neckringer
09-09-2003, 11:39 AM
Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com
September 9, 2003
http://sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-plake09sep09.story
The flow from Lake Okeechobee pushes east through the Port Mayaca
floodgates at nearly 1.3 million gallons a minute.
On its 39-mile journey to the Atlantic Ocean, the dark water muscles
through the St. Lucie River with brute, toxic force. It dilutes
salinity,
drives off fish and pelicans and pounds the health of underwater
meadows
that feed and shelter marine life.
Some disgusted Martin County residents refer to the pollution- and
sediment-laden discharges that mushroom miles into the ocean from the
St.
Lucie Inlet as "scumfest."
And they're angry that their local waters are being used as a dumping
ground to protect Lake Okeechobee's 40-foot earthen dike and the
surrounding rural communities.
Water managers argue they have little choice. Gorged on too much rain
and
runoff, Lake Okeechobee is 16.9 feet above sea level -- 18 inches
higher
than water managers say it should be at this time of year. So the South
Florida Water Management District and Army Corps of Engineers,
co-managers
of the lake, are releasing torrents of water through the lake's east
and
west drainpipes.
The Caloosahatchee River also is carrying 1.6 million gallons a minute
of
lake water to the Gulf of Mexico.
The discharges could be stepped up if the lake rises another 10 inches
by
Oct. 1, the corps said.
"Year after year, [the river's] being destroyed," said Mark Perry,
executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society and a critic of
the high-volume St. Lucie discharges. "That's incredibly insane.
Really,
we've got to do something about it."
To those around Stuart, the black water surging past is a flashback to
1998, when similarly massive lake releases spurred an epidemic of fish
suffering from skin sores. Reports of such lesion-bearing fish,
including
a blue runner and pompano at the mouth of the St. Lucie, are trickling
in
again and are likely to increase, a state marine biologist said last
week.
Unwilling to have history repeat itself, they are calling for more of
the
lake water to flow south into a swath of sugarcane-dominated farm
fields
just south of the lake, into the Everglades or into canals that help
drain
Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
"We want a fair shake," said Leon Abood, a Stuart Realtor and chairman
of
the Rivers Coalition. "We'd like some of the adversity shared down
south."
But Audubon of Florida scientist Paul Gray said, "We'd be trashing the
Everglades."
Martin County forces promise not just another uproar this time but a
well-
coordinated legal assault on the water dumping. Abood's Rivers
Coalition
and the St. Lucie River Legal Defense Fund said they will work with
Martin
County officials who have begun investigating legal options for
stopping
or reducing discharges. The national River Keeper Alliance is
participating, too.
But stopping lake discharges into the river could prove tough, if not
impossible.
Lee County officials tried but failed to get an emergency injunction to
halt releases to the Caloosahatchee River in 2000. A circuit court
judge
and an appeals court both sided with the South Florida Water Management
District.
"We do not believe that a lawsuit can halt our discharges from Lake
Okeechobee," said Army Corps spokesman Barry Vorse.
The legal approach this time would be different, St. Lucie River
Defense
Fund attorney Ted Guy said. Opponents could try to sue by showing the
discharges violate the federal Clean Water and Endangered Species acts.
The latter could be invoked because a "critical habitat" for rare
Johnson's seagrass is at risk from fresh-water flow, Guy said.
"That would be the hook," Guy said.
The deluge of fresh water -- a pollutant by itself if it pours too
torrentially into an ecosystem where ocean tides and inland runoff
mingle
in a delicate balance -- is ruining water-dependent business on the St.
Lucie, fishing guides and tackle shop owners say. Before the snowbirds
arrive, Gregg Gentile caters to anglers from Florida's west coast.
They're
not calling him much anymore to help them land fish.
Usually they're avoiding the red tide when they come to Stuart, Gentile
said.
"Now they face the back tide," he said.
The St. Lucie River fish that bring the big money -- snook, tarpon and
redfish -- are missing, Gentile added. "We're going to be covered in
black
water well past the snowbirds' arrival."
Sailfish Bait and Tackle shop owner Jeff Stukel said the unsold, dead
shrimp he empties at the end of each day into the river are no longer
drawing catfish, croakers and other nibblers.
"Right now, there's nothing to eat them," he said. "They're not showing
up. The water is dirty, it's not sustaining life. It's dead."
Water managers don't like hammering river and estuary ecology. Yet with
the 730-square-mile lake steadily climbing, the top mandate is to
protect
life and property that would be flooded if the lake's levee breached,
said
corps water-management chief John Zediak.
At 18 feet, water levels could cause "piping." That's when leaks move
soil, not just water, through that lake-holding levee, leaving growing
cavities that could weaken it, said Luis Ruiz, a corps official.
If the lake hits 20 feet "the dike would pretty much fail," Ruiz said.
That could mean an 800-foot-wide break that would swamp rural towns
such
as Belle Glades and South Bay and the crop lands that sustain them
economically.
In its swollen state, the lake is smothering its own fish habitat,
submerged plants and bulrushes that grew back profusely after getting a
foothold on the lake bottom during the 2000 drought.
"We're right back to where we were in the late 1990s," Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Steve Gornak said, referring
to
a five-year stretch of high water that decimated the lake marshes that
shelter game fish such as bass.
Water District operations chief Tommy Strowd said his agency can send
little to no water south because there's no place to hold it. Canals in
urban areas are chock-full, and the 100-mile stretch of naturally
swampy
Everglades is saturated, Strowd said. Hunters are starting to see deer,
raccoons, possums and rabbits take refuge on levees as their other high
ground slips below water, he said.
"The levees are not natural Everglades habitat, so there is nothing for
them to eat," Strowd said.
The lake's south-shore outlets, four major canals cutting through the
Everglades Agricultural Area, are only limited options because they
can't
carry as much water as the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, Strowd
said.
Legal barriers also exist. U.S. rules prohibit overfilling the
Everglades
when they already are near their federal water-level target, Strowd
said.
But St. Lucie River advocates say there are other places that could
soak
up some of that water: 90,000 acres of property owned by the water
district. That includes the 50,000-acre Talisman Sugar Plantation south
of
South Bay and the 9,000-acre Berry Groves in Hendry County -- both
slated
to become reservoirs in the years ahead -- and 30,000 acres of
Allapatah
Ranch property in Martin County. But those water-storage sites are
still
in the design and planning stage, and not all the approvals are
secured.
Aububon of Florida's Gray said the district should be moving faster to
do
that. Those three sites combined could take 650,000 acre feet of water,
or
enough to draw 1.4 feet off Lake Okeechobee, Gray said.
"We've owned Talisman for four years," Gray said. "I don't know why we
don't have some substantial blueprint right now. We've got to get these
things built."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com
September 9, 2003
http://sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-plake09sep09.story
The flow from Lake Okeechobee pushes east through the Port Mayaca
floodgates at nearly 1.3 million gallons a minute.
On its 39-mile journey to the Atlantic Ocean, the dark water muscles
through the St. Lucie River with brute, toxic force. It dilutes
salinity,
drives off fish and pelicans and pounds the health of underwater
meadows
that feed and shelter marine life.
Some disgusted Martin County residents refer to the pollution- and
sediment-laden discharges that mushroom miles into the ocean from the
St.
Lucie Inlet as "scumfest."
And they're angry that their local waters are being used as a dumping
ground to protect Lake Okeechobee's 40-foot earthen dike and the
surrounding rural communities.
Water managers argue they have little choice. Gorged on too much rain
and
runoff, Lake Okeechobee is 16.9 feet above sea level -- 18 inches
higher
than water managers say it should be at this time of year. So the South
Florida Water Management District and Army Corps of Engineers,
co-managers
of the lake, are releasing torrents of water through the lake's east
and
west drainpipes.
The Caloosahatchee River also is carrying 1.6 million gallons a minute
of
lake water to the Gulf of Mexico.
The discharges could be stepped up if the lake rises another 10 inches
by
Oct. 1, the corps said.
"Year after year, [the river's] being destroyed," said Mark Perry,
executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society and a critic of
the high-volume St. Lucie discharges. "That's incredibly insane.
Really,
we've got to do something about it."
To those around Stuart, the black water surging past is a flashback to
1998, when similarly massive lake releases spurred an epidemic of fish
suffering from skin sores. Reports of such lesion-bearing fish,
including
a blue runner and pompano at the mouth of the St. Lucie, are trickling
in
again and are likely to increase, a state marine biologist said last
week.
Unwilling to have history repeat itself, they are calling for more of
the
lake water to flow south into a swath of sugarcane-dominated farm
fields
just south of the lake, into the Everglades or into canals that help
drain
Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
"We want a fair shake," said Leon Abood, a Stuart Realtor and chairman
of
the Rivers Coalition. "We'd like some of the adversity shared down
south."
But Audubon of Florida scientist Paul Gray said, "We'd be trashing the
Everglades."
Martin County forces promise not just another uproar this time but a
well-
coordinated legal assault on the water dumping. Abood's Rivers
Coalition
and the St. Lucie River Legal Defense Fund said they will work with
Martin
County officials who have begun investigating legal options for
stopping
or reducing discharges. The national River Keeper Alliance is
participating, too.
But stopping lake discharges into the river could prove tough, if not
impossible.
Lee County officials tried but failed to get an emergency injunction to
halt releases to the Caloosahatchee River in 2000. A circuit court
judge
and an appeals court both sided with the South Florida Water Management
District.
"We do not believe that a lawsuit can halt our discharges from Lake
Okeechobee," said Army Corps spokesman Barry Vorse.
The legal approach this time would be different, St. Lucie River
Defense
Fund attorney Ted Guy said. Opponents could try to sue by showing the
discharges violate the federal Clean Water and Endangered Species acts.
The latter could be invoked because a "critical habitat" for rare
Johnson's seagrass is at risk from fresh-water flow, Guy said.
"That would be the hook," Guy said.
The deluge of fresh water -- a pollutant by itself if it pours too
torrentially into an ecosystem where ocean tides and inland runoff
mingle
in a delicate balance -- is ruining water-dependent business on the St.
Lucie, fishing guides and tackle shop owners say. Before the snowbirds
arrive, Gregg Gentile caters to anglers from Florida's west coast.
They're
not calling him much anymore to help them land fish.
Usually they're avoiding the red tide when they come to Stuart, Gentile
said.
"Now they face the back tide," he said.
The St. Lucie River fish that bring the big money -- snook, tarpon and
redfish -- are missing, Gentile added. "We're going to be covered in
black
water well past the snowbirds' arrival."
Sailfish Bait and Tackle shop owner Jeff Stukel said the unsold, dead
shrimp he empties at the end of each day into the river are no longer
drawing catfish, croakers and other nibblers.
"Right now, there's nothing to eat them," he said. "They're not showing
up. The water is dirty, it's not sustaining life. It's dead."
Water managers don't like hammering river and estuary ecology. Yet with
the 730-square-mile lake steadily climbing, the top mandate is to
protect
life and property that would be flooded if the lake's levee breached,
said
corps water-management chief John Zediak.
At 18 feet, water levels could cause "piping." That's when leaks move
soil, not just water, through that lake-holding levee, leaving growing
cavities that could weaken it, said Luis Ruiz, a corps official.
If the lake hits 20 feet "the dike would pretty much fail," Ruiz said.
That could mean an 800-foot-wide break that would swamp rural towns
such
as Belle Glades and South Bay and the crop lands that sustain them
economically.
In its swollen state, the lake is smothering its own fish habitat,
submerged plants and bulrushes that grew back profusely after getting a
foothold on the lake bottom during the 2000 drought.
"We're right back to where we were in the late 1990s," Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Steve Gornak said, referring
to
a five-year stretch of high water that decimated the lake marshes that
shelter game fish such as bass.
Water District operations chief Tommy Strowd said his agency can send
little to no water south because there's no place to hold it. Canals in
urban areas are chock-full, and the 100-mile stretch of naturally
swampy
Everglades is saturated, Strowd said. Hunters are starting to see deer,
raccoons, possums and rabbits take refuge on levees as their other high
ground slips below water, he said.
"The levees are not natural Everglades habitat, so there is nothing for
them to eat," Strowd said.
The lake's south-shore outlets, four major canals cutting through the
Everglades Agricultural Area, are only limited options because they
can't
carry as much water as the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, Strowd
said.
Legal barriers also exist. U.S. rules prohibit overfilling the
Everglades
when they already are near their federal water-level target, Strowd
said.
But St. Lucie River advocates say there are other places that could
soak
up some of that water: 90,000 acres of property owned by the water
district. That includes the 50,000-acre Talisman Sugar Plantation south
of
South Bay and the 9,000-acre Berry Groves in Hendry County -- both
slated
to become reservoirs in the years ahead -- and 30,000 acres of
Allapatah
Ranch property in Martin County. But those water-storage sites are
still
in the design and planning stage, and not all the approvals are
secured.
Aububon of Florida's Gray said the district should be moving faster to
do
that. Those three sites combined could take 650,000 acre feet of water,
or
enough to draw 1.4 feet off Lake Okeechobee, Gray said.
"We've owned Talisman for four years," Gray said. "I don't know why we
don't have some substantial blueprint right now. We've got to get these
things built."