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Here is the link for a short Associated Press article in today's (7-6-99) Tampa Tribune on the sale of Madison Blue Springs. http://tampatrib.com/news/tues100v.htm In case the link is dead later, I'm quoting the article below. I sincerely hope a water company does not get ahold of the site since caving and recreation will certainly be stopped (look at Crystal Springs in Zephyrhills). Note the paragraph that says "there is a danger in these beautiful, submerged caverns." This is the reason the family wants to sell? Please. I heard rumors that Anna tried to negotiate with the state to lease Jackson Blue for 100 years to operate a resort. I hope the state will be able to obtain the property and keep it open for divers, just as it does at Manatee Springs. Heck, the price for cave divers just might drop 150% if they do. It would be harder for them to completely close the system unless they grate it since it is so close to the river. At least there won't be any more shootings. <G> 7/6/99 -- 12:30 AM A spring loved by generations is pristine again but also for sale -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------- Lee - Worried about liability, Blue Spring's owners are selling the site with hopes the state or Madison County buys it and keeps it open to the public. An Associated Press report =46or generations, Blue Spring has been as much a part of life for children and adults here as the courthouse, the church or the tobacco station.=20 ``I remember it from the 1920s,'' said Louise Zipperer, 91, a lifelong resident of Madison County. ``It was such fun, it was a gathering place.''=20 Whether another generation will be able to create its own memories there remains to be seen.=20 The spring is for sale.=20 Bids from $2.2 million to $2.6 million have been placed for the 60 acres surrounding the turquoise waters, which flow today as they have done for thousands of years, from limestone caverns by the banks of the Withlacoochee River in Madison County, about 50 miles east of Tallahassee.=20 It is a race to see who will buy the last privately owned first-magnitude spring in the state. Florida has 27 first-magnitude springs, meaning they discharge more than 100 cubic feet of water a minute.=20 A Saudi banker, a mineral water bottler and the state have made bids to control the property.=20 Owner Anna Bruic and her son, Mike, bought the spring in 1992 for an undisclosed sum and spent years cleaning it, building picnic tables and pavilions and turning the landmark into a park for families.=20 It's a far cry from what the Bruics found when they bought the place. Motorcycle gangs had used it as a hangout and place to party. Madison County set up two trash containers here and, because there was no garbage pickup in neighboring Hamilton County, residents there began bringing trash to Blue Spring. The overflow was horrific.=20 ``I've got pictures of it. You wouldn't believe it,'' Mike Bruic said. ``There were rusted-out cars abandoned here, refrigerators, toilet bowls, disposable diapers lying on the ground everywhere, broken beer bottles - we still have to do a glass sweep of the woods after every rain, to [pick] up the fragments.''=20 Getting rid of the litter was one thing; getting rid of the litterers was more difficult.=20 ``I had tobacco juice spat in my face,'' Anna Bruic said. ``I was cursed out more times than I care to say.''=20 There's not a speck of litter on the property now. With its $3 admission, Blue Spring is one of the cheapest, prettiest parks in the state.=20 Beneath the springs lies a labyrinth of limestone galleries - at least 6 1/2 miles of passageways, said Mike Bruic, a cave diver.=20 But there is danger in these beautiful, submerged caverns. Two scuba-diving airmen from Warner Robbins Air Force Base drowned here in the 1970s. An 11-year-old boy committed suicide here about 40 years ago, and the incident still lives in local memory.=20 The possibility of incidents and accidents like these compelled the Bruics to put Blue Spring up for sale.=20 ``It just takes one lawsuit, one award of $5 million, to put you out of business and in debt forever,'' Mike Bruic said. ``We just couldn't handle the possibility of that.''=20 The final decision on a buyer will come in September. Anna Bruic said she hopes it ultimately will remain open to the public.=20 ``We're talking to everybody,'' Anna Bruic said. ``The state, the county, the Suwannee River Water Management District, Preservation 2000, the Florida Communities Trust. We really want to keep the place open to the public, as a family gathering place. We would even like to manage it for the state or the county, if a way can be found.''=20
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