Florida Keys – Page 3 – Clean Water Warrior

Net Result of Farm Runoff? Algae Blooms.

As 2016 has meandered through its Spring and Summer months, various parts of the USA have demonstrated once again the all-too-familiar relationship between Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) and agriculture.

The consistent and major culprit: farm runoff. This impressive study (2014) conducted by a consortium of State of Ohio Agencies comprehensively presents the impact of runoff as it exports excessive levels of phosphorus into waterways which eventually flow into lakes like Lake Erie (OH & MI), or Lake Okeechobee (FL), or Utah Lake (UT), or Pyramid Lake (CA).

It has been suggested to me, by various primary and secondary expert sources in WI and OH, that farm runoff from unregulated farms contributes 60% or more of the phosphorus load that creates HABs. I have thus far been given no quantifiable reason to question that estimate. In fact, I am inclined to move the figure higher still.

In an upcoming article I will discuss the disproportionate amount of manure a dairy farm with as few as 500 cows can create, in comparison with a city of people. Suffice to say, if I told you one cow on an unregulated farm can generate 1000 times more waste than one person living in a municipality with a satisfactory waste treatment system — well, that number is probably conservative.

And shocking.

Lake Okeechobee … a thumbnail explanation for HAB crisis.

No doubt about it … Florida is in crisis-mode as it contends with the horrible side-effects of Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB). Unfortunately, the crisis was all to predictable, after nearly unprecedented torrential winter rains filled Lake Okeechobee to threateningly high levels — and resulted in mass-draining of the polluted (see: toxic) lake.

ABC News reported on July 4th that Florida’s Gold Coast is suffering from a nearly worst-ever tourist turnout. Hundreds of millions of tourist dollars have already been lost, and more economic fallout will follow.

As far back as 1999, concerns over phosphorus loading from agriculture were being presented by the State of Florida Environmental Protection Agency. In 2011, even more clarity regarding phosphorus runoff into Lake Okeechobee, largely from area agriculture, was brought to light:

Water quality in the lake has degraded over time due to high phosphorus loadings resulting from man-induced hydrologic and land use modifications over the past 60 years. The total phosphorus concentrations that currently exist in the lake are in excess of the amount needed for a healthy ecosystem. The in-lake total phosphorus concentrations have doubled over the last 50 years ….

With all the aforementioned heavy rain, in February, 2016, concerns over flooding resulted in the Army Corp of Engineers decision to drain Lake of Okeechobee at a rate of 70,000 gallons per second. And eventually all this dirty water flows to the tourist areas … bringing HABs with it.

A February 26, 2016 article by ThinkProgress.org was downright prophetic in predicting the “What Happens Next” stemming from this inevitable, if ill-fated, decision.

The simple fact is this: too many nutrients in water are a bad thing. They present a problem that spreads with runoff from land, which flows into waterways and then moves to other areas. Florida’s Gold Coast may be the latest, and most glaring example. But it is far from the only one.

South Florida HAB outbreak all too predictable

Less than two months ago, Clean Water Warrior (CWW) noted that the Florida Keys, and the fragile coral reef surrounding them, were always at risk from Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB). These blooms are largely caused by hot weather and, just as importantly or perhaps even more so, rain-induced nutrient runoff from agriculture and communities.

Today, as the Army Corp of Engineers drains water from Lake Okeech0bee — the result of unusually heavy rains from the 2016 rainy season (tied, of course, to global warming) – South Florida is in a full-blown HAB crisis.

This quote, taken from CNN’s excellent July 1, 2016 coverage of the HAB crisis, tells the grim tale as well as any:

Jordan Schwartz, owner of the Ohana Surf Shop, said he wanted to cry when he saw the green slime — a toxic algae bloom — covering his swath of Stuart Beach on Florida’s east coast.

“Animals are in distress, some are dying, the smell is horrible,” he told CNN on Friday. “You have to wear a mask in the marina and the river. It’s heartbreaking and there is no end in sight. The economic impact is devastating,” he said. “This town is 100% driven by tourism but the tourism is empty,” he said. “You go to the beach and it’s the height of summer and we have empty beaches, empty restaurants, empty hotels.”

The typical rogues gallery of offenders, which working in concert typically explain why HAB’s appear,

STuarts_FL-Docks_Algae — Algae-covered water at Stuart’s Central Marine boat docks

is again at work. Too much rain,creating too much runoff, flowing with too few natural or man-made restrictions into waterways that eventually pour too much phosphorus and nitrogen into slower moving waters, lakes, and, in this case, ocean shoreline.

Bottom line: the best chance of reducing HABs is to control what can be controlled. Rain? No. Man-made construction to re-route water, dam, or chemically alter? Maybe — but at an often exceedingly high price. Reduction of nutrients applied to land? Yes. Creating large land buffers to capture much more of the nutrients before they enter the waterways? Yes.

And it is with the last two solutions that Florida must start. Cooperation, not finger-pointing, is the key.

Florida Keys? No Immunity From Nutrient Runoff

It is more than a guilty pleasure. I am an addict for watching the terrific Netflix Original Series “Bloodline.” So much so, that I just had to explore how, or if, nutrient runoff is having an impact on the Florida Keys’ beautiful and environmentally fragile area.

What I found is typical and, at least for me in this case, disheartening.

Despite the myriad abusers of the only continental coral reef in the United States, a reef that is third in size only to those that exist off the coasts of Australia and Belize, its number one threat remains nutrient runoff.

This passage from Reef Relief Founders is particularly unsettling:

Corals require clean, nutrient-free waters to thrive. A healthy coral reef has from 30-40% live coral coverage. However, in the Florida Keys, coral coverage is now reduced to an alarming 3%. Coral spawning has been reduced due to lack of healthy coral colonies and clean water.

The over-abundance of nutrients in the ocean is the single biggest threat to Florida’s coral reefs. Nutrients is a scientific term for organic and inorganic materials that can include phosphates, and/or nitrates, usually from untreated and partially treated sewage, fertilizers and other pollutants. They promote algal blooms which rob the water of oxygen and compete with corals for habitat. Every year, 700 tons of nutrients are discharged into Keys waters from agricultural run-off from the Everglades. Another 33 tons of land-based sources of pollution are discharged from the landbase in the Keys, primarily from inadequately treated sewage and stormwater. Harmful algal blooms can result in eutrophication, when oxygen levels become so low that fish and other marinelife cannot survive.

With a nutrient discharge of 700 tons, Everglades agricultural runoff dwarfs the relatively meager 33 tons coming from land-based communities in the Keys.

As ever, however there is encouraging news. This time coming from a three-year Oregon State University study. The results? Reduce pollution, particularly nutrient runoff — which is relatively easy to accomplish, the study says, through improved sanitation and best farming practices — and the Florida Keys reefs make a dramatic comeback.

In as little as one year.