Who Really Lands the Big One?
This Op-Ed was published in FloridaPolitics.com on March 6, 2026.
By Michael Haines
I’ve spent most of my life on the water—as a tournament angler, a professional guide, and now a resident of Palatka. I have a business degree, and I’ve studied engineering and journalism in college. All that education teaches looking at details, scrutinizing the things that are said, and of course paying attention to how the money is involved. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Rodman Reservoir debate until I followed the money.
What I found in the fine print of the “Northeast Florida Rivers, Springs, and Community Investment Act” (SB 1066 / HB 981) wasn’t just an environmental project. On the surface, the “sell” is beautiful: manatees, “lost springs,” and a restored Ocklawaha River. But when you look at the “rigging” of the legislation itself, you find a high-stakes trade designed to benefit private interests while sidelining the local community.
The Florida House passed this bill 107-3 on March 4, and the Senate is poised for a final vote. We are being asked to trade a world-class fishery for a $95 million gamble run by private contractors. This is being proposed even though a $4 million repair could address deferred maintenance and stabilize the existing dam for years to come. Before the final votes are cast, we need to ask: Who is actually going to land the “treasure chest” at the end of this line? From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like the local guy in a bass boat.
A major red flag is in Section 2. The bill doesn’t trust our own state experts at the DEP to manage this. Instead, it requires the state to hire a private “Project Lead” by August 31, 2026. This contractor won’t just oversee the work; they will chair the Advisory Council deciding where the grant money goes. Why is a private individual given the “keys to the kingdom” for a $95 million public project? This mandatory clause suggests the “winner” may have been identified before the starting gun even fired.
Furthermore, the bill creates a 16-member board to oversee the project where nine of those members are direct appointees from the Governor’s office. That gives Tallahassee a 3-to-1 majority over the local voices in Putnam and Marion counties. If they decide “recreation” means corporate glamping instead of the boat ramps we actually use, locals won’t have the votes to stop them. Even the tiebreaker is the Commander of NAS Jacksonville—a voice far removed from the daily life of our river.
While advocates talk about fish, the real “trophy” in this bill is Wetland Mitigation Credits. Breaching the dam “restores” 7,500 acres of wetlands. In Florida real estate, those acres are gold. For every acre “restored” here, a developer in St. Johns or Jacksonville can get the green light to pave over wetlands elsewhere. Is this about “freeing the river,” or using Putnam County as an environmental bank account to subsidize concrete sprawl in neighboring counties?