Letter: Clear-cutting our old forest conservation areas like Graham Woods and replacing them with grass-in stormwater basins is not the answer to water problems
Letter to the editor
Surgery Analogy: Scalpel vs. sledgehammer
Imagine a patient is alive and functioning, but not perfectly. The patient is referred for surgery. But instead of using a scalpel, the surgeon takes out a sledgehammer and pulverizes the patient into mush.
That’s what the University of Florida administration just did to the former Graham Woods Conservation Area in a $10 million “stormwater” project. The area is located just south of the O’Connell Center, just west of the Tolbert Dorm Area, and just east of the Keys Complex and Flavet Field.
Scroll down to the bottom of the letter to see photos.
This designated 8-acre Conservation Area previously was an old hammock forest — present on all available aerial photos back to the 1930s. It contained over 70 large “heritage” trees and another 1,168 regulated trees. The area contained a natural basin, wetlands, creek, and ravine. In other words, it was essentially a natural stormwater system.
Forested hardwood ravine areas like Graham Woods are often old forests, skipped over a century ago when surrounding uplands were logged and grazed. Their soils have never been compacted by agricultural or construction machinery. They act as passive stormwater and aquifer recharge facilities. They also reduce the urban heat island effect, thus cooling temperatures in the surrounding environment.
Less destructive options were possible:
Graham Woods wasn’t perfect. Adjacent UF developments discharged stormwater directly into the ravine. A slope was eroded and needed stabilization.
Less intrusive options for the slope could have included a gabion wall, which holds back soil but avoids water build-up behind it. If there was a desire to slow the creek, small weirs could have been constructed without massive clearing of the woods. UF landscaping could minimize use of fertilizer to minimize nutrient problems downstream and in Lake Alice. Adjacent UF developments could have added stormwater swales just outside the conservation area. Where the water table permits, stormwater facilities can even be placed under parking areas.
What happened instead:
Almost the entire eight-acre forested ravine and creek area was bulldozed, with plans to create three grassed water retention basins. So an old forest with steep slopes was cleared to be replaced with grass.
Steep slopes were driven over by construction machinery during land clearing, further destabilizing this area. Construction was started during the rainy season, when the destabilized slopes are most vulnerable to frequent storms, potentially creating more water quality problems downstream in Lake Alice.
For a project billed as improving water quality for areas downstream like Lake Alice, does anyone seriously believe that clearing a forest and creek, removing the natural soils, and planting grass on slopes will improve water quality? Does anyone seriously believe this project was the least destructive option possible?
Misaligned incentives in stormwater management:
In designing stormwater systems, current practices often fail to account for the existing stormwater functions provided by forested hammocks and uncompacted soils. This practice may result in situations where natural areas are destroyed to create cleared, compacted, and grassed-in retention areas that may actually do less to filter water or prevent flooding than what was destroyed.
If water quality deteriorates instead of improving in these types of situations, do those who design or build these systems get more money to build more such projects?
What can be done now:
UF’s “Stormwater” projects should be defunded to prevent more destruction to UF’s natural areas. Policies should prohibit designated conservation areas from being cleared for other uses, such as developed stormwater basins. Any stormwater use of a conservation area should be consistent with protecting rather than destroying these areas.
Those who share my sadness about the destruction of the former Graham Woods Conservation Area may email the following people:
Email Contacts:
* UF President Stuart Bell – president@ufl.edu
* UF Board of Trustees • ufbot@mail.ufl.edu
* Carrie Bush – UF Assistant Vice President, Construction, Facilities & Real Estate – carrie.bush@ufl.edu
* UF Planning, Design & Construction – pdc@admin.ufl.edu
Matthew Hurst, Gainesville
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That natural ravine might at one time started as a sinkhole. UF sure blasted that area tearing up everything that grew there. It looks like a bomb went off in there. The ravine is so gnarly that no one dared build in it. The old Flavet village was where Flavet field is today and the Tolbert area was added later.
Perhaps the brightest minds at the UF geological and planning department were involved in the decision to destroy the area. Or was it Benjamin and his buddies Jackson, Lincoln and Washington that afforded us the destruction?
As UF paved more of their previously agriculture research fields, that stormwater had to go someplace. Lake Alice couldn’t take it all, we’ve seen it overflow during major storms in recent years.
I think UF is building something similar to Gainesville’s Depot Park adjacent wetland recharge area, a much smaller example of the huge Sweetwater Wetlands Park down by Payne’s Prairie. Such marshes attract wading birds migrating in winters, their rookery of nests in springtime, and gators that bask in the sun. If they include boardwalks thru it all, I can see it becoming very popular and educational.
Conservation areas should NOT be destroyed for stormwater stormwater projects.
* This area was an old forest Ravine with incompacted soil. It quite likely absorbed stormwater BETTER than clear-cut, compacted grassed-in stirmwater basins. Even if there was no other place to put stormwater, this project still makes no sense
* This project is NOT near the former agricultural lands
* Adjacent areas were initially developed many decades ago, and currently or recently redeveloped
* Stormwater facilities could have been added when these areas were redeveloped
* Pervious pavement or placing stornwater facilities under parking areas are alternatives
* Conservation should mean conservation, not use the land because it’s convenient.
The area is not near the agricultural fields.
Developed retention could have been integrated into the replacement for the Graham Dorm area, demolished in 2025. Or in the Student Health Center complex that replaced the baseball stadium, demolished in 2020.
Instead, they cleared an old forest, wetland, and creek area that already provided stormwater functions to plant grass. They may post feel-good signs, but this conservation area should not have been destroyed.