Bridges over troubled water

Visitors to parts of South Florida might bring something even more valuable than tourism money to the region: Their digestive tracts. That's because some utilities recycle wastewater for irrigation and, as "snowbirds" in these areas migrate to other climates for summer, they've been said to leave an already drought-plagued region dryer.

Most of South Florida's drinking water has traditionally come from rains that fill shallow in-ground supplies. The water, stored in a natural rock basin known as an aquifer, has seen increased demand as the population has grown. Utilities have been digging deeper, tapping into an aquifer shared with other southern states, and water "wars" have erupted. To conserve South Florida's drinking water supplies, utilities in places such as Jupiter and Martin County treat waste water so that it's safe for irrigating golf courses and common spaces within communities. The earth then purifies it even more.

People have long paid attention to making sure that waterways, at one time more primary transportation routes for sailing ships, are navigable to mariners. With the Industrial Revolution, transportation became faster, people were provided quicker routes, they began immigrating, became more mobile and changed their settlement patterns. South Florida's drinking water supplies became impacted as early as the 19th century. Rains at the time meandered southwest along a gently, largely uninterupted sloping prairie from about Orlando to Florida City. The rains moistened a rich soil known as peat, flooded supple interior lands and sated the shallow aquifer until the excesses filtered by unpoiled grounds cascaded into Florida Bay at the mainland's southern edge.

To make the land buildable and farmable and, in some instances to reportedly enhance maritime travel, developers drained interior regions that provided natural water storage, and they carved canals east and west across the state. Inlets along coastal areas were created or widened, the harvested sand and clay used to create more buildable land. Salt water began making its way farther inland, and freshwater began flowing into rivers, streams, the ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Farming communities sprouted around Lake Okeechobee, a natural freshwater reservoir in the middle of it all and one that was diked after fatal hurricane flooding in the 1920s.

Author Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, in describing the “River of Grass” that otherwise became Everglades National Park, likened South Florida to a long pointed spoon, its coastal borders composed of rock that rises above sea water and carries fresh water, its swampy interior, depending upon elevations and rainfall amounts, carrying different amounts of fresh and salt water. “The rock holds all the fresh water and the grass and all those other shapes and forms of air-loving life only a little way out of the salt water, as a full spoon lowered into a full cup holds two liquids separate, within that thread of rim. Lower the tip of the spoon a very little, and the higher liquid moves out across the submerged end, as it does at the end of the Glades.”

How clean are Florida's waters?

Salt and fresh water now travel through the shallow Biscayne and deeper Floridan aquifers. Florida Bay, which spans from about Key Largo to Long Key, is a part of Everglades National Park and is home to the uninhabited Everglade Keys. Birders might visit these islands in hopes of spying roseate spoonbills, bald eagles and more. Anglers cast lines for trout, redfish and other species. The aquifer that serves the Florida Keys is in this area, too. It's composed of a porous rock that author Ted Levin in "Liquid Land: A Journey through the Florida Everglades" noted flakes in Coca Cola and dissolves in balsamic vinegar.

Rains carrying pesticides, fertilizers and pollution from vehicles can make their way into waters like Florida Bay that can enter aquifers. They can also spill into outright sources of drinking water. Septic systems, solid waste from landfills, industrial waste wells and sewage disposal ponds can also contaminate aquifers, according to the US Geological Survey. Contaminants that aren't used, absorbed or diverted ultimately make their way into the ocean, the agency notes.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulates public drinking water systems, but people with private wells are largely responsible for making sure their own water is safe to drink. In instances where well water tests positive for contaminants caused by humans, the agency provides bottled water and filters or people are connected to a public drinking water system.

Drought conditions, along with climate change, happen in cycles and are being hurried in by greenhouse gases, experts contend. Since the Industrial Revolution, waters throughout the world are said to have become increasingly acidic because of carbon emissions in the air. Mercury, as a result, has been found in fish in the Everglades and those in similar habitats elsewhere in the United States. Plankton, which convert carbon into shells, have been found with incomplete shells in acidic waters. Beaches have closed to swimmers because of high bacteria levels that some have attributed to wastewater.

Businesses and residences as well as air, land and sea transportation are becoming “greener.” Many South Florida utilities have replaced septic systems with wastewater treatment facilities, and they clean storm water before it spills off unnatural surfaces into area seas. Power utilities are moving away from petroleum and natural gas and toward less harmful sources that include the sun and the wind.

Biotech firms such as those with locations throughout Florida are working to create a new "supercrop" of plants that grows hardier and more abundant, resisting pests, weeds, drought and diseases without the need for pesticides and fertilizers. As the biotechs also set their sights on natural fuels for motorized vehicles NASA, with its Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Fla., plans to establish space stations and fuel depots that would allow for travel to other galaxies. There in space, evidence of the water that's needed to sustain life has been found on Mars, and an ocean is believed to be blanketed in ice on a moon of Jupiter known as Europa.

Six Degrees of Jimmy Buffett

We were in a Japanese restaurant and a little boy, spotting a statue of Buddha, asked why people worship idols. I was thinking in terms of deities and didn't have an answer. Yet there are celebrity fans like Parrotheads, as Jimmy Buffett fans are known, who take their worship to extremes. Concert tailgaters set up beach-like tiki bars replete with sand. One group of fans refers to itself as “Church of Buffett.”

Much of what I know about Jimmy Buffett I learned while researching the chapter about him in “Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys,” but our degrees of separation aren't all that much. A former Key West resident, Buffett has weaved tales about the natural beauty of these islands and some of their most colorful characters into songs that are part of what's become his own musical genre.

Many of us have our favorite Buffett songs. For Mom's brother, Larry, it was the well-known “Margaritaville” that Dad said he played often at the Eagle's Nest, a Yonkers, NY watering hole that he owned. Mine has been “Come Monday,” which I remember first hearing on a Windjammer Barefoot Cruises sail aboard the SV Fantome.

John, the Fantome captain I met through a woman named Sid, had a similar “star quality” about him. It was an easy confidence that gave him a presence whether he was sporting his white uniform or crew blues. John was an avid reader who had met up with Buffett somewhere in the Caribbean. He was also the reason I moved to the Florida Keys.

We first lived on Marathon’s Gulfstream Boulevard with friends and family, including John's twin brother, Harry, who often watched “Little House on the Prairie,” and “Grandma,” John's Southern belle of a mom and an avid gardener. Her driving directions for getting around town went something like, “Turn right at the hibiscus and left at the bougainvillea.”

Fortunately, most everything in Marathon is located on the main road through the Florida Keys – US1, or the Overseas Highway. It's good, too, to get off the highway and take time to smell the frangipani.

After eight years in the Florida Keys, I moved Palm Beach County where, at a Keyzee Jupiter tiki bar known as the Square Grouper, Buffett and Alan Jackson filmed the music video for "5 O'Clock Somewhere." Buffett himself, it turned out, had moved to Palm Beach.

This ultra-luxury island is a lot different than the more eclectic Key West, where Buffett maintains a Margaritaville Cafe & Store (the original) and a recording studio known as Shrimpboat (scroll down for video footage from inside it). For that matter, Key West is a lot different than it was when Buffett first arrived there in the post-Vietnam War 1970s: The military presence had declined, many buildings were boarded up, and transportation often involved a bicycle or a “conch cruiser.” The songs, "Blue Heaven Rendezvous," "Last Mango in Paris" and "A Pirate Looks at 40" are among those inspired by people and places in Key West.

Seeing Key West through Buffett's eyes, it's easy to fall in love with the place and the people all over again -- and certainly to appreciate them more. An advocate for the environment, he shows support especially for causes involving the oceans and waters that unite us. Yet he maintains a delicate balance, holding performances on the Gulf Coast and in Key West at times when the economy has been slack.

From the solar system to the seas, scientists and religious these days seem to publicly agree that the universe is all too perfect to have happened by chance, that some higher power had to have been behind it. Buffett and author Carl Hiaasen, who has perhaps been among my own idols, put their talents to use by raising awareness in a way that encourages people to be stewards of it.

In Orlando one day recently, I was walking with my corgi-Jack Russell, or “cojack,” Chico, and saw for the first time a cross-shaped cloud. It felt reassuring to think that that higher power might be watching out for all of us, including those with that elusive quality, that “je ne sais quoi,” that draws people to them. Some might consider them idols.

That was the day that Jimmy Buffett fell from the stage in Sydney, Australia during an encore performance of "Lovely Cruise." It brought to mind one of the new favorite songs that I came away with after writing “Historic Walking Guides”: Buffett's rendition of “Southern Cross” – a constellation, or pattern of stars that central Australians are said to have considered the footprint of a Wedge-tailed eagle, the dark patch its nest.

About Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys

Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys takes readers back in time as they travel off the beaten path from the edge of Florida's mainland to Key West. In Key West, readers can embark upon a series of historic walking tours, each centered around themes such as treasure hunting, commercial fishing, literary luminaries and, of course, two of the best known residents of all -- Ernest Hemingway and Jimmy Buffett. Historic Walking Guides: Florida Keys is available in print through Destinworld Publishing and Amazon.com. It's expected to be available in a slightly expanded e-reader format by spring 2011.

Jimmy Buffett Interview from Shrimpboat Studios