Florida’s environmental problems really took off in February this year when Governor Rick Scott had to declare a “state of emergency” in communities along the state’s east and west coasts because of pollution from the ongoing discharges of Lake Okeechobee water to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, reports Earth Justice.
U.S. Sugar Corp. and its owner, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, which just happens to be headquartered in Flint, Michigan, is being blamed for the pollution emergency, although nothing to date is being done about the situation. Runoff from the company’s sugar cane fields goes into lake Okeechobee, which is bad enough.
But add El Nino’s heavy rains that brought triple the amount of rainfall to Central Florida in January. CNN reports that all the rainwater eventually made its way into the lake and estuaries, picking up fertilizer and other pollutants along the way. But let’s add the warmer than normal winter temperatures to the mix and we have an environmental disaster.
An ecological disaster is born
By the end of February, Lake Okeechobee’s floodgates were open and still discharging polluted waters toward the east and west coasts of Florida and into the Everglades. Soon after, a toxic algae bloom along with a brown tide finished off what remaining oxygen was left in the water, resulting in dead fish, dead sea grass and other sea life, unfit water conditions for swimming and fishing and an all around stinking mess.
Amidst all the hue and cry from the public, the governor decided to have the Army Corps of Engineers depart from their usual practices and instead drain lake Okeechobee directly into the Everglades, which was an asinine move on Scott’s part. After all, American taxpayers are paying billions to have the Everglades cleaned up, and Scott has effectively done away with that issue.
Ed Garland, a spokesman for the St. John River Water Management District, said officials are not certain of the effect the brown tide is having on sea grass. He downplays the damage, though, saying this has happened before. Yes, it did happen before, in 2011, and over half the sea grass died off and there are still vast areas where it hasn’t come back yet.
Captain Alex Gorichky, is a conservationist who runs a small fishing tour company. Of course, that business has suffered because of the rotting fish, but he says he has seen “every species of fish washed ashore in the Indian River Lagoon, including redfish that have been breeding here for over 35 years.”
“The stretch is 30 miles long, and we’re looking at devastating amounts of fish floating throughout that whole 30-mile stretch,” he was quoted as saying according to the Daily mail. Gorichky added: “It’s not an isolated incident; we’re talking about wide-open expanses of rivers, canals, pockets of water with no tidal flow.”
Fishing columnist Ed Killer, who writes for Treasure Coast-Palm Coast newspapers, pretty well sums up how this journalist and many others feel about this environmental disaster. He writes:
“I’m sick of this,”
“I’m sick of writing about fish kills.”
“I’m sick of writing about algae blooms. And discharges. And brown tides, and red tides and toxic bacteria. I’m sick of writing about barren flats because the sea grass no longer grows there.”
He goes on to talk about backroom deals being made by politicians and special interest groups, and his disgust with federal and state agencies “issuing permits to violate laws of common sense, and then turning their back on clear violations of environmental laws and policies.” I say, “Amen to that.”
