The Barley Barber Swamp, once a vast Bald Cypress

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

and

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

in the Greater Everglades watershed, is a parcel of land surrounded by Florida Power & Light's (FPL) Martin County power plant. The swamp is located just over a mile east of Lake Okeechobee and due west of

Indiantown, Florida Indiantown is a village in Martin County, Florida, United States. The population was 6,560 at the 2020 census. It is a rural community in the interior of Florida's Treasure Coast region, first established in the early 1900s, then incorporated on D ...

. The old-growth cypress swamp is named after Barley Barber, a man who lived in the area at the turn of the 20th century. Little is known of the man Barley Barber except that he left the region after he had "trouble with the law."

Location and History

Historically, Barley Barber Swamp connected regional

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s, including the Allapatah Marsh, to Lake Okeechobee, ultimately feeding the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical climate, tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orland ...

ecosystem further south. The region was once a center of trading for the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the Lake Okeechobee area. A tall sand mound with ramp extensions sits in what remains today of the Barley Barber Swamp. Anthropologists contend that the indigenous culture of the area converged on the mound to trade in pottery.

Pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

shards and human remains found on the mound are 300 to 900 years old. Significant hydrological changes occurred in Barley Barber starting in the late 19th century with the construction of

Henry Flagler Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founde ...

Florida East Coast Railway The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México. Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a pr ...

. Regional drainage projects, highways, and the construction of the

Herbert Hoover Dike The Herbert Hoover Dike is a dike around the waters of Lake Okeechobee in Florida. History In the 1910s, a small earthen dike was constructed. This containment was breached by the storm surge from the Great Miami Hurricane in 1926 and the 1 ...

around Lake Okeechobee altered and disrupted the natural flow. Today the Barley Barber waterway is diverted through the L-65 canal into the St. Lucie canal before it reaches Lake Okeechobee. Nevertheless it remains navigable and interconnected.

Flora and fauna

One of the oldest bald cypress ('' Taxodium distichum'') trees in the entire Southeastern U.S. sits in Barley Barber Swamp. It is estimated at over 1,000 years old, stands tall, and has a circumference of . There are also Florida strangler figs (''

Ficus aurea ''Ficus aurea'', commonly known as the Florida strangler fig (or simply strangler fig), golden fig, or ''higuerón'', is a tree in the family Moraceae that is native to the U.S. state of Florida, the northern and western Caribbean, southern Me ...

''), swamp maples ('' Acer rubrum''), and pond apples (''

Annona glabra ''Annona glabra'' is a Tropics, tropical fruit tree in the family Annonaceae, in the same genus as the soursop and cherimoya. Common names include pond apple, alligator apple (so called because American alligators often eat the fruit), swamp appl ...

''). Barley Barber is home to a pair of nesting

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

s, American alligators, North American river otters,

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

and numerous unique plant species, including giant leather ferns (''

Acrostichum ''Acrostichum'' is a fern genus in the Parkerioideae subfamily of the Pteridaceae. It was one of the original pteridophyte genera delineated by Linnaeus. It was originally drawn very broadly, including all ferns that had sori apparently "ac ...

danaeifolium''), shoestring ferns (''

Vittaria ''Vittaria'', the shoestring ferns, is a genus of ferns in the Vittarioideae subfamily of the family Pteridaceae. It had previously been placed in the family Vittariaceae,Karl U. Kramer. 1990. "Vittariaceae". pages 272-277. In: Klaus Kubitzki ( ...

lineata'') and whisk ferns ('' Psilotum'' species), which are fern-like vascular plants. Many species of migratory and wading birds, such as

egret Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...

es, limpkin, and the endangered wood stork, can be seen in the swamp.

Tourism

Florida Power & Light acquired the land surrounding the Barley Barber Swamp in 1972 in order to construct the Martin County power plant. In the 1973 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Florida Power & Light states that "FPL has designated the facilities of this project so that the swamp, containing several of Florida's endangered species, will not only be saved but will be preserved and enhanced." After the plant's opening, the company constructed and opened a

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge ...

for tours in Barley Barber Swamp. Local businesses in Indiantown, such as the historic

Seminole Inn The Seminole Inn, also known as the Seminole Country Inn, is a Mission Revival style historic hotel located at 15885 Southeast Warfield Boulevard in Indiantown, Florida. It was built by S. Davies Warfield, who was president of the Seaboard Air ...

, coordinated tourism for the swamp. Barley Barber served as an environmental and economic asset to the small, rural community. Following the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, FPL closed off all access to the Barley Barber Swamp citing security concerns.

Controversy

Beginning on 5 January 2009, 30 environmental activists staged a five-day vigil along the Barley Barber Swamp to draw attention to what they claimed were damages being wrought by the power company's 3,705

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

Martin County plant. They also claimed that the swamp and its waterway is not a part of Florida Power & Light property but rather Waters of the State and Waters of the U.S, held for use by the public. The activists claim that the Martin County power plant is drawing water from the aquifer below the swamp causing the soil to subside below the root systems of the trees, resulting in declining forest health. On January 10, seventeen of the activists were arrested for trespassing. Florida Power & Light has since stated that the company will reopen the Barley Barber Swamp by 2010. Much of the evidence behind claims of the Martin Plant's detrimental impacts on the Barley Barber Swamp come from research conducted by Hydro-ecologist Dr. Sydney Bacchus. Dr. Bacchus has stated that the power plant's

cooling pond A cooling pond is a man-made body of water primarily formed for the purpose of cooling heated water and/or to store and supply cooling water to a nearby power plant or industrial facility such as a petroleum refinery, pulp and paper mill, chemica ...

and water use have caused "surficial aquifer draw down." Through the lowering of the water table, Dr. Bacchus argues, the ecosystem, including wildlife and the ancient cypress trees, is dying. On 23 July 2009, Stevie Lowe, one of the seventeen activists arrested at the Barley Barber protest, stood trial for trespassing into Barley Barber Swamp where she chained herself to a swamp maple. The jury found Stevie " not guilty" of trespassing. She was however convicted of "resisting arrest without violence." That the State Attorney's office of Martin County did not prove FPL's ownership of Barley Barber Swamp has led the activists to further their claim that the Barley Barber Swamp is Waters of the United States held for the use of the public rather than FPL's

private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...

References

{{Coord, 27, 02, 47, N, 80, 35, 14, W, display=title Archaeological sites in Florida Everglades Flooded grasslands and savannas Pre-statehood history of Florida Marshes of Florida Fluvial landforms Swamps of Florida Landforms of Martin County, Florida NextEra Energy Tourist attractions in Martin County, Florida