Yet, we are not alone in the wilderness. Within a half hour's drive of our location are many examples of human activities that have put Florida's springs at risk: dairy farms, large crop farms, limerock mines, a cement plant, a water bottling plant, and just fifteen miles east of us, the creeping tentacles of Gainesville's urban sprawl.

The location of Camp Skiles helps us understand the spring's watershed, more commonly known as the springshed, and the things that threaten springs and the aquifer. Contrary to popular belief, water's journey through north Florida doesn't begin at the spring; it begins in an area known as the recharge zone or springshed where rainfall is absorbed through sinkholes, swallet holes, and sandy soils into Florida's porous limestone bedrock. It is this same water that days, weeks, months, and even decades later mysteriously re-emerges from the ground at the springs.

Examining the Springshed

On a large wall map of the surrounding area in Wes' office amid an avalanche of loose papers, diving equipment, and disassembled video cameras, the concept of aquifer and spring recharge is illustrated with undeniable clarity. North of Ichetucknee River and south of Ginnie Springs, there is no evidence of surface streams. Every drop of the estimated 300 million gallons of freshwater flowing from both springs each day originates underground.

Understanding the recharge area of a spring is key to understanding the things that can pollute it. As rainfall percolates underground in the spring recharge area into the aquifer, it carries with it the by−products of human activity. It isn't just water, therefore, that's welling up from deep underground months later; it also includes the things that entered the aquifer upstream−pollutants like raw sewage from faulty septic systems, chemical pesticides and fertilizers from lawns, nitrates from livestock and agriculture, and oils and other chemicals running off of roads and parking lots.

For many people, the connection between the land surface and the water that comes out of our taps or up from the spring is difficult to grasp. Once flushed out of sight, it's only logical to think that water must also go out of our lives. But as we are learning, nothing could be further from the truth. The 17th century physicist Issac Newton once said in describing the immutable laws of gravity that what goes up must come down. In the case of Florida's springs, however, Newton's law has been turned on its head: what goes down must eventually come up.

With any luck, as we explore Florida's springs with Wes and others, we might also discover what happens to it in the dark and uncharted wilderness in between.

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