NEW YORK TIMES
By the ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Lake-Muck.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
State water
and wildlife managers are taking advantage of an unprecedented drought by
removing life-choking muck along
The 500,000
cubic yards of rotted, dead plant life and sediment -- enough to fill Dolphin
Stadium from the field to its highest seat -- will be trucked from the lake
starting Thursday.
Its removal
over several months will return the bottom of the lake along its southwest
shoreline to a more natural sandy base and create clearer water and better
habitat for plants and wildlife.
While the
drought has led to severe water restrictions across the state, it has presented
an opportunity to clean portions of the highly polluted lake, as water levels
have dropped enough to expose typically submerged shoreline.
The muck,
which has accumulated over the years, is choking life from the lake's shore. It
prevents sunlight from reaching the bottom, keeps fish from laying eggs and
inhibits plant growth.
Portions of
shoreline will soon see the return of wading birds, fish and native plants long
smothered by the blanket of muck, which has become more of a dry, soil-like
material after baking in the sun, said Don Fox, a biologist with the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
He said fish
breeding attempts have been futile.
''When they
try to lay eggs in this muck, they just sink down,'' Fox said. ''There's low
oxygen content and they just die.''
The initial
removal is part of an $11.5 million project that will eventually take out about
3.8 million cubic yards of muck along up to 15 miles of shoreline, he said. It
is the largest ever such project at the 730-square-mile body of water, the
second-largest natural freshwater lake in the contiguous
Much of the
lake's problems lie in its high phosphorous levels, which cause pollution in
estuaries and in the
The project beginning Thursday will remove some of the phosphorous, but state water managers are still devising a plan to get out the rest of it.
''The big
benefit will be getting that material off the lake bottom so we can get the
plant life back and restore the fisheries habitat,'' said Susan Gray, deputy
executive director of watershed management for the South Florida Water
Management District, which is also working on the project. ''But when you get
the vegetation growing back in the lake, you also get an improved ability for
the lake to absorb phosphorous.''
Audubon of
Florida scientist
''It's still
a really good thing,'' Gray said. ''But if the lake would fluctuate normally,
we wouldn't have to do this. Mother Nature would fix it.''
The move flushed massive amounts of water and pollution from urban runoff and agriculture into the lake. The corps is working to restore the river.