Thursday, February 3, 2011

Beauty In Destruction

Trio

These photos were taken last weekend before I flew off to the snow and ice of the north... The body of water above is called Lake Oklawaha on the map. In reality this is the result of the damming of the Oklawaha River -- an utterly unnecessary reconfiguration of the Saint Johns most beautiful tributary. The pilings above support the exclusion fence at the west end of the lake, immediately east of the dam's spillway. A remnant of the failed cross-Florida barge canal, this is a monument to environmental re-engineering at its worst.

Below is the barbed wire fence protecting the unused Buckman Lock on the abandoned barge canal, about 5 miles east of the dam. An appropriate metaphor of the stupidity that continues to wreck natural Florida. Not that I have an opinion...