River be dammed: Florida's forgotten river 

Thanks for watching! My heartstrings snap everytime i visit the glades. Its a beautiful place that's faced a lot of hardships

Foreign owned sugar beet growers were protected while the Everglades were sacrificed. Politicians lied and habitat died.

We could create such a more harmonious world, knowing what we do today. Instead, we still believe that what we have is the best way.

Little late for Florida not being exploited unfortunately.😔

Thank you for sharing and for watching!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for watching!

Thanks for watching!

How about draining the swamps around Miami??

Thank you for sharing your history and for watching!

I grew up in ocala...moved there when i was 11 in 1984. Its changed so much.

With Ocala becoming a distribution hub and the Roberts turning the area into a winter playground for rich horse people it's only going to get worse. They tried running a turnpike through the Rainbow and failed but they did manage to install a natural gas pipeline which runs parallel to it. It is no more than five miles from the head springs.

Don't worry, your grandchildren would rather be playing video games and watching ticcrap on their cellphones.

We used to deerhunt south of Eureka in the mid 60's.i remember coming back from overseas in 1968 and looking down from the airplane and seeing the canal. Nothing was mentioned about the first attempt to canal the river. Early in 1900s. There is proof of that on 301south of Ocala where the road splits. A wooded area has 2 concrete bridge abutments back from the road.

Thank you! For more on the springs related to the Ocklawaha River, check out my other short film "Lost Springs"

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Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching! Search for the group Free the Ocklawaha, they have the most current resources on the restoration efforts

Get some shovels and dynamite...plenty of good old boys out there with the materials

This is the story of EVERY waterway in florida. We live in a SWAMP. Your house was once a SWAMP. Every new house was SWAMP paved over. Where does all that water that the SWAMP percolated and filtered? Now full of pesticides and fertilizers, straight into the logoons and oceans and no one can figger out why shits all dying.

Save Rodman

Just go down there with some dynamite and knock it down. Nobody is stopping anyone from doing that. Once it's done they won't build it back.

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Im 45yo, I knew of Rodman dam since it's not far away but I didn't know about all this on the video. I always thought people crossed Florida at Lake Okeechobee. That sur is a lot of work, money spent and environmental issues just to cut 400-500 miles out of a trip.

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Where would that be?

Where do you live now?

Where would that be? Imagination land?

Thank you for leaving.

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Thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching and sharing! I tried to interview a few glass-bottom boat tour operators but was unable to.

Thanks for watching! Bridges allowing water to flow to all the glades and not just past ag and limited channels is needed, I agree.

Thanks for watching! The Kissimmee is also a testament to the power of natural systems to recover.

Yup... I had a fish camp home on the south side of Lake Kissimmee, for 20 years. After they built the Kissimmee river dam across the lower end on Highway 60, The government came in and took it all for pennies on the dollar, saying it was all now a floodplain. Entire communities of people were robbed of their property there as they rerouted the Kissimmee River creating real-estate farther south. All while ignoring already endangered wildlife all along the way to Okeechobee and beyond.

Thanks for sharing. The Everglades is an amazing place to grasp our watery state, especially by bike, foot or paddle. Fortunately, the Ocklawaha is an easy fix... once it happens.

The Everglades and several rivers and streams in South Florida have been changed over and over. The Army Core of Engineers did as much as possible to screw up our natural waterways. And now we have monster snakes in the Everglades that do NOT belong there. I am a Floridian! I am 3rd generation born in the same town and my son is 4th generation Floridian. My family has seen a lot done to Florida over the generations. Of course, October 1971 Florida was the final straw for our state to no longer the same again.

Like your own. Your own house. Hypocrite!

You biking there is interfering with it as well.

@@mikepalmer2219 Countless microorganisms wiped out by his riding. He only cares about the shiny things. It's like the tree huggers telling foresters in Brazil not to harvest their crops. What about the grass the tree hugger mows in his own lawn? It's all perspective, scale, time. Get off the bike and in an airplane and you'll see that we're just fine.

Thank you for watching!

Thanks for watching, I agree that is a special place to visit!

Thank you for watching!

Thanks for watching! I made a short film on Melrose called The Lake Santa Fe Story, feel free to check it out on RU-vid. It was a great opportunity to spend time with folks from that community.

@@mattkeene oh I know a lot of people there. I know a guy that plays the dulcimer. David Beede I believe is his name . I’m sending all the videos to my dad who lives there. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing your story and watching!

@@mattkeene I love videos of old Florida and this one hit close to home and i never knew of it

Thanks for sharing and for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

LBJ was installed to do nothing but screw the USA up. That's why he didn't run for a 2nd term, he did the damage the deep state needed him to do. He was heading off to enjoy his retirement with his fat pockets.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you! There are strong efforts underway to breach the dam. Visit freetheocklawaha.com to learn more and, if you're interested, check out the short film I made a few years after this called Lost Springs.

Thanks for sharing your story and watching!

Thank you for watching! There were a lot of moving parts and motivations towards the construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal you are right!

Thanks for watching!

Beavers know what they are doing. Corporations do not. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.

Thanks for watching! The canal was never completed. Disney

Lmao

Sorry to offend you Native Americans

Yankees built and maintain Florida.

Yankees built and maintain Florida.

Probably the widespread destruction that would be caused by the restoration. Activists care about their cause but often ignore the consequences of getting what they are asking for. It isn't a simple thing to reverse what they have done. The area has had many decades to heal itself. It will never be what it was before we made a mess of it and trying to reverse it will only lead to the deaths of millions more fauna and flora. That is before we even consider the impact to humans.

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​@Cerceify I grew up in ocala, me and my brother have homes now in ocklawaha. I want to help restore the ocklawaha. What can we as people do to get all the dams and locks off of the ocklawaha

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What is there to say...... sad 😢

It will never stop. I am not supporting it I am just stating facts.

Run for office. Get people out to vote, especially young people. If you don’t like this shit. You can change it.

@@mattwhaley1865 yes because that’s how it works. Lol. Your delusional.

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hog valley-----biggest dump in Florida-------the wild west wasn't this bad-

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Thanks for watching and sharing!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

But yet you benefit from all kinds of modern things.

@@mikepalmer2219It's great! Alexa, how much mercury is in 8lbs, of bass?

@@russell3380 that was not even close to the point I was making.

@@mikepalmer2219 Well, I'm sorry about that.

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Thanks for watching!

It’s gone from a low hazard failure rate to recently they declared it has a high hazard of failing. So they need to do something soon either way or it might fail and kill a bunch of people. This is Florida though where 85% of the population wants it removed but the politicians just ignore the voters and we’ll probably hear about it failing in a few years. I don’t understand how it could cause more damage to remove it, can you elaborate as to why? I realize some properties would get flooded that have been built since the dam, but usually the property owners will be compensated by the government if it’s a planned dam removal. I don’t see the downsides of restoring it to how it was, it would help migrating fish and birds and the people would benefit from getting the springs back which would help against saltwater intrusion into the drinking water supply. Currently there’s issues where people can’t use their local water if the ocean water has intruded, if it keeps going at this pace it’s conceivable property values will drop significantly in areas where the groundwater has been contaminated by salt and can no longer be used in homes. It’ll cost way more money to pipe water to people than whatever it costs to restore the water balance by removing the dam. Selling a house with no fresh water supply is probably really difficult.

The dam is much farther north than the everglades. You are wrong. Stay out of Florida, don't even come to visit...

​@@jiveturkey365 Don't tell me what to do . I have friends who live in Florida and I will visit them at anytime I want.

@bak-mariterry5180 I just spoke with your "friends" they said to tell you stay home.

You have no idea how wrong you are .

Thanks for watching!

There's always two ways to look at this. The tree huggers don't want the dam. The bass fishermen don't want to live without it. It's true baitshops struggle. Too many in too small an area and Walmart sells everything except shiners and minnows.

The river is still there and the fish still swim in it.

​@markdalton3834 nobody said they deleted the river. Of course it's still there, but it's restricted by the dam. Imagine someone tied a rope around your neck, you could breath still but not much. Eventually you'd fall over dead, maybe a few days maybe a year. But it would not be comfortable...

Not sure how old you are . I'm assuming by your comment not as old as I am . I lived in the Ocala National Forrest and I remember every and I mean every trip going up the ocklawaha you would see many 10,12 and 15 lb bass swimming . In April and May you would 20 to 30 catfish 25 to 40 lbs easily swimming together to find those white sand bottoms to make their beds to spawn . As it sits now you will never see that again . The fish and wildlife don't care what you or I think when it comes to their existence . I watched one of the most beautiful places I've seen in this country be destroyed by outsiders and the love of money . Fla as whole .

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Finish the canal....

Thanks for sharing and for watching!

Yup. It is such an interesting story of Federal travesty.

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Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thank you for sharing! The archive footage was provided from the Florida State Archives. You can see that entire video (called "Florida's Canal Main Street") here: floridamemory.com/items/show/245871

Would you have felt better if they had used a chain saw?

Thanks for watching! The river is not anywhere close to getting restored though.

@@mattkeene i hope it gets fully restored!

​​​@@johnfontenot7861We get it. You don't respect indigenous peoples. However, why do you think corporations have more "rights" than than the earth and mother nature?

@@cliftongreene5318 i didnt know corporations had “rights”

​@@johnfontenot7861Well, maybe you should learn about the the Citizens United decision by the Supteme Court. Corporations have been given basically all the rights formerly exclusive to individual citizens. There was a reason the framers of the Constituon were wary of corporations and put stringent restrictions on their formation, what they were allowed to do and limited their longevity. Those very prudent limitations have been eroded over the years by wealthy interests to the point that corporations now have outsized influence on every decision made in government and the individual citizens have very little say without solidarity of voice and action. Of course there is a lot of corporate propaganda to convince the citizenry that the poor corporations are being persecuted by the government with regulations and taxes but any honest assessment of the revolving door between government officials and boardroom executives tells a different story.

No you need to remove your humor and look at the facts . It is so simple . I'm sure you are not likely from Fla. .

Thanks for sharing your story and history. That machine was quite the assembly and it must have been a thing to see.

Thanks for watching! Check out my other short film Lost Springs for more perspective on the river!

Thanks for watching! Search Free the Ocklawaha for current updates but the impoundment is managed by the state and so that management and maintenance will continue until funds are appropriated and directed towards restoration. It doesnt need to be destroyed, just opened or breached and is a simple fix in the end, you're right

Don't make this a red, blue issue. Don't take the politicians bate, that's how nothing gets done. Not to mention, Tearing our country apart!

Please spare me. Both parties suck.

Thanks for watching! Like most dammed rivers, the flow is controlled at a gate. When the gates were lowered, a large backwater was created along nearly 16 miles of river. This backwater slopes deeper towards the dam where more water piles up and spreads lower miles upstream from the dam, impacting thousands of acres of wetlands. Thats why trees 12 miles upstream from the dam are sickly... kept in a state of permanent, low floodwaters.

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Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching! Although the majority of state and federal agencies support restoration, money from the state needs to be directed towards an approved restoration project.

Thanks for watching, I agree

Thanks for watching!

There are way more Yankees that are way more redneck than the south will ever be.

The rich city people aren't Yankees. The United States of America is all Yankee. With a few ignorant rebel southerners. But way more good rebs than bad just like way more good thanks than bad. Get with it quit feeling sorry for yourself.