(birds chirping)
(quiet music)
- We call this the place where the waters meet.
So the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Johns River
and the Nassau River all come together
to create this estuary, a place where salt water
mixes with freshwater.
There's bird watching, tremendous bird watching
because you have so many different habitats
all coming together in one place.
The Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
was established by legislation in 1988.
They sought to protect the salt marsh ecosystem.
With over 6,000 years of human habitation,
this area has a number of different historic sites
and prehistoric sites all within the preserve boundary.
We are a little unique in the National Park System.
There are people who live here, in the park,
within the boundaries.
We have commercial port operations going through the park.
There's commercial fishing as well as recreational fishing,
boating, kayaking, water skiing, jet skiing.
There's a lot of subsistence uses.
People are still using the waterways
and fishing for dinner.
So, why is water quality monitoring important to us
here at the preserve?
You know water is an essential element and we depend on it
for a number of different reasons.
You want fish that comes out of clean water.
Otherwise it'll make you sick.
- Understanding water quality
helps us understand the ecology and dynamics
of the estuary.
Without knowing something about those dynamics
and the interactions between water quality
and the ecosystem, it's hard to manage the estuary
or protect it or conserve it.
Some of the tools we use to measure water quality
are the data sondes, that are instruments
that we place in the water.
It's almost like a robot that you can put out in the water
and leave it there.
And it just collects data all day long.
- This is configured to measure
conductivity and temperature.
This sensor measures pH, the acidity of the water.
This sensor measures turbidity,
which is the cloudiness of the water.
And our last and final sensor is dissolved oxygen.
- They stay in the water for 365 days a year,
seven days a week.
They collect data on the temperature of the water,
the salinity, the pH, the dissolved oxygen
And all of these parameters are important
for life in the estuary.
In addition to the fixed station monitoring that we do here,
we also do monitoring on a boat where we go out
and visit sites all across the preserve
and collect the same kinds of data.
We also do chemistry samples where we measure
the amount of nutrients in the water.
What the boat sampling gives us is a snapshot
more of less, of what's going on across the whole preserve.
A long term data set is important
in that it gives you a really good perspective
on how we're doing managing our resource.
- [Shauna] With continuous water quality monitoring,
critical to our success is partnerships.
There are a number of different agencies
that have a stake in the preserve.
- [Brian] A few years ago, the City of Jacksonville,
the state of Florida and the National Park Service
formed a partnership,
the Three Rivers Conservation Coalition.
- We are now working as a team,
working with the city and the state
to develop common protocols
and all with the same common goal,
and that's understanding the water quality in the preserve.
(quiet music)
So we know that shellfish harvesting
is a historic activity because we have huge number
of shell middens.
And these are large repositories of oyster shells.
They've been mined to build the tabby slave cabins
at Kingsley Plantation.
Around 1994, shellfish harvesting was closed
because of water quality concerns.
So the beds haven't been opened for harvesting
for over 20 years now.
And so we've worked with our partners
and the City of Jacksonville and the state of Florida.
We're seeing that the water quality's improved,
we're no longer have the issues that we had in the past.
It's exciting and even scary to think
that at some point in the near future
we may have shellfish harvesting again.
That would be accomplishing one of our goals
in our general management plan
to restore the shellfish harvesting beds.
Everything that happens in the preserve
is really dependent on the water.
So water quality is critically important.
I believe in our mission to protect
and conserve these beautiful resources.
I want my grandchildren's grandchildren
to experience what I've been able to experience
and to see what I've seen.
(quiet inspirational music)