Southerly Magazine: Inside the fight to give Florida rivers legal rights

By Xander Peters. This article was first published in Southerly Magazine on February 25, 2020

The Wekiva River flows 16 miles through central Florida, a kayaking and canoeing haven that’s part of several protected conservation areas. But fertilizer runoff from yards and farming operations have dumped more than four times the amount of nitrates in the river than it should have, according to state environmental regulators. People living in DeBary, where the Wekiva joins the St. Johns River — the largest river in the state — suffer the consequences: In recent years, algae blooms have caused massive fish kills and public health concerns. The blooms’ pungent, rotting smell can fill the air for weeks at a time. It becomes a blighted paradise. 

To protect the river — and the communities and ecosystems around it — from further harm, a group of Floridians want to give it legal rights. 

“We need agriculture. We need to eat agricultural products. We also need clean water,” said Chuck O’Neal, the former vice president of the League of Women Voters in Florida and the director of the Florida Rights of Nature Network. “There has to be a balance between agriculture and clean water, and that balance is not being found within the state regulations.”