A Summer Day Without Lake Okeechobee Discharges, 2019
7-28-19
Today, Ed and I document a summer day along the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon without Lake Okeechobee discharges. ACOE, we are grateful! J&E
The Crossroads between Sewall’s Point and Sailfish Point, the confluence of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Seagrasses returning…Hutchinson Island south of the St Lucie Inlet, home of the northern reefs. Color- blue not brown!The St Lucie Inlet looking beautiful.Sailfish Point at the St. Lucie Inlet, blue and turquoise meet.Sailfish Point along the ocean with Sailfish Flats and Sewall’s Point in background.Sailfish Flats east of Hutchinson Island and the Atlantic Ocean. Ed and I could not fly over IRL here due to air traffic, so I could not get up close pictures. But the color certainly looks better!Turquoise ocean but lots of sargassum weed! Turtles and manatees were present.Just north of Martin County, St Lucie County’s Hutchinson Island beaches with super density Nettles Island visible in a blue looking Indian River Lagoon.Hutchinson Island and IRL in St Lucie CountyIndian River Lagoon with good visibility as discharge water is not being pushed up north through the IRL in Martin County.IRL St Lucie County, good visibility and some seagrasses.IRL St Lucie County looking to the Savannas.A clearer IRL due to lack of discharges from Lake O. The most suspended sediment comes into the SLR/IRL from Lake O. St Lucie County. As I said earlier the tower would not allow Ed and I to fly over the S. IRL in Martin County due to air traffic. We will have to get it another time.IRL near St Lucie Power PlantNettles IslandBack south, looking over Indian Riverside Park and the Penninsula of Sewall’s Point. IRL on left. St Lucie River on right. St Lucie Inlet and the Atlantic Ocean in distance.St Lucie River, Langford Landings docks, with Roosevelt Bridge and Stuart in distance.
St Lucie River, west side of Sewall’s PointWide St Lucie, Roosevelt Bridge, Rio, and Stuart.Wide St Lucie looking west towards Lake Okeechobee.Ed and Jacqui -seven years older since the first “lost summer” of photographing in 2013 ~never giving up!The Super Cub!
Finally someone listened, I can’t remember how many 12-14 hour Commission meetings I attended and spoke at over 18-25 years ago, but between 1995 and then in 2009 I sold my house in Jensen Beach. During that time I was very involved with the Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie River, they were very polluted way back then.
I believed like many others the pollution was coming at us down the Kissimmee & the Chattahoochee Rivers & was carrying the pollution down from up north empty into Lake Okeechobee. Then when the blue green algae would disappear for the season, then reappear the next, my belief was that algae sank in every corner & could hide, then when the rains came and the engineers were forced to release more water into the East and West canals that emptied into our Rivers, that pollution would be rampant and coming at us, The concern was the Herbert Hoover Dike and the people living below it. If the water got above 15 feet there was a concern it would fail killing lots of people that had no where to go.
When I first moved to this area in 1985, I would visit my Uncle who lived in Port St. Lucie, he would fish for the blue crab off the bridges on Prima Vista Blvd. but because of the pollution the blue crabs are gone.
Now that the Rivers are looking better, if they stay better, maybe, just maybe the blue crabs could return, I don’t know but they loved the brackish water and small fish they lived on in these Rivers.
Lets hope that they will continue to send the water south to the Everglades like many of us told the Martin County Commissioners many years ago that sending the water slowly south from a holding pond or Lake would have the time to purify, then it would work, and the critter life that once flourished in these waters would come back one day.
Good news! Super pretty pictures too.
Amazing how nature heals, lovely = thank you.
Great photos. We live is such a beautiful place. Your photos remind us of our blessings.
Hope springs eternal!
We love you John Moran!
GREAT pics Jacqiue…One had “East of Seawalls Point” was really WEST.. Keep the good work its paying off… Uncle Dale
Thank you! I fixed!
Finally someone listened, I can’t remember how many 12-14 hour Commission meetings I attended and spoke at over 18-25 years ago, but between 1995 and then in 2009 I sold my house in Jensen Beach. During that time I was very involved with the Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie River, they were very polluted way back then.
I believed like many others the pollution was coming at us down the Kissimmee & the Chattahoochee Rivers & was carrying the pollution down from up north empty into Lake Okeechobee. Then when the blue green algae would disappear for the season, then reappear the next, my belief was that algae sank in every corner & could hide, then when the rains came and the engineers were forced to release more water into the East and West canals that emptied into our Rivers, that pollution would be rampant and coming at us, The concern was the Herbert Hoover Dike and the people living below it. If the water got above 15 feet there was a concern it would fail killing lots of people that had no where to go.
When I first moved to this area in 1985, I would visit my Uncle who lived in Port St. Lucie, he would fish for the blue crab off the bridges on Prima Vista Blvd. but because of the pollution the blue crabs are gone.
Now that the Rivers are looking better, if they stay better, maybe, just maybe the blue crabs could return, I don’t know but they loved the brackish water and small fish they lived on in these Rivers.
Lets hope that they will continue to send the water south to the Everglades like many of us told the Martin County Commissioners many years ago that sending the water slowly south from a holding pond or Lake would have the time to purify, then it would work, and the critter life that once flourished in these waters would come back one day.
Thank you Joe for sharing!
Thank you so much. Enjoying your photos and commentaries 😇