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On New Year’s morning, Captain Erika Ritter wakes before dawn in the cabin on Florida’s Ocklawaha River her grandfather built in 1937 out of pine logs and cypress timber from the nearby swamp. She operates river tours aboard her pontoon boat, “The Anhinga Spirit,” and has to prepare for back-to-back charters. Ritter’s passengers usually opt for trips upriver to see what’s left of the wild Ocklawaha, a spring-fed stretch that winds through canopy forests with sidelong palm trees and sleeping alligators. But ever since fall, she’s been busy showing them a part of Florida hidden for the past sixty years: The miles of river drowned in 1968 for a federal project called the Cross Florida Barge Canal… Click to Read Full Article

A Florida senator kicked off 2026 with another attempt to restore the Ocklawaha River after Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected the legislator’s attempt last year. On Jan. 5, Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, filed the Northeast Filed the Northeast Florida Rivers, Springs and Community Investment Act, or Senate Bill 1066, which calls for the breaching of Kirkpatrick Dam to restore Ocklawaha by Dec. 31, 2032. The bill was referred Monday to the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government, according to the Senate…Click to Read Full Article

Two influential lawmakers, Sen. Jason Brodeur and Rep. Wyman Duggan, have filed legislation (SB 1066, HB 981) requiring the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to develop a plan to restore the Ocklawaha River by Jan. 1, 2027…Click to Read Full Article

“Art doesn’t reflect what we see; it makes us see.” – Paul Klee

Matt Keene’s Prius looks out of place among the half dozen pickup trucks on the sandy bank of the Ocklawaha River. It looks stranger still when he pops the trunk, heaves out a glass bottle of clear liquid and sets it on the roof. An acclaimed photographer, journalist and explorer, Keene came to the Ocklawaha from St. Augustine to document its reemergence.

The Rodman/Kirkpatrick Dam, an early piece of the never-completed Cross Florida Barge Canal, flooded this swampy landscape in 1968. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has coordinated periodic, three-month drawdowns ever since to mimic the river’s natural cycles and kill off aquatic weeds…Click to Read Full Article

New legislation introduced in the Florida Senate and House of Representatives could finally set a concrete timeline for the restoration of the Ocklawaha River, while offering Marion County significant influence over the process and a dedicated economic development program.

Senator Jason Brodeur filed Senate Bill 1066 on Monday, Jan. 5, followed by the introduction of the companion House Bill 981. Both bills are titled the “Northeast Florida Rivers, Springs, and Community Investment Act” and are scheduled for the 2026 legislative session…Click to Read Full Article

A bill filed Monday could lead to the restoration of North Florida’s Ocklawaha River. Lawmakers behind the bill are calling it “their region’s Everglades restoration.” The Senate version of the bill (SB 1066) was filed by Republican Senator Jason Brodeur and the House version (HB 981) by Republican Representative Wyman Duggan. The bills would require the Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan for restoring the Ocklawaha River, which is a tributary of the St. Johns River, to a “natural, free-flowing state” by 2032…Click to Read Full Article

Senate and House Republicans on Jan. 5 proposed bills that could lead to the long-debated restoration of North Florida’s Ocklawaha River, while also addressing outdoor recreation and economic development. Click to Read Full Article

Senate and House Republicans on Monday proposed bills that could lead to the long-debated restoration of North Florida’s Ocklawaha River, while also addressing outdoor recreation and economic development. Click to Read Full Article

On Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, Florida lawmakers Sen. Jason Brodeur (R, 10th District) and Rep. Wyman Duggan (R, 12th District) introduced the Northeast Florida Rivers, Springs and Community Investment Act in the state Senate and House. If passed, SB 1066 and HB 981, respectively, would require the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to create a plan to breach Rodman Reservoir’s Kirkpatrick Dam in Putnam County, and engage in a multi-agency project to oversee the commercial, recreational and environmental aspects of allowing the Ocklawaha River to return to its natural waterway, connecting the Silver, Ocklawaha and St. John’s rivers and Silver Springs and impacting the 12 Florida counties along the watershed, including Alachua, Lake, Marion and Putnam counties in the 352…Click to Read Full Article