Oxymoron Thing
FROM THE OCTOBER STORY (WHERE DOES THE WATER COME FROM)
In my story last month (Where does the water come from?) I used the word oxymoron while talking about the Kissimmee River Basin. I said the Kissimmee River Basin is 60 miles long and about 30 miles wide but the Kissimmee river WAS 125 miles long and is now only 50 miles long. I’m sure that someone out there is trying to figure out if I’m crazy or not. I assure you all that I am as sane, my friends, as every one of you.
An oxymoron is something that is incongruous or contradictory and the unfortunate transformation of the Kissimmee River and Kissimmee River Basin certainly fits the definition. The Kissimmee River was, in fact, 125 miles long until the Army Corps of Engineers and their scientists decided it would be ok to straighten out the river and drain off the wet lands surrounding the Kissimmee River Basin. The Army Corps of Engineers dug a straight canal from the north to the south. The new Kissimmee River is now about 40 yards wide, 50 miles long and about 15 to 20 feet deep.
Before the Army Corps came along, the Kissimmee River was 125 miles long and as narrow as 10 yards wide up to 100 yards wide. The Kissimmee River was never very deep. In some places the river was only a few inches deep and in other parts the river was 6 to 9 feet deep. The Kissimmee River was a 125-mile long filtration system. Scientists now say that over 10 feet of depth there isn’t much in the way to filter off living organisms. The way the Kissimmee River Basin filtered the water flowing southward was by allowing the water to slowly leech through layers of muck in the bottom of the river as it flowed south until it finally drained into Lake Okeechobee as clean clear water. Once the river was straightened to only 50 miles long, the natural, gradual filtering system was lost and the wet lands to the east and west of the Kissimmee went dry.
With what I’ll now call the Kissimmee canal came plenty of new projects for the army corps of engineers. With the new dry land came vegetable farmers and cattle ranchers. The farmers and ranchers created a new problem, farm run off. The farmers brought fertilizer and pesticides that wash into the Kissimmee canal. The cattle ranchers brought cattle and the cattle leave behind cow pies that break down and wash into the Kissimmee canal. With no effective filtering system the water, now polluted with nitrates and chemical fertilizer runoff, flowed into Lake Okeechobee and caused massive algae blooms that have almost killed the lake.
After re-analyzing the problem, the Army Corps of Engineers went back and blocked off the new Kissimmee canal backing up the water (somewhat) onto the wet lands again. It took nature 15 to 20 thousand years to build the Kissimmee River and the river basin and it took man (the Army Corps) just a few years to destroy it. Because the Kissimmee River is an oxymoron, that makes The Everglades an oxymoron and I will explain how The Everglades is an oxymoron next month.
I do hope I helped you understand how the Kissimmee river used to work compared to how it "works" now.
THANKS so much for visiting our award winning web site this month and I hope to see you next month!
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THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Mr. Glenn W. Wilsey Sr. "GATORMAN"
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