CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. — Human-caused pollution and overuse are having a significant impact on our crystal-clear natural springs. Some have stopped flowing, while others are full of algae. Ecosystems, however, can flip from clean to dirty and back to clean again.
Cleaning up natural springs is challenging, but the dedicated staff at Sea & Shoreline have honed their skills over the past eight years.
"We have completely flipped this system. We've got beautiful clear water and lots and lots of grass for all of the manatees to eat," Jessica Mailliez, Senior Environmental Manager at Sea & Shoreline, said. "We have restored nearly 90 acres, but it's taken off to over 300 acres now."
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska went out on the water with Mailliez and her team to watch the last few acres of eelgrass get planted as they transitioned from Crystal River to the restoration of Kings Bay.
Once they gave nature a chance, the eelgrass took over the algae-dominated system. The ecosystem is now filtering out fertilizers and sustaining itself. But it took a lot of work.
Divers spent hours in the water, first sucking out decades of muck (the eelgrass won't take root in the muck), so removing it was essential to giving the plants a chance to survive. Divers also spent hours underwater planting upwards of 10,000 pods of eelgrass each day.
The statistics for the project are staggering.
According to Sea & Shoreline, 450,000 pods of eelgrass were planted by hand. Divers vacuumed out 600 million pounds of muck, and in the process, 870 spring vents were cleared and now flowing freely.
"Some of them have been clogged for so long and left some of these areas stagnant. Now there's more flow in some of these areas, so there is a lot more water movement," Mailliez said.
Mailliez added that the work can be exhausting.
"Hours and hours under the water. You're on either snorkel or surface-applied air, you're swimming miles and miles a day and you have to come and check on the grass," she said.
Water pollution, leaky septic tanks and too much water from the aquifer for development, agriculture and drinking water all strain the system.
The upcoming Kings Bay restoration project is roughly 600 acres, with more years of hard work ahead. Mailliez knows it will make the entire ecosystem better.
"The manatee tours, the eco-tours, they've all really benefited from this clean water. The Kings Bay project is something that will go down in history," she said.
As we saw in our previous report with National Geographic photographer Jason Gulley, Florida's crystal clear springs are under attack. Green algae, pollution, lack of flow and overcrowding play a role. Crystal River is truly a success story that Mailliez said can be replicated.
"It takes a lot of effort. But we can get back," Mailliez said. "There's a lot of doom and gloom out there. But this is one of those high hopes stories. We want to spread that throughout the state."
