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.