Jim Gross explains the history of the Ocklawaha River, one of Florida's most fixable environmental tragedies

The Ocklawaha River remains one of Florida’s greatest environmental blunders, choked off by a dam built in the 1960s to build the cross-Florida barge canal. The canal never happened, but the dam remains. More than 10,000 acres of forest and at least 20 springs were drowned by the lake that was created. Now the dam is aging, made of mostly sand, and is at high risk of failure. Yet the state continues to drag its feet on removing the dam and restoring the river’s natural flow, which would re-in...