St. Johns River Headwaters West of Melbourne — Melbourne, Florida

In a sawgrass marsh, not a spring. The St. Johns River Water Management District's river overview says Florida's longest river begins its 310-mile northward journey as a marsh in Indian River County, and that the sawgrass marshes of its headwaters hold alligators, wading birds and waterfowl. The District also measures the river's fall from its source in the marshes south of Melbourne.

The point where water first gathers into a channel has a name. On its Three Forks Conservation Area page, the District writes that the first discernible channels of the St. Johns, called Three Forks, arise within the marsh south of Lake Hell 'n' Blazes. The District reaches that marsh from access points west of Palm Bay, and Three Forks Marsh is one of the protected conservation areas that now keep it wet.

By drifting north through a string of lakes. SJRWMD explains that the upper basin is the southern area forming the river's marshy headwaters in Indian River and Brevard counties, and that in Brevard County the marsh becomes a navigable river, gently twisting as it crawls north. The City of Melbourne's utility pages count Lake Washington, the lake that supplies the Buckley water plant, as the third uppermost of the naturally connected upper St. Johns River lakes.

West of Melbourne the river enters the District's River Lakes Conservation Area, which takes in lakes Washington, Winder and Poinsett. A fixed-crest weir just north of Lake Washington is the one point where the District regulates St. Johns River flow in that reach, and a land gate at the western terminus of Wickham Road connects Melbourne's street grid to the marsh. The Florida Specifier reports that Hurricane Ian in October 2022 flooded this 39,000-plus acre conservation area at the river's headwaters.

The U.S. Geological Survey measures the young river at its St. Johns River near Melbourne gage, station 02232000 in Brevard County. At that point the river has collected water from 968 square miles of the Upper St. Johns subbasin, and the gage datum sits at 11.22 feet on the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929.

Because it began as a lagoon. SJRWMD describes the St. Johns as an ancient intracoastal lagoon system: as sea levels dropped, barrier islands blocked water from flowing east to the ocean, so it collected in a flat valley and meandered north. From the marshes south of Melbourne to the mouth at Mayport, the District says, the river drops less than 30 feet in total, about one inch per mile, making it one of the few U.S. rivers that flows north and one of the laziest rivers in the world.

That flatness has consequences far downstream of Brevard County. The District notes that Atlantic tides reverse the river's flow twice a day near its mouth, and that in low water the reversal can reach as far south as Lake Monroe, 161 miles upstream. Sustained northeast winds can reverse it for days, so the river cannot easily flush pollutants. Its tea color comes from tannins released by decaying plants, the same dark water that fills the marsh west of Melbourne.

The District divides the river into three basins, and the Melbourne reach belongs to the first. The upper basin is the marshy southern headwaters in Indian River and Brevard counties; the middle basin in central Florida is where the river widens into lakes Harney, Jesup, Monroe and George; the lower basin runs from Putnam County to the mouth in Duval County. The major tributaries the District names, the Wekiva, Econlockhatchee and Ocklawaha rivers, all join well north of Brevard County. The USGS has kept daily records at the gage near Melbourne since October 1939.

Much of it was drained and later restored. According to the District's upper basin history, the Upper St. Johns River Basin once held more than 400,000 acres of marsh, and farmers drained thousands of acres to reach the peat soils beneath. Closer to Melbourne, the Ten-Mile Ridge, an old dune line that once divided the St. Johns floodplain from Turkey Creek and now carries part of Interstate 95, was breached in 1922, when a 180-mile grid of 80 canals was dug to drain the wetlands. The District counts the western two-thirds of Palm Bay as lying in the river's historic drainage basin.

Restoration rebuilt the headwaters as a patchwork of named units across Brevard and Indian River counties. Blue Cypress Marsh Conservation Area, the District says, resembles the original marshes of the upper basin; Three Forks Marsh, Fort Drum Marsh and St. Johns Marsh are the other conservation areas. On former pasture and cropland, the Fellsmere Water Management Area has restored 10,000 acres of wetland and open water at the headwaters. The Florida Specifier describes the whole St. Johns headwaters basin as covering 2,000 square miles.

The marsh now acts as storage for the river's start. In a release dated Oct. 13, 2016, SJRWMD reported that five to six inches of rain fell in the upper St. Johns River Basin during Hurricane Matthew and that water levels never reached their maximum elevations, and that the project had once again protected western Brevard and Indian River counties, the rural land west of Melbourne and Palm Bay, from flooding.

Three Forks Conservation Area is the main public door to the river's source. SJRWMD lists nearly 70 miles of trail there, with access west of Palm Bay from the Thomas O. Lawton Recreation Area, the Sweetwater parking area on U.S. 192, the Kenansville parking area and boat ramp, and the Fellsmere Grade Recreation Area. These are the road-side entry points to the river's source closest to the Melbourne and Palm Bay area listed by the District.

The headwaters land is managed for wet prairie and open marsh. The District maintains its northwestern prairies with prescribed fire, and reports that restoration has improved habitat for waterfowl, wading birds, river otters and shorebirds, with alligators seen year-round. Designated campsites carry names such as Sawgrass Shelter, Spade Island Camp and Bulldozer Cabin, and an airboat tour concessionaire works out of the Tom O. Lawton Recreation Area by appointment. Hiking, biking and bank fishing on the levees, seasonal hunting, canoeing and airboating are all listed uses of the marsh where the St. Johns River starts, in the marshes south of Melbourne.