The U.S. Forest Service is currently monitoring one of the springs within the Ocala National Forest after the area was closed to visitor access this past weekend due to erosion.
On Saturday, October 21, Fern Hammock Springs was closed to visitor access due to “hydrological conditions eroding an area of the trail,” according to Naventure, the company formerly known as Adventure Ocala, LLC.
In an update on Tuesday, October 24, Naventure stated that staff has removed “unnatural soils” that were used to create the trail in an effort to keep these materials from “entering and potentially altering the ecosystem through erosion.”
The organization further stated that the erosion was likely caused by “an underwater collapse in the conduit that fed the sand boil [that] restricted the flow.” As a result, an increase in water pressure on the whole system led to the pressure finding a “new path of least resistance to the surface.”
Naventure mentioned that these types of collapses “happen under our feet all the time but we never see any evidence of it.” While larger collapses create sinkholes, minor ones tend to “simply go unnoticed.”
A portion of the trail and bridge at Fern Hammock Springs remains temporarily closed for safety, since the “hydrological changes underground” have made the area of the trail “extremely fragile and dangerous,” according to Naventure.
Visitors are encouraged to avoid the area and to not go past the barriers that are in place. “Please see staff for alternative hiking/walking options,” stated Naventure.
Fern Hammock Springs is a second-magnitude spring with an irregularly shaped main pool and a wooden footbridge that spans it, according to the St. Johns River Water Management District.
The spring discharges toward the northwest and flows about 600 feet down a meandering run to Juniper Creek before it moves northeast for about 10 miles until Lake George.
For more information on the spring, visit the Fern Hammock Springs webpage through the St. Johns River Water Management District website.
The closure comes just a few months after another spring at Ocala National Forest was temporarily closed.