The Friends of the Wekiva River, Inc. is a citizen action group.  The founders began meeting informally in 1978, and the organization was chartered in 1982 with nineteen members.  Our objectives are:

1. to promote and protect the aesthetic and recreational values of the Wekiva River system.
2. to protect the integrity of the Wekiva River Basin.
3. to work toward restoration and continuation of the river and its tributaries.
4. to carry out educational activities to the same end. 

Our mission has never been to oppose growth per se, but to insist that growth is well planned and considers the long-term future of the basin, its resources, and the quality of life for future generations.  We are opposed to growth that seeks only to satisfy the few with no consideration of the long-term impacts on the ecology of the river basin, its resources, and the citizens of the region as a whole.

Following is a list of the major accomplishments for which the Friends of the Wekiva River (FOWR) were either wholly or partly responsible:

• 1982 Worked closely with the City of Altamonte Springs in reducing the amount and improving the quality of wastewater effluent discharged into the Little Wekiva River.
• Prepared and furnished to Florida’s DER a paper:  A Position Statement on the Environmental Quality of the Little Wekiva River--Its Importance, Present Status and Future Implications.
• Prepared and furnished to DER and the City of Altamonte Springs a technical paper: Report and Recommendations: The Little Wekiva River.  All six of our recommendations were adopted by the City.
• We were a major player in the plans for APRICOT, the first Central Florida system to turn treated wastewater to irrigation and other uses. 

• 1983 Prepared a successful petition to the State of Florida to designate the Wekiva and its tributaries as Outstanding Florida Waters. Later efforts succeeded in adding the Blackwater Creek to this designation.
• 1987 Provided input to the State on the Wekiva Aquatic Preserve Management Plan.
• 2000 Aided in the campaign for the designation of the Wekiva River as a National Wild and Scenic River.

• 1983-4 City of Altamonte Springs funded a $240,000 nutrient assimilation study of the Little Wekiva River to be conducted by the University of Florida Center for Aquatic Weeds.
• 1984 Coordinated the first comprehensive clean up of the river--7 tons of trash removed. Conducted or assisted in yearly clean-ups ever since.
• 1985 FOWR telegram to US Army Corps of Engineers persuaded them to require the railroad company to clean up hazardous remains of the burned-out railroad bridge crossing the river south of State Road 46.

• 1985-present Conducted a successful campaign to place the purchase of lands within the Wekiva-Ocala Connector at the top of the Florida Forever (formerly CARL) list.  Since then, FOWR has supported the purchase of several other key tracts by the State.
• 1990 Campaigned for successful passage of a $20 million dollar bond issue in Seminole County to purchase environmentally endangered lands.
• In these and other ways, almost 75,000 acres of land in the river basin have been protected and now begin to form a two-pronged natural corridor from the Wekiwa Springs Geo-Park to the Ocala National Forest.

• 1985 The next grave issue was high-density development in the basin. After a year of seeking a regional planning group for the three counties in the river basin, FOWR prepared a technical position paper entitled, The Wekiva River Basin--A Resource Endangered. It presented eighteen recommendations to state, local, and government agencies for protection of the resources. We met with numerous local and state officials to discuss the report and appeared before the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel to explain it.  Thereafter, the Sentinel won a Pulitzer Prize for its editorials about the river entitled Florida’s Shame.
• 1987 After taking Gov. Martinez for a canoe ride down the river, we participated in the Wekiva River Task Force, appointed by the governor, leading to the Wekiva River Protection Act in the next legislature.
• 1988 The Wekiva River Protection Act passed both the Florida House and Senate unanimously in a bipartisan effort.  Gov. Martinez signed the Act into law at Wekiwa Springs State Park, recognizing the Wekiva Basin as of immeasurable value to the State.  With Florida Audubon and the Sierra Club, we continue as watchdogs to ensure compliance with all the provisions of the Act, especially for the rural character of the buffer zone.
• 1990 Sponsored a Wekiva Basin Workshop for tri-county representatives.
• 1990’s Participated in the Little Wekiva River Technical Working Group whose purpose is to achieve retrofitting of the upper Little Wekiva River to prevent downstream degradation of the natural system. In 2000, the Florida legislature designated 6 million dollars to the project.
• 1990’s Campaigned for the formation of the Wekiva River Working Group, an interagency cooperative group that helps to coordinate management of the various public lands within the basin, using an ecosystem approach.

• Spent two years working with the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) to pass special criteria for the Wekiva River Basin, i.e., establishment of a water quality protection zone, a most effective recharge zone, and a riparian habitat protection zone as required by the Act. SJRWMD initiated rule-making to comply with the Act.
• 1992 In addition to working with the SJRWMD on the above, the FOWR were instrumental in encouraging the SJRWMD’s establishment of minimum flows and levels for the Wekiva River--the first in the State.
• 1992 Published updated technical report entitled, The Wekiva River Basin: A Resource Revisited, emphasizing continued concerns about the resources, especially water related issues and interagency cooperation.
• 1998 SJRWMD established minimum flow levels for the District and for specific streams in the Wekiva Basin to be used in establishing limitations of withdrawals from both ground and surface water.

• 1987 Five FOWR members named to the Environmental Advisory Group of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.  As an example of our impact, the State Road 417 Beltway was built without a single environmental challenge after the environmental committee was activated.
• 1989 FOWR helped fund bear study which among other things established the traffic patterns of bears along Highway 46 west of the river
• 1995 With urging from FOWR, after several years of negotiation, the State built one of four wildlife underpasses we recommended on SR 46.

• Throughout these years we have worked to prevent further erosion of zoning and development regulations while upholding the protections of the Wekiva River Protection Act.
• 1984-88 Opposed higher density zoning requested by a developer for the Plantation property along the Wekiva River and Markham Woods Rd. Gov. Martinez and the Cabinet made the final decision in our favor.
• 1998-2000 One of our recent challenges concerned two large, proposed developments within the basin and lasted almost four years. Without the support of Seminole County, we ran out of options and so joined other groups in a lawsuit against the developer and the county to insure compliance with the law within the Protection Zone. It was eventually settled out of court.

• 1999 Co-hosted with Rollins College a charrette for local environmental leaders entitled: “Wekiva 2020” to consider the possibilities of the new urbanism in designing developments with rural character.
• 2000 Assisted in production and marketing of the documentary Wekiva: Legacy or Loss? by Bill Belleville and Bob Giguere. This award-winning film has been shown to over 250,000 viewers in our area. We have an ongoing commitment to the teachers of Central Florida through the web site’s River Classroom where projects and resources to accompany the video are available.
• We hold monthly business meetings, have regular educational programs and field trips, publish a newsletter, and host both an annual banquet and an annual Wekiva River Awareness Day.

During 2004 and 2005, FOWR was represented on the following Task Forces and Committees:

• Wekiva River Task Force
• Wekiva Coordinating Committee
• Orange County Green Place Committee – Recommends conservation lands for Orange County to acquire.
• Citizens Laison Committee with Seminole State Forest – To ensure excellent management of State forest lands in the Wekiva Basin.
• St. Johns River Water Management District Central Recreational Public Meeting
• Wekive River Basin Working Group – To implement the Wekiva Parkway and Protection Act.

FOWR was also an active participant in the following activities:

• Partnership for Wild & Scenic Rivers
• Cove Lake Restoration Committee
• Expressway Authority Environmental Advisory Group
• Lake County Comprehensive Plan
• Five-Year Review of the Wekiva River Basin

Other recent activities include:

• Review and comments regarding the permitting of New Garden Coal as the Wekiva River Mitigation Bank.
• Participation in the preparation of a “Joint Planning Agreement” with Orange County that determines land use intensity in the Orange County section of the Wekiva River Protection Area.
• Helped fund the Cambrian Foundation’s dye trace project to determine spring flows and connections throughout the Wekiva River Basin.
• Presented Governor Jeb Bush a special FOWR Award at the Bill signing of the Wekiva Parkway and Protection Act.
• Held several Public Information Meetings to increase understanding of issues affecting the Wekiva River Basin.

Today, the Wekiva River is designated a Florida Outstanding Water, a Florida Canoe Trail, a Florida Wild and Scenic River, and a National Wild and Scenic River.

Even with these protections and existing rules and regulations, the environmental quality of the Wekiva basin continues to be threatened.  Loss of habitat, decline in spring flow, increased nutrients in the water (especially nitrates), increased water consumption, wildlife mortality on existing roadways, and proposals for new roadways through the basin are but a few of the issues that demand constant monitoring.  The effects of these issues are cumulative.

Friends of the Wekiva River continues the struggle for the preservation of the Wekiva Basin on a daily basis.  We need your help.  Please join us.  Become an active member of Friends of the Wekiva River.  Attend our monthly Issues and Action meetings.  Help us defend one of our country’s few Wild and Scenic Rivers flowing through a large urban area.