What should be normal, was a gift on Christmas Day, blue water in the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. The peninsula of Sewall’s Point shone like the gem it is surrounded by aquamarine on both sides: the St Lucie River on its west, and the Indian River Lagoon on its east…
Feeling like the Bahamas, rather than the toxic-sludge we had to endure ~coming mostly from Lake Okeechobee this past summer, 2018, and yes, remember 2016, and 2013….the destruction must stop!
As 2019 edges into the picture, we will once again have to give everything we have to fight for clean water and encourage our state and federal government to support legislation “sending the water south.”
Seeing these beautiful blue waters once again is certainly encouraging. Now to keep the Army Corp and South Florida Water Management District at bay long enough, as projects proceed, and allow our precious seagrass beds to return so baby fish can once again hide, swim, and grow to maturity in these waters; once christened the “most bio-diverse in North America.”
Thank you to my dear husband, Ed, for these photos all taken 12-25-18. And from both of us, “Merry Christmas!”
Sewall’s Point lies between the St Lucie River and Indian River LagoonSailfish Flats between Sewall’s and Sailfish Point. Seagrass remains bleak after years of discharges from Lake O, and other area canalsSt Lucie Inlet opening to the Atlantic Ocean between Sailfish Point and the southern end of St Lucie Inlet State Park on Jupiter IslandAnother angle of St Lucie Inlet areaRemnants of once lush sea grass beds off Sewall’s PointAnother angle: Evan’s Crary and Ernest Lyons Bridges on far rightA great shot of the now pathetic seagrass beds. This area was once considered “the most bio-diverse in North America,” with approximately 700 acres of healthy seagrasses in this area between Sewall’s and Sailfish Points
Photo below as a comparison ___________________________________________________________________________
NEVER FORGET! Town of Sewall’s Point, Martin County Florida, 9-2013 surrounded by polluted waters released from Lake Okeechobee. Even the ocean brown! Similar years were 2016 and 2018 both with cyanobacteria blooms along shorelines. This awful sediment, and nutrient filled water is dumped on us by our federal and state government and is a health hazard.
House Speaker Richard Corcoran, public Twitter photo“Corcoran is a fearless political marksman who uses laws, rules, tweets, videos, lawsuits and sheer nerve to lay waste to what he calls “a culture of corruption” in Tallahassee.” –Tampa Bay Times
Due to passionate public input and the remarkable political will of Senate President Joe Negron, last Wednesday, SB10, passed its first goal, the Florida Senate. Today, TC Palm’s headline reads: “Gov. Rick Scott Supports South Reservoir to Curb Lake Okeechobee Discharges.” Amazing. Now, just the House of Representatives remains. And at the Florida House’s helm, is a very interesting man, Speaker Richard Corcoran.
In the news we have read about warring between the House Speaker and the Governor….Negron with his Harvard training stays above the fray, but of course is affected.
Today we are going to put aside the fighting and look deeper. And in doing so we just might find that Richard Corcoran is the “perfect match” to help the problems plaguing the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon- because he helped write “Blueprint Florida,” in 2010, the blueprint to overcome corruption and special interest in Tallahassee.
Hmmm? Corruption? Special Interests? Need I name names? 🙂
Some have said this is hypocritical as Corcoran himself is a product of Tallahassee culture, but I say he is for real. It’s kind of like family… like it or not you are part of it, but in very serious ways as you grow up you don’t agree with parts of it. You want better, you want change, especially for your kids.
Let’s check the Blueprint out:
Here are some excerpts and the entire document is linked below. It reads like a manifesto for change. The goal is to leave a legacy by fighting special interests.
Blueprint Florida
“Thomas Jefferson said, “One man with courage is a majority.”
“Our legacy may be forged in fires of resistance to new culture to which we have committed. There many be times where we hear the call to retreat to safety of self-preservation, the shelter of self-promotion, or the promises of security and ease made by the special interests. When those times come, we must remember our pledge to leave a legacy….”
“We desire a future generation to mark our service as a turning point in Florida’s history. The time when we turned toward independence and made our government truly accountable to the people who matter most, Florida’s citizens.”
“Our legacy can only be a gift for future generations if we choose today to put Floridians first no matter what he cost to our own political career. Working together we can crate an effective Blueprint for Florida.”
“We will all leave a legacy. Some will leave legacies that are truly gifts to future generations while others make choices that result in a legacy of burden. This should cause us to pause and consider why we’re doing what we’re doing. What we value the most will determine what kind of legacy we leave.”
“1933 photograph shows Hugh Willoughby flying over Sewall’s Point and Willoughby Point in Port Sewall. The insignia of the New York Yacht Club is on th side of the biplane.” (Photo, Dale M. Hudson from Sandra H. Thurlow’s book “Sewall’s Point, A History of a Peninsular Community of Florida’s Treasure Coast”.)
One of my favorite aerial photographs from my mother’s history books on Martin County is of the infamous Hugh Willoughby flying over the St Lucie River at Sewall’s Point and Willoughby Point. In more familiar terms for boaters, this location is known as “Hell’s Gate” due to the bottle-necking of the rushing tide.
Mr Hugh de Laussat Willoughby, one of the “early birds” of aviation, and a resident of Sewall’s Point, (http://earlyaviators.com/ewilloug.htm) had the idea of locating the New York Yacht Club at the southern tip of the peninsula as envisioned in the map below. It is difficult to see in the aerial, but the insignia of the New York Yacht Club is on the side of the biplane.
The yacht club never materialized as the market crash of the late 1920s and following depression of the 1930s dashed that dream. Today many local pilots fly over the St Lucie River at this same location to photograph a different dream. –By showing the devistation, inspiring a dream for our state and federal agencies, of clean water…
Would Mr Willoughby ever have imagined his paradise would be one of controversial pollution? Never in a thousand years….
This year, the ACOE has been discharging from Lake Okeechobee since January 29th 2016; in 2013 they released May through October, and in 2014 nothing…
May the photographs or today’s ailing river inspire change, and may the spirit of Mr Willoughby keep adventure and love alive in our hearts—and the wind— ever at our backs.
New York Yacht Club Station courtesy of Sandra H. Thurlow.Cub taking photo of a cub, pilot Ron Rowers. (Photo Scott Kuhns, 2014, St Lucie River, Stuart.)St Lucie River at Sewall’s Point and Willoughby Point 2016 with dark waters from Lake O releases and area run off. (Ed Lippisch)….further away–Hell’s Gate.Sewall’s Point and Willoughby Point, 2016Sewall’s Point and Willoughby Point 2014.JTLEast side of Sewall’s Point and confluence SLR/IRL Lost Summer–(JTL)2013 SLR JTL
A pipe into the Indian River Lagoon from a cottage along the Indian River Drive goes directly into the river disposing of sewage. In our Treasure Coast’s regions’ early days there were no laws prohibiting this. Photo archives of historian Sandra Thurlow. ca late 1950/60s.
It’s been a tough week for river lovers.
It was reported by the Stuart News and others that a gentleman died suddenly after being “stuck by a fish.” He had put in his line in the Indian River Lagoon, near Harbor Branch, in St Lucie County. Just a few days later, the headlines noted the experience of Mr Bruce Osborn whose “knee and leg turned black, swelled up, and became hot to the touch after he dove into the confluence of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Mr Osborn was boating near the Sandbar which is located within sight of the St Lucie Inlet…
Mr Osborn had an open sore….he recovered with prompt, emergency-room, antibiotic-treatment and a good wife.
Today in Stuart New’s “Letters to the Editor” a retired New York sheriff is of the opinion that the news of the fisherman had been “sensationalized” noting that “no autopsy had been performed on the man– who died…..”
Who is right? Who is wrong? Or does “truth” lie somewhere in between?
Who knows…But it is all certainly worth thinking about.
Interestingly enough, in this river or near-ocean story, the culprit would not be a shark or anything scary like that, but rather a microscopic bacteria or virus that cannot even be seen….
Bacteria is everywhere. In soil and in water. On our skin and in our bodies. For humans there is “good” and “bad” bacteria.
How do we know where there “bad” bacteria is in the river?
Canal and basin map SLR/IRL. (Public) The basin has been expanded at least 5x its natural size since 1920.
I don’t know, but I do know numbers of bacteria everywhere in water communities are highest in the sediment. Sediment is the sand, clay and other soil types that build up on the bottom of the river in the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and all estuaries of the world.
Muck from the bottom of the Indian River Lagoon. (Public photo)
In our area, the most recent hundred years of sediment, this “muck,” has been heavily affected by human alteration of the environment, especially by drainage canals, like C-44, the drainage of Lake Okeechobee, C-23, C-24, and C-25, as well as shoreline development’s tear down of native vegetation along the shoreline. (That can no longer filter runoff.)
Giant, mile-long canals drain mostly agricultural lands from out west. Many if not most of these lands never even drained into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon in the first place. Not by God. Not by Nature. Just by “us” since around 1920.
So now literally thousands of pounds of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, metals, oils from cars and roads, septic effluent…..the list goes on and on….so these pollutants run into our waterways building up in the sediments of the river, —-to be re-suspended with every storm, with every boat that races by……as the sediment builds and flocculates, bacteria grows–especially if it is warm..many fish live on the bottom of the river….
Estuary depiction public photo.
On the positive side, as far as water, many things have changed for the better since my childhood.
During my lifetime, in the early 60s, sewage was directly dumped into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon from homes and boats….I swam and skied in this water every weekend….Not many people lived here. As kids, we did not know or notice although we used to make jokes about “logs passing by…”
🙂
And yes, since the 1960s and 70s tremendous improvements in sewage treatment plants, packaging plants, septic systems, “Best Management Practices” for Agriculture to lower runoff, etc…have been made. This is fantastic.
Ag runoff DEP photo.
But we can never catch up….We are always chasing our tail….Because we keep putting more pollution into the system than we can clean up. Like putting too many fish in a fish tank, and not cleaning your gravel often enough…our relatively closed lagoon system has met its limit…
The chart below just goes to the year 2000. Florida is now the third most populated state in the nation with over 19 million people. 19 million people’s’ waste….19 million people’s yards, and not just small time farmers anymore, but agribusiness– hundred of thousands of acres of fields and chemicals….a huge portion seeping into our water. Best Management Practices. That’s just not enough…Oh. Let’s not forget what runs down from Orlando….
What’s the truth? The truth is there are too many fish in our fish tank. And we whether we know the cause or not, until we stop draining so much of our personal and agricultural waste into our waterways, we will continue to “drown in our own filth.”
