SoylentNews

fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      "Guacamole thick algae mats," "rancid milk mixed with dog shit," and "eyes and lungs searing" are how Gizmodo staff writer Maddie Stone describes her arrival at Stuart, Florida, whose St. Lucie estuary is currently suffocating under a vast, nutrient-fueled algae bloom. (See also SN: July 14, 2016 [soylentnews.org]).

      She writes:

Not only does the water look and smell like a sewer, it's potentially a serious health hazard. The Department of Environmental Protection has begun detecting microcystins [wordpress.com], cyanobacteria toxins which if ingested can cause nausea, vomiting, and liver failure. Locals exposed to the rank odor of "guacamole thick" algae mats have complained [miamiherald.com] of rashes, eye and skin irritation. Tourism is taking a nosedive [tcpalm.com].

      [...]

      "This is absolutely, positively a Lake Okeechobee issue," oceanographer Zack Jud told me when I arrived at Florida's Oceanographic Society a few miles away to learn what the hell was going on. "That's where the whole crux of this problem lies."

      The second largest freshwater lake located entirely within the continental US, Okeechobee used to be the beating heart of the Everglades, connecting freshwater from the Kissimmee river in the north to the sawgrass prairies stretching more than 100 miles south. That all changed in the 1930s, when the US Army Corps of Engineers erected the a vast dike system around the lake in order to drain lands for settlement and cultivation. It was the first of many decisions that would forever alter the hydrology and ecology of the Everglades.

      But water was still entering the lake from the north, and it had to go somewhere. So the Army Corps dredged two canals -- one west, to the Caloosahatchee river, another east to the St. Lucie. Today, these man-made flow paths are Lake Okeechobee's overflow valves.

      A combination of El Nino and tainted water usage policies combined to fire the cannon that is today's disaster.

The result is that by early spring, Lake Okeechobee was becoming dangerously full. Fearing a catastrophic dike breach, the Army Corps began discharging billions of gallons of water a day through its canals, turning the St. Lucie estuary into a freshwater ecosystem overnight.

      This alone would have harmed the oysters, seagrass, and other saltwater-adapted organisms living there. But it wasn't exactly spring water entering the ecosystem. The discharges were filled with nitrogen and phosphorus-laden fertilizer, which seeps into Lake Okeechobee from farms to the north. This stuff was algae fuel.

      Not surprisingly, a solution was proposed which could have alleviated at least part of the problem -- it was even mandated by a state referendum which earmarked funds for it. Mysteriously, the funds went elsewhere, apparently. Moreover, pollution regulation [floridapolitics.com] in Florida seems to be...limp, at best.

"My fear is that we have not seen the worst," Jud said. "With 200 square miles of algae blooming on the lake, and conditions getting more and more favorable for algae growth, and the potential for rainfall to require additional discharges, I think we have the potential for things to get much worse before they get better."

Original Submission