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ENCORE: Sinkholes in Florida

Scott Wheeler/silver image photo agency

More people are touched by sinkholes in Florida than everywhere else in the world. Professor and scientist Dr. Robert Brinkman writes in his new book “Florida Sinkholes: Science and Policy” that at least one sinkhole forms somewhere in the state doing some type of property damage every week although most form between March and May. 

Devil’s Millhopper, a sinkhole northwest of Gainesville

We talk about the research industry, which although it continues at universities, stopped collaborating statewide in the early 1990’s. At the same time there’s been growth in the sinkhole real estate speculating industry.

A sinkhole spring

The Florida Geological Survey published the Florida Sinkhole Index. It lists about 1,900 sinkholes that formed in the last thirty years. South Florida is not considered a high-risk zone however cypress domes are the telltale signs signifying the sinkholes of the Everglades. They’ve formed in the shallow depressions on the surface of bedrock there – a far cry from the type of sinkhole that took the life of Seffner man in 2013.

Matthew Smith is a reporter and producer of WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.