Water Quality
By Keri Hendry
Two hundred years ago, a large, rippling mass of water flowed from the Kissimmee River basin, south into Lake Okeechobee where it overflowed into the Everglades and eventually drained into Florida Bay. The Caloosahatchee River had its headwaters at Lake Flirt and meandered slowly down to its estuary in what is now Estero. Now, after generations of attempting to tame nature to adapt to the needs of man, the Everglades suffers from encroaching development, nutrient pollution and lack of fresh water, and the Caloosahatchee and its estuaries are plagued with yearly issues of either too much water being released into it from Lake O or too little. With a powerful sugar lobby and a new governor who has shown little interest in changing the status quo, local politicians and environmentalists are often stymied in their efforts to effect change.
The health of the Caloosahatchee River is controlled by many factors, with the biggest one being how much water is released into it from Lake Okeechobee. In the many years since the river’s many oxbows were straightened and Lake O’s natural southern overflow contained by the Herbert Hoover Dam, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the Army Corps of Engineers have been tasked with determining what water goes where. Much of this water is laden with phosphorous and nitrogen - two powerful nutrients used by the sugar industry to make the soil palatable to sugarcane - that get into Lake O when they are back-pumped from the vast fields of cane on the lake's southern edge. Excessive amounts of these nutrients create major environmental issues. The problem is that the sugar lobby has considerable influence over who decides what water goes where. Couple this with the fact that communities on the lake's edge are in danger of being flooded due to the age of the dam and this creates a situation where excess water – laden with nutrients – is flushed down the river when the lake is too high and none is provided when the lake is too low.
“Providing minimum flow to the Caloosahatchee during the dry season would amount to about 5 inches from Lake Okeechobee,” wrote a frustrated Commissioner Ray Judah during this past summer's drought. “In contrast, water supply users (agricultural users like Big Sugar) are provided more than 2 feet of lake water during this time.”
Following the hurricane season of 2004 and 2005, the situation was the opposite – with millions of gallons of nutrient-tainted water being flushed into the river every day creating a nightmare of red drift algae, red tide and dead fish that inspired the News Press to create a campaign called “Stop the Muck.”
But what are the reasons behind all the brouhaha? How much does water quality and Everglades Restoration actually affect folks’ everyday lives?
First are the environmental reasons. The Caloosahatchee River and Estero Bay serve as nurseries to fish. Too much fresh water, and the tape grass that they feed on dies. Too little fresh water, and hypersaline conditions occur and the river is choked with mats of algae. Either of these conditions have devastating effects downstream as a chain reaction goes into effect that results in things like red drift algae fouling the beaches, fish die-offs, red tide, damage to oyster beds and brown smelly water or blobs of green algae. This in turn effects those species higher up the food chain, including humans, which brings up the second reason for preserving water quality: health.
This past summer, when the Caloosahatchee River became hypersaline as a result of too few releases because of the drought, the Lee County Health Department issues a Health Advisory precluding any human or animal contact with the river due to harmful blue-green algae blooms and the presence of toxic cyanobacteria. Signs posted at the popular Caloosahatchee Regional Park in eastern Lee County literally read, “don’t go near the river.”
According to the World Health Organization, exposure to cyanobacteria causes a wide range of symptoms including stomach cramps, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and liver damage. Swimmers in water containing cyanobacterial toxins may suffer allergic reactions such as asthma, eye irritation, rashes, and blisters around the mouth and nose. The toxins can also affect the kidneys.
In 2005, residents and visitors on Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel suffered from respiratory issues because of all the red tide and rotting fish.
Finally, there are the economic issues. Tourism is a $2.5 billion industry in the state of Florida, and those folks don't come down here to just sit inside their condos. According to Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Association Director Rae Ann Wessel, the Caloosahatchee River and Estero Bay alone support a $3 billion economy and over 124,000 jobs.
“The estuary suffers from both too much water during the wet season and lack of water during the dry season,” she said in a recent letter to the SFWMD.
Another environmental watchdog group - The Everglades Foundation - recently released the results of a comprehensive analysis of the financial return generated by restoration of the Everglades. The study, conducted by Mather Economics, projects that restoration will produce an increase in economic benefits of approximately $46.5 billion and also showed that for every one dollar spent on Everglades restoration as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), $4.04 will be generated in economic benefits.
Most of these projects will require that storage areas be created so that excess lake water can be saved for dry times and cleaned of nutrient pollution – something that even the sugar lobby supports - but Governor Scott doesn't seem to be interested. Not only did he cut more than $210 million from the budgets of the state's five water management districts, his three new appointees to SFWMD's governing board appear to have questionable environmental records: James Moran is a Tea Party activist from Palm Beach County who met Scott at a protest against SFWMD's buyout of U.S. Sugar lands; Timothy Sargent is Chief Financial Officer of Huzienga Holdings (a company that once attempted to turn 2,500 acres of land on the edge of the Everglades into a $30 million theme park) and Daniel Delisi is a man who recently caught fire for commenting that “tourists don't come here to see tape grass” is one of the first species to be affected by changing salinity levels in the river and serves as a nursery for the fishing industry).
Meanwhile, one storage project in eastern Lee County – the C-43 Reservoir - awaits federal authorization as part of CERP – something Scott has publicly and loudly objected to.
All of this frustrates local lawmakers and environmental groups who are convinced that water quality equates to quality of life.
“Until the governor and the South Florida Water Management District cut ties with the sugar industry, we'll not see responsible action by the governing board to be able to protect the public interest,” said Commissioner Judah this past June.
At a meeting held a couple of months ago, Fort Myers Beach Mayor Larry Kiker summed it up perfectly when he told the Tourist Development Council: “it begins with the water and ends with the water.”
We would all do well to remember that.
Photography supplied by Jacquie Roecker
Click here to print a sample letter you can send to Governor Scott about water quality issues
