Hurricane Dorian, SFWMD image 9-1-19Today I got a call from my husband’s good friend, dentist and pilot, Scott Kuhns.
“I’m going up in the Super Cub” he said, “what pictures do we want?”
“Great!” I replied. “How about the canals? -what’s killing the river at this time. C-23 and C-24, nearer to St Lucie County, and C-44 in South Stuart-even though the ACOE isn’t dumping from Lake Okeechobee right now?”
I was thinking to myself that it’s important to see how these area canals affect our waters even without the worst off all, -discharges from Lake Okeechobee! Between all the extra water, Mark Perry says that the St Lucie River takes on more than twice it did from its natural watershed.
Scott’s voice came over the phone…
“How about the coast?” Scott inquired.
“Absolutely. The coast. There should be a pretty decent plume just from the canals and local runoff.”
“‘llI be in touch,” Scott said, and he was off!
Well, I just received Scott’s photos about an hour ago. The photos are telling and Dorian’s plume is very, very dark.
Dorian, all I can say right now, is thank you for not striking Florida. It was a scary few days, so close! And God bless the people of the Bahamas…
PHOTO BY SCOTT KUHNS and PILOT STEVE SCHIMMING, 9-6-19 at
SFWMD, Treasure Coast canals-Stuart north to St Lucie/ Indian River County.ROOSEVELT BRIDGE, WIDE AREA OF SLR, HABOARAGE MARINA, STUART
C-23 & C-24 CANALS, C-23 DIVIDES MARTIN & ST LUCIE COUNTY, C-24 in ST LUCIE CO.
C-44 CANAL, SOUTH STUART
ATLANTIC OCEAN OFF HUTCHINSON ISLAND~PLUME VIA “LOCAL RUNOFF” & CANALS C-23, C-24 & C-44 (LAKE OKEECHOBEE IS NOT OPEN AT THIS TIME)
ST LUCIE INLET & SAILFISH POINT
AREA BETWEEN SEWALL’S POINT AND SAILFISH POINT KNOWN AS THE SAILFISH FLATS WHERE SEAGRASS HAD BEEN GROWING BACK.
These photos document very clearly the intrusion of freshwater from inland sources into the saline (estuarine and marine) ecosystems of Martin County, Florida following Hurricane Dorian. In particular, the white foamy front separating the darker freshwater from the turquoise marine waters is extremely well illustrated. Less than a year ago, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey of Lake Okeechobee and its associated drainage canals sounded the alarm that salty water could stimulate the release of microcystin toxins carried within the cell membranes of the freshwater cyanobacterium Microcystis. Other studies have shown that the growth rate of certain blue-green cyanobacteria can be stimulated by increased salinities. Clearly, there is now enough evidence available for the various levels of government and their agencies in charge of water management and flood control to issue urgent warnings to the public of the potential hazards associated with the mixing of freshwater with marine waters, and for them to come up with a plan to more effectively control toxification of Florida waters.
We are so very fortunate to have Jacqui on the SFWMD Governing Board!!! We certainly dodged a bullet from Dorian!
That plume looks like what we saw at the Sanibel lighthouse during the summer of the 2018 water discharge crisis.
Good photos. We were lucky Dorian was not much of a rain event. Dodged a bullet.
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Just recently a major hurricane wiped out Key West. A week or 2 later a 30+foot sail boat from Key West washed up on Melbourne beach. The Bahama island that Dorian hit has a thousand times more boats than Key West. The storm surge allways arives before the hurricane. What if these Islands went under water before the hurricane and dingys ran around plucking people out of the water and took them to boats that would have been the only thing above water. Then the hurricane hit and blasted them out to sea. I think Gruman aircraft of Palm Bay could do a LIVE satilite search and find the debri field in the vast atlantic.I find our state gov. creates make believe problems so they can waste billions but when confronting real problems they are like an ostrage—they bury their head in the sand.
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