PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — One hundred miles upriver from the mouth of the St. Johns River is a piece of infrastructure that many don’t know about. It’s the Rodman Dam and is the center of a debate about environmental health, the community’s safety, and its economic impact.
It’s in Southern Putnam County near Welaka and Action News Jax found a newly released dam safety report has results that make it even more of a political football.
The Rodman Dam was built as part of The Cross Florida Barge Canal that never came to fruition. It was built 50 years ago and still stands, though it’s never served its intended purpose. Some want it gone, others want it to stay and both sides hoped the report would be the answer to making their plans permanent.
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The findings come with a $1.6 million list of repairs and no clear answers about the future fate of the dam. While the report didn’t find any immediate safety concerns, it does upgrade the risk of damage if it were to fail.
“They are admitting it is a high hazard,” says Lisa Rinaman the St. John’s River Riverkeeper, “meaning there could be loss of life, there could be damage to homes and property as well as to the rivers downstream.”
The report shows 540 homes at risk were a breach to happen. They are all downstream in Welaka. As a proponent of breaching the dam, this is just one plank in the platform of people like Rinaman who want open the flow of the Ocklawaha into St. Johns.
“It is the right thing to do,” Rinaman says, “we need to correct the 50-year wrong. And we can watch the benefits come to life once breached.”
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But for those who want to see it stay, like County Commissioner and Save Rodman Reservoir member Larry Harvey, that risk is too much of a hypothetical when compared the to $25 million dollar price tag it would take to breach and restore it.
Harvey says, “I do expect a 50-year-old structure to need some type of improvement but 1.6 million dollars- that’s a drop in the bucket.”
The repair price could change, though. Divers couldn’t get to a part of the dam due to debris- debris that shouldn’t be there if the barrier weren’t broken. The report recommended that be resolved by July at the latest- even though a resolution of the fate of the dam itself will take much longer.
So for now, repairs will be made as the debate goes on. Rinaman says, “if you compare the damage the dam does every single day and the benefits of restoration- that far outweighs any perceived concerns regarding the loss of the pool.”
While Harvey counters, “we are trying to keep our environment whole as it appears to be and as we grew up with it. We are happy with 21 billion gallons of water 19 feet above sea level. "
The dam report is only a small piece of the debate over the future of this piece of infrastructure that never served its intended purpose. we’ll continue to cover the debate and how it impacts water quality, fisheries and manatees on the St. Johns.
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