The year was 1992 and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers had just returned the Cross Florida Barge Canal Lands to the state of Florida. The Florida Defenders of the Environment (FDE) were saying and publishing all sorts of bad things about Rodman Reservoir to bolster their case for the destruction of the reservoir and the restoration of the Ocklawaha River.
Senator Kirkpatrick didn't believe a lot of what the FDE was saying, so to get proof that they weren't telling the truth about Rodman he asked Dr. Dan Canfield at the University of Florida to take a look at the existing data on Rodman and try to determine just what was truth and what was fiction.
The following is the published results of Dr. Canfield's work reformatted for the web. Page numbers are used for navigation throughout the document and the numbers correspond to their position in the original document. Don't be startled if some page numbers are missing. They were not necessary to get around in the document because some pages were combined for a continuous flow of information.
Even though "To Be or Not to Be" was published a few years ago, the FDE is still saying and publishing the same old propaganda now, so the information in "To Be or Not to Be" is still appropriate. The environmental arguments are still valid, the economic arguments are still to the point, but perhaps the money amounts have changed due to inflation. The reservoir is still inexpensive to maintain and a great value both environmentally and economically to the area and it would cost a great deal more to try and restore the Ocklawaha River.