"The Lake is Dry." A whole lake disappears in a Florida city. Picture.

[madfloridian]

The water just drained out of it. It is kind of an odd situation, bringing forth mixed emotions about state and county help. It was made private by the homeowners there years ago, no public access to it though I understand it is state-owned land.

It is a tragedy, and it is very scary. Just happened suddenly.



http://theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060623/NEWS/606230389/1039

LAKELAND -- After more than a week of losing water to what may be four sinkholes -- where fish and turtles were gobbled in dramatic gulps -- Scott Lake is now little more than a stinky, puddled beach.

"The lake is dry for all intents and purposes," Rick Powers, president and CEO of BCI Engineers & Scientists, said Thursday.

It has taken nearly 10 days for the 285-acre lake, which is ringed with the Who's Who of Lakeland's bestknown businessmen and executives, to drain.

Powers, whose company has been working with homeowners on the exclusive lake, said Thursday there is still residual water in the lake, with about 10 to 12 feet near the biggest sinkhole along with pools of muck and water that are inches to about a foot deep.

[Wickerman]

1. Poor engineering

don't build a lake community over sinkholes. :shrug:

[xchrom]

2. nature has a sense of humour.

[VolcanoJen]

26. It certainly does.

;-)

[Monk06]

81. Mother Nature, "Just 'cause you bought it doesn't mean you own it."

[SteppingRazor]

3. Weird. While sinkholes are fairly common here in Florida...

it's strange that four would pop up under a lake, and that they would open up into a space beneath that would have enough volume to swallow the entire lake. Those two factors are pretty odd. Usually, a sinkhole just opens into a pit. The lake level would drop a bit, but certainly nothing like this.

[halobeam]

6. Very weird.

Wouldn't want my house near that. Imagine the loss in real-estate value too. Ouch.

[madfloridian]

7. Remember this is the phosphate mining district of Florida.

Or was. Now that they have nearly destroyed our natural resources and have contaminated the land...they are moving on to do it to other areas.

[acmejack]

20. wc grace and their monster dragline

I remember it well from the old days.

[madfloridian]

22. The Bigger Digger?

Ah yes. I wonder if we could find a picture of it. I believe that was the official name of it.

[kittenpants]

25. Is this it?

What a nice Florida postcard.
>

[madfloridian]

37. Looks like it, but pic is small. Hard to tell.

It was huge, all lighted up at night.

[acmejack]

28. I thought it was "Green Boy", either way it was a big sucker!

What eight stories tall I believe!

[acmejack]

29. You could see it for miles away at night with all the lights on the boom!

And the wonder why they have sinkholes, everywhere they stripmine, it seems sinkholes follow. Gaia takes a rather dim biew of strip mining apparently...

[KittyWampus]

4. Were the houses using ground water wells? Did their foundations have

an effect?

[madfloridian]

15. I believe they were on city water. Not sure.

Phosphate mining made the area more susceptible to such sinkhole activity.

[kittenpants]

17. Could have used well water for watering lawns, etc.

but probably not otherwise.

[Botany]

5. Pump all the water out of the limestone under Florida and you .....

.... open up all kinds of space for water to migrate into. And that space is big!

Good bye man made lake for rich people. I wonder where the alligators went?

[JHB]

11. From the amount of media coverage...

...you'd think they all went to Los Angeles.

[kmla]

38. I'm pretty sure they all went back to Capitol Hill.

Ya know, once the current session started.

[CottonBear]

8. This story sounds like the plot line of a Carl Hiassen novel.

I read a novel (can't remember the name) by another author, but still of the Florida novel genre. The main plot line involved evil developers and amusement park owners, a lake side subdivsion, environmental activists and the ultimate draining of the lake.

[demnan]

9. Wow!

I remember seeing that lake when I visited Lakeland years ago. It was a huge lake.

[madfloridian]

12. My parents took their boat out to fish there until they privatized it.

Many people my age remember water-skiing there until they closed it off. I felt so sad to see it. Yes, it is a large lake.

[Kingshakabobo]

10. Baby Jesus doesn't like it when rich folk steal public space.

I'm sure the lake will be "un-converted" just long enough to have the state fix it. I'd bet there are more than a few jeb/junior supporters in that group.

[parasim]

13. So, are they changing the name of the town to Puddleland?

:shrug:

[itzamirakul]

14. Oh, WOW! Those poor, poor rich people...We must show them

how much sympathy we feel for their loss by using tax dollars to repair the sinkholes and replace their "private" lake that we are not allowed to visit.

[Generic Other]

16. So will those who privatized the lake when it was public land

now insist that the taxpayer save them from the disaster? Will they demand that some poor Florida community forego drinking water so they can refill their private lake?

Serves them right. No sympathy from me.

[jwirr]

21. We need to send in FEMA. But seriously can a lake lost to a

sinkhole be fixed?

[Generic Other]

27. With a big enough plug....

glug glug glug...

Yes, you are right. This is a job for FEMA.

:rofl:

[DoYouEverWonder]

57. Sometimes they fix themselves

South of me is a place called Paynes Prairie. Around the 1900's it actually had ferry service across it. Apparently the sinkhole in the middle opens and/or closes every now and then. The last few years its rained a lot, so it is filling up again. However, with the impact of humans, mining and development no one knows what will happen next.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. I was in Fla last week and saw the story on TV.

the lake was receding at the rate of about ten feet a day

they interviewed one of the poor rich people, whining about his poor house (note the size in the picture)

best thing about the story is the name of the town: Lakeland

well, now they can take that name and put a space in between the compound word for the new name:

Lake Land

[Sailor for Warner]

19. They have mroe lakes than they know what to do with.

Tough noogies if you paid for waterfront property. Maybe it will full up with the next hurricane.
:evilgrin:

[SheilaT]

23. On the up side,

once the Greenland Ice Sheet melts, or enough of Antarctica melts, raising the ocean levels world wide by some twenty feet (can you tell I saw Al Gore's film two days ago?) the water will be back and them some. All it will take is a little patience. And to be having patience is to be having a virtue.

[Lochloosa]

24. This is not that uncommon in Florida. Lake Jackson in Tallhassee

does this periodically. This is not a little lake. Over three miles long.

Jess Van Dyke, long-time regional biologist with the Bureau of Invasive Plant Management (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) was there when it happened. "It was spectacular: animals trying to scramble out; a whirlpool of gators, birds and bass went down the hole," said Van Dyke. Lake Jackson is one of Florida's disappearing lakes, lakes with sinkholes that are known to drain periodically. Lake Jackson, for example, has drained 4 times previously in the 20th century, in 1907, 1933, 1957, 1982 and now in 1999.

[kittenpants]

31. That's interesting...

so a huge lake drains away & then eventually fills back up? It's been pretty dry around here lately, could that be a reason you think... like replenishing the groundwater? That might be a really stupid question, but I don't know anything about this type of stuff...

[Lochloosa]

49. The drought Florida is experiencing right now has a lot to do with

sinkholes. There is an underground aquifer in Florida and during stages of droughts sinkholes form. The aquifer is under porous sandstone and limestone and when the water level drops the "roof" caves in.

[Lochloosa]

51. Here is Big Dismal sink just south of Tallahassee, Florida

I used to skip high school and play here in the '70's

It is the deepest within the Leon County Sinks Area. It descends to a depth of 130 ft. This is an area of recharge where water goes underground to feed the aquifer. The bank surrounding Big Dismal is very steep. We could hear the constant sound of water seeping down the sides and dripping into the sink. The vegetation is extremely thick. Over 100 species of plants can be found in this area. White blooming Dogwood trees were growing completely around the rim of the sink

[kittenpants]

58. Thanks, that's interesting.

I went to a few sinkholes around Tallahassee(maybe the one you posted, I can't remember)& they were pretty cool to see, very still.

[CrispyQ]

66. First there is a lake, then there is no lake, then there is.

;)

[Skidmore]

30. Well, the good news story is either the people of Lakeland have a

really big beach now or one heck of a volleyball pit.

[Yollam]

32. Lake. No Lake. What's the difference?

It's still FLORIDA. Christ, no amount of fake berm-ringed "lakes" or palm trees or stuccoed cheesy fake-palatial hotels and condos could EVER make that bug-infested, flat-as-a-pancake, hot-as-fuck-for-10-months-of-the-year HELLHOLE a decent place for human life.

Amazing anyone would ever consider buying property there. :puke:


Jeezus, I'd rather live up in Alaska with the giant mosquitoes and the cold than Flori-DUH.

4 years in Miami will cure you of any romanticized notions of the tropics.

[Skidmore]

34. Yollam, I'm with you on that.

Roaches the size of Cessnas, and ants the size of raisins. Sand in everything, and who the heck wants lighted palm trees at Christmas time?

[windbreeze]

82. About those lighted palm trees....

I just had to have one last Christmas...and everyone loved it..(20 yrs from now they will remember, and it will make them smile I hope...) It still sits in my living room, and when I am feeling down...I turn it on...it does wonders for the doldrums....
I believe a whole lake came up missing in Mo last year about this time also...just a ways NW of St.Louis...I can't recall the name of the lake but it disappeared completely...just as though someone pulled the plug..
wb

[Sailor for Warner]

35. HEY NOW

Ive lived in Florida a good portion of my life, but ive aslso lived in Cali, VA, ny, DC, adn SC. None of them compare to the greatest state in the union, the State of Florida :)

[Yollam]

40. Hey, I lived in Miami almost 5 years...

...which is means I spent FIFTEEN SUMMERS there in that hellhole of rudeness, bugs, geckos, iguanas and HEAT, HEAT HEAT.

It took FOREVER to drive to the nearest place with beauty (IE, three-dimensional landscapes - you know - mountains) and reasonable temperatures - The Asheville, NC area.

I'm glad somebody enjoys the place, and I'll refrain from ragging on it anymore, because some great people like Janet Reno and Bob Graham (whom I've met both of personally) and Claude Pepper were from Florida, and there are some stunningly nice beaches there to make you forget the other things...

[Sailor for Warner]

43. Well I am a bit of a wierdo

I find the everglades absoloutely beautiful. I think only true born and bred Floridians can appreciate its beauty, it no prob. Whenever I used to visit, I would hug the first palm tree out of the airport because I missed it so.

[Crowdance]

46. I'm a weirdo, too.

I love the swamps. Just breathing there is a fine pastime.

[Lochloosa]

53. Welcome to DU Sailor....Baymeadows and Old Kings Road here

:toast:

[Sailor for Warner]

56. Kernan and Beach :)

[catzies]

63. "Hug the first palm tree..." that's great. I like it when the doors open

from the airport terminal to the outside and the air greets you like a warm, wet wall.

This native Floridian has lived in California for 25 years now and still PREFERS FLORIDA WEATHER.

Give me muggy and buggy. I hate the desert - and all of So. Cal. IS a desert if you ask me.

I miss the crickets and the tree frogs at night. And the cicadas on a hot day.

Our backyard in Coconut Grove had a teeny sinkhole and my dad planted ferns & begnias & orchids in some of the limestone pockets in it and it was just lovely.

[ellenfl]

39. and what lovely state do you live in? i'm sure i could

find things to bad mouth about your state.

ellen fl

[Yollam]

41. I've lived in several parts of Texas and California...

...and live in Japan now. There are negative aspects to all of these sunbelt states, but Florida has them in unusual abundance.

First and foremost, I grew up where there are mountains. I never want to live in a totally pancake-flat place again. It's depressing.


Japan is as hot and humid as Florida, but only for a couple or three months. And people here are kind and polite. Miami has the rudest, meanest, loudest, most selfish people I've ever met. I'll admit that other parts of the state are not as bad as Miami in that respect, but the flat, hot, and buggy is pretty much statewide.

[Sailor for Warner]

44. Just so you know

Most Floridians disavor Miami, it does not count, a bunch of rude Yankee old people and very mean Anti-Castro Cubans, the only city in America with its own foreign policy. I am a west coaster (Tampa areas), a healthy mix of Midwestern/Canadian old people and old school southerners. Much nicer, all middle class. No rich shits like on the East Coast.

[Momgonepostal]

64. That's probably typical...

The rank and file residents of many states don't like being judged only by their largest cities. I'm from a part of CA that is NOTHING like Los Angeles, but some people think it's all the same suburb. :eyes:

[madfloridian]

33. Two letters to the editor show anger.

I was very angry when my parents could no longer put their boat in the lake there and fish their favorite spots. I am still amazed at these two letters today, and one yesterday as well. They are very angry.
I feel for the people whose homes are in danger and are losing value, but I also understand the anger.

When you ban the public from a lake, there are feelings that arise.

http://theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060623/NEWS/606230311/1037/EDIT

Letter One snip:

"Scott Lake was a beautiful lake. But don't use my state or federal money to fix it. If this lake were in the middle of the woods somewhere, state officials would study it and let the natural course of events take place.

However, Scott Lake is encircled, literally, by people who denied the use of the lake to the rest of the residents of Polk County and Florida. I've wondered just how long the song would change from "It's your lake, fix it!" to "It's the state's lake, maybe the state ought to fix it."

It was inevitable that the people living around the lake got their message to state and local officials. There are more rich and political contacts living around that lake than many areas of Tallahassee and Washington.

The children across the road from Scott Lake used to be able to swim in the lake before the county "forgot" to pay a lease that "gave" us access to the lake. (Some of those same "forgetful" people lived on the lake shore.)"

And from Letter Two, snip:

"I want to correct your reporter who wrote that Scott Lake is a private lake. Scott Lake is not a private lake, period.

I have vivid memories of my family, friends and I boating and water-skiing on Scott Lake. We used the former county public launch where Fitzgerald Road intersects with Scott Lake Road, and I parked my boat and trailer on former county public-access land at the southwest corner of Scott Lake Road and Fitzgerald Road.

Somehow the lease the county had expired. Details of the expiration of the county's lease on the land for the launch and parking remains as murky as the depths of Scott Lake itself. The rumored explanation was that some unnamed person responsible for having the lease renewed "forgot" to get it done.

Because the county didn't exercise its renewal option within the allotted time, the option expired. Once that happened, the land was sold, resulting in no more recreational boating for area residents."

[rucky]

88. I'm sure Jebbie will call it a natural disaster..

and get some FEMA funds for it.

[MorningGlow]

36. God can get forgetful--misplaces thing sometimes

What're ya gonna do? He's pretty old.

:shrug:

[semillama]

42. Those Wood Storks and egrets seem to be having a field day, tho

Look at all of them in the top photo. pretty neat!

[Snivi Yllom]

45. A future 285 acre subdivision

Land land land!

[Stuckinthebush]

55. Sitting in one helluva flood plain!

And then, when in a few year the lake begins to refill, I'm sure that FEMA will come in and use tax payer money to help out the poor people who built homes in a lake bed.

[Snivi Yllom]

61. yup, just like New Orleans

.

[madfloridian]

60. Hey, we did have a subdivision built in a lake bed here.

Not so weird after all. We Floridians have everything covered. Lake Deeson in North Lakeland dried up, and they built expensive homes in the lake bed. There came another flood cycle, and I guess you can figure what happened.

[ngant17]

71. don't they survey for 100-year flood-plains?

wonder how that happened? Did the surveyors get something wrong here on their FEMA flood-plain charts?

Do you know the name of the surveyor which did the development?

[madfloridian]

74. This is Florida. Things happen here that make no sense.

People build in flood plains because no one tells them it is a flood plain, usually the contractors just do it and get away with it.

Our state is now controlled by developers. Our county and city commissioners are pretty much putty in the hands of developers.

[ngant17]

89. strange, no law against this sort of thing?

With all the zillions of laws out there governing everything we can possibly say and do, you'd think some basic regulation would be in place to prevent a person from buyihg a house that will be flooding during the next cycle of active hurricanes (like, this year, maybe?).

This is a hugh financial investment, so you'd think a law like this would be a priority to enforce.

Are we stepping backwards 75 years when Florida was a scam-artists' haven, where you could sell swamp land for cheap to unsuspecting New Yorkers?

South and Central Florida is in many parts a low-lying swamp even with more hurricanes and global warming. Moreover, sand erosion is depositing Florida beach sand way up north, courtesy of Gulf Stream which may actually be going haywire itself.

[lpbk2713]

91. It's the realtors, builders and developers that run for office

almost exclusively. And so the laws and zoning requirements are almost always in their favor. This has a lot to do with why Florida turned red over the last several years. They will spend an immense amount of money to win a political office simply because they can't afford to lose, the stakes are too high for them to take a chance.

[catzies]

90. "This is Florida. Things happen here that make no sense."

That gets my vote for the next personalized plates the state issues. If I had photoshop skills I'd make one.

[lovuian]

72. Great Pictures !!!

Its amazing the changes going around us...

[earth mom]

47. Ah the greedy and selfish rich get it socked to em.

I'M LOVIN IT! :rofl:

[The Backlash Cometh]

48. What you wrote does not compute.

If it is state owned, then the homeowners had no right to make it private. There would have been an access road that they would have had to leave open for the state to come in an maintain in.

[madfloridian]

52. This is Florida, many things do not compute.

Read the letters to the editors I posted above, they might clarify a little. Still not an easy explanation.

[The Backlash Cometh]

75. There is something similar to that in my city.

For reasons that I can't explain, the retention pond/lake belonged to the city, but all the property around it belonged to private landowners. The City did have access to the lake where it had a public easement along a main road. However, during a Beautification project, the City walled the road off. They must have spent tens of thousands of dollars on the wall. When they figured out that they blocked their only access to the lake, the private owners told them, too bad, so sad. So they had to break a hole in the wall and build a gate.

In another situation involving the same homeowners, one of the private homeowners said that he had acquired through tax deeds, a piece of property adjoining his property that once belonged to the bankrupt developer. The property had meant to be part of a park or frontage landscape easement. To add insult to injury, back in the cowboy days of this city (as if it ever stopped) he managed to submit some stoopid site plans for a building with a shed and it was approved! He had the paperwork and said he had stolen the property fair and square.

[Cerridwen]

50. I feel sad

for the fish and the turtles and whatever other fauna lived in the lake.

The people and developers who appropriated a public lake for their own personal use...please, go find those sink holes, and jump in!

[KansDem]

54. Hey, DUers! There's an opportunity here! Who's with me???

LANDBOATS!



Let's use this prototype to develop landboats to sell to residents so they can still "cruise" around their lake, just like the good ol' days! We can even offer to provide them with a chauffeur--er, "captain" (see photo)--so they can spend their time sipping martinis and shouting "A-hoy!" to passing neighbors and fellow "boating" enthusiasts.

Venture capital needed...

[xchrom]

59. abramoff will be needing a job.

[lpbk2713]

67. You don't know how ironic this pic is.

The local Budweiser distributor (now deceased) has a fine home on this lake.

[KansDem]

68. Uh-oh!!!

I didn't know that!

Ironic, indeed...

[madfloridian]

79. Bernie Little.

I assume you mean. Owned Miss Budweiser.

[Supersedeas]

62. could this be a lil' karma for some FL voters...dunno

[Synnical]

65. Fish, turtles, gators - disappeared

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060623/NEWS/606230390/1039

Aquatic Wildlife Lost as Earth Swallows Lake

By Del Milligan
The Ledger

LAKELAND -- A whirlpool probably devoured everything from fish to turtles to alligators from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning as Scott Lake continued to disappear.

A sinkhole created the whirlpool on the lake's south shore. It more than likely swallowed three-quarters of the lake's aquatic life, said a veteran Lakeland fisheries biologist.

"They followed the flow, and the flow led them into the ground," Tom Champeau said Thursday. "They'll die in there for sure, because there's no oxygen. There's no springs down there, and they won't pop out somewhere else.

"That was their doom," said Champeau, who estimated that 75 percent of all the fish in the 285-acre, private lake vanished within a 24-hour period into the sinkhole near the Pierpoint subdivision boat ramp in South Lakeland.

:-(

[MissB]

69. Not terribly sad about the gators.

But bummer for the rest of the aquatic life.

[Synnical]

70. I spent my teen-age years on that lake

I skied, swam, and sun-bathed in the same water with those gators. They never bothered me, though I'm certain I bothered them. I'm sad for them.

And no, my family wasn't wealthy. This was in the late 70's just before the multi-million dollars sub-divisions sprung up on and around the lake.

[madfloridian]

85. We water-skied there also.

Also at Lake Hollingsworth and at Scott Lake. I doubt anyone water-skies Scott Lake now. It sort of looks like a puddle.

It is a sad thing for those families, for the animals. I am angry they were allowed to make it private, but they will most likely take huge losses.

And some of them are not as rich as some would think. Some are, but some are mortgaged up the neck and can't take much loss. They are too proud to let anyone know, and they will quietly slip away to the homes of their children.

[Synnical]

87. Exactly, thanks MF

Are you still in Lakeland?

-Cindy

[SPKrazy]

73. Mother Earth Is Punishing These Business People

by taking their lake

Wake up

[jobycom]

76. Bet the feds spend more money fixing it than the levees of New Orleans

For that matter, they'll spend more money on this catastrophe than on fixing the Lower Ninth Ward. Watch this film if you want to see something a bit more depressing. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1495985

[lonestarnot]

78. "What if Al Queda blew up the levees, would New Orleans have been better

off that way?" N.Y.

[lonestarnot]

77. Richie Rich oops.

[madfloridian]

80. They think it may be draining into Peace River...

through underground areas, I forget the word. Hubby talked to a geologist here who said they thought that. Don't know details.

[Synnical]

84. So that would mean Peace River might overflow???

-Cindy

[madfloridian]

86. Didn't say.

I did not get the gist of the whole conversation, and hubby was only listening to part of it.

[w4rma]

83. They stole a lake from the county and a couple of years later it drained

down four sinkholes. I suppose that community will have to pull itself up by the bootstraps and fix their lake, since it's no longer public property. Somehow I think that these folks will not want to follow this philosophy for themselves.