ABSTRACT
T HE RODMAN RESERVOIR, an impoundment on the Ocklawaha River in north central Florida, is a last remnant of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal (CFBC). The canal, conceived in the 1820s, was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to shorten shipping lanes between the Gulf ports and the Atlantic coast. Opposition to CFBC by Florida's young environmental movement led to a halt in construction of the CFBC in 1971, but decommissioning of the already-constructed Rodman dam and the reservoir behind it has been mired in controversy ever since.
