MUDDY WATERS

Miami Herald, The (FL)
June 27, 1982
Author: AL BURT Herald Tropic Writer

Just when John Brannen thought he had won decent surrender terms from life, the bottom literally dropped out. He had to give up one thing more. At age 74, it was a new and awful kind of pressure. The feeling reminded Brannen of how it was for the big fish, the 60 and 70 pounders, he once hauled off the ocean bottom, from a depth of 300 feet and more, when he lived in the Florida Keys.

"If you wound 'em up real fast, their eyes'd pop and their belly bust and they'd rupture, you know. It's that pressure," he said. "You horse 'em like that, they'll blow up on you."

Brannen's chuckle was so dry it rattled. "That's sort of how I felt," he said. "Just turned me sick."

Brannen, a retired plastering contractor, struck his bargain with life about four years ago. He and his wife had been living on Stillwright Point in Key Largo. "I've lived on water practically all my life," he explained. "That's why I left Miami in 1968 and moved to the Keys. I love the water."

But four years ago the family reminded him that age was coming on. Besides, life in the Keys was getting expensive for a man and his wife living on Social Security. Their one son lived in Orlando; their one daughter in Houston. His wife wanted to be closer to one of the children.

"I told 'em if it'd keep peace in the family and make everybody happy, then I'd move on up to Orlando -- under the idea that we'd live on a lake. I had to be on the water," he said.

They sold their small waterfront home in Key Largo and built a house on Lake Sherwood, a lake skewered by State Highway 50 about 4.5 miles west of downtown Orlando. For approximately the same money, he got a bigger house and an acre of ground.

That was his compromise, and for the first couple of years it seemed OK. He liked the way the orange groves encircled the lake, formed sometime in the distant past by a sinkhole. It was interesting to be able to look south at night and see flickers from the fireworks displays at Disney World.

He missed the Keys, but things worked out. He tailored his home to fit his view of the mile-and-a-half long lake. "I had 'em take the front windows out and put in sliding glass doors. Then I had 'em build me a porch with a roof on it," he said.

"I had to pay extra for all that. But I could sit here in the mornings, you know, and drink my coffee and look out at that lake and see the birds and stuff. I got a real bang out of that."

He built a dock down on the lake by his sandy beach. Almost every afternoon he strolled down there or went out in his boat and spent some time casting for black bass. "I've caught some nice ones," he said.

Water in the lake once rose until it covered his dock. He did not mind. "Just covered it a few inches. I could still walk on it," he said. Neighbors told him that about 10 years before he arrived the lake had gotten so high that it covered Highway 50. He did not worry. The more water, the better.

But about a year and a half ago, beginning during the Christmas holidays in 1980, everything went into reverse. The lake level started dropping, not rising, and it kept dropping month after month.

"The water got real low and when it got hot the fish started dying," Brannen said. "Big old bass floated up, some of 'em 10 or 15 pounders, the kind that never bites. Buzzards'd move in and clean 'em up."

By June, Lake Sherwood was completely dry, dusty bottomed. "We sat there and watched it go down, and the only thing we could do was squawk," he said. "Some of 'em talked to some engineers to find out what we could do. They told us there was nothing we could do. I tell you, we were sick."

Tall weeds grew where the lake had been. Across the highway, horses and cows grazed in the dry lake bed as though it were a pasture. The value of his home, which he estimated was $72,000 on a full lake, dropped to about $48,000.

Brannen tried not even to think about the Keys. "I missed 'em worse than ever," he said. This spring, the rains put a muddy bottom on the lake bed, then added a few inches of water. It was not a lake again, but at least it was wet.

Many lakes across Central and North Florida are down, some of them as dry as Lake Sherwood. Most lake levels fluctuate with the groundwater table, which reflects rainfall, effective recharge of the table and the amount of water being used. Greater numbers of people and less effective recharge (because paving and structures cover ground that could be soaking up the rainfall) make groundwater levels vulnerable to drought. That was one cause of Brannen's dilemma.

But the U.S. Geological Service reported that Lake Sherwood is even more vulnerable to fluctuation than most because it is directly connected to the artesian aquifer, below the water table. Less than 10 per cent of the lakes have this connection. When the water table drops, the water in these lakes seeps down into the aquifer and shorelines can recede hundreds of feet in a short time. One study described Lake Sherwood as having the largest fluctuation range in Orange County.

John Brannen had the misfortune to pick a very special lake and a region of Florida under especially heavy new population pressures and development. They spoiled his careful planning.

He will not move, though. It is too late for that. He will do the only practical thing left for him: Pray for rain.

Edition: FINAL
Section: TROPIC MAG
Page: 22
Copyright (c) 1982 The Miami Herald