SoylentNews

fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      "It was obvious on a July 1 airplane tour: Algae bunched up on the west side of the St. Lucie Lock and Dam before pouring through the gates and into the canal, like Black Friday shoppers jostling to squeeze through the just-opened doors of a big-box store." [USA Today [usatoday.com]]

      From an NPR [npr.org] article:

"There's no way to describe it," says John Skinner, a boat salesman in Stuart.

      But he still tries. "I would say hundreds of dead animals that have been baking in the sun for weeks."

      Live Science [livescience.com] explains:

A huge bloom of toxic algae that took over Florida's largest freshwater lake has been captured in stunning images taken from space.

      The NASA images show an expanse of blue-green algae that covered Lake Okeechobee in Florida this summer. The toxic bloom appeared in May and expanded to 33 square miles (85 square kilometers) in area, covering a good chunk of the 730-square-mile (1,913 square km) body of water -- the second-largest lake entirely within the contiguous United States (second only to Lake Michigan).

      [...]

      Lake Okeechobee is experiencing this persistent bloom in part because of the wet winter, which caused other lakes and rivers to swell, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. As a result, many water districts chose to drain their bodies of water earlier in the season, funneling the warm, nitrogen-rich water through the St. Erie Canal, which then emptied into Lake Okeechobee. The result was a tenacious toxic bloom that caused Florida Gov. Rick Scott to call a state of emergency in the nearby counties on June 29.

Original Submission