NEWS PRESS
February 19, 2007
Mess not fault of Lake O
Editorial
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770218020
Homemade pollutants, bad
water management and overdevelopment the real reasons coastal waters have
deteriorated so much.
People worried about the
ominous decline of our coastal waters have rightly placed a lot of emphasis on
distant causes, specifically from Lake Okeechobee.
But continuing research by
Mote Marine Laboratory’s Charlotte Harbor Field Station is providing specific
confirmation of something we haven’t always been willing to admit around here,
that lots of this pollution — maybe most of it — is very homemade.
The lesson is that unless
local governments in Southwest Florida start managing water with more urgent
concern for pollution, we are going to mess ourselves up no matter what’s done
with water from Lake Okeechobee. And it will be our own fault.
The lake has in recent years
been the source of some very heavy slugs of water polluted with agricultural
nutrients and dumped into the Caloosahatchee River. That water has done serious
damage downstream, in the river and in the coastal estuary into which it
empties. Specifically, algae that loves those nutrients has exploded on
occasion, with foul and devastating effects including the smothering of grasses
and oyster beds fundamental to the estuary’s health and the depletion of
life-giving oxygen in the water. Some of the algae greets
tourists in long stinking piles on our beaches.
Local mischief
But reports Sunday and today
in The News-Press indicate some of the problems that our own heedless
development and bad water management can cause in the estuary, with no help at
all from Lake O.
The estuary is where salt
and fresh water mix to create — if things are kept in reasonable balance — a
fantastically rich and valuable environment, worth billions in fishing and
tourism and priceless as an adornment to our lives.
Two relatively unspoiled
tidal streams, North and South Silcox creeks in
Charlotte County, flow into Charlotte Harbor along its eastern shore.
They are fed by the slow, natural
flow of water sheeting across the undeveloped land to the east. To the south in
Lee County are two other creeks, Yucca Pen and Culvert, which have been
degraded by water dumped into them to drain areas built with little concern for
downstream consequences.
It’s clear from the Mote
scientists’ work that the northern creeks are better habitat for snook, a prized gamefish, and
other creatures that belong in such habitats. The southern creeks, on the other
hand, are fouled with algae and impoverished in the numbers and diversity of
marine life. Critical salinity has been upset. Excess sand flushed into the
creeks has damaged mangrove prop roots that provide habitat for fish,
crustaceans and shellfish.
“They’re taking water that
should be spread out and channeling it into Yucca Pen and Culvert,” said Aaron
Adams, head of the Mote field station. “Then you’ve got fertilizers, pesticides
and seepage from septic systems going into the ditches and being fast-tracked
to the estuary instead of being filtered out by wetlands.
“In our northern creeks,
it’s not so much, but if this unplanned development continues, those creeks are
going to go, too.”
Demand action
These creeks are 20 miles
from the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, where lake water empties into the system,
so this is our own doing.
We should demand that local
governments protect crucial areas from development, especially as buffers to
wetlands and streams, and insist on strict water management where building is
permitted. Water should be retained on site until it is suitable for release.
If that can’t be guaranteed, don’t allow the development.
Or you can kiss our beaches
and the rest of our coastal environment goodbye, even if the lake is cleaned.