Column: Mermaids And The, Uh, Scales Of Justice

WEEKI WACHEE -- Mermaids have been performing at Weeki Wachee Springs for 60 years. At first, they stood along U.S. 19 in swimsuits, flagging down traffic. Then they would run and jump in the spring to do their underwater act.

The glory years were the 1950s and 1960s, when Weeki Wachee gained worldwide fame. Today the place still has a sort of 1960s, pre-Disney feel, which I mean in a good way - a perfect piece of Florida roadside kitsch, before everything got all modern.

The highlight is the Underwater Theater, of course.

You sit in a curved amphitheater and peer through giant windows into the spring. The mermaids swim and dance and lip-synch to music, breathing through air hoses.

I watched them do The Little Mermaid the other day. At the risk of spoiling the story, I can tell you that the heroine finds her prince and the Wicked Sea Witch is defeated.

Unfortunately for the mermaids of Weeki Wachee, it is easier to defeat fictitious sea witches than to subdue a real-life adversary, namely ...

The Southwest Florida Water Management District. [rest of column]

Comments

[Mike]

Let me see if I understand this right... a half dozen young ladies swimming around pollutes the water and is a public safety issue?
I saw Weeki Wachee in 1967 and would like to see again someday, nothing else in FL has the same charm.

[John Kerry]

What about water management spraying rivers and lakes turning bottom into septic tanks with dead vegetation.

[J.P. Davis]

Swift Mud, by its own admission, is to promote and facilitate development.... much as the EPA's goal is to destroy the environment rather than protect it.

[T.Brennan]

In the late 50's I used to swim in the river just below the springs. The water is crystal clear and the experience was transcendently beautiful. This spring is such a special natural resource that it, and a zone around it, should be protected as a national treasure.

[Deb Keough]

I guess I don't understand the problem... Are they peeing in the water or something? How would anybody know?

[ToolmanTim]

Hummm you did not post my comment because the truth was told. Anyways you can't even spell weeki wachhe correctly. See your web address at the end of your comment.

Thanks Tim

[W.A. Tomlinson]

The quasi-government, and by that I mean, most of those folks in the beltway and all of their evil little ... uh, excuse me, bloated bureaucracies, that they have designed to suck the blood from the veins of liberty need to understand that, just as King George did, they are violating the laws of freedom that they all swore an oath to uphold. We the people need to listen to the author of the Declaration of Independence … The tree of liberty must regularly be watered with the blood of Patriots and tyrants.” ~ Thomas Jefferson