Who's to blame for Florida's Coastal Slime?

Green algae along southwest Florida coast, Jason Pim, Facebook, 7/11/2018

Last September, Hurricane Irma churned up farm nutrients that lay at the bottom of Lake Okeechobee. These nutrients had accumulated over decades and were now floating more freely in the Lake. Then in May, it rained. It was one of the wettest Mays ever. Rising water levels put too much pressure on the dikes, and the Army Corp of Engineers decided to lower the water levels. Over the last couple of months, the Army Corps dumped billions of gallons of polluted lake water into the St. Lucie estuary to the east and the Caloosahatchee River to the west. And the green algae bloom is enormous.

Florida's coasts are now under the dual onslaught of toxic green algae and red tide blooms. Beaches
south from Sarasota have been experiencing a red tide this summer. This red tide bloom has killed thousands of fish, but it could have been worse. Lisa Krimsky provides some excellent, in-depth questions and answers about this year's algal bloom.

"A long-standing process for dealing with cyanobacteria blooms in the Caloosahatchee River, which most often happen during droughts, is for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release a pulse of water from Lake Okeechobee of sufficient volume to push the algae out to sea, where the cells burst and the bloom goes away. This year, there has been a concern about that approach because there has been a red tide (a marine harmful algal bloom) right offshore of the Caloosahatchee Estuary. The thought is that if the cyanobacteria bloom is pushed out to sea and the algal cells rupture and release all of their internally stored nutrients, it will make the red tide worse."

By this account, it's possible that we might have seen far more red tide in Sarasota had the Army Corps tried to push the algal bloom from Lake Okeechobee out to sea.

So, who's to blame for the gigantic green algae bloom? Big Agriculture has released fertilizer and pesticide laden runoff into Lake Okeechobee for decades.  Rampant development has increased storm water and septic tank runoff into the Lake. Hurricane Irma churned up some of those nutrients. The Army Corps released the polluted water in order to avert flooding.  Maybe the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has been asleep at the wheel. One could blame Governor Scott for consistently cutting funding to FDEP and water management districts.

It's a hard problem to solve, but we seem to be making no progress. This is where it helps to follow the money. Mary Ellen Klas laid out the political consequences of the outsized campaign contributions of Big Sugar. Klas writes,

"Between 1994 and 2016, a review of state Division of Elections records by The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee bureau shows, the sugar industry — led by United States Sugar and Florida Crystals — has steered a whopping $57.8 million in direct and in-kind contributions to state and local political campaigns ...  

On issue after issue, regulators, legislators and governors have erred on the side of softening the impact of adverse rules and regulations on cane growers and other powerful and polluting agriculture interests, including cattle operations north of Lake Okeechobee."

The Florida Legislature and Governor Scott have consistently thwarted efforts to fix Florida's coastal slime problem. This is despite the desire of Florida's voters to support spending money to restore, improve and manage conservation lands. This is despite the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, launched in the year 2000. And this is despite decades of oversight of the affected waterways by Basin Management Action Plans (BMAP), which provide a blueprint for reducing pollution. Unfortunately, the impact of Big Money on Florida public policy has only hindered any efforts to fix Florida's coastal slime problem.


Sources:
A Response to Frequently Asked Questions about the 2018 Lake Okeechobee, Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers and Estuaries Algal Blooms, UF|IFAS Blogs, July 10, 2018, by Lisa Krimsky, http://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/extension/2018/07/10/algal-blooms-faq/

Sugar’s decades-long hold over Everglades came with a price, Miami Herald, July 11, 2016, by Mary Ellen Klas, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article88992067.html

Red tide still lingering at Sarasota, Manatee County beaches, Sarasota Herald Tribune, June 28, 2018, by Carlos R. Munoz, http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180628/red-tide-still-lingering-at-sarasota-manatee-county-beaches