New signs to alert people that water beneath their feet feeds the springs
By Christa Desrets
Herald Writer

Photo By Ronald Dupont Jr. A truck on State Road 47 in North Gilchrist County between High Springs and Fort White drives by a "Springs Protection Area" sign. The sign features a drawing of a scuba diver.

FORT WHITE – Raising public awareness about protecting area springs is the goal of new signs that now can be seen along State Road 47 near Fort White.

Fay Baird, coordinator of the Santa Fe Springs Working Group, said that the signs are being placed through the coordination of springs working groups, the state Department of Transportation and the Department of Environmental Protection.

“They’re intended as a public education tool so that people understand they are in an area where ground water is flowing to the spring,” she said.

Several dozen signs have been made for the project for western Alachua County and parts of Columbia and Gilchrist Counties, she said.

Jim Stevenson, coordinator of the Ichetucknee Springs Basin Working Group, said that he was part of a group that pushed to get similar signs identifying springs basins placed near springs several years ago.

“We put up the signs for the Ichetucknee Springs Basin around 2001, and those were the first in the state,” he said, adding that additional signs have since been placed around the Blue Springs Basin and Manatee Springs Basin. “(They are) so that the public will know where the springs basins are and hopefully change their actions in those basins to protect the springs.”

Baird said that the new signs are different because they do not label where a springs basin begins or ends, but instead identify an entire area that is sensitive to actions that could influence the water.

The new signs, one of which recently was spotted in Gilchrist County on State Road 47 between Poe Springs Road and the Santa Fe River, labels the area simply as a “springs protection area.”

Baird, who said that many groups had been working for a long time to get such signs installed, said she was “thrilled” to hear that they are now going up, and she will now have to go take a look for herself.

“The more that people are aware that this ground water is feeding those springs, the better,” she said.