.
Though the dam proved ultimately unnecessary, it still remains a favorite spot for fishing. Miller and a faction of north Floridians argue the reservoir is the lifeblood of Putnam County.
As a child living in nearby Orange Springs, Miller said he and his family knew the wonders of recreational fishing on the Ocklawaha River. He maintains there are benefits — both recreational and ecological — that make residents feel the dam is worth keeping.
Famed sportfishing reels in much-needed tourism dollars in an otherwise sparsely populated county. A 2021 Florida Tax Watch report estimates the Rodman Reservoir brings in between $6 million and $7 million per year to Putnam and Marion counties. If the reservoir was lost, the counties could lose up to $18.3 million in the next 20 years, according to the report.
Miller also believes the reservoir filters out nutrient pollution that can cause harmful algal blooms. Those advocating for dam removal have called this a half-truth, pointing out that the natural floodplain would be a better, more effective filter.
In 2022, state regulators updated the reservoir’s hazard level to high. That indicator only speaks to loss of life and property damage if it were to fail, not how likely that is to happen based on the dam’s condition. FDEP’s database doesn’t currently list a condition rating.
Miller’s not unilaterally against dam removal in all cases, but he said there’s no proof Rodman Dam’s condition is unsatisfactory.
“As soon as that hit, the people who try to use their best persuasive skills ran around saying, ‘Oh, the dam is going to fall down and it’s been such a hazard,’” Miller said. “Well, that’s not at all what that study says.”
Whether there’s enough momentum to see a dam of Rodman’s scale removed in Florida remains to be seen, said Hill, the retired fisheries biologist.
But the motivations behind installing them in the first place are apparent.
“It’s selfish and short-sighted,” Hill said. “They want gin-clear water, they want to be able to catch 10-pound bass, they want to be able to ski and they want the lake full all the time so they can use it when they want to. They want it all.”
TOO FAR?
The Rodman Dam and reservoir is only one of many examples where local opinion has dictated the fate of water control structures.
On the Withlacoochee River in Lake Panasoffkee, residents have been debating water control methods around the Wysong Dam since 1965.
Water managers installed what’s known as a “water bladder” in 1965 to control water levels. The structure can inflate and deflate on command, controlling how much water can pass through on a much smaller scale than a traditional dam.
It was often vandalized by nearby residents, who would punch holes in it and shoot at it, said Mark Fulkerson, the chief professional engineer at the Southwest Florida Water Management District who grew up nearby in Citrus County.
Once engineers decided the structure outlived its shelf life, they removed it in 1988.
But after a period of drought led to unusually low water levels, Lake Panasoffkee residents fretted about whether that was the right decision.
The doubt led to creation of the Taxpayers Outraged Organization for Accountable Representation, or TOO FAR, which organized residents behind reinstalling the water structure. They charged that the removal lowered water levels, in turn harming recreational fishing and their property values.
“There was this big push at the time to say: Hey, you took the Wysong structure out, and now all of our lakes went dry — we can't use our boats, we can't get around or do anything,” Fulkerson said. “Folks got fired up.”
For the next ten years, the water management district and residents debated on how to best replace the Wysong structure.
It ended in 2002, when engineers reinstalled the structure, which Fulkerson said is more high-tech. Rather than a traditional dam that blocks flow, it is much smaller and only raises the water a few feet at a time.
“It's basically the same flow going down river,” Fulkerson said. “If we raise it a foot because river levels are naturally dropping, it will equalize within a day or so. Whatever flows come in from the upstream area to the structure is still going to pass downstream.”
A free-flowing future
River barrier removals have long been a part of Florida history, an effort Chris Metcalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has seen throughout multiple decades.
He heads Florida’s division of the National Fish Passage Program, a federal effort founded in 1999 that has removed more than 3,500 barriers to marine life, including dams. Dead Lakes in Wewahitchka isn’t the only success story: Over the course of his career with the agency, Metcalf said he’s seen roughly 25 small-scale dams removed throughout the state.
“There’s so much literature out there that shows the benefits of taking out dams,” he said. “Some dams have provided recreational aspects, but a lot of them have done a tremendous amount of damage.”
The program received a $200 million boost from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, including $600,000 for a barrier removal project to take out an earthen dam on the Apalachicola River, a weir dam on the Myakka River and another barrier on the Econlockhatchee River.
Earthen dams create reservoirs and are built using soil, rock, clay and other natural materials. Weirs, on the other hand, don’t store water but can increase water levels on the upstream side. Both, however, deter wildlife from easily passing through.
When finished, the project will open 135 miles of streams helping mussels (five species are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act), Gulf sturgeon and the Florida manatee.
“It’s on everybody's radar,” Metcalf said. “You can come in, rip out a dam and look at what you've restored: tens of hundreds of miles of river in some cases, all by taking out one dam. That's a pretty significant achievement.”
This story is part of a special project investigating dam safety in Florida from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, supported by the Florida Climate Institute.
Copyright 2024 WUFT 89.1
