A line of people waiting more than five abreast outside Chiefland High School's auditorium snakes down a breezeway and into a parking area. Some of the nearly 1,000 people attending arrived at the school more than three hours before the Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing began. The committee has collected testimony on a proposal from the Council of 100, a group that advises Gov. Jeb Bush.
JoAnne Kendall's sign sums up the sentiments of hundreds attending the hearing. Thursday's hearing was the last in a series.
CHIEFLAND - They piled into pickup trucks, church buses and vans, then headed Thursday night to this small Levy County town, driven by the one issue that unites them all:
Water.
The estimated 1,000 residents who showed up at rural Chiefland High School, home of the 10-1 Indians football team, would never advocate pumping North Florida water to the state's urban areas.
"Not one damn drop," Crystal River resident John Kendall, a member of the City Council, shouted from the crowd of nearly 1,000 residents.
The Chiefland meeting was the last in a series of public hearings before the Senate Natural Resources Committee, which has collected testimony on a proposal from the Council of 100, a group of business leaders that advises Gov. Jeb Bush.
The council's plan, which Bush has stopped short of endorsing, calls for pumping water from regions like the Suwannee River to bolster fast-growing South and Central Florida. For its last hearing on the water-pumping plan, the Senate committee selected Chiefland, in the heart of the area targeted for water.
Nearly all testimony around the state has opposed the Council of 100's report, but in Chiefland, the comments took on a new level of emotion.
Here, the battle is personal.
Residents from an approximately five-county area filled the brick high school's 486-seat auditorium, then spilled over into the gymnasium, where they watched the hearing on closed-circuit television. A Levy County deputy directing traffic said the cars started pulling in three hours before the meeting started.
They came from small communities such as Bell and Williston and Citronelle and Crystal River. People from urban areas of Florida think of them as good spots to buy a weekend cottage or swim with the manatees.
But development is encroaching on those communities, too. The Suwannee contingent at Thursday's meeting had to duck out early, heading home to fight a developer who hopes to block a main Suwannee road for a gated community.
"With all the problems in Suwannee," said Debora Alcorn Howerter, "this water transfer is not a good thing."
Although everyone who spoke was against the idea of pumping water southward, not all of them were like-minded. Some spoke from the perspective of environmentalists who want to protect their region's water. Others want the water kept close to home to promote local growth.
They spoke with the drawl of native Floridians, or the curtness of Boston retirees. They approached the podium with walkers, with prepared notes or with anger.
Bob Perinchief of Silver Springs approached with a musical score, directed at residents of Tampa. He rewrote the lyrics of an old Sons of the Pioneers song, Cool Water, and sang in a loud baritone, inviting the audience to join in the refrain.
"We ride the bus to raise a fuss
About your need for water
Cool water
We hear your cry - you'd like to try
to pay to buy our water
Cool, clear water."
When he finished, Perinchief shouted, "Leave us alone, Tampa," bringing cheers from the crowd.
Most people at the podium realized they were preaching to the choir, a room full of like-minded people. They encouraged each other to contact the other legislators and the governor, demanding protection for their local water.
"I don't have anything to say to anybody in this room, really," said Gloria Eason of Ocala, speaking quickly so she could catch her bus back to Dunnellon City Hall. "We're all in agreement: Don't send our water away."
Words from the citizens' podium were pumped onto the high school grounds through loudspeakers.
People who didn't have a seat in the auditorium or the gym huddled outside, their hands in their pockets, their shoulders hunched against the chill of a Levy County night.
