Survey project
Woodville Karst Plain Project
A volunteer, non-profit exploration and research project that explores, surveys and documents the flooded caves beneath North Florida's Woodville Karst Plain, including the Wakulla-Leon Sinks system.
The WKPP describes its mission as exploring, surveying, connecting, documenting and protecting the flooded cave systems of North Florida's Woodville Karst Plain, and as supporting research through partnerships with state, federal and private landowners [1]. Its own history traces the project to the 1985 exploration of upstream Sullivan Sink; the National Speleological Society accepted the WKPP as an official NSS project on 1990-10-24, and in January 1991 the NACD handed supervision of exploration and research diving in the Woodville Karst Plain to the WKPP, which the project says serves as the qualifying body for exploration and research diving in the Apalachicola National Forest [2].
On 2007-12-15 WKPP divers Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinlay traversed from Turner Sink to Wakulla Springs, proving the connection that made the Wakulla-Leon Sinks Cave System [3]. A 2007 project fact sheet described the WKPP as a non-profit affiliate of Global Underwater Explorers [4]; its current website describes it as a 501(c)(3) non-profit [1]. GUE's account of the dive also credits the group's research with showing that the caves carry water many kilometres across the region and that water from the City of Tallahassee's sewage treatment facility was contaminating the groundwater, which it says contributed to the city refining its water-management practices [3].
Further reading
A short history of underwater cave exploration: dated milestones
Conservation, landowners and responsible access
Groundwater, haloclines and water quality in flooded caves
How underwater caves are surveyed and studied
Threats to underwater caves today, and how they are protected
The Wakulla Springs Project ↗
Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) ↗
Every fact on this page, with its source (4)
| Fact | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The WKPP grew out of the 1985 exploration of upstream Sullivan Sink.Organisation's own history. | Verified | [2] |
| The NSS welcomed the WKPP as an official NSS project on 1990-10-24.The 2007 fact sheet gives 'officially established: 1990'. | Verified | [2] |
| On 2007-12-15 Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinlay traversed from Turner Sink to Wakulla Springs, proving the Wakulla-Leon Sinks connection.GUE gives the distance as nearly seven miles (about 11 km). | Verified | [3] |
| The WKPP describes itself as a 501(c)(3) non-profit; in 2007 it was described as a non-profit affiliate of Global Underwater Explorers.Affiliation wording differs by date. | Verified | [1] [4] |
Verified: stated by an official or primary source we opened. Reported: from a secondary source only. Sources conflict: the note gives both versions. May be out of date: the newest source we found is old.
Written in our own words from the sources above. Report a correction