State: Dam creates flood of debate

Compared with other Florida waterways, the Yellow River runs fast. As its amber current ripples through the Panhandle's pine-covered hills and meanders south to an aquatic preserve on Blackwater Bay, its steep descent to sea level produces a speedy flow.

Now the Okaloosa County Commission wants to stop the rushing river in its tracks.

The five commissioners have voted unanimously to draw up a plan to dam the Yellow River just north of the rural community of Milligan. They want to back the river up 15 miles, all the way to the Alabama state line, flooding 10,000 acres to create a reservoir and provide drinking water to the fast-growing county.

"We need the water real bad," said Commissioner Jackie Burkett, an engineer and one of three dam proponents recently elected to the board.

Okaloosa residents get their water from the underground aquifer. But the Panhandle's aquifer -- much like the one that provides water for Tampa Bay -- has been strained by an ongoing drought and drained by a development boom in the coastal cities of Fort Walton Beach and Destin.

"The only answer to our water shortage is construction of a reservoir," said Mark Weatherly, a retired psychologist from Crestview who is vice chairman of Citizens for Water Conservation.

Over the past year, Citizens for Water Conservation has spearheaded a pro-dam petition drive that collected thousands of signatures.

The group also has won endorsements for the dam from the Crestview and Fort Walton city councils, and Burkett said the area's legislators are backing it, too.

Dam proponents see plenty of side benefits. They say the reservoir would create valuable new waterfront property in the north end of the county, open up new jobs by creating an opportunity for marinas and other fishing-related businesses, perhaps even provide a new source of electrical power for the area.

No one has drawn up the first blueprint, but the dam already is drawing strong opposition from environmental groups. Florida Wildlife Federation president Manley Fuller promises, "We're going to fight them tooth and nail."

Environmental groups have spent three decades trying to rip out the Central Florida dam that blocked the once-wild Ocklawaha River and created the 9,000-acre Rodman Reservoir, drowning part of the Ocala National Forest.

Gov. Jeb Bush recently endorsed their struggle and is asking the Legislature for $800,000 to launch the restoration of the river.

That's why the Yellow River dam is so wrong, Fuller said. "We're talking about another Rodman dam."

That would be fine with Burkett, who calls the Rodman "a wonderful facility that does nothing to harm the environment." Environmental activists "think that any time you touch any area like a river, you destroy something valuable," he said. "We want to protect the environment, but we've got a lot of people here, too."

Florida already has plenty of dams, some of them known by the less controversial name of "impoundments." State Department of Environmental Protection officials have counted more than 1,000 around the state and say there might be up to four times that many.

Some dams were built to contain municipal water supplies, some to help mine for phosphate. There are dozens of small ones across the Panhandle, built by farmers or developers who lopped off small streams and strangled swamps to create pastures, fields or dry home sites around an artificial pond.

The rest of the country is dotted with dams too, more than 75,000 of them, most built back when a wild river was regarded as something to be tamed. In the 1990s the tide of public opinion turned against dams, though, and more than 200 have been dismantled to restore the rivers.

While the rest of the country tears down dams, Okaloosa was spurred to build a new one when county officials began drilling six new wells in the rural north end of the county to supply 3-million gallons of water a day to the beach cities in the south. Weatherly said northern Okaloosa residents fear the drilling will dry up their private wells, prompting them to push for a dam instead.

Dam proponents have no price tag yet, but they see it as a lucky break that the Yellow River's banks are so pristine and quiet.

"There are just four or five homes that would be impacted," Burkett said. "No farms, no churches and no cemeteries would be impacted."

But the reason the river is so pristine is that the Northwest Florida Water Management District has spent $8.3-million to buy 16,000 acres of environmentally sensitive riverfront land.

"We were buying that property to preserve the natural systems and the wildlife and keep houses from encroaching on the flood plain," said Ron Bartell of the water district staff.

Would flooding that land with water from the dammed river preserve it? Bartell laughed and said, "I think that would be a big no."

In their 5-0 vote Dec. 5, commissioners approved a motion by Burkett to ask the Legislature for $100,000 to pay for a feasibility study. The study would sketch out a design for the dam and outline any impediments to building it.

The biggest hurdle is likely to be getting permits from a host of state and federal agencies. The agencies will question the dam's impact on the river's water quality and its wildlife.

The state has classified the Yellow River as an Outstanding Florida Water, which is supposed to protect it from being degraded by pollution. Getting a dam permitted on an Outstanding Florida Water "would be very tough," predicted Larry O'Donnell of the DEP. "When you build a dam, generally the water quality within the dam decreases."

And cutting off the river's contribution of fresh water to Blackwater Bay in neighboring Santa Rosa County is likely to turn the bay saltier, changing the marshy habitat there, which worries some Santa Rosa officials.

Dam proponents argue that the reservoir would actually be a boon for the environment.

"It would not harm the marine life," Weatherly said. "It would expand the number of species. They would have a huge lake instead of just a river. The fish population would expand tremendously."

But Patty Kelly of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the dam would block the Yellow River's Gulf sturgeon population from migrating between its spawning grounds in the north end of the river and its winter home in the south.

Altering the natural flow would also harm freshwater mussels such as the purple bankclimber and the Chipola slabshell, which feed by filtering the current.

Because the mussels are an endangered species and the sturgeon is classified as threatened, their standing could give opponents the legal leverage to challenge the dam's construction. But dam proponents contend the public's growing thirst supersedes any effort to preserve a river and its wildlife.

"Everything belongs to the people, and the people have to have water," Weatherly said. "Who comes first when it comes to life-sustaining water, the people or the deer?"

- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.

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