http://www.tcpalm.com/news/indian-r...29-88d4-59b9-e053-0100007fc4eb-367103911.html Our place in Martin County is right where the St. Lucie and Indian rivers converge at the St. Lucie inlet. The intracoastal waterway flows north south here as well. The water quality is generally beautiful and the fishing and recreational opportunities are plentiful. In about a month the blue green water will turn brown and then very dark brown as the sludge and chemicals from the draining of Lake Okeechobee works its way through. And it could stay this way for months with massive fish kills and algae blooms. I've seen this before and it is one of the great ecological crimes committed anywhere in the world.
And with a strong El Niño this season, rainfall is off the charts, I drove through the city of Okeechobee on Thursday, they received 10" of rainfall from this weeks storm alone. Our normal January rainfall is 1.94" for the month, we received 13" instead... George I don't know if there is an answer to the issue, both the St. Lucie and Indian River get the Lake runoff going East towards you and the Calooshatchee River has the exact same problem going West as it pours into the Gulf of Mexico at Ft. Myers. There are several factors happening here, the Big O is the water source for the City of Miami 200 miles to the south so the corp must keep that flowing, this causes them to hold the water higher and have their "dumps" of water to both coast. These water dumps are by this point nothing but dirty freshwater runoff from every Agriculture interest for miles around, every golf courses nitrogen along with the residential. By far the Ag industry is the largest contributor to the pond water. This in turn will cause the algae blooms causing red tide on both coast. The high population areas are screaming with protest about this and don't care what happens to the water, just don't send it my way or we are going to sue... But....This all changes rapidly when we hit the drought years every now and then, Miami can't water it's people, Ft. Myers also gets its water source from the River and both coast are crying send us more water because the salt water salinity is off the charts as the oceans move inward at low Lake water runoff. The above mentioned scenario forgotten, I've actually seen protest and lawsuits against not enough water runoff as each municipality fights for their share. I don't have an answer or intelligent witty response, I'm a rural resident that farms. This means we have like six votes against the ten million on the coastline so we don't have much input, and it means we are wearing overalls chomping on a hayseed with our 79 IQ dumping our wastewater... Something must be done to fix the issue but What????
To emphasize the task in front of solving the Big O runoff problem here is one small example...This is a paragraph from today's local fishing report mentioning the water runoff.. This is one lake only, we have 27 in just our area 40 miles NW of Okeechobee, and guess what direction they drain to....So how many counties have water flow going towards the Big O, 10-12...The water runoff from Orlando runs south on the Kissimmee River and connects with Lake Okeechobee... The cumulative effort needed to respond to the issue from just the local governments is mind boggling...
I am certainly no expert...but I also have a vested interest, being a part time resident of Fort Myers Beach. A couple of years ago the water quality was horrific, and I assume that it will happen again this year. My interests are selfish and recreational (though I have a property interest), while Ralph is a hard working farmer whose livelihood depends on agriculture. However the residents down here depend on tourism for their livelihood, and the pristine beaches and the wildlife in the back bay are necessary for their economic well being. My limited understanding makes me feel that all this was caused not by the citrus farming in Ralph's area...rather by the lobbying of the sugar cane industry to block southern water release from Lake O so the area south of it can be used for sugar cane. This has not only had devastating effects on the Everglades (which in reality is nothing more than a huge, wide, slow moving river) but on the east and west coast where the excess water now has to be released to. The extra "fresh" water has environmental effects on the estuaries as well as promotes algae and seaweed and is suspected to promote the Red Tide algae. Then you add the back pumping of millions of gallons of contaminated water from the fertilized sugar fields back into Lake O and you have an absolute mess. The solution would seem to be to have the state purchase the land south of the lake from the sugar producers (who have expressed willingness to sell...for a price) and to reopen the flow south through the Everglades. They keep talking about this and even have allocated funds for it, but every time it starts to come up in the legislature something mucks up the works. Another partial solution that they are working on is the construction of holding reservoirs around Lake O so that not as much needs to be released to the coasts, but my understanding is that this is a pretty tiny band aid. That's where my meager understanding lies...I'm sure Ralph has a much better handle on it...please correct any of my misconceptions. Hopefully solutions will be found. I'm sure that the farmers are interested in keeping farming from destroying the environment. It's ironic that this stuff is happening in my two areas of residency...the other being Ohio where the farm runoff is causing amazing algae blooms in Lake Erie. Are there any other areas where this is happening?
I would be curious as to where Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush stand with Big Sugar. Also, present rainfall notwitstanding, are The Everglades indeed drying up to the south?
Well guys I am far from being an expert in the water quality issue, I just have an opinion like everyone else and may be a little closer to the problem as a business that releases water out into the wild. I still think that there are so many layers involved in this problem that one party cannot be blamed, it goes deeper than that. Anything pertaining to water in the State of Florida is under the jurisdiction of the water districts for each zone in the state. It is very regulated to the point that from an agriculture standpoint any engineering must be approved by the District before the first shovel of dirt is moved. We currently have 500 acres of reservoir systems on site, the shape, size and depth come from the District. They are designed to move water from the canal system in the Citrus grove to the reservoirs where the water is allowed to settle out impurities and at a set height overflows through a weir designed by the district to slowly move beyond our property boundaries. This water recreates the river of grass system the Everglades has had in place for eons. It slowly moves south toward the river of grass. The culprit started 90 years ago with the building of the Tamiami Trail/Hwy 41 cutting through the Glades. This was built by the Corps of Engineers with no long term thought on its affect to the ecosystem. It basically blocked the flow of water to the Glades and compounded everything going north in relation to water flow. Everything after that time period, the water flowing to Indian River and the Calusahatchee River was designed to work upon the original engineering from the early 1900's. So in essence one problem was added onto another problem where 100 years later we have a ClusterFluck... Entire communities now take up areas where water once flowed, Agriculture companies planted fields and moved water into other directions. Meanwhile the water districts and Army engineers built pumping stations to efficiently move water away from city's and towns to prevent flooding, this is part of the problem we are living with the water pouring both East and West causing havoc to the estuary's and prime waterfront. Are there politics at play, your damn right there is from Big Ag business to every municipality that sits in a flood plain. Nobody wants to be the one to change whats been in place for a generation and nobody wants to pay for it, all the way to the State Capitol. There has been effort to correct the problem, the Everglades Act by congress to purchase land, the creation of monster reservoirs to collect the additional water but its just a drop in the bucket and billions upon billions of dollars are going to be needed. This is where the politics comes into play because of the money and how much government people want in their lives and businesses. I know for a fact the Everglades are not drying up, the efforts have actually improved the sheet flow, the trick is what is the water quality like after it flows into Florida Bay and its effect on the reef system toward the Keys. My wife and I drove to Ortona Locks east of Labelle yesterday on the Calusahatchee River, the water pouring West was amazing, I am not sure an outboard could keep you going the other direction. Be prepared for incredible amounts of water to hit both coast soon. We want to blame Big Sugar and they are an easy target at times but I have seen the water district pump water out of Lake Okeechobee to maintain a certain water height because 15 nesting sites of a wading bird were in danger. To hell with the beach communities and the algae this may cause, that was not in their sphere of concern... Lots of layers, lots of blame and lots of money to fix the problem that is a 100 years in the making. I don't see this being resolved in my lifetime...
Stu I have to admit that I cannot hide under a rock and say that Citrus/Farming in general is not one of the culprits to the problem, the simple fact is any amount of fertilizer released knowingly or unknowingly is to blame. Every farm, golf course, green lawn, parking lot is flushing off into the environment in some form or fashion. This is why the EPA wanted to start with Florida as the first state to be tested for water quality in its rivers and waterways and the cause. With much lobbying the testing was hampered and watered down (huh, pun) to the point that I don't even hear of it anymore. It's like having a leaking pipe under the foundation of your five story house that is 80 years old, its going to be painful and expensive to fix and who in their right mind wants to tackle the problem. I can say that in Agriculture we are looking at new laws and regulations that will control the amount of Nitrogen runoff. They are called BMP's or Best Management Practices, eventually every pound of material used on the farm of whatever it may be will have to be accounted for. This is no easy feat and to be quite honest I don't have the finances within our company to implement the requirements of testing and data collection. Regardless this will be slowly required for all Ag businesses if they want to continue with their operation. Sad thing is I understand the need for this, it has to start someplace, the bad thing is I am fairly confident we will be buying a lot more of our food products from a third world country that does not require such expenses. There is always a trade off, maybe this is it....?
Geez, I'm almost sorry I moved from Michigan to here in Florida. At least up in Michigan, they never have water problems.
But its cold up there and it has Detroit... This being the "ON" year for El Nino we have all seen rainfall that just does not normally happen during this time of the year, we should be dry. I am seeing water levels and rainfall that is normally what we receive in July/Aug. So in turn more water will be pouring out to the coastlines than what is considered average. The one hope is since it is still relatively cool it will not produce algae blooms along the waterways...The bad news is if your a crab fisherman or fishing guide the crabbing and fishing will suck...
Gip, from everything I've read, by being north of the "problem" and even north of Orlando, you should be OK. Like Kes, I noted your comment about Michigan. What a clusterf..k that is.
It's always a problem. We have bay systems in South Texas that are feed by various rivers where there are upstream dams, decision on how much water to release impacts the bay systems esp the marshy area's that are critical for some species. Too much water and they aren't saline enough, not enough water and the salinity goes up impacting the development of various aspects. Before man controlled these things, nature did it for us..droughts and floods.
Here is an aerial view of the St. Lucie Inlet in the midst of a tide change during the 2013 drainage of Okeechobee.
Now George I'm not trying to argue here because I feel we are both in agreement with the issue at hand but the picture being at first shocking is what it looks like when freshwater meets saltwater anywhere in the world....
Fresh water meets saltwater everyday but it doesn't look like that. I have run boats through that and fished in it. You can't see at all beneath the surface. Up close it looks like coffee with just a touch of cream. Very dark brown with lots of particles in it. Algae blooms everywhere. Wipes out the Queen conch that are trying to flourish in the estuary.
I guess at the end of the day the question still remains....How do we fix the problem or at the very least start the process...