TAMPA, Fla. — During the pandemic, Jason Gulley's entire world changed. He watched all the research he poured his life into "go up in flames."
With a background in journalism in newspapers, Gulley decided to use his camera as a tool to tell the story of Florida's imperiled natural springs. In the 1990s, Gulley moved to Florida from a small town in Ohio; he was hooked.
"If I wanted to see the world, you know, I experienced the world through National Geographic," Gulley said. "Being a kid in a small town surrounded by cornfields, you know, is like grabbing a National Geographic Magazine and being like, 'Oh, my gosh, Papua New Guinea is otherworldly.' So that's how I saw the world. And for me to finally reach a point in my career where I'm publishing in a magazine that was so important for my understanding of the world as a kid is really like a lifelong dream."
Gulley's images were first published in a Sept. 2021 digital story on NatGeo titled "Pollution and overuse threaten Florida's fragile freshwater springs."
His powerful photographs were recently used in theJanuary issue of National Geographic Magazine.
The master cave diver takes readers inside beautiful caverns, cave systems, and natal springs that look otherworldly. His work during the unusual mortality event that claimed the lives of thousands of Florida manatees was a sad reminder of how human actions can lead to massive die-offs of some of our most astonishing creatures.
"Florida has a really big nutrient pollution problem. A lot of the springs and nutrient pollution either stems from sewage or agricultural fertilizers, and some in some urban areas are also lawn fertilizers; that's a bit of a problem. So as you know, 800 to 900 people a day are moving to the state of Florida; that's 800 to 900 more people who are creating sewage that we have to manage and deal with in rural parts of the state and even in areas that are rapidly urbanizing," Gulley said.
He continued, "For example, around Indian River Lagoon, a lot of the waste management is done with septic tanks, and because of the geology in Florida, the limestone is very, very porous; all of the waste from the septic tank leeches down through the aquifer and then comes out of our springs. Septic Tanks aren't designed to work in these types of environments."
Water use to sustain development is also draining the aquifer. As flows slow during drought, springs become stagnant, flows at some drop to zero, and those springs dry up, potentially lost forever. Through these events, harmful algae see an opportunity and take over. Nutrient pollution fuels the blooms, and springs are covered in algae mats.
"There are over 1,000 known freshwater springs in the state of Florida, and not all of them are sampled regularly. So it's difficult to say with any degree of certainty how many, like what percentage of those 1,000 springs are impaired, but of the springs sampled regularly, the vast majority are showing increasing signs of impairment," Gulley said. "It's just steadily increasing concentrations of nitrogen and other types of nutrient pollution. It's associated either with sewage or agricultural pollution."
The fears are real, and what Gulley describes is not an over-exaggeration.
In Tampa, Sulphur Springs, once described as Florida's Coney Island is closed. In 1986, the city determined the water was unsafe for people to swim. So, they built a swimming pool next to the spring to replicate with concrete and chemicals that nature gave us for free.
"If we keep going the way we're going, what is your biggest fear?," Paluska asked Gulley.
"My biggest fear, and it's far off into the future, probably not as far off as I hope it'll be, is that one day, we're just not going to have springs," Gulley said.
"Where do we get to the tipping point where your images and your sacrifice out in this water every day start to change minds?" Paluska asked.
"When COVID shut down international travel, I watched 10 years of hard work go up in flames, you know, as like, someone shut off the factory. I was sitting at home, and it's super depressing. And you know, and then I started to wonder, I was like, man, you know, like my career's just torched. But then I was like, did it even matter? Right? So, I realized that today, scientists know more about how humans have impacted the planet than at any other point in history. We have incredible data that shows what we're doing to the planet. But for some reason, fewer people seem to understand or care about it today. And part of the reason is that scientists haven't done a particularly great job communicating what we're seeing to the general public. So, I realized quickly that more science probably wasn't going to move the needle on things I cared about."
Gulley turned to the power of photos to change hearts and minds.
"I think images are so powerful because people can connect to them emotionally," Gulley said. "Manatees are something that almost everybody in the world loves. They're not universally loved. But as far as animals go, they're pretty close, maybe below whales. But, they're just these, you know, super wonderful, happy creatures that people love to see and experience. And, we were watching thousands of them die as a result of nutrient pollution. And, you know, so for me, it was an opportunity to go and photograph, like, this is what nutrient pollution actually looks like. And it's the same thing I've been trying to do with springs. We can talk about nutrient pollution in springs. But what does it look like? You know, it's explosions of algae that are choking out all of the vegetation that animals need to live in. I think it's easy to focus on the kind of industry versus the environment. But the reality is springs and large parts of the natural environment in Florida are economic engines for rural Florida."
