Chassahowitzka

Welcome to the Chassahowtizka Community Blog Spot.

We hope to use this site to post News about our Chassahowitzka Community and Environment, and to provide a “virtual” place where Chassahowitzka neighbors and fans can “meet” to exchange information and discuss topics of interest to our neighborhood and greater Nature Coast Community.

Chassa-howitzka is said to be a Creek-Seminole place name, roughly translated as “Hanging Pumpkin place,”

and this quaint town nestled around the River’s mystical main spring, and myriad of spring runs, seems timeless, like it has been this way forever,and we hope it will continue to be, but we worry.

The springs that bring life to our river, infuse the Forested Wetlands,

quench the thirst of our Old Growth Cypress Trees, provide habitat to fresh water fish, frogs, turtles, otters, and a diversity of aquatic, wetland, and estuarine species, including the rare and imperiled Chassahowitzka Black Bears, Whooping Cranes, and beloved West Indian Manatees who find refuge in Chassahowitzka’s warm spring waters and quiet creeks ………

This amazing Greater Chassahowitzka Ecosystem, from the spring headwaters and fresh water forested wetlands, to the estuarine waters of the Gulf, depends upon a constant flow of fresh water from the seeps, spring runs, and river in order to keep the salty waters of the Gulf at bay, and prevent the salt water intrusion to this fresh-water dependent system, and all of the fresh water plants and animals that depend upon these fragile fresh water habitats.

We worry now, in light of the Water Management District’s threat to further permit reduced fresh water flow to the Chassahowitzka River, that the very springs  that sustain all life within their reaches, humans and animals alike, are in jeopardy.

Chassahowitzka’s springs and surrounding ecosystems are increasingly threatened by the combination of drought stress, sea level rise, and the ever increasing human demand for greater quantities of fresh water  pumped from our Spring Shed Aquifers to supply the golf courses, municipal water utilities, and sprawling residential communities and new towns springing up in the formerly “rural” landscapes to our south and east.

Pollution to our river is also a concern, and our County (with our tax dollars) continues to use toxic herbicides to control the aquatic plants that flourish in the nutrient-rich waters, now so laden with nitrates and fertilizer residues being transported via the aquifer from the golf courses and heavily fertilized planned development community lawns and landscapes within the spring aquifer recharge areas.

Pesticides are another potentially carcinogenic pollutant paid for by taxpayers and applied in our fragile Chassahowitzka wetlands during the warm summer months when the Mosquito Control District blankets our town in toxic fog that kills not only the adult mosquitoes, but also our beloved and beneficial fireflies and pollinators.

It has not always been this way.

Everywhere you look in Chassahowitzka, you can find evidence of past cultures that lived here, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 5000 years ago.  All of the cultures that preceded ours, managed to preserve and protect the sacred, life-giving springs, and the myriad of plants and creatures that maintained this rare  fresh water sanctuary, this all-providing “hanging pumpkin place,” in the nearly pristine condition in which our generation inherited it.

We hope that our generation will likewise want to preserve and protect Chassahowitzka for the generations to follow.

We have some challenges.   Hopefully, we can discuss some of them here, and together, unite towards solutions to some of the human problems created.  Perhaps we can work WITH our government to heal this place, and ensure its survival for the people and animals that need it in the future.

Please be patient with us “old folks” as we attempt to learn how to Blog and use social media.  We welcome any volunteers who would like to contribute content or help us maintain the site.

Peace and good will,

your humble Chazmanian Bloggers.