Drying Up: The Fresh Water Crisis in Florida

Florida Historical Society Stetson Kennedy Award Florida Book Awards, Bronze Medal for Florida Nonfiction America’s wettest state is running out of water. Florida―with its swamps, lakes, extensive coastlines, and legions of life-giving springs―faces a drinking water crisis. Drying Up is a wake-up call and a hard look at what the future holds for those who call Florida home. Journalist and educator John Dunn untangles the many causes of the state’s freshwater problems. Drainage projects, construction, and urbanization, especially in the fragile wetlands of South Florida, have changed and shrunk natural water systems. Pollution, failing infrastructure, increasing outbreaks of toxic algae blooms, and pharmaceutical contamination are worsening water quality. Climate change, sea level rise, and groundwater pumping are spoiling freshwater resources with saltwater intrusion. Because of shortages, fights have broken out over rights to the Apalachicola River, Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades, an