Clean Water Warrior – Page 2 – Clean Land. Clean Water.

Irma Impact on Southeast US Still Undetermined

Hurricane Irma has made its way through Florida, with Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee in its path — but no longer as a Category 3 Hurricane. Instead, it is moving into these areas as a tropical storm.

Which by comparison sounds relatively benign.

Flooded Manure Pits, Post-Hurricane Matthew 2016

And, in terms of damage to property … it is.

But rainfall will be the important part of Hurricane Irma’s after-story. Like Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the heavy rains from Irma will strain manure lagoons all across the Southeast. The terrible conditions that followed Matthew, are in some approximate measure likely to be repeated. And, while a sizable death toll of animal life in the form of hogs, cattle, cows, chickens, and turkeys is tragic — the runoff from manure lagoons, and land, may be of equal concern.

The waste has to go somewhere and, as ever, it will be downstream.

Even operations doing a credible job implementing best practices, like Larson Farms in Southeast Florida, will be stretched mightily to control waste runoff. Other farms with less resources can be expected to struggle even more.

Watch for reports of animal death tolls, water pollution from animal waste, and heavy Harmful Algae Bloom (HAB) outbreaks, in the coming days and months.

Hurricane Irma will move more waste onto Florida’s Gold Coast

Amidst the damage Hurricane Irma will cause to property, a no longer subtle by-product of this powerhouse hurricane will be the billions of gallons of polluted, phosphorus filled, water flowing out of Lake Okeechobee.

The final resting spot for much of Lake O’s flowage — which the Army Corps of Engineers is tasked with monitoring, to control flooding … not curb harmful algae bloom (HAB) activity — will be Florida’s Golden Coast.

In this May, 2017 article from Angler’s Journal , a key passage is one we should all be looking at repeating around the same time in 2018:

This past July, the St. Lucie River and lagoon were in the throes of the worst blue-green — toxic cyanobacteria — algae bloom in memory. The bloom began as slime green, turned bright blue, then brown and

finally transmuted into a mass of black rot. The stench hanging over the St. Lucie River ripened from an odor of garbage to carcasses to feces.

“It was just disastrous,” says fishing guide Capt. Rufus Wakeman, who owns River Palm Cottages and Fish Camp on Indian River Lagoon.

The noxious bloom ruined much of July for guides, charter boats, marinas, boatyards and other businesses. It closed beaches, curtailed tourism during the Fourth of July holiday and drove riverfront homeowners to escape the stench by staying at hotels or going on vacation.

In the coming days, as Hurricane Irma pounds Florida with Category 5 storms, more will be written here about the total water release from Lake O, and projections on what happens next.

Until then, our thoughts are with those in Florida and elsewhere – in harm’s way. For live updates, CNN is tracking Irma.

JJ Watt Leads Charge To Provide Relief From Hurricane Harvey

Over $2 million and going strong ….

JJ Watt is raising money for Harvey’s disaster relief

To make a donation, either contribute to CleanWaterWarrior for a direct pass-through to Watt’s foundation, or click here: YouCaring.

Hurricane Harvey Will Produce One Huge Dead Zone in Gulf

The tragic events affecting millions of people living in the path of Hurricane Harvey are being immediately reported and followed by scores of people around the planet. Harvey has been called a 500-year storm, carrying such force that there is in any given year less than a .002% chance of a storm of this power occurring.

The devastation is epic, and watching in real-time it is hard to imagine things getting worse. Although no estimates can be firm at this point, it is safe to say that bricks and mortar clean-up and reconstruction will take months, if not years, to complete.

Some of Harvey’s damage, however, is now more or less going sight unseen. It will, however, soon become all too obvious.

In the coming weeks and months, any who take a cruise through, or fly over, the Gulf of Mexico may see first-hand another awful bi-product from Harvey’s torrential downpours.

A deadzone, created from the phosphorus of farm manure runoff into rivers and streams, will be appearing — most likely the size of the State of New Jersey.

Perhaps even larger.

A discussion on whether this human-promoted environmental disaster could have at least been reduced in its magnitude is, at this point, idle chatter. This mess, unlike bricks and mortar destruction, cannot be repaired. It will not be halted.

All this is 100% understandable – if not 100% preventable. It is about farm animals, and agriculture.

Lots of animals.
Lots of manure.
Lots of phosphorus.
Lots of Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) creating lots of deadzones.

Hurricane Harvey has left a path of destruction that will take Texans years to repair. Sadly, for life in the Gulf of Mexico and for the many thousands people who make their living fishing the Gulf, or work in tourist trades that abound around the Gulf, the farm runoff damage this go-around cannot be undone. It will be massive, and irrevocable.

To the degree that farms provided insufficient grass buffers between waterways and cropped land, tilled marginally productive sloped acres, or — worst of all — poorly managed manure and fertilization levels, the environmental damage from Harvey will be proportionate to the negligence.

Fact: farms can always, within reason, do better managing land and manure.

The filthy aftermath of Hurricane Harvey will make that, in an obvious play on words, perfectly clear.