Florida is like Africa. We have a wet season and a dry season. This dry season has been very wet!
In today’s blog, I will share the most recent update by Dr Gary Goforth sent to Martin County on 3-13-15 entitled: “Summary of Dry Season Flows, November 1, 2015 – February 29, 2016.” Dr Goforth gives a summary and provides wonderful visuals. The “pages” he mentions in his summary for this post have been converted to slides. (Please view slides from left to right.)
Thank you Dr Goforth. (http://garygoforth.net)
Are are an integral part in helping us understand why we must sent the water south…
” All,
Thought you might be interested in this comparison of dry season inflows to, and discharges from, Lake Okeechobee. Inflows to the Lake were 79% higher this dry season (Nov. 1 2015 – February 29, 2016) compared to a year ago, but Lake discharges have only been 1% higher due to the inability to send water south. Hence Lake stages have increased more than a foot above the level it was at this time last year.
The basins with the biggest increases in Lake inflows are those along the north and northwest shores of the Lake – but not the Upper Kissimmee, which exhibited a 50% reduction in flows to the Lake compared to last year.
As we’ve seen, because of the heavy rains south of the Lake and the agencies delay in moving water out of the Water Conservation Areas, WCAs, the estuaries have taken the brunt of Lake releases this year.
The flow estimates on the first 5 pages are in acre feet and in billion gallons on the second 5 pages.
Gary Goforth
In reading these awesome charts, the West discharges were 62% and the East outflows were 24%. Were all of the West discharges via the Caloosahatchee? This has me wondering if your strong public awareness campaign to benefit the IRL has resulted in the Gulf coast communities, in particular Fort Myers, taking the brunt of this year’s discharges.
Let me rephrase that. I wonder if the ACOE decided to release more polluted water west because of your public awareness campaign. In other words, what accounts for the differences in discharges to each side of the state?
Great observation. the Caloosahatchee is a much larger system. That is why more water is sent there. It has been the case for a long time.
Well, I have a question – it appears a great deal of the water is stormwater from the south of Orlando area? is that the case?
A healthy lagoon is like a forest. It has 4 seasons. Spring has arrived and life springs up everywhere.All the pee and poo have churned violently in sea shells all winter makeing calcium cloride salt and releasing oxygen. the shrimp are now getting ready to go out to sea and the menhadden are comeing back in from spending the winter on the continintal shelf.Lagoon water levels are the lowest this time of year so tides have there strongest affect ,carying phytoplankton out to sea.Sea grass is starting to grow where coquina clams are presant. Summer will soon come and sea grass will rapidly grown trapping and sucking the nutriants out of muck. Waves churning coquina shells that the crowned conk has killed and feasted on releasing massive amounts of desolved oxygen so all the fish can live in 95 degree water. Fresh water pours into the lagoon allowing nutriants to break down—salt is a preservative— All the creatures are locked in a timeless battle insureing only the strongest survive and they will be the ones to reproduce.Finally winter comes and all the sea grass dies letting go of all the muck–Pee and poo now churns violently in coquina shells . this is just a short story. I am sure the amount of water that flows off the land has no more impact than the amount of air that blows off the land. The lagoon will never be fixed until you restore the shores to how they have been for thousands of years
Hey Jacquie, the Tampa Bay Times did a feature today on the damage over here on the Gulf Coast and Caloosahatchee. http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/lake-okeechobee-flood-control-creates-environmental-disaster/2270032
great article! john moran took the photos. Excellent. the word is really getting around. Thanks so much!
I remember talking to one lady who said her dad made his living digging clams here. She said she remembers that the clams just got fewer and fewer and here dad would be screaming over the phone—YOU NEED TO STOP THE FRESH WATER RUN OFF—-YOU NEED TO STOP THE POLUTION—It was everybodys falt but his. I told her had he only crushed up the shells and put them where the waves would churn violently in them he would still be clamming. I watched a video from the 70s from the Florida memory web page titled Florida Seafare., At the end of the video the nariator said—-In Florida we know in order to keep our seafood we need to keep our environment just the way it is and believe me we intend to do just that. Millions of people can not go on TAKEING and TAKEING the calcium out and NEVER putting back.
today I watched blue herons feeding their babies—they fly off and come back with a fish—fly off and come back with fish—they do this all day because there is now plenty of fish for them to eat, Most have 2 big chicks per nest. Where you are is a disaster because all you are doing is blameing everyone
The man who caught 50 crappie(perch) in the news article probably removed 10 pounds of calcium from the water from the bones of these fish. Multiply that by about 10 million other fishermen over a 30 year period and you can see where we are today,