By Doug Alderson, Apalachicola Riverkeeper Outreach & Advocacy Director
WFSU FM’s Regan McCarthy recently chronicled the decline in the lower Apalachicola River floodplain forest and its effects on the tupelo honey industry in a segment entitled “Decreased Water Flow In the Apalachicola River could Threaten the Future of Tupelo Honey.” McCarthy interviewed beekeeper Ben Lanier and drew from a 2018 video blog by WFSU’s Rob Diaz de Villegas in which he interviewed Riverkeeper Georgia Ackerman and former Riverkeeper Dan Tonsmeire.
“The majority of these trees that really produce are hundreds of years old and they’re right out in the bog, I mean right out in the swamp,” said Ben Lanier. Lanier’s family has owned more than 500 acres of Apalachicola River swampland for more than a hundred years, and while they have protected the trees, controlling water flow is something they cannot do.
According to decades of research by experts like Helen Light, retired wetlands scientist with the United States Geological Survey, the Apalachicola River floodplain has lost more than 4.3 million trees. Many of these have been tupelo gum trees that cannot tolerate long dry periods. The primary culprit: reduced river flows, especially in late spring and summer when the river would normally “pulse” by putting water into the floodplain during periodic rain events. Upstream water uses in Georgia and the method by which the Army Corps of Engineers holds water back in Georgia reservoirs result in reduced “pulses” in the Apalachicola River. Plus, years of Corps dredging blocked many floodplain sloughs with sand, sloughs that would normally carry life-giving water to the floodplain. Projects such as Apalachicola Riverkeeper’s Slough Restoration Project will help, but improved water management by the Army Corps of Engineers is another crucial need.
For more information:
Helen Light’s 2019 presentation that documents profound changes in historic flow patterns and the effects on floodplain trees.