Tag Archives: Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch

The Coral Strand’s Fishing Riches; Today’s Sailfish Point, Along the Indian River Lagoon

1950 map by Ben McCoy of the "Coral Strand" and its riches, today known as Sailfish Point. — 1950s map of Hutchinson Island’s “Coral Strand.” Today, known as “Sailfish Point.” (Map, Ben McCoy, courtesy historic archives of Sandra Henderson Thurlow.)

How romantic, the “Coral Strand…” Like a string of pearls the riches of Hutchinson Island’s coast strung along the blue waters of the Atlantic and Indian River Lagoon. The crowing jewel, today, known as Sailfish Point.

The above promotional map by Ben McCoy, brother, of the infamous rum runner, Captain Bill McCoy, highlights some of our area’s best features, most interesting history, and even an excerpt from a novel by Faith Baldwin:

” It was a long jut of land running into the water, upon one side was the ocean, upon the other, an inlet forming a small quiet bay. It was colored like a lithograph, strong blinding colors. The beach was so white that it dazzled, water and sky so blue they seemed unreal…”

If one looks closely at the map, fish of the area are listed around the point: Blue Fish; Sheepshead; Bass; Snapper; Pompano; Spanish Mackerel; and Tarpon everywhere…the Indian River is not noted just as the” Indian River” but the “Famous Indian River,” for fishing of course!

The publication notes that five presidents, Arthur, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft, and Harding, as well as Joe Jefferson, beloved disciple of Izaak Walton, fished these waters as “who indeed among fisherman has not heard of the famous St Lucie Region, rendezvous for more than half a century for anglers from all over the world!”

Believe it or not, according to The History of Martin County, the McCoy’s land, today’s Sailfish Point, was listed for $25,000.

It is fun to visit the dream like past, but soon or later, reality always sets in. In the 1950s the Coral Strand was sold to eccentric entrepreneur and Florida Oceanographic Society founder, James Rand, for its limited development the name was marketed as “Seminole Shores.” Later in the 1960s, the the Hutchinson Island property was sold by Harvard University to a group of Boston investors and eventually to Mobil Oil who legally tore the mangroves from the land, scared off the mosquitoes and filled it. Eventually, in the 80s the land was developed as exclusive “Sailfish Point.”

According to Dr Grant Gilmore, most famous for his long career at Harbor Branch Oceanographic, the waters/seagrasses surrounding Sailfish Point, the old Coral Strand, are truly the most diverse in the North America with over 800 types of fish, often growing baby fish, documented in these waters.

It is a crime that during rainy season, the Army Corp of Engineers often releases water from Lake Okeechobee exacerbating the pollution from our local canals killing the seagrasses in these waters, thus fish habitat destroyed. Last year, in 2013, according to Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic, approximately 85% of the seagrasses were destroyed.

Yes, this has happened many times, but one day, it may not come back.

For history, for today, we must fight to protect our “Coral Strand,” and our pearl, our incredibly bio-diverse waters…

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The History of Martin County can be purchased at the Historical Society of Martin County: (http://www.martincountyhistoricalsociety.com)

Understanding High Bacteria Levels in the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon

Clear water off of the Stuart Sandbar, but is it clean? — Clear beautiful water off the Sandbar, Stuart; but is safe to swim? (Photo, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, 2012)

Enterococcus: Bacteria normally found in the feces. Two types, Enterococcus fecalis and Enterococcus fecium, cause human disease, most commonly in the form of urinary tract and wound infections. Other infections, including those of the blood stream (bacteremia), heart valves (endocarditis), and the brain (meningitis) can occur in severely ill patients in hospitals. Enterococci also often colonize open wounds and skin ulcers, and are among the most common antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Medicine-Net

*The Martin County Health Department tests for Enterococcus (E) in area waters: According to their interpretation, 0-35 cfu of E./100 ml river water =GOOD; 36-104 cfu E/100 ml river water=MODERATE; and 105 cfu E./ml River water is POOR (“cfu” relates to number of viable cells per milliliter.)

In November 2012, some members of the public were worried that the Martin County Health Department (MCHD) did not have enough support. Due to the pushing of a few members at a Rivers Coalition meeting, Senator Joe Negron, during the legislative budgeting process, added specific funding for MCHD to sample three new sites weekly. In turn, with input from the Rivers Coalition and the help of Bob Washam of the MCHD, the three test locations were chosen and the public began regularly checking bacteria levels in the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon on the MCHD website.

Before the senator intervened, the sites being tested in the river were the Roosevelt Bridge; the Jensen and Stuart Causeways, and the north fork of the St Lucie River in St Lucie County.

The new test sites included Bessey Creek, close to the mouth of the C-23 canal, in Palm City; Leighton Park, at the base of the Palm City Bridge; and Sandsprit Park, near the Manatee Pocket in Stuart, close to the inlet. The Department of Environmental Protection also conducted/s periodic testing.

In early June of the 2013, the bacteria numbers really spiked. This occurred after heavy rains caused storm water to run through local canals C-23, C-24, and C-44 into the river, as well as polluted fresh water discharges from Lake Okeechobee through C-44, that had begun on May 8, 2013 by the Army Corp of Engineers.

The areas waters were looking dark and ugly, and most of the river was off limits to the public due to high Enterococcus levels. By mid June, there were a number of reports from people that had visited the Sandbar, located just inside the mouth of the St Lucie Inlet, that they and their children were feeling ill with stomach aches and diarrhea after contact with the water.

(Photo of water in St Lucie River two miles from Sandbar w/ high bacteria and toxic blue green algae, photo by Jenny Flaugh, July 2013.)

Because of the popularity of the Sandbar area and the complaints to the health department, Bob Washam, MCHD, together with Mark Perry, of Florida Oceanograpic, decided to drop the Bessey Creek site and change testing to the Stuart Sandbar. When the tests came back, the Sandbar reading was a high 192 cfu/100 ml river water/or POOR. So signs were posted at the Sandbar, at the hight of the summer season; it was off limits to the public. Shocking.

Just for comparison, I am going to share the highest readings at the other sites in June and July of 2013. The highest readings were as follows: Roosevelt, 1620 cfu; Sandsprit, 640 cfu; Leighton, 3020 cfu; and Bessey Creek, 1560 cfu. As mentioned about 105 cfu per 100 ml of river water is considered POOR.

For a comparison to “today,” the latest readings on April 21, 2014 were: Roosevelt, 58 cfu; Sandsprit, 7cfu ; Leighton Park, 94 cfu and the Sandbar, 30 cfu . So even without super heavy rains or releases from Lake Okeechobee, readings can be moderate to borderline poor. (The Leighton site had been in the poor range just a few just weeks ago but is coming down…)

It is important to know that bacteria levels are absolutely exacerbated by the releases from Lake Okeechobee that bring in polluted fresh water from outside of our basin as far away as from Orlando, but Lake Okeechobee is not the only cause. Local canals’ runoff, poorly cared for septic tanks, farm and domestic animals, along with other sources in both Marin and St Lucie Counties, even Okeechobee, anywhere water runs into our rivers from a basin, play an important role in the bacteria water puzzle.

To understand the sources of fecal pollution, Martin County is presently conducting a water quality monitering study in partnership with Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch. The study is tracking DNA results leading “back,” through attachment to isotopes, to either human, cow, horse, dog and/or bird feces.

At this point, studies are inconclusive, and helpful data is not expected until rainy season begins June 1st through November 30th.

We can’t dream that things here in Stuart used to be “perfect.” When I was a kid growing up in Martin County in the 60s and 70s there were some businesses that legally dumped their raw sewage into the St Lucie River and boaters were allowed to dump waste straight into the river. There were fewer people here then, yes, but it is still disgusting by today’s standards. I grew up swimming and water skiing in these waters. I never got sick and back then no one was monitoring the bacteria in the river

In conclusion, we don’t need to panic, we just need to be careful, and to be thankful for the progress we have made; most important, we must continue to improve the situation and “fix it.”

______________________________

Thank you to Bob Washam, formerly of the MCHD, for his years of dedication and for his help with composing specifics of this article.

To check bacteria levels, visit the Martin County Health Department’s website (http://www.floridahealth.gov/CHD/Martin/MCHD_Internet_Site.html) and look for “river and beach water sampling results.”

ACOE’s Refusal of CEPP, and the Future of the Indian River Lagoon

Topographical map of EAA shows elevations. CEPP would move some lake water south, rather than through the northern estuaries. Through canals in the EAA to other structures this water would be cleaned and then directed to the Everglades. The ACOE refused to sign off on CEPP 4/22/14. — Topographical map of EAA showing elevations. CEPP would move approximately 15% of Lake Okeechobee’s overflow water south and build a basis for future increases, rather than sending all water through the northern estuaries. By means of canals in the EAA and other structures, this water would be cleaned and then directed to the Everglades. The ACOE refused to sign off on CEPP 4/22/14. (Map courtesy of INTER-MAP via Kevin Henderson)

CEPP=Central Everglades Planning Project, 2014,( contains elements of CERP); CERP=Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan of 2000.

To every action, there is a reaction, and in the case of the ACOE refusing to sign off on CEPP, the reaction here in Martin, St Lucie, and Lee County across the state certainly will not be “good.”

Mind you there is a Jacksonville ACOE, who works with “us” and then the ACOE in DC. They are the same but different…

Let’s start at somewhat of the beginning so we can get a grip on this always terribly confusing, multi-layered attempt to fix our estuaries and restore the Everglades.

Around 2000, long before I was involved with the River Movement directly, a group of Florida stakeholders, including environmentalists, the agriculture industry, tribes, utilities, users, and government agencies miraculously agreed on something called CERP, or the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. This plan consisted of at least 68 projects to “fix the Everglades.” It was historical and celebrated by all. Congress approved and eventually appropriated some funds that would be shared in costs with the South Florida Water Management District, (SFWMD) towards “CERP.”

Now, 14 years later, some work has been done, but not one of the 68 projects has been completed.

OK now we move to 2010, 2011… still in the sinkhole of 2008 Great Recession, the SFWMD, the local ACOE Jacksonville team, and the stakeholders decide sitting with “nothing” is not an option and determine to do something unprecedented and “speed things up.” They work like crazy, often being criticized by those same stakeholders, to package some of the CERP ideas into CEPP (the Central Everglades Planning Project) to sell to the DC ACOE and Congress again, in a different form, and get things going.

Although often behind, the Jacksonville ACOE appears to almost meet their deadline of 18 months and finally, two weeks ago the SFWMD is able to sign off on cost sharing (not an easy task and not all supported the move) on the local Jacksonville ACOE completed CEPP project— which of course has to meet every Tom, Dick and Harry regulation you can possibly imagine. A neurotic situation for sure.

So yesterday, Earth Day, the Washington D.C. ACOE office refuses to sign off on CEPP, saying they need more time to review the documents they have had since last August.

As of yet, no official statement has been given, but the local press and the Everglades Foundation’s Eric Eichenberg call the move “a staggering failure of duty and responsibility.” I would imagine the main concern here is that the Water Resources Development Bill (WRDA) that only comes around once every 5-7 years these days, must include CEPP for it to be funded (appropriated) by Congress. Now it seems CEPP will certainly not make the deadline, which is really “now.”

So is there hope? We all know, that “it’s not over until its over,” and until the WRDA is officially closed, perhaps some political miracle could ensue. Is it likely? I would doubt it. But I do not know.

What I do know is that Florida has been really dependent on the Federal Government since 1933 when the Florida Legislature and the people of Florida convinced the US Government to build the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee and the ensuing flood control projects over the years to protect the important growing agriculture industry south of the lake and thousands of people who were allowed to build and develop inside the Everglades’ historical flow area, especially south from Palm Beach to Dade counties. At this time there was no thought of the estuaries.

So in many ways we want our cake and to eat it too….”protect us from the waters of Lake O but don’t hurt the estuaries….” Something is going to have to give.

For almost four years, Senator Joe Negron has been pushing for less involvement of the ACOE. Whether one likes Senator Negron or not, I agree with his philosophy. Congress/ the US ACOE is no longer supporting the dredging of our state inlets which they did for almost 100 years, and they most likely not going to support the restoration of the Everglades and the betterment of the estuaries through changing our pluming system and sending more water south. After 14 years of of begging, and celebrating crumbs, you’d think we’d get the message.

Is this the Jacksonville local ACOE’s fault? Not really as the Federal Government is simply terribly dysfunctional so it is hard for the ACOE to do its job, plus they are broke.

In conclusion, yes, we have to finish what’s been started, and I recognize the difficulty of “us” fixing our own problems, however; if we really take a hard look in the mirror, there may not be a choice but to try.

______________

ACOE CEPP: (http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Portals/44/docs/FactSheets/CEPP_FS_September2013_508.pdf)

SFWMD/ACOE CEPP: (http://www.evergladesplan.org/pm/projects/proj_51_cepp.aspx)

Waldo Sexton’s Vero Mountain/Harry Lyons’ Stuart Mound and the Spirits of the Indian River Lagoon

An artist's drawing of Harry's Lyon's Mound to be located on Bessey Edition, Stuart, Florida, 1941. (Drawing Courtesy of Rick Crary) — An artist’s drawing of Harry Lyon’s mound, overlooking the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, near today’s St Lucie Crescent at Bessey Point, Stuart, Florida, 1941. Artist, Charles Morgan, father of Mrs Arthur Dehon. (Drawing Courtesy of Rick Crary.)

Personalities taller than mountains are part of the history of our Indian River Lagoon Region and their spirits are still with us today. Let me explain…

In the early 1920s Harry Lyons, ( Ernie Lyons’ father) was a dreamer and promoter of Stuart. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may recall his promotional song for the Great Port of Stuart. Harry had many ideas to promote Stuart and another occurred around 1941 when the drawing of the Stuart Mound above was composed.

My mother, historian, Sandra Thurlow, transcribed the following from Mr Harry Lyon’s memoirs regarding the building of his gigantic mound at Bessey Point near today’s road, St Lucie Crescent, that was to overlook the St Lucie River:

“The proper material is at hand in abundance, and the bulk of it could be delivered by barge (dredged from the river). Most states, including Florida, have numerous ancient earth mounds, some very large indeed, so nothing could be more ‘American.’ The mound would be a must for tourist and home-folk alike who would ascend and spend hours at the summit, paying .50 cents or $1.00 charge….” to the City of Stuart no less…

Well fortunately, or unfortunately, Mr Lyon’s name is still around but his mound “never got off the ground,” although in 1960 his northern neighbor, Waldo Sexton’s did.

Sexton, the legendary eccentric salvager/builder of Vero Beach, is well known for his creations and influences including the Driftwood Inn, McKee Jungle Garden, the Patio Restaurant, and many other creations which have shaped the ambiance of Vero Beach.

His finale was “Waldo Sexton’s Mountain,” that he created from dredge fill at Bethel Creek, adjacent to the Indian River Lagoon. It was touted as a tourist attraction but for Sexton, the impressive mound was to also be his burial ground. This drawing by Mittnach displays what it looked like.

In time, the mountain thrived but eventually fell into disrepair and was pillaged for its beautiful tiles. As mentioned, Patriarch Sexton, used to getting what he wanted, had the dream of being buried under the mound, but this dream did not come true.

Sr. Sexton passed in a nursing home and later, Ralph, his son, during a severe northeastern storm in 1972, in distress, decided to use the mound’s fill to reinforce the foundation of his father’s beloved Driftwood Inn, located across the street.

According to an article written by Denis McCarthy years ago, after destroying the mountain, “terrible things ensued.” Eventually Ralph along with The Driftwood Inn, so beautifully located between the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, became a “distressed” property.

Then a series of odd tragedies occurred leading people to believe that Waldo’s ghost had truly cursed the great mound for those who were going to misuse it.

First, a developer trying to purchase the “denuded” mountain property had a heart attack; the next wealthy businessman “buyer” was killed in a plane crash on his way home after visiting and deciding to buy the property; later, one who did buy, fell ill, got divorced and went broke. Eventually a Mrs Heusen purchased The Driftwood Inn as the mound property sat empty and weedy. But Heusen took a different approach and decided to work “with” the ghost of Waldo Sexton keeping his signature style for all to see.

Waldo seemed pleased. Mrs Heusen publicly claimed she saw his ghost and that he often opened the door for her in the restored restaurant….

“I know this sounds weird, she said in McCarthy’s interview, but these things are real…”

Another thing to note is that according to McCarty’s article, Sexton was a “guru of environmentalism” in that he, like Frank Lloyd Wright, built with nature instead of against it. McCarty thought that perhaps Sexton’s ghost was telling us “enough is enough.” –No shopping centers on my mound. “Stop, before it’s too late!”

In conclusion, McCarthy says Sexton’s message most simply stated was: “Follow my example, and build in harmony with nature, not opposed to it…”

So if you believe in ghosts or spirits, you may want to take heed. 🙂

Understanding South Florida’s Canal Systems, Storing/Sending More Water South to Save the Indian River Lagoon

Understanding sending water south requires understanding the canal structures north and south of Lake Okeechobee and how they can be altered. ACOE map, April 18th, 2014. — Understanding sending water south and storing north requires familiarity with the canal structures and pump systems north and south of Lake Okeechobee. ACOE, April 18th, 2014.

I have been getting a lot of calls asking me to explain how South Florida’s canal systems work; how more water will be stored north of Lake Okeechobee and more sent south to the Everglades in light of everything that is recently in the newspapers. So in this short space, I will attempt to give just an overview of South Florida’s canal and drainage system. Mind you, you may come up with some of your own ideas to add to what is already being proposed…

As an aside, I must note that the main way the “powers that be” keep the public from changing “things” is that they don’t talk a lot about “how things work.” So it is our job to be proactive and figure this our by ourselves. There are many resources at our disposal should we seek, and if we help each other interpret the data.

EVERGLADES RESTORATION: (http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/landing_about.aspx)

SFWMD:(http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/sfwmdmain/home%20page)

ACOE J-V: (http://www.saj.usace.army.mil)

First of all, the natural water system of Florida has been completely altered since the early 1900s and even more so since World War II. Look below at the pink line surrounding the lake; this is the approximate boundary of the original greater everglades drainage basin. Look at all of the houses built inside the pink line from Palm Beach County south. Next, look at the yellow line inside of the pink line, on the right side; this is the East Coast Protective Levee, a giant concrete permeable slab along with pumps, that keeps the natural ground water from “seeping permanently” into the area built inside the drainage basin.

Now we will look north of Lake Okeechobee to see the Kissimmee River, that has was channelized, or made straight, in the 60s and 70s that dumps tons of water into Lake Okeechobee, that in turn is diverted to our estuaries. The great river once had a wide, winding, drainage basin that held water, but it was straightened so now it all pours quickly into the lake full of agricultural and urban filth. An approximate 20 mile long section is now slowly being restored as best possible, in light of ranching and regaining right of ways. We must encourage them to restore it all in time.

Now let’s take a good look south of the lake. One can see that the entire area is now the EAA, or Everglades Agricultural Area. This area has very productive land, as it, like the Nile River in Egypt, naturally floods and overflow its banks, enriching the surrounding areas with layers of rich soil. But rather than just grow crops when the river receded, we diked the lake permanently and now grow crops year-round south of the lake, not allowing the waters to flow south if the lake starts to overflow.

Agriculture is the monetary and cultural heritage of Florida but it is interesting to note that today agriculture is the second biggest industry in Florida after tourism. With the estuaries areas growing population, today, there is substantial tourism money connected to the estuaries; there was not in the 1900 through the 1970s. But the canal system is still set up for the agriculture industry to thrive as it has since about World War II and we do need agriculture. Here in lies the tension.

Also, of course, the water being diverted into the estuaries protects people south of the lake inside that pink area from being flooded as well. So figuring “this one”out is very tricky business. Nonetheless, we must create a flow way south as hopefully CEPP will start to do.

CEPP Central Everglades Planning Project: (http://www.evergladesplan.org/pm/projects/proj_51_cepp.aspx)

What a change to Mother Nature. Is this now a permanent system or could it be altered to accommodate changes in values and concerns for today? Like all things, in order to survive, it must adapt.

So slowly a flow way south of the lake must be the goal; the Kissimmee River must be fully restored so its flood plain can hold and filter more water; the St Lucie River and Caloosahatchee Rivers must be restored.

I think we have all noticed that, the River Movement is finally catching traction, and we must not let up. We are excited for our seeming progress but remember, “smoke and mirrors” will appear. But this is no magic trick to be amazed by, this is real.

We are making progress. Let’s keep educating ourselves, and continue fighting and inspiring our government and our children to keep working to store more water through the restoration of the Kissimmee and send more water south. Let’s learn about South Florida’s canal and drainage system and think of ways to adapt it for a better future.

*Most of these maps can be purchased through the South Florida Water Management District or at Val Martin’s bookstore in Hobe Sound, Florida Classics Library: (http://www.floridaclassicslibrary.com)

An 1890s “Song of the Indian River Lagoon”

Song of the Indian River Lagoon, copyright 1890, G.D. Ackerly, Jacksonville, Florida — “Song of the Indian River Lagoon,” by Ada Stewart Shelton, copyrighted 1890, G.D. Ackerly, Jacksonville, Florida. (Booklet library of Sandra Henderson Thurlow.)

As we well know, the Indian River Lagoon moves people to do great things, especially lately in the face of its destruction.

Today, during holy week, I decided it is a good time to share this little booklet, “Song of the Indian River,” that was given to me by my mother, historian Sandra Thurlow. Although the booklet is not religious in nature, for me it is about “rebirth.” And I believe the people who were coming down to Florida in the late 1800s/early 1900s were looking for a kind of rebirth, along the beautiful healing waters of the Indian River Lagoon; they were leaving the cold industrialization of the north for what they dreamed was “paradise.” And it was…

Times have changed, but we are still looking for that today; the only difference is today we are also fighting for it.

The pamphlet’s author is Ada Stewart Shelton; it was composed in 1890; copyrighted by G.D. Ackerly of Jacksonville; printed by Matthews Northrup Company, Buffalo New York; and given away by northeast Passenger Agent, Chas W. Gray, 211 Washington Street, Boston to those on the train south to a new and better life…

I hope you enjoy the poetry of the historical booklet and may the “Song of the Indian River Lagoon” give you new strength to save her.

Understanding the Water Resources Development Act, (WRDA), and the Indian River Lagoon

Congressman Patrick Murphy speaking, Kiwanis luncheon, 4/15/14, 2014. (Photo by Jacqui Thurlow-Lippsich)

One of the nicest things lately is spending time with my father. He is a long time member of Kiwanis and has invited me to be a guest three times this year. Yesterday, he invited me because Congressman Murphy was speaking, and my dad knows I like politics, especially “river politics,” of which Congressman Murphy has been very supportive.

In the relatively small group I had the opportunity to ask a direct question. One thing I am very aware of is that even though I study this water “stuff” all the time, I literally understand the only “tip of the iceberg.” This is confusing and I know if I don’t know, there are plenty of others who don’t know either.

So today, I am going to try to explain what I think I know, and what Congressman Murphy explained yesterday about the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) that we keep hearing so much about.

First of all, the federal government is a black hole and just because they vote on something does not insure it will happen. As in “authorizing”–or agreeing to spend money on projects. Let’s keep this in the back of our minds….

So WRDA is a bill that is only passed ever so often, in which Congress “authorizes” (kind of promises to give money, over time) to the Army Corp of Engineers, so the Army Corp can do their work. So far, there have been a number WRDA acts since 1974-2007, but none lately. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Resources_Development_Act)

The proposed WRDA bill that is being worked on right now, for 2014, (it was 2013), “promotes critical investment in the nations water infrastructure:”, (http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=1db8714f-ac01-4253-8c9f-367d09d6f573). The projects referred to in this bill are mostly structural and not environmental, as in improving ports and the moving agricultural product. Nonetheless, we can benefit from this bill.

From what I understand CEPP, or the Central Everglades Planning Project, that the South Florida Water Management District just voted 5-0 last week to “recommend,” (a big deal), can now go to the Army Corp of Engineers to be included the Corps “final report,” to hopefully be included in WRDA 2014. CEPP is the first part of “moving more water south” from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades and is critical to the beginning betterment of the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

(http://www.evergladesplan.org/pm/projects/proj_51_cepp.aspx)

So this was my question to Congressman Murphy yesterday: ” You just now said WRDA passed, but whenever I hear the ACOE talking about it, it sounds like they are still waiting for it and hoping to “tag on,” as it is possible to still “get in…?”

Congressman Murphy explained that WRDA passed the US HOUSE with flying colors, (he serves in the House), and then later passed the US Senate, but that the language although similar was not the same, so the bills, together, had to go “to committee” and are still being hashed out–blending House and Senate language and goals for a final bill.

So WRDA 2014 is not yet passed or final…

OK….that makes sense but what is confusing to the public and to me is when they say “it passed.” I guess this is not too much different than in municipal government when an ordinance “passes first reading,” but it still has to go through “second reading” to “really” pass….

It’s all very confusing, but WRDA is one of our greatest tools to fix the lagoon, so don’t give up. Keep pushing for WRDA and CEPP’s inclusion, and if you really want to help, write Congressman Murphy to thank him for WRDA passing just the House. Then egg him on for Easter and Passover to keep pushing for WRDA, and our river, in ways bigger than he already has. (FLMurphyPatrick@mail.house.gov)

Developing a Habit of Checking Lake Okeechobee’s Level in Light of the Indian River Lagoon

My niece Evie stands at the manicured edge of the east side of Lake Okeechobee at Port Mayaca. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch 2013) — My niece, Evie, stands at the manicured, “parking lotted” edge of the east side of Lake Okeechobee, Port Mayaca. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch 2013)

Last year, when I was in Clewiston, I thought it was really amazing how everyone, and I mean just about everyone, was aware of the level of Lake Okeechobee. In fact, the local bank on the main drive through town had the lake level flashing on its information screen the way we in Stuart might see temperature. “LAKE OKEECHOBEE 14 FEET” FLASH, FLASH, FLASH…

Of course Clewiston is located at the southern edge of the lake, so for them it is critical to know the lake level as they are more at risk of flooding and mayhem the higher the lake gets. In fact, according to a Palm Beach Post article last year by Christine Stapelton: “At 15.51 feet, the Corps considers the probability of a breach at about 3 percent; probability rises increasingly faster with each inch. At 16.9 feet it climbs to 10 percent. At 18 feet, to 45 percent. At 21 feet, the dike would fail, causing widespread flooding.”

We here in Stuart, are also affected by the level of lake as when it gets over 15.5 feet the Army Corp’s LORS Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule is getting close or telling them to “dump” to the estuaries. So if one is watching the “writing is on the wall.” There is no need to be surprised when news comes of the dumping if we’re paying attention….

In a perfect world, residents of Martin County would check and know the level of Lake Okeechobee. Last year I asked my husband if he would consider putting a flashing sign of the lake level on his office building on East Ocean. He smirked, laughed out loud but didn’t say “no,” so I am still waiting.

In the meantime, the easier way to check Lake Okeechobee’s level, to see if it is nearing “dump level”, is to go to the Army Corp of Engineers’ Lake Okeechobee web site: (http://w3.saj.usace.army.mil/h2o/currentLL.shtml)

Today the lake is at 13.3, below 15.5. Although this level seems “good” for Martin County, it is actually only a few tenths away from where it was last year at this time. If a huge tropical storm or rain event came it could easily increase the level of the lake by three to four feet. This has happened many times.

So why isn’t the lake lower? Why don’t “they” let it drain to the Everglades now? Well obviously there are other interests than just “ours.” Agriculture in the EAA likes to insure that there is enough water in the lake, because they know that just as quickly as a storm could fill the lake, drought could ensure, and not only would the agriculture community be lacking needed water for crops but some of the utilities on the southeast coast may go short on drinking water. For the wildlife agencies, they are cognizant of the need of water, but not too much, for wildlife to survive, especially birds and fish.

It is a delicate balance that really Mother Nature and God should be working out but since the mid 1900s “we” have really completely taken over, or so we think…

So let’s be aware of the “bigger picture” and know how we fit into that picture, and in the meanwhile, get into the habit of regularly checking the lake level. Also take time to write your legislators and insist that more water flow south and be stored, and that Kissimmee River be fully restored to hold more water in its flood plain. If they say, “there’s no place to store or clean the water, and there’s no money,” tell them nicely to “figure it out…”and remind them of the great things this county has done in its past.

And last, if you see my husband around town, would you please ask him if he is ever going to put up the electronic sign outside at his office? I’d appreciate it!

A Surprise Visit by Governor Rick Scott to the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon

Governor Rick Scott, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, and Lt. Governor, Carlos Lopez Cantera. (Photo Kevin Powers, 2014)

I was looking towards the front door that had just opened, cocked my head and said, “that looks like Governor Rick Scott…that is Rick Scott.”

To say I was surprised is an understatement. No one had told me the governor would be coming.

A surge of contradictory emotions ran through my head, frustration for policies that have not favored wise growth management or environmental policy, and thanks for recommendations of monies towards lifting the Tamiami Trail, so more water can “go south” and the completion of the C-44 reservoir in Martin County.

I stood there thinking, wondering, watching this man, our governor…

I had been invited to the home of Kevin Powers, long time family friend, and vice chair of the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District, a position that is appointed by the governor. There were four other people from Stuart in the room, all men, and myself, standing around on a Friday afternoon in Kevin and Marsha Power’s living room looking out onto the St Lucie River. Not my typical Friday afternoon.

“Holy cow,” I thought, “I am going to have the opportunity to speak face to face with our governor… Hummm?…..”

I tried not to stare but I noticed the governor was sitting on the couch. The couch looked deep and he was closely seated next to others in the group, kind of falling into the area between the two cushions. He had on a blue button down shirt, no tie, dark suit pants, and black cowboy boots. He looked human, out of place actually, and kind of shy.

I had kindly been given a sturdy chair at his right side. As I walked to the chair, I looked at the governor and said, “would you like this seat? It seems like you should have a chair….”

He smiled shyly, head low and eyes smiling and said, “No thank you; I’m fine right here.”

I sat down, taking my place in the comfortable and homey living-room and sat back in my chair while the governor fell in-between the cushions.

I learned over closer to him, got my courage up and said. “Thank you for coming here.”

He nodded and asked me what I did to be here today.

“I am a commissioner and former mayor of a small town named Sewall’s Point.” I replied.

“How many people live there?” he asked.

“There are about 850 homes and around 2000 residents,” I replied.

“He perked up, scooting away from the division in the cushions, “you manage a town that only has town 850 homes?” he inquired, looking envious, as the state of Florida has over 19 million people.

“Yes sir, but the 2000 people are very demanding…”

I told him about the first time I was berated at a public meeting, and the challenges of not being able to walk my dogs or go to the grocery store with out running into my constituents.

Rule number one: “Find a common identity factor.” Of course I knew that the governor had been heckled and screamed at by angry crowds in Martin County at the Locks and Dam last summer.

“Martin County is tough,” he said, mentioning two counties in the state that had displayed such raging anger…

“Sir, I said, “please understand, and I know it’s difficult, but here in Martin County this emotion, this anger comes out of love. For our river…”

He looked at me straight in the eye, longer than normal. I held my gaze. We were connected.

Kevin Powers, finally sat down, and the meeting started. Each member of the group was allowed to share. One hundred percent of the focus was on the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.

I will only speak of my part, but I can say that each person spoke with passion from a business and quality of life perspective. The governor had a yellow legal pad and a blue Sharpie pen, he listened, asked questions, and took notes. Secretary Hershel Vineyard and Lieutenant Governor, Lopez-Cantera were also there. Yes, it is a reelection year; yes, there are lots of things to criticize; nonetheless, it was an incredible opportunity to speak to those in power.

When my time came around the circle, I discussed that Martin County has literally been “dumped on” for decades; that as a business man it seems the governor could relate to the enormous waste of money in that 1.7 billion gallons of water on average per day is wasted to tide through the estuaries and other canals; I said “we sent a man to the moon in 1968, there is no excuse to not find a way to save, store and send some of the water south;” I told him about the River Kidz and how parents were getting involved through their children and that our movement was not going to go away; I gave him a picture book of the photos my husband and I took from an airplane that says “it all” in one photo.

I was great to have my time with the group to speak, but I felt the best communication happened when I talked to the governor “one on one.” When I told him Martin County is angry because of the destruction of something that is dear to them, I think he heard me. CEO or not, everyone understands the power of love.

ABOVE PHOTO: Kevin Powers shows Governor Rick Scott and Lt Governor Lopez-Cantera muck from the bottom of the St Lucie River that in some areas is over 12 feet deep. This sediment build up comes from years of destruction of the areas three canals: C-44, C-23 and C-24 and releases from Lake Okeechobee.

4th Generation Monarch Butterflies, the River Warriors, and the Indian River Lagoon

Fourth generation monarch butterflies are made for the long haul. — Fourth generation monarch butterflies emerge from their chrysalises uniquely made for the long-haul…(Photos by Ed Lippisch)

When the pressure and destruction of last summer’s releases from Lake Okeechobee and the local canals overcame my world, I decided I needed to do something to keep a positive attitude; I started a butterfly garden in my yard.

It has been an amazing experience learning about the “hosts” plants that imediately bring a specific butterfly to the garden; the nectar plants the butterflies can “eat;” the eggs and “Transformer- like,” funny, caterpillars that emerge to consume the host plants; the chrysalises that hang like Christmas bulbs everywhere; and finally the spectacular emerging butterflies.

So far, I have mostly had zebra long-wing, various swallowtails, dagger-winged, gulf fritillary, and monarchs. Each has their own cool story, but the monarch has something special as far as “inspiration” goes, and I liken it to the Indian River Movement, or the “River Warriors” as its been coined.

No one can explain the following, as God has made the world a mystery, but the fourth generation of monarch butterflies is genetically programmed, unlike the rest of its family heritage, for the “long haul,” to make the migration.

For me this is like the Indian River Movement, the “River Warriors.”

Yes, we are the fourth generation of Martin County’s pioneer residents trying to save the river. The area’s first generation started as early as the beginning of the 1900s.

In case you are unfamiliar, let me explain.

According to scientists, the first three generations of monarch butterflies live around 4-6 weeks flying, breeding and eating, but the 4th generation of monarch butterflies are different. They live 6-8 months and are the only generation to participate in the long haul “migration,” as seen on the map above.

We, the River Movement of 2013, are the river movement’s 4th generation. The “long-haul” generation. We will take the Indian River Lagoon further than most, closer to the finish line.

In conclusion, life is a mystery, and much is not completely understood…

But what is understood, is that we, the River Movement of 2013, are a generation that is different!

LINKS

Monarch migration maps: (https://www.google.com/search?q=monarch+migration+map&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ZYdGU-MsxpvZBYrBgKgP&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1897&bih=803)

Monarch butterflies, 4th generation difference: (http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/monarch-butterflies-facts.html)

The Guardians of Martin County and the Indian River Lagoon

The American Flag Flying. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, House of Refuge) — The American flag flying.
(Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, House of Refuge.)

I have always admired those who are unafraid to stand up to the system. Since our country is built on the blood of revolutionaries, I feel this is “American.” And the Guardians of Martin County certainly are not afraid to stand up.(http://theguardiansofmartincounty.com)

You might recall around 2010, when there were two DRIs, (Developments of Regional Impact), (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/oip/dri.htm), possibly planned to be built in Martin County and therefore go before the county commission. In a short period of time, the Guardians, and some others, mobilized, and then, before you knew it, the face of the county commission had changed to more “non-development,” and the DRIs were not supported.

I am not anti business. I am a real estate agent and come from a family of attorneys, farmers, and teachers, who worked hard in this country, since the 1700s on my mother’s side, to build a decent life in mostly difficult times. My heritage is one of people who respect property rights and “mean business.”

Nonetheless, we all know that business often does not consider the costs of over development, and although “over development” is certainly a matter of personal perspective, one thing is certain, development affects one’s quality of life and the quality of water in the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, as all runoff eventually ends up in the river. Our waterways and our aquifers need “land” to survive.

In the document Florida, Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900-1990, Martin County’s numbers are the following beginning in 1920: —-; 1930: 5111; 1940: 6295; 1950: 7807; 1960: 16,932; 1970: 28,035; 1980: 64,014; and 1990: 100,900.(https://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/fl190090.txt)

A recent Martin County Commission publication states 2000’s population number at 1126, 731 and in 2010, at 146,318.

Having lived in Martin County since 1965 and my father’s side of the family since 1952, I have grown up hearing the stories of change, and the glory and health of the area’s original beauty.

If one looks at the population numbers of most of the other Florida coastal counties, the population growth of Martin County is minimal. Dade County for instance went from 42,753 people in 1920 to approximately 2,496,435 today.

My soil scientist grandfather who worked for IFAS, the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, at University of Florida, (http://ifas.ufl.edu), used to tell me stories about driving from Gainesville to Dade County in the early days to take soil samples; today there wouldn’t be many in those same areas left to take.

Even if the Guardians sometimes make “business as usual” difficult, I thank and commend them for protecting the beauty, water, and quality of life we still have left in Martin County.

I would also like to thank the Guardians who have always supported my river work and that of the River Kidz/Rivers Coallition. Recently the Guardians asked if they could post my husband and my booklet: “Lake Okeechobee Releases 2013,” an aerial story, on their website. I am honored and I thank them! Click here for electronic version of river booklet: (http://theguardiansofmartincounty.com/river-photo-booklet-by-jacqui-thurlow-lippisch-2013/)

Unknown, Sacred Indian Mounds of the Indian River Lagoon

Ancient Aye Indian mound and gravesite, possibly 3000-4000 years old overlooks the Indian River Lagoon at Ft Pierce but is but is unrecognized. The park is known today as "Old Fort Park." — Ancient Ais Indian mound and gravesite, possibly 2000-4000 years old overlooks the Indian River Lagoon but is but is unrecognized. The park is known today as “Old Fort Park,” Ft Pierce. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch)

When I was a teenager, one time my mother, a historian, pulled the car over on the side of the road near “Old Fort Park” in Ft. Pierce. She said,” Let’s get out of the car, we are going to look for Indian shards.” “Cool,” I thought, but how could that be? We were driving right along Indian River Drive in a residential area just outside of downtown Ft. Pierce. I’d been here a thousand times….

So anyway, she parked the car and we actually walked across the street, closer to the river, and right there lying on top of the pushed up earth, were discarded oyster and clam shells and splinters of pottery that my mother explained belonged to an ancient mound building culture. I was amazed. Later, we walked up the remains of the forty foot midden, turned around and looked out over the beautiful Indian River, through gigantic gnarled oak trees. I imagined I was an Ais Indian, looking out for the British or Spanish and their Indian collaborators who one day would destroy me and the Indian River too.

According to the Florida Anthropologist 2002, Volume 55 3-4, a total of 49 shell middens, circles or graves have been found in Martin County and were determined to be in much better condition than the ones that had been plowed down in neighboring and over developed Palm Beach County. These Indian mounds were determined to be anywhere from 3000-4000 years old, possibly older, and belonged to various Florida mound building tribes. In Martin County they were named the Ays or Ais. (http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00027829/00090/1j)

The “Old Fort Park” is in St Lucie County, but Martin County’s most well known Indian midden is known today as “Tuckahoe.” The mound was once 60 feet high and overlooks the Indian River as well. I learned that many of the Indian mounds, even parts of Tuckahoe, were all or partially bulldozed and the shells used to pave the early streets of the area.

How resourceful? How horrendous and completely unthoughtful.

This partial map below shows where some of the major coastal and interior mounds in Martin County are located: Mount Elizabeth or Tuckahoe; Hutchinson Island; House of Refuge; Rocky Point; St Lucie Inlet; Joseph Reed Shell Ring; Peck ‘s Lake Complex; Banner Lake Complex; Hobe Sound Complex; Jupiter Sound Complex; Jupiter Inlet Complex; Indiantown and Barley Barber.

-Image courtesy of the “Florida Anthropologist,” ufl.edu link above.

A few years ago after a big storm, the Indian Mound on Hutchinson Island was opened up by the sea. Bones and artifacts were found, studied and reburied because today we have a deeper respect for these grave sites, these sites of culture that many of our ancestors, like mine, destroyed.

Perhaps the spirt of the Ais Indians broke forth that day, and in the rolling waves was brought back to the shoreline. Maybe they are somehow helping us who care and empathise save what’s left of their Eden – the beautiful, the sacred, the Indian River Lagoon.

Photos: (https://www.google.com/search?q=indian+mounds+photos+florida&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=5LE5U-CeD63gsATZvYHADQ&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1598&bih=803)

Lt. Governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera and the Indian River Lagoon

14 year old Natalie and new Lt Governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera

Last week, I took my fourteen year old niece, Natalie, to a meeting with me, to meet Florida’s brand new, only seven weeks old in the position of Lieutenant Governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera of Miami; he is the first hispanic ever to hold this office.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_López-Cantera); (http://www.flgov.com/meet-lieutenant-governor-carlos-lopez-cantera/)

The purpose of the meeting was to “educate” the new lieutenant governor about issues concerning the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. I had Natalie for Spring Break and since she has been a member of River Kidz (http://riverscoalition.org) since she was ten, I figured I’d put her to work.

I said, “Natalie, just be honest and polite. Shake his hand, look him in the eye, smile and then tell him how you and your family were affected by the releases from Lake Okeechobee and the other canals last summer, the “Lost Summer.”

When it was our turn, Natalie went first. She did exactly what I had asked. She shook his hand, looked him in the eye and smiled saying:” My name is Natalie and I live in North River Shores. Last summer, because of the releases from Lake Okeechobee, my family and I could not use the new wakeboard we got for Christmas, because the river was off limits with toxic algae blooms. Also we did not go fishing like we usually do. The water was gross…”

At this point, as there were others standing around listening and waiting to meet Mr Lopez-Cantez too, I did my typical control-freak move and “nicely” butted in just to qualify a piece of information so my comrades couldn’t claim I was using Natalie for purposes of propaganda.

“Natalie, we should mention, that the other canals were releasing too; you know the C-23 and C-24; the C-23 is the one your sister did her Science Fair Project on…”

Natalie looked and me and the Lieutenant Governor looked at me. Natalie nodded her head, and Mr Lopez-Cantera honestly asked: “Don’t all the canals here connect to Lake Okeechobee?” Silence.

“I’m glad you asked, I said. It’s all very confusing.” I drew a picture as Natalie explained that C-44 does connect to the lake, but C-23 and C-24 do not. She also explained that the C-23 and C-24 are very polluting canals, but it has been only when the heavy releases from Lake Okeechobee come, on top of the releases from our local canals, that the river goes completely toxic.

I told a story that is well known. Prior to the releases from Lake Okeechobee, the South Florida Water Management District had taken samples of toxic algae, “microcystis aeruginosa,” a type of cyanobacteria, from Lake Okeechobee at Port Mayaca , and the Army Corp of Engineers knew this, before they opened the gates at S-308 and S-80 allowing the water to flow into the St Lucie Canal and St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.

Images: (https://www.google.com/search?q=toxic+algae+st+lucie+river&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=tmA5U6yLIpTzrAGY7YGwDw&ved=0CHAQsAQ&biw=1598&bih=803)

I relayed that Mark Perry speaks on this situation often, reiterating again, that the river became toxic not while our own, although they be disgusting canals, were releasing, but only when the massive water from the Lake Okeechobee was allowed in…

The Lieutenant Governor looked surprised, “Who is Mary Perry? ” he asked. “Mark Perry is the executive director for Florida Oceanographic,” I replied. Mr. Lopez-Cantera wrote down Mark’s name.

Our fifteen minutes were up, I gave the Lieutenant Governor a booklet of aerial photos my husband and I took of the river during the summer of 2013; he did a double take when he saw the cover but it was time to go.

Nonetheless, he did not rush us off, and as we were getting up to go, he told Natalie about being a big wake boarder himself in Miami in younger days. We took a photo for Natalie’s album and then Natalie and I were off to walk the dogs and bake cookies since it was too windy to go to the beach.

I commend the Lieutenant Governor for coming to Stuart and meeting with local stakeholders to learn about the Indian River Lagoon, St Lucie River and Lake Okeechobee. I’m sure he has people pulling at him from all directions, but he came here.

As distasteful as politics is, at the end of the day, change for our rivers will come through the steady work of building relationships. By knowing our politicians, whether they be republican or democrat, the face to face experience makes it harder for them to forget us when the vote is before them.

I’m hoping when it comes time for a vote, or in the future when the possibility of sending the water south is real, Lieutenant Governor Lopez-Cantera, or what ever his position is at that time, will remember the nice kid named Natalie from Stuart, and her story about not being able to wakeboard in the toxic St Lucie River during the lost summer of 2013.

Endangered Small-toothed Sawfish and the Indian River Lagoon

Small-toothed Sawfish, Sewall's Point, 1916. Reported 18-28 feet, they were once common in the Indian River Lagoon. (Photo courtesy of Sandra Thurlow's archives and the Historical Society of Martin County.) — Small-toothed Sawfish, Sewall’s Point, 1916. Historically reported from 18-28 feet, they were once extremely common in the Indian River Lagoon. (Photo courtesy archives of Sandra Thurlow and the Historical Society of Martin County.)

I guess as much as I have just begun to really fight for our Indian River Lagoon/St Lucie River, many of its most spectacular creatures have been dying off for a very long time. For me, the most notable of these is the prehistoric, quiet, remarkable, and since 1999, “critically endangered,” small toothed sawfish whose numbers have been estimated to have been reduced by up to 99%, due mostly, to thankfully former, commercial fishing practices.

Many may not realize that this fish, the “small toothed sawfish” was the first marine fish determined as “critically endangerd” in United States’ waters, right here, along the Indian River Lagoon’s Treasure Coast!

Sources for this post:(http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/statusreviews/smalltoothsawfish.pdf)

(http://www.mrcirl.org)

(http://m.myfwc.com/research/saltwater/fish/sawfish/general-information/)

As a kid growing up in Stuart in the 60s, 70s and 80s, I would hear about sawfish and see pictures, but I never “saw” one, until recently believe it or not, when one was reported and photographed in the Stuart News, caught near the Ernie Lyons Bridge in Sewall’s Point. The creature was released, giving hope for its survival and comeback.

How incredibly cool, “Leviathan lives!”

As far as notes of interest: sawfishes are a family of rays and their mouth and nostrils are on its flat underside. Its skeleton is made of cartilage; they can live up to fifty years and don’t mature sexually until they are about ten. Bearing young only every other year, sawfish babies grow in eggs inside their mother and once they are fully developed, she gives birth to her “pups,” usually around 1-15 in number.

By far, the sawfishes most distinctive feature is its “rostrum,” or saw, which is covered with electrosensitive pores that allow it to sense even the beating heart of of its prey hiding in the mud or muck covered bottom. They can also dig with their unique appendage and slash/stun fish above them to ingest whole. The saw is also used to protect them from shark attacks but unfortunately “nets,” which were allowed in the Indian River from time beginning until 1994, caught possibly over time hundreds of thousands of these creatures “accidentally.” Most were simply killed, usually by cutting off the saw, and the dying fish left to sink to the bottom discarded. In its hey-day, more small toothed saw fish lived in the Indian River Lagoon than any other body of water on the planet.

All things considered, I think the small toothed sawfish should become our symbol for the Indian River Lagoon movement that really took shape in 2013. The Indian River Lagoon, like the critically endangered small toothed sawfish, after years of hiding on the bottom, is finally coming back, full of vim and vigor, to rightfully claim its former glory.

Restoration of the Kissimmee & Indian River Lagoon

ACOE Lt. Col. Greco explains restoration of the Kissimmee River at a River Coalition meeting in Stuart, 3-26-14. (Photo JTL)

At the request of the Florida and US government, the Army Corps of Engineers channelized the Kissimmee River between 1962 and 1970 to improve flooding that had specifically occurred in 1947. Almost immediately this channelization was recognized as problematic to Lake Okeechobee and the estuaries. In 1997 Congess approved efforts to restore parts of the Kissimmee to its natural design.

With ranch, agricultural and other land purchases that were made in the former flood plains, restoration is/was complex and difficult. Nonetheless the ACOE has completed an approximate twenty mile restoration. This is one of the few great accomplishments made so far to improve the misjudgments of the Central and South Florida Flood Project of 1948.(http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/restudy_csf_devel.aspx)

The problem with the Kissimmee was that it was straightened, let’s try to simplify what has led to the destruction/problems of the Indian River Lagoon by listing what has led to its poor health:

too much shoreline development, building the C-44 canal from Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie a River, diking Lake Okeechobee, channelizing the creeks that are now the C-23 and C-24 canals, the channelizing of the Kissimmee River, dredging a channel in the lagoon and St Lucie River, runoff from agriculture and urban development that runs into the lagoon, automobiles and the thousands of Department of Transportation canals that also lead to lagoon, causeways that block the flow of water in the lagoon, marinas and boat traffic, fishing line and trash left to harm wildlife, rains that may carry mercury and other pollutants from thousands of miles away, inlets that have been dug and made permanent or at least not allowing the ocean to break through when and where it desired as it did for tens of thousands of years, the invention of synthetic fertilizer and septic tanks, suburbia, herbicides and pesticides and even laundry detergent, drugs and antibiotics that many of us take that seep into the waters of the lagoons causing disfunction to animal life like antibiotic resistant dolphins, (http://www.cehaweb.com/documents/2_000.pdf) the list goes on…

Fixing the Indian a River Lagoon is actually more historic and multilayered than fixing the Kissimmee River. Thankfully we know we have the will to make our government and to make ourselves fix it.

Impairment of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon

Basins of the St Lucie River.

Something the every day person may not know because the communication feedback loop between state agencies and the public doesn’t really function, is that in 2002, the Department of Environmental Protection, a state agency, declared the St Lucie River, part of the southern Indian River Lagoon, “impaired.”

The 2002 report reads: “Anthropogenic impacts to the St Lucie River have impaired its function as an important estuarine ecosystem and resource. Stream channelization, wetland drainage, conversion, construction of drainage canal systems, urbanization, and agriculture activity have so completely modified the watershed that it can no longer function as a healthy ecosystem…although it was once one of the most productive in the world…” (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/southeast/ecosum/ecosums/SLE_Impairment_Narrative_ver_3.7.pdf)

A tremendously loss to say the least. Why did we have to wait until it was dead to do something?

Unfortunately that is the case, so what’s important to know now about this “impaired” status is that it triggered a program to help the water body called a Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) and Total Maximum Daily Loads, (TMDLs).

You may have heard of them.

So now that the water body is impaired, there is an action plan for the water basins limiting the total maximum daily loads of nitrogen and phosphorus that flow into the estuary.

Municipalities and counties will be held eventually responsible for the maximum levels of pollutants allowed to enter the water before the water would become “impaired.”

This gets confusing, I know. I think of it like this: how many cigarettes one is allowed to smoke before one is on the verge of dying of cancer…your total maximum daily smoke, before you become “impaired.” But what if you been smoking a pack a day for 80 years? Is there time to cut back? Shouldn’t you just quit?

Crazy isn’t it?

The real catch for the St Lucie River is that much of the water that runs into the river is from Lake Okeechobee through C-44. So even if the St Lucie met its TMDLs they would be destroyed by releases from Lake O.

The state is working on this problem and many others. This might take awhile to fix. They are figuring 5, 15, and 30 year implementations before they can really measure improvements…

Time is of the essence, but this is the best the state can do.

Hmmm…I’m not a smoker but I am so frustrated, I think I’ll go have a cigarette.

Aerials, “Never Forget the Lost Summer” St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon

On September the releases were at their worst. — Aerial photos of releases at St Lucie Inlet, Sewall’s Point and Jupiter Island at the height of releases from Lake Okeechobee. Area canals were also releasing at this time. This era became known as the “Lost Summer, as waters were toxic for almost three months and visibly disgusting the two months before. The releases themselves began May 8th and stopped October 21, 2013. (Photos taken in August/September by Jacqui Thurlow-Lippsich and Ed Lippisch )

These shocking photos taken last summer have helped to keep up the pressure on Martin and St Lucie’s counties legislative delegation and others in both Tallahassee and Washington DC for change along water bodies releasing into the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon and future hope for future water storage and a flow way south.

Also, the Stuart News and Scripps Newspapers continues to post lagoon article almost every day. The business community, students, and retired, everyday people are still up in arms.

There are both short and long term goals to save the Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie River, but the public’s collective memory is the greatest hope for a better future as we advocate, partake, and lobby for clean water.

As you go out this weekend and Spring Break begins for our area young people, recall last year’s late spring, summer and fall when the public could not go out or into our area waters.

And when you have a chance, call your local, state and federal officials and nicely ask: “How’s it coming with those water issues, and when are you up for reelection?”

C-23 and its Destruction of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon

Bessey Creek in 1965, is the exiting point for C-23 into the St Lucie River. The canal was built between 1959 and 1961. — Bessey Creek and a newly constructed C-23 photographed in 1965. The creek is the exiting point for C-23 into the St Lucie River. The canal was built between 1959 and 1961. As development of the surrounding lands has increased so has the pollution from the canal. (Photo archives of Sandra Thurlow)

There are three destructive canals that empty into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, C-44 built in the 1920s, and C-23 and C-24, built later, between 1959 and 1961. They all over time have destroyed the health and integrity of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.

C-23 is the canal that boarders northern Martin and southern St Lucie Counties. It was built by the Army Corp of Engineers as part of the Central and and South Florida Flood Control Project that came into being in a “second” gigantic round of federal funds invested in Florida after a hurricane and extreme flooding in 1947 because, basically, people had built and started farming in areas throughout south Florida that were wetlands or swamps. The goal of the canal was to divert waters that would have “gone south,” and possibly even north into the St John’s River to the eastern, coastal waters. As usual, the ACOE was very successful at the complete cost of the environment.

Thus the C-23 canal drains a 175 square foot basin that includes parts of Okeechobee and St Lucie Counties that originally did not run into the St Lucie River. Once drained, these lands were primarily developed into citrus groves and other agriculture . According to the Department of Environmental Protection, the “urban land use, at the eastern end of the basin, includes solid waste disposal; light industrial, and golf courses.”

C-23 is a filthy canal. It delivers suspended solids, nutrients, fertilizers, and pesticides such as ethion, norflurazon, simazine, bromacil. Metals such as copper and lead have also been found in the surrounding sediments with concentrations high enough to “constitute toxicity” to fish, seagrasses, and other animals. You may recall even recently in the news, a sheepshead, with a huge pink tumor caught right in this area. DEP (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/southeast/ecosum/ecosums/c23.pdf); Tumored fish(http://martincountytimes.com/fish-with-large-tumor-on-head-found-in-palm-citys-bessey-creek-near-st-lucie-estuary)

My middle school aged niece, Mary, lives across the canal in North River Shores; she chose to do her science fair project on the C-23 this year and found that the canal had the highest level of phosphorus of the three canals. As she grows up, her generation will be working to fix our and our grandparents’ over zealous accomplishments and mistakes. Although our federal, state and local government claims that we’re “working on getting the water right,” it seems like we could do more and a little faster to help them…

The “Vertex of Lake Okeechobee” and It’s Effect on the Indian River Lagoon

Five county property lines within Lake Okeechobee — There are five county property lines within Lake Okeechobee; the vertex is where all lines meet-Glades, Henry, Palm Beach, Martin and Okeechobee.

My parents live in Indianlucie, in Sewall’s Point. Since I was a kid there has has been a sign in the back yard that says “Dade County.”

In the late 1800s what we know today as “Martin County” was Dade, later becoming Palm Beach and finally, piecing together northern Palm Beach and southern St Lucie, in 1925, Martin County.

Palm Beach County had always had more power, and they still do. In the early 1920s the people living in northern Palm Beach County got tired of being shortchanged on services and convinced Governor Martin to support a county named for him, and Martin County was born.

In spite of the name, Lake Okeechobee of course alway bordered the county east of it, and Palm Beach had “always” used the land of the lake to maximize the state distribution of highway funds.

That was until state representative of Martin County, William Ralph Scott of Stuart, initiated a bill to divide the lake among its adjacent counties, “creating a more equitable distribution of state funds for road creation and maintenance so that the lake was shared with all five counties along its boarders,” and thus the property lines of the lake were changed in 1963. (see MicroSoft map above.)

It’s no surprise that all bordering counties confirmed the “justice” of this change and supported its ratification, with the exception of Palm Beach County!

As we continue fight over water in the future, it will be interesting to see if Representative Scott’s vertex can help the Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie River with an ironic new vortex, whose lines are coming together, named the “Water Wars…”

The Almost Great “Port of Stuart,” along the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon

1911 Seawall's Point Land Company map — Portion of 1911 Sewall’s Point Land Company map showing area off of Sewall’s Point and Stuart where the great “Port of Stuart” was being developed.

The headlines of the South Florida Developer on December 29th, 1925 bragged about a Stuart along the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon very different than the one we know today:

“Port of Stuart, Florida’s New Gateway. “

“The Opening of the St Lucie Inlet to the commerce of the world will bring to Stuart and all Martin County that belated recognition to which it is rightfully entitled by virtue of its strategic geographic location.”

“W.B. Shearer, recognized international authority on ports and waterways, makes the positive statement that of all the East Coast’s four hundred miles of waterfront, the harbor at Stuart is the the only port with natural advantages suitable for a naval base…”

“St Lucie Ship Canal Locks- the first link in the chain of waterways that will eventually form a navigable canal from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico is the “St Lucie Ship Canal” now 95% complete. It’s completion will open up the fertile western portion of Marin County…”

As these headlines show, the “Port of Stuart” was not just a dream, in the early 1920s, it was a becoming reality. Details of the port still exists in dusty federal, state and local documents. If it were not for the Great Depression of the late 1920s and the difficulty for the ACOE in dynamiting the Anastasia rock from the bottom of the St Lucie Inlet, it could have been a reality.

So how could this be? Today an idea like this would be heresy!

Well, Captain Henry Sewall, for which the peninsula of Sewall’s Point is named, was one of many responsible for this “heresy.” Not only had he led locals to open the St Lucie Inlet by hand in 1892, he had served as county commissioner, and state representative.

In 1910 Captain Sewall and his powerful business friends, including adventurer Hugh Willoughby, founded “Sewall’s Point Land Company,” as Captain Sewall had inherited the tip of Sewall’s Point and large portions of waterfront and other lands along Stuart through his family linage to the famous Miles-Hanson Grant.

According to Sandra Thurlow’s book: “Sewall’s Point, the History of a Peninsula on Florida’s Treasure Coast,” after the formation of Sewall’s Point Land Company, the men got right to work building the Sunrise Inn on Old St Lucie Boulvard, and miles of roads in today’s Golden Gate; (see map above), government, bonds were held by the county and a turning basin at the tip of Sewall’s Point was dredged; this fill created today’s Sandsprit Park.”

A turning basin at Sewall’s Point? You’ve got to be kidding.

They were not.

Even poetry was written for the dream, ironically by beloved environmentalist, Ernie Lyon’s father:

Just One Place for the Harbor
by Harry Lyons
1924

“Brave sailors in Atlantic storms,
A harbor need for aid.
They skirt the coast of Florida,
Lest commerce be delayed.
When hurricanes sweep o’er the deep,
And ships grave perils face,
‘Tis the duty of all mariners,
To seek an anchorage place.
You’ll find the place for a harbor here,
Where the old St. Lucie flows.
There is room for ships at Sewall’s Point,
Where the Indian River goes.
No where else is there such an inlet,
Down below or up above.
There is just one place for the harbor!
Stuart the town we love!
From Stuart to Fort Myers at last,
We’ll have a waterway,
When the canal is finished,
And they’re hastening the day.
Across Lake Okeechobee,
From the Gulf of Mexico,
Oil and phosphate, fruit and lumber,
Into Stuart soon will go.”

Sewall died in 1925 and the bottom fell out of the real estate market around 1926. Around the same time, two devastating hurricanes put the nail in coffin of the Stuart Port at the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

It is interesting to note that the St Lucie Canal, C-44, between Lake Okeechobee and the St Lucie River was completed not only for transportation and trade, but for flood control of agriculture and people working south of the lake. The prosperity associated with the canal for the local people of Stuart never came and the canal ended up being a major factor in the destruction of their beloved waterways…

Well time goes on, new dreams come and go; new fortunes are made and lost. But for old times’ sake, one can stand at Sandsprit Park, and look out to Sewall’s Point remembering perhaps Stuart’s biggest dream, the lost dream, and for many, a dream well lost, the dream of the “Great Port of Stuart.”

*Thank you to my mother, Sandra Henderson Thurlow, for sharing her historic articles to make this write up possible.

Inspiration’s Luminescence on the Indian River Lagoon

Morning's Light on the Indian River Lagoon — Sunrise along the Indian River Lagoon, Jensen Beach. (Photo JTL)

light, noun: “understanding of a problem or mystery; enlightenment”

If you have ever had the chance to drive along Indian River Lagoon in the early morning or at sunset, you have probably been taken by it’s light.

No matter how “bad” the health of the river itself can get, at sunrise or sunset, there is the river’s glorious illumination. It’s one of those otherworldly gifts in a life that is often otherwise quite commonplace.

In the new or fading light of the Indian River Lagoon, we are renewed, and find our inspiration to fight, and to save it.

Tallahassee’s Dolphins and the Sadness of the Indian River Lagoon

The last time I was in Tallahassee was I eighteen and there to cheer on the Florida Gators.Today I was there to visit the Capitol and the city looked very different with thirty plus years under my belt.

I noticed the city was actually quite beautiful, very southern, with magnificent, awe inspiring oak trees, tall stately buildings, and dolphins.

At the back of the Capitol, which today almost acts like the front of the Capitol, there is a large statue called “Stormsong” composed of stainless steel dolphins. The animals seem to soar joyously in invisible waves.(http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/17019) The large piece is beautiful.

The statue is by Hugh Bradford and is a “celebration of Florida’s wildlife.” A public private partnership, from Florida’s Bush administration, that was started in 2000 and completed in 2008, made the work possible.

As breathtaking as the statue is, I could not help but be saddened knowing that the dolphins who live in my home town of Sewall’s Point in Martin County are probably the sickest in the state. These dolphins suffer from suppressed immune systems, multiple sicknesses and more than anywhere else, lobomycosis. This has all been written about and documented by Dr Gregory Bossert previously of Harbor Brach Oceanographic Institute. His research states that it is believed the filthy fresh water releases from Lake Okeechobee exasperate an already toxic water system in the southern Indian River Lagoon.
(http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.228.1.104)

On top of this the northern and central lagoon has had a UME or “unexplained morality event” since 2013 and over 90 dolphins have died, “mysteriously.”
(http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/health/mmume/floridadolphins2013.html)

It is time for the Capitol’s politicians to look deep within themselves and out the widows and start working for the irreplaceable wildlife in our state instead of against it.

Pioneer Churches Still Praying for the Indian River Lagoon

Stained glass windows from St Paul's Episcopal Church of Eden, later St Paul's' Church of Walton, now at St Mary's Church, Stuart. (Photo Sandra Thurlow) — Stained glass windows from St Paul’s Episcopal Church of Eden, later St Paul’s Church of Walton, now at St Mary’s Episcopal Church of Stuart. (Photo JTL)

According to my mother’s book, Historic Eden and Jensen on Florida’s Indian River, there were a number of pioneer churches along the Indian River Lagoon.

One that strikes a special cord for me is St Paul’s that was built in 1898 but destroyed in the hurricane of 1949 as pictured below. (Photo courtesy archives of Sandra Henderson Thurlow.)

Thankfully the stained glass windows were saved, and today they are the backdrop for the altar at St Mary’s Episcopal Church in Stuart that was built in 1949, the year of the storm.

According to My mother’s Jensen/Eden book,”there were no churches for the earliest settlers of Jensen and Eden to attend,” but it was the African American community of Tick Ridge, along Savannah Road, that built the first in 1890. This church eventually took on the name “St Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Chapel,” and is located between the Savannas and the Indian River Lagoon. A newer church, a CME, or Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, stands on the same location today.

A second church rose in 1899, also in Tick Ridge; it was baptist in denomination.

In 1898 the beautiful All Saint’s Episcopal Church and Cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints_Episcopal_Church,_Waveland_(Jensen_Beach,_Florida) was built, still stands today, and is the oldest longstanding church in the area according to its Wikipedia write up; this is the church that can be seen on the west hill just north of Rio when traveling on Indian River Drive.

In 1903 the Eden Union Congregational Church was built and is still standing in old downtown Jensen; it the one with the really cool concrete blocks and once was painted bright yellow; and finally, the Community Church of Jensen was organized in 1938, eventually moving to its stunning and “heavenly” location on one of the highest sites in the county, Skyline Drive, Jensen Beach.

In the hard times of Eden/Jensen pioneers, people set priorities and organized to worship. In one form or another, most of these churches are still standing today. What an accomplishment to the spirit of the men and women who built and loved our area and have passed on.

I believe with out a doubt, they’re all still praying, and and thank God they are, because we all know, the Indian River Lagoon needs nothing short of a miracle!

All on Board for Fertilizer Ordinances-Indian River Lagoon

The River Kidz protest HB 421, Fertilizer Preemption, in 2011, Town of Sewall's Point. (Photo Nic Mader) — The River Kidz protest Florida HB 421, that would have preempted the fertilizer ordinance of Sewall’s Point. (Photo Nic Mader, 2011)

Fertilizer has certainly been a hot topic over the past few years and for me this movement is one of the great hopes that the Indian River Lagoon has a chance of surviving.

Fertilizer ordinances, specifically those with “black out periods,” started on the west coast of Florida over a decade ago as activist around Tampa Bay and Sarasota decided to fight for their waters. They have had great success after great losses and now Tampa Bay has more sea grasses than it did before World War II, due mostly to its BE FLORIDAN program that the National Estuary Program is now trying to bring to the IRL. (http://www.befloridian.org)

Although there had been talk years ago of fertilizer ordinances on Florida’s east coast, they really didn’t catch on until the Town of Sewall’s Point adopted a “strong” fertilizer ordinance, a “black out period,” or no fertilizer use during the rainy season (June-November, for SP) in 2010. I am proud to say I was a big part of that movement with the support of the Sewall’s Point Commission.

It was Commissioner, to be Mayor, Jeffery Krauskoph, in 2009, who gave me the idea to push for such an ordinance in the Town of Sewall’s Point. The City of Stuart had actually passed the first in the area, however; it did not have a “black out period” and the Sewall’s Point ordinance does.

Ironically, last night the City of Stuart was petitioned by fertilizer activists from Volusia, Brevard, Indian River, St Lucie and Martin counties to push for a “stronger” fertilizer ordinance and Stuart in fact adopted, by first reading, the Martin County ordinance, a “strong” fertilizer ordiance.

The perils of fertilizer were first majorly documented in the research of the National Reasearch Council’s, Clean Coastal Waters, Understanding and Reducing the Effects of Nutrient Pollution, in 2000. Dr Brian LaPointe and and Dr Margaret Leinen of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute both sat on this national committee and Dr Leinen even testified before Congress. (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9812)

The book scientifically states ” the problems caused by nutrient over enrichment are significant and likely to increase as human use of inorganic fertilizers and an fossil fuels continue to intensify.” The scholarly publication notes strategies for “control” and tells the story of synthetic fertilizers created after World War II and how they transformed not only agri-business but suburbia, and how this, hand in hand, with over development, has lead to the steady demise of our beloved coastal estuaries. In many cases, such as the Gulf of Mexico, fertilizer from farms along the Mississippi River have created “dead zones.”

I am on the board of Harbor Branch’s Foundation and I once asked Dr Leinen, (who now is now the Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences and Dean of the School for Scripps Institute of Oecnograpy in California,) “if you testified before Congress on this problem, why didn’t they listen; why didn’t they do anything? ” She smiled at me and kindly and replied, “Jacqui, politics often overrides science.”

I stood there and had one of my “realizations…”

On a positive note, what I love about fertilizer ordinances the most, is that the “people” have embraced them as they realize the fertilizer problem is something they can directly and positively affect. As the public puts “skin in the game” for the direct benefit of their rivers, springs and estuaries, they expect this of their politicians as well. This is the beauty and and power of fertilizer ordinances; it is politics on its most revolutionary level, that of “the people….”

At this time, “strong” fertilizer ordinances have been adopted in the Town of Sewall’s Point; Martin County; Indian River County; St Lucie County; Orchid Island; Indian River Shores; Vero Beach; Brevard County; and are at first reading or being “worked on or discussed” in Stuart; City of Port St Lucie, Jupiter Island; Ocean Breeze; Fellslmere; Palm Shores; Melbourne Beach; Sebastian; Rockledge; Satellite Beach; New Smyrna Beach; Cocoa Beach and most likely a handful of others. Marty Baum, the Indian River Keeper, and others to be commended for taking the time to travel and advocate.

Like wildfire, communities along the Indian River Lagoon are taking into their own hands a part of the puzzle to save their lagoon. And the dolphins, manatees, seagrasses and and fish are smiling and hoping that this is just the start! As Dr Grant Gilmore said at the 2013 Harbor Branch Symposium, “it is the people, not the government, that will save the IRL.”

What is the WRAC and Can Martin County Become the Bull Gator for the Indian River Lagoon?

WRAC the jaws behind the SFWMD? (Photo courtesy of Clyde Butcher) — Right now agriculture interests are perhaps the most powerful force, “the bull gator,” of the SFWMD’s WRAC. (Photo courtesy of Clyde Butcher.)

bull (bo͝ol) n. 1. The male of certain large animals, such as the alligator, elephant, or moose that periodically fights upcoming bulls to maintain position or dominance. 2. An exceptionally large, strong, and aggressive person.

Perhaps the most important part of understanding our Indian River Lagoon water issues, is being honest about which interests have the most influence, who has the power to change things, and learning to take advantage of opportunities to become a competing bull gator at the table of water management.

Understanding the Water Resources Advisory Commission is a good place to start. The WRAC is a body that is appointed by the South Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board and represents a broad range of business, agricultural, environmental, tribal, governmental and public interests. It is an advisory board in essense to the SFWMD. (http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xweb%20about%20us/wrac)

The Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission are members of the SFWMD Governing Board. The Governing Board is appointed by the governor.

WRAC’s number one bull gator is not named “Alfred the Alligator,” but “Agi. How can I say this? Well I have served as an alternate for three years.

Monthly, I have sat through the long meetings with detailed scientific presentations by the SFWMD on water issues; it’s enough to leave your mind completely fried by lunch time but incredibly insightful. The real fun starts when all the members are allowed to give their opinions and concerns. Unlike many public arenas, the WRAC allows its members to speak passionately and openly on their interests. The agriculture community is very powerful on this committee and represent status quo.

Historically the WRAC is relatively new, I believe created in the 1990s, however; Florida’s flood districts, (under various names,) the state of Florida, the Federal Government and Army Corp of Engineers have worked and advised each other how to drain lands in South Florida since the late 1800’s.

This was originally done to help the state’s fledgling agriculture industry. But the agriculture and draining machine grew up and went too far destroying the natural system of Sorth Florida.

In the 1970’s under Governor, Rubin Askew, the water districts were restructured and received an additional mission to “flood control,” that of restoring the Everglades. And in 1994, the “Florida Forever Act” made clear the public expected their government to preserve Florida’s natural future. (River of Interest, Water Management in South Florida an dthe Everglades 1948-2010,” 2011)

This new mission to restore and not just to “drain and maintain” is struggling to find its footing, as history is a heavy cloak to change. This change will only come through the people–mind you, WRAC is an extension of “the people.” The WRAC is a key.

Last Thursday in a rare and appreciated opportunity for Martin County, the SFWMD/ACOE allowed the county to hold its “After Action” meeting during the WRAC. Almost five hours were dedicated for the purpose of critique.

The Commission first allowed Gary Goforth and Kevin Henderson, from Martin County, to present on how “more water could have gone south,” during the horrific summer of 2013. Then the SFWMD gave its response of why “it couldn’t.”

Basically, the District expounded upon their many “constraints” to sending more water south: the EAA’s legal flood protection; water quality standards; a consent decree from the Federal Government requiring phosphorus levels to be 10 parts per billion once they reach the Everglades; limited capacity in the Storm Water Treatment Areas (STAs ); preference for EAA water over Lake Okeechobee water; flood protection of the east coast and towns south of the lake; the FWC, endanged species, and a restrictive Tamiami Trail, were the most obvious.

Representatives form the agriculture community were some the first to speak in support of the SFWMD’s presentation. In one case, the “water game” was cited, a game that is used to teach how difficult is is to manage the water. “I challenge any of you to have done better,” in essence, was said. The room was silent.

Then the conversation continued and something interesting happened.

Representatives other than Martin County started asking questions of the top gators…

“How far does the EAA have to keep the water level down in its fields? Could the EAA grow rice or another crop that would allow for more water on the fields? “Could the water go another way? ” Perhaps naive, but there was a clear voice to look for answers for the plight of the estuaries reflected in the questions of many on the commission.

It may not seem like much right now, but I do believe Thursday’s meeting was one that could allow Martin County to evolve from years at the table as a baby gator into that of a bull. As the only way to remain “on top” is to have the support of your fellow alligators….

The Black Bobcats of the St Lucie Region and Indian River Lagoon

Melanistic bobcat caught in Martin County (Photo Busch Wildlife Center) — Captured melanistic bobcat from Martin County (Photo courtesy of Busch Wildlife Center, 2007)

The Martin County Difference” is an expression that one often hears from locals that means exactly what it says, “things are different here…”

Not only are the different, they are exceptional. We have the beautiful St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, a four story height limit, a strong urban service boundary, great public schools, a strong fertilizer ordinance, public beaches and black bobcats…

When I was a kid growing up in Stuart, one sometimes heard stories from the kids that lived in Indiantown or Palm City about “black panthers.” And someone who had seen them would swear on their mother’s grave this to be true. Supposedly these stories had been around for many, many years coming down from parents and grandparents.

More recently in 2008, my first year on the Sewall’s Point commission, the town had at least three “normally colored” bobcats and multiple kittens. The sightings were very exciting but scared some residents who had moved here from up north so I started reading about bobcats in great detail. Eventually we had Dan Martinelli of the Treasure Coast Wildlife Center speak before the commission and things calmed down but my fascination with these beautiful creatures did not.

I talked about bobcats a lot during this time and in the course of a discussion, one of my husband’s physician friends who lived in Palm City, with great excitement told a story of seeing a black bobcat in Palm City walk across his yard. That same year one of the Guatemalan landscape workers in the town, knowing I loved animals, struggled wide eyes to tell me about the black panther he had seen walking along a fence, close to Lake Okeechobee and the St Lucie Canal, that he had seen while fishing with his son.

According to my reading there have been more reports of melanistic bobcats in Martin County than anywhere else in the country, mostly near the area of the St Lucie Canal, Lake Okeechobee and Loxahatchee.

If you want to find these reports, google “melanistic bobcats martin.” These posts are not entirely scientific but they are documented. They say there have been sightings for the past 80 years.

Although I never seen a black bobcat, popular lore says the exist, I believe it, and it’s certainly better documented than Sasquatch who many of my high school friends claimed to see too.

What an incredible place to live! The “Martin County Difference!”

__________________________________________________________________

According to the Florida Wildlife Commission black panthers do not exist but black bobcats do!

FLORIDA PANTHERS:(http://www.fws.gov/floridapanther/panther_faq.html)

FLORIDA BOBCATS:(http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/mammals/land/bobcat/)

The ACOE’s “Periodic Scientists Call” and the Indian River Lagoon

S-80, Connecting Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie Canal or C-44 — S-80 connecting Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie Canal or C-44 controlled by the ACOE. (Photo JTL)

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell

I used to think it was the Colonel of the Army Corp of Engineers who single handedly had control to open the gates at S-80 and S-308 to allow the waters of Lake Okeechobee to flow into the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon. (http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/LakeOkeechobee.aspx)

But since February of last year, I have gotten more insight.

As an elected official, I am allowed to sit in on the Army Corp of Engineers “Periodic Scientists Call” that occurs about once every two weeks. Last year I was invited to sit in with Martin County and I have attend ever since.

No experience has helped me understand the south Florida water process as much as consistently sitting in on these calls.

The call is a meeting of the scientific stakeholders to give their input to the ACOE before the Corp makes its “guidance” for Lake Okeechobee, and usually the following Thursday, after, meeting with the SFWMD, a “recommendation.”

As you can imagine, the call is run by the US Army, so it is very systematic and the language is filled with acronyms and science jargon. For the first six months, I was basically a silent idiot listening to a foreign language. But slowly I have been catching on.

Thankfully some things are totally predicable. For instance, every call the first thing that is accomplished after reading the rules of the call, is that the roll call is taken. I like to listen to who is there: ACOE? Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission? City of Sanibel? Ft Meyers? Martin County? St Lucie County? NOAA? Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection? Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services? SFWMD? Broward County? Highlands County? Osceola County? Tribal Nations? Lee County? Ding Darling? Congressmen and other elected representatives? Members of the public? Other?

Then a leader from the ACOE gives a short power point presentation that reviews rainfall; precipitation outlooks by the SFWMD and NOAA; Lake Okeechobee inflows and outflows; operational band standing; SFWMD position analysis; Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS); and then finally a “guidance” for a “decision.”(http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Media/NewsReleases/tabid/6071/Tag/2128/lake-okeechobee-regulation-schedule.aspx)

Next, each stakeholder, one at a time, gives an update on their specialty and makes their case for their interest. Public members are then allowed to speak and and the again the ACOE leader goes through everyone one more time to see if if anyone has new comments based on the other just shared.

The calls are scientific and unemotional. However, there times of tension and difficulty like last year when the ACOE began releasing to the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatchee on May 8th and continued steadily, then intensely, through September 21, 2013. This tension may start up again soon, as the lake is higher than they wish for this time of year and it has been a wet winter. The “decision” should become public today.

I have to say that after sitting in on all these calls, the Army Corp often holds back when the LORS chart, and maybe even the SFWMD, says to “release.” But in the end, the inevitable occurs.

Although I appreciative of the hard working men and women who run the ACOE, I do think the overall system fails to take into account the long term survival needs of the natural system which includes “us,” and favors the security of resources of the sugar industry and agriculture south of the lake. It is easy to fall back on “flood control” each time the lake rises, and dump east and west, but the system is more far reaching and has greater demands than just that. The water they are dumping, 1.7 billion gallons on average a day, is simply wasted due to an outdated system. (FOS, Mark Perry)

On a deeper level, the intertwined culture of the SFWMD, the ACOE and agriculture, especially the sugar industry, is one going back over 100 years. Their connection runs deep and is a cultural one, one that has allowed them to control water and politics for their own interests in South Florida, past and present.

But times change and world views evolve. Personally, I am pushing for a future a little less Orwellian, and a little more respectful, of our natural resources and Mother Nature.

Sugar, the Indian River Lagoon, and the Changing Hurricane Winds of 1928

Historical marker of mass burial site for Florida’s 1928 hurricane, near Port Mayaca, Indiantown. (Photo by Evie Flaugh)

If you drive west from Stuart, on Highway 76 towards Port Mayaca, you’ll eventually see a large graveyard on the left hand side of the road. It is well kept and reminiscent of an old Florida, a Florida of pioneers, the Klu Klux Clan, and the Indian Wars. Large oak trees line the property and the unusually massive grave stones stand like sentinels to a time long past.

At the entrance is a memorial sign dedicated to the approximately 3000 people who were killed in the Florida hurricane of 1928. An earthen dike, barely holding back the waters that had naturally flowed south for thousands of years, breeched, killing mostly black agricultural migrant workers, while flooding sugar, vegetable farms, and personal property built in the path of the natural flow way south of the lake. Thousands of bodies were laboriously buried in mass graves, one in Martin and another in Palm Beach County. (http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/okeechobee)

African American, Etonville writer, Zora Neale Hurston, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston) writes in her classic novel, Their Eyes were Watching God, about migrant workers “looking back” as they were running to escape the furry of the 1928 hurricane.

“Above all the drive of the wind and the water…and the lake. Under its multiplied roar could be heard the almighty sound of grinding rock and timber and a wail….people trying to run in raging waters and screaming…The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour winds has looses his chains. The sea was walking the earth, with a heavy heel.”

All work for blacks during the late 1920s was difficult and filled with the prejudice and hardship of the Jim Crow Laws. In the sugar industry there were complaints of “controlling” black harvest labor, aided by law enforcement, debt peonage, forced labor and even killings.

Today when people speak about the hurricane of 1928, the death of the workers south of the lake is credited as the source for pushing for “flood protection.” This is not full disclosure.

The truth of the matter is that the storm was also an opportunity for the struggling sugar industry, south of Lake Okeechobee, not only to “protect” their poorly treated laborers, but to rally local, state and national government officials to support legislation to “invest” in the area against future flooding for the benefit of their fields, and the future riches of the industry. (Source Raining Cain in the Glades, Hollister, http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo5704198.html)

This was no easy feat and insanely expensive in a time around the U.S. Great Depression. Politicians and businessmen were creative and put emphasis the Okeechobee Waterway for “navigation, “rather than focusing solely on “flood protection.” At the time, navigation funds were much easier to get from the federal government than funds for “drainage” or flood control of the newly created Okeechobee Flood District.

These funds came to fruition in the construction of the “Cross State Canal,” also known as the “Okeechobee Waterway, “which links the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee, to the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon and conveniently doubles as a giant drainage canal for the sugar industry, diverting as much a 92% of the flow of water south of Lake Okeechobee.

You may have seen an arch in Rio that says “Gateway to the Atlantic.” That arch was built in celebration of he Cross State Canal…

Local people at the time had no of idea the greater repercussions of such to their greatest local resource, the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon. We still sit open mouthed today when S-308 at Port Mayaca is opened by the Army Corp of Engineers, and our area’s river resources are destroyed. Certainly we have our own local canal and runoff problems, but Lake Okeechobee’s tremendous waters, all the way from Orlando, are most destructive.

It’s exhausting. The Cross State Canal was completed in 1937, and we in Martin County have been fighting ever since, the changing winds of Florida’s hurricane of 1928.

Florida’s Legislative Session, How Can it Work for the Indian River Lagoon?

"Save our River," River Kidz FDOT recycled art sign, now in Washington DC, office of Congressman Patrick Murphy. (Photo JTL) — “Save our River,” River Kidz FDOT recycled art sign, now in Washington DC, office of Congressman Patrick Murphy. (Photo JTL)

After six years as a locally elected official, one thing is clear. I still do not really understand how the Florida Legislature works or how to make it work for me, but I’m getting there.

I thought with the Legislative Session convening, today, March 4, 2014, I would try to share what I do think I know or what I think I have figured out.

First of all, the basics. The legislature is composed of two “houses:” the House, that consist of 120 members http://www.myfloridahouse.gov

and a Senate, that is composed of 40 members http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Senate. Each represents a district according to population.

The House leadership includes Speaker of the House; Speaker pro tempore; Majority Leader; Minority Leader and committee chairs. These House seats come up for reelection every two years. Not fun.

The Senate leadership consist of the President of the Senate; President pro tempore; Majority Leader; Minority Leader and committee chairs. Senate seats come up for reelection every four years, so you can at least get something going before you have to jump back into the reelection circus.

There are term limits for both the house and the Senate but because they are defined as “consecutive” you can take a break and then jump back in….

So what have they been doing? Well, recently they have been in Tallahassee and had “House and Senate Interim Committee Meetings.” The dates of those meetings were as follows: September 2013, 23-27; October 7-11; November 4-8; December 9-13; January 2014, 6-10; 13-17; February 3-7; 10-14; and 17-21. So what do they do at these “interim meetings?” In their committees they formulate the bills that individuals will sponsor and try to get passed starting today, March 4th, when the session officially begins. This year the last day of session is May 2nd. So it is two months of “mayhem …”

A bill can start in the House or the Senate but it has to have a “companion bill” to move forward and be voted upon. Hundreds of bills are brought before the legislature each session but only a fraction will make it into law. You can imagine there are many different interest throughout our varying state…

As the session continues, it is difficult to keep track of everything and bills usually get packaged along with others, sometimes with others that have nothing to do with them. As a locally elected official, this frustrates me as I feel every bill should be considered separately as local ordinances are. Well, this is not the case, and allows for negotiating– better said, “if you help me, I’ll help you,” which at the end of the day is not so bad. What is bad, is that the people, the voting public, have almost no way of keeping up with all this hop-schotching, so we are 100% dependent on our elected officials and those watching out for us at home. To complicate issues further, elected officials are pressured, and blackmailed, mostly by their own party, to do what they need to do to make a deal work or “we won’t let your bill be heard” or “you’ll never get to chair a committee,” especially if you are a freshmen or relatively new to the pecking order.

It takes years to develop the seniority to do what you want, so to speak. Senator Joe Negron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Negron a good example, as he served in the House before he served in the Senate, then he became the head of the Appropriations Committee (they all sit on committees in some capacity ) and his recent position has a lot of influence and power. Senator Negron could not have started the “senate Select Committee on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee” years ago; he has earned his position to do such.

So how do you stay on top of all this politicking ? It is kind of like holding an angry cat. Hold on tight but be prepared to get scratched. Go on line to the state website and get on email alerts and call your local delegation: here in Martin, St Lucie and Indian River: Senator Joe Negron; Representative Gayle Harrell and Representative Mary Lynn Magar; Representative Debbie Mayfield; Representative Larry Lee, and tell them you expect them to support St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon policy and whatever else is important to you; tell them you appreciate what they are doing, and that you are paying attention to reports in the newspaper as far as how they vote. Most of all, be supportive so they support you. And be sure to tell them “good luck not getting scratched.”

Cinnamon Toast and the Indian River Lagoon

In the late 1960s, one of the best things about Christmas, was that old Christmas trees reinforced our fort under the old oak tree, we pretended was a ship, along the St Lucie River. I remember going to my neighbors, the Schramm’s house, with all their brothers and sisters, to have cinnamon sugar toast for breakfast around this time of year.

Mrs Schramm’s cinnamon toast was like nothing I had ever had: butter, sugar and cinnamon on Wonder Bread toast. Delicious! Little did I know, that one day I would be criticizing the sugar industry for not doing enough to help us save the Indian River Lagoon.

Recently, I have been reading the book, Raising Cane in the Glades, The Global Sugar Trade and the Transformation of Florida, by Florida International University professor, Gail M. Hollander. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo5704198.html

The book is credited as the first “to study the environmental transformation of the Everglades within the economic and historical geography of global sugar production and trade.” It is an “environmental history,” a discipline that is becoming more studied and written about: how we as humans effect change in our environment.

The book’s history is amazing and so far the story that has hit me the most is one about Mr Bohr Dahlberg who in the late 1920s owned Southern Sugar Company before it went into “receivership” and was purchased by Stewart Mott who created the United States Sugar Corporation. http://www.ussugar.com/downloads/ussc-history.pdf

Although Mr Dahlberg’s company went broke by 1928, the year of the great hurricane, he managed to break the Democratic hold on the “South” and form relationships with Republicans across the country for the benefit of the sugar industry in South Florida by supporting the successful presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover. Mr Hoover was a man who came to the support of those who had supported him, and it is he who authorized the building of the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee, to protect the sugar industry’s lands and the labor. The dike was completed in 1933 and changed forever the fate of the Everglades, the St Lucie River, and the Caloosahatchee River.

The politics of this book will make your jaw drop. Expressions such as: structure of the world system, national and global importance for presidents, national interest and world unrest, supposed and real issues of national security, using drainage and navigation to nationally fund the Okeechobee Flood District, the Army Corp of Engineers, the Cross State Canal that opened up the major draining of Lake Okeechobee into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.

All of this happened thirty years before I ate that cinnamon toast at the Schramms; there are fifty more years of politics that have come into play since then! The whole thing is rather daunting, but whether a kid, or a 50 year old today, I think the Sugar Industry owes the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon something, after all we take their drainage and I ate all that toast as a kid.

Nathaniel Reed, Nature’s God, and the Indian River Lagoon

Nathaniel Reed, in a moment of refection, Rivers Coalition meeting 2-27-14.

Mr Nathaniel Reed is one of those people I have always admired and who has always been “bigger than life,” in my life. http://www.aapra.org/Pugsley/ReedNathaniel.html

His name came before me like sunshine throughout my youth, as someone from little Martin County, who was fighting against the “big guy,” big development, destruction of Florida’s paradise, on a local, state and national level. Someone helping our Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie River.

On the other hand, his family developed Jupiter Island so there was a balance or an irony to the big picture. Such is life.

Over time, words like these, written by Mr Reed, in his early career, formed the basis of my world view:

“I suggest to you that the American dream, based as it is on the concept of unlimited space and resources, has run aground on the natural limits of the earth. It has foundered on the shoals of the steadily emerging environmental crisis, a crisis broadly defined to include not only physical and biological factors, but the social consequences that flow from them. The American dream, so long an energizing force in our society, is withering as growing social and ecological costs generated by decades of relative neglect, overtake the economic and technological gains generated by ‘rugged individualism’. The earth as a place to live has a limited amount of air, water, soil, minerals, space and other natural resources, and today we are pressing hard on our resource base. Man, rich or poor, is utterly dependent on his global life-support system.”

Yesterday, at a Rivers Coalition meeting, Mr Reed said he had failed in two things in his long successful environmental career. He said he has failed to limit phosphorus going into Lake Okeechobee, and that he had failed to convince others of the importance of getting the water going south, the basic principal of restoring the estuaries and the Everglades.

He then relayed to a crowd over two hundred that the flow-way south to the the Everglades, Plan 6, was unfeasible because the sugar industry is the richest industry in the U.S. and they would block anything put before Congress to do such and the costs of the project is too much. He recommended working on a plan that would move the water southeast, through canals, into an enormous reservoir, and letting is seep southward…

I adore Mr Reed, and he will always be a hero of mine. He looked down yesterday, and confided, that he is in “the final inning “of his life and wants to resolve this water issue before they take him out “fighting..”

Mr Reed is exhausted; he wants success in his lifetime. Of course he does.

But personally, I think to go “around the sugar industry” is perhaps not the answer as the sugar industry has a moral obligation to help with this whole debacle.

Although I respect Mr Reed’s recommendation, as Americans we must remember that sometimes it becomes necessary to “dissolve the political bands which have connected one to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, that which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle us…”

St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon-We’ve Really Mucked it Up…

Muck from the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon 2006. (Photo credit, Bob Voisenet,Rivers Coalition) — Muck from the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon. (Photo credit, Bob Voisinet, Rivers Coalition, 2006)

It has been described as “black mayonnaise,” and if you’ve ever stepped into parts of the St Lucie River or Indian River Lagoon it may have sucked you down, like quicksand. Muck is as deep as 12 feet or more in some areas and is one of the primary reasons that the St Lucie River, part of the Indian River Lagoon, was declared “impaired” by the state of Florida in the early 2000s.

According to the the Department of Environmental Protection, due to the area’s development, agricultural industry and the building and discharge from canals and Lake Okeechobee, muck sediments into the the St Lucie River have increased causing thick deposits to accumulate.

These muck sediments are contaminated with pesticides, and metals that “may be toxic to indigenous species.” The turbidity and algal blooms the muck sediments support have contributed to the near elimination of once abundant seagrasses, decimation of oysters and outbreaks in fish abnormalities. http://www.dep.state.fl.us/southeast/ecosum/ecosums/SLE_Impairment_Narrative_ver_3.7.pdf

In 2004, with the help of then Senate President, Ken Pruitt, Kevin Henderson of the St Lucie River Initiative, published a study for the SFWMD entitled “Final Report: Characterization, Sources, Beneficial Re-Use, and Removal of Marine Muck Sediments in the St Lucie Estuary.”

This extensive and excellent report concluded that there really are no “beneficial uses” for muck. Because of its high salt content it cannot be used as fertilizer and the cost of transporting it is often “cost prohibitive.” Nonetheless, based of this study the county and district were able to coordinate the plans or execution of muck removal from area creeks, such as Poppleton, Kruegar, Frazier and Haney.

For those of you really into this, it is worth noting that slow moving government policies such as SWIM, Surface Water and Improvement Management, CERP, Central Everglades Restoration Project as well as the Indian River Lagoon Restoration Plan, also deal with muck sediment removal.

There is hope, manatees came back to Kruegar Creek once it was cleaned and the muck sediments of some of the creeks went to build brims at Witham Airfield and “lined” the land fill. Mr Henderson’s report is a reference for all of us and the basis for future improvements.

Also, right now, in the central lagoon they are very close to getting monies from the state for muck removal in their area due to their area senator, Thad Altman’s involvement on Senator Joe Negron’s “Subcommittee on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee.”

As depressing as the river situation is, in the 1970s laws were created to halt destruction of submerged and coastal lands, like here in Sewall’s Point where once developers and the local government could just decide to “create a marina or make subdivisions out of mangrove filled spoil islands. It is a slow go, but in some ways we have been, and we are making progress.

I’m about mucked out, but in case you’d like to learn more about muck, this Saturday at 10am in Sewall’s Point, the River Kidz are tie-dying t-shirts with river muck and colors. They named their project: “Get the Muck Out!” Scientists will be speaking; we will be teaching; and we will be screaming GET THE MUCK OUT! Please join us.

Black Bears of Hutchinson Island, Our Wild Past

Mr Reginald Waters with black bears killed on Hutchinson Island, around 1930. (Photo credit Sandra Thurlow, Sewall's Point," A History of a Peninsular Community on Florida's Treasure Coast"/Reginald Waters Rice) — Mr Reginald Waters with black bears killed on Hutchinson Island, around 1930. (Photo credit Sandra Thurlow, Sewall’s Point,” A History of a Peninsular Community on Florida’s Treasure Coast”/Reginald Waters Rice)

When I was a kid, I had a favorite stuffed animal; he was orange bear with blue eyes and his name was “Beary Bear.” I carried him around until his eyes fell off and my mother sewed new ones back on. Over the years, all of his fur came off so he was bald.

There wasn’t a whole lot “to do” growing up in Stuart in the 1960s and 70s so a kid had to rely on the freedom of empty lots, friends, and his or her imagination to have any fun.

Before dinner, I used to climb to the top of a giant cedar tree in our back yard and look at the ocean and Indian River Lagoon from our house in St Lucie Estates, in Stuart. I carried Beary Bear up about forty feet with me and we talked about the black bears out there on Hutchinson Island and how there were just a few secret ones left, a few Mr Walters and the other pioneers couldn’t catch, and didn’t kill. That was fantasy.

According to historian Alice Luckhart, the black bear population on Hutchinson Island was completely wiped out by about 1930. (http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/feb/03/historical-vignettes-when-bears-roamed-hutchinson-/)

Before modern man came and planted bean fields and produced honey, the bears ate turtle eggs, palmetto berries and the riches of the Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie River. But they they became a problem, so we “wiped them out.”

Isn’t it amazing to think of where we really live? A land where not too long ago a panther may have swum across the St Lucie Sound; or a black bear happily frolicked along the Indian River Lagoon? Where fish were so plentiful they kept you awake at night. What I don’t understand is why we “wiped them out.” I guess times were harder then and the mentality was 100% “man over nature” but it’s fun to imagine what it would be like if we hadn’t killed them all, or somehow, we brought them back.

Well, Beary Bear is long gone, and the bean farms have been replaced with million dollar homes and unimaginative condominiums. But I still have my imagination and somewhere out there, there’s a bear; I’m sure of it.

Beach Re-nourishment vs. Mother Nature

Homes and Condos at Sailfish Point compromised by beach erosion-with newly constructed seawall, 2-12-14 — Homes and Condos at Sailfish Point compromised by beach erosion-with newly constructed seawall and birm, 2-22-14. (Photo JTL)

The trucks come in about once a year and dump millions of dollars worth of tax payer sand on Martin County beaches and other’s throughout our state. Then winter’s storms arrive and wash it back into the ocean, covering and damaging our nearshore reefs. But at least the turtles have a place to lay their eggs…?

Erosion is a natural part of all coastal barrier islands, in fact, time lapse photography would show these islands moving, like giant sea slugs, changing shape, due to erosion and accretion, over time.

However, it is mostly the man made inlets that change the erosion pattern along our beaches and cause the issues we have today. http://martincountycoastal.org/program_projects.html

Before modern man settled this area, inlets along the Indian River Lagoon came and went with the whims of Mother Nature. Looking at old maps, one sees documentation of changing natural inlets over time. Jupiter and Indian River Inlet north of Ft Pierce were the only long standing opening to the sea in our area most recently. Over thousands of years, others came and went, all along the lagoon. Peck’s Lake in Martin County broke through as recently as 1960 and was quickly “closed…”

In 1892 in today’s Martin County, then Dade, Captain Henry Sewall’s inspired local men to dig a permanent inlet, by hand. My historian mother has told me stories of other inlet attempts as well. According to her, one time, the men fell asleep after the exhausting dig, only to awake and find the tide coming in, filling in their work! One local’s pet raccoon was tied to a tree and taken away by the strong waters. Even today, Mother Nature want’s to fill back in the St Lucie Inlet, but we continue to resist her.

Very interesting is that “old maps” also show Jupiter Island on equal “terms” with Sailfish Point. But today Jupiter Island is much “further back” as she has eroded over time and been slowly swept into the sea. This remains an problem of enormous proportions today that is on the verge of law suit. Last year, the Army Corp of Engineers informed Martin County they wish to take the lovely textured, offshore sands of Stuart, to re-nourish, Dade and Broward Counties beaches. Unbelievable…

The inlets give us access to the ocean, they raise the value of our property, they were and could be again national defense. Most timely for today, in the case of the St Lucie Inlet, it allows the putrid waters slugging forth during rainy season from C-23; C-24 ; C-44; and worst of all from Lake Okeechobee, to go to sea.

There are those who believe we should let the inlet close up; and there are many who believe we should fill in the canals; there are those who believe the inlet is what defines Martin County and we should do everything to keep her open. Hmm…

One thing for sure, fighting Mother Nature is a full time job.

Sewall’s Point, Tomorrow’s Oceanfront Property?

Aerial of Sewall's Point, C.B. Arbogast Brochure. Photo Clyde Coutant 1946-1949. — Aerial of Sewall’s Point, C.B. Arbogast Brochure. Photo Clyde Coutant 1946-1949.(Photo courtesy of S.H. Thurlow)

If you have driven through the Town of Sewall’s Point lately you may have noticed houses being raised. Within a short time, a total of twelve homes will have had millions of dollars invested from the US Federal Government as part of a FEMA flood mediation program. Just over 40 percent of Sewall’s Points’ homes are in a flood zone, and many had “repetitive losses,” during hurricanes Jeanne and Francis in 2004.

“FEMA” is a controversial program. Why is the Federal Government giving people in one of the “wealthiest” areas of Martin County money, so much money, to raise their homes? Well, at the end of the day, it is a business decision for an almost insolvent FEMA. They figure they will save money in the long run by “lifting” homes that historically they have paid so much money “out to.” This is not just happening in Sewall’s Point, it is happening in coastal communities all over the country. In fact the entire state and county flood maps are changing right now: (http://geoweb.martin.fl.us/flood/ or go to http://www.martin.fl.us –then tab Maps/FEMA Flood Maps)

In 2009, Mark Perry, of Florida Oceanographic, shared a paper with me he had written in 1982, the year I graduated from high school: “Coastal Zone Study of Hutchinson Island and Martin County,” which included substantial information on the geological formation of Sewall’s Point. I was struck by his writing:

“Just before the most recent Ice Age, the Wisconsin, which lasted from 100,000 to 11,000 years before present, the sea level was approximately 25-35 feet above the present mean sea level…at that time the sea was covering most of Martin County except for the Orlando Ridge, Green Ridge, and Atlantic Ridge…” Sewall’s Point is part of that “Atlantic Ridge, so at least its west side was above sea level. Other known areas today that would have been islands in the ancient sea, are parts of Jensen Beach around the Skyline Drive, Jonathan Dickinson Park, and a large area inland adjacent to the Allapattah Flats.

My mother wrote the book on Sewall’s Point, “The History of a Peninsular Community on the Florida’s Treasure Coast” and I certainly learned, at a young age, that history repeats itself.

Waters rise and fall; civilizations are built and crumble; powerful multibillion dollar corporations become obsolete…

I suppose we can look on the bright side, the good news is that if you live in Sewall’s Point between the Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie Rivers, you may one day be able to deed your great grandchildren ocean front property.

Fishing-line, Transparent Death

Banded Brown Pelican, Bird Island, died struggling to escape fishing line 2/14 — Banded Brown Pelican, Bird Island, died struggling to escape fishing line in the Indian River Lagoon. 2/16/14

Not a fun photo to see, but one that needs to be seen. This brown pelican was found at Bird Island, or MC-2, a well known bird rookery, just 100 feet off of Sewall’s Point. The bird, like many others, had become entangled in transparent fishing line, and in its struggle actually pulled its foot off trying to escape. Unfortunately, the line was caught around the metal band as well.

In 2012, when I was mayor of Sewall’s Point, I worked closely with The Florida Wildlife Commission and Martin County as they built a break wall to stabilize the erosion on the north end of Bird Island. During this time, they were required to monitor the island. On average, there were one to two birds per week found tangled in fishing line during this time. Many were euthanized as they were emaciated and weakened; a few recovered for a second chance, at the Treasure Coast Wildlife Center, http://www.tcwild.org. This was an eye opening experience for me. What of all the birds that are never reported or found when they are not monitoring? Transparent death…

Personally, I don’t see how these magnificent water birds can keep their population numbers up with such terrible odds.

Let’s help them out and be sure to safely throw away our fishing line.

If you find an entangled bird call the Sheriff’s Department, Animal Control at 772-220-7170.

The above pelican was found by Sunshine Wildlife Tours operator, Captain Nancy Beaver, she states:

“This is why I don’t like metal banding of birds! I have seen many lose a foot or die

because they don’t release. This poor bird was alive when I found him and he had ripped his foot off attempting to free himself.” http://www.sunshinewildlifetours.com

http://www.tolford.com/birdband/history.htm

“Golden Handcuffs, our Federal/State Partnership”

C-44 STA Groundbreaking 2011, a Federal/State partnership — C-44 STA Groundbreaking 2011, a CERP project

In 2000, after many years of compromise and work, the stakeholders of WRAC, or the Water Resource Advisory Committee, of the SFWMD, “agreed” on a monumental Everglades restoration project called CERP, or the Central Everglades Restoration Project. This accomplishment, and that it was, was approved and celebrated through the WRDA bill signed by our federal government, with the State of Florida, giddy, cheering on. Unfortunately, only one of the 60 projects of CERP, Spreader Canal 111, has been completed in fourteen years. Moving forward with projects is torturously slow. Time goes on, people, positions, the economy, and politicians change; and we forget…http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/rest_plan_pt_01.aspx

To overcome this molasses like state/federal partnership, in 2011, the SFWMD and the ACOE came up with CEPP, fast tracking of some of the components of CERP, “to move more water south…” The goal was to complete the study and recommend to Congress in 18 months. http://www.evergladesplan.org/docs/fs_cepp_jan_2013.pdf This goal was accomplished but another Federal WRDA bill and a final OK, presently “await.”

Absolutely, Florida’s government has its problems, but in essence, the fast tracking stopped as soon as CEPP got to the Federal Government causing the people of Florida to wonder what is happening and continue fighting at home. Recently, our state government complained that “the feds” have not come forward with their promised share, and “being credited” it is an issue. Also, you hear about “cost sharing,” a complicated arrangement where the state cannot outspend the feds or visa versa. So if the feds don’t move forward after the state has spent money, the State has to just wait, and wait, and wait…

On its most basic level, the state and federal arrangement is a relationship of sorts. CERP/WRDA is a contract, kind of like a marriage or business document. In the end, if both parties don’t contribute, things go sour. The biggest problem for us in this relationship is that we are so dependent on the Federal Government and their money, ironically, just like the Sugar Farmers are dependent for their price limits through the US Farm Bill. And just like the Farm Bill, WRDA is so intertwined other other things/dependencies that have nothing to do with the original contract, that we can’t pull away, we can’t let go. We are handcuffed waiting for the money…

So the years go by, and a child grows up and votes and serves our county and has children before another Everglades CERP project is built. I say our best chance of throwing off the golden handcuffs and saving the Everglades and our dying estuary, the St Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon, is truly educating our youth on the faults and dreams of our system. They certainly can come up with something better.

“The Seminole Spirit of the Indian River Lagoon”

Coacoochee or Wildcat, by James Hutchinson 1976 — Coacoochee or Wildcat, by James Hutchinson, 1976

Their stern faces stared at me for three years on the office walls of Stuart Middle School, and from the conservative backdrop of First National Bank and Trust Company of Stuart. My mom and dad told me stories at the dinner table about neighbor and artist James Hutchinson and his wife, Joan, living and painting these serious and beautiful people on their reservation, not too far from where we lived. I drove on the school bus and graduated with Kevin Hutchinson, James and Joan’s son; I saw Kevin’s younger brother learn to ride a tricycle. The faces of the Seminole warriors and the faces of the Hutchinsons were an integral part of my childhood and we remain friends today.

The portrait above is of Coacoochee, or Wildcat. Coacoochee was possibly the greatest of Seminole warriors; he was not a formal chief. He rose up as a leader in a time of need during the Second Seminole War. His people loved him; to them, it is said, he had a great sense of humor, of all things–during the worst of times for his people, and yet he taught them how to fight back; how to survive.

Somewhere, I learned that in early times, the Seminoles used to camp and hunt along the North Fork of the St Lucie River making their way south across the Indian River Lagoon to Hutchinson Island to hunt black bears. And once my mother, on the way to Ft Pierce, pulled over the car, and showed me how to find Native Indian pottery artifacts, right along the side of the road, close to the mound by the railroad track.

Often, today, when I drive over the bridges, or along Indian River Drive, I imagine the Seminoles; I imagine that I can see them right there, fishing, cooking, and hunting or even their Ais ancestors. Perhaps a difficult life, but one in harmony with nature, unlike my own people…

Today, I have all four of Mr Hutchinson’s Seminole prints in my office staring at me from all walls. And for me, their spirt is certainly alive.

“FWC: Forgot What Counts”

2013 IRL Florida Marine Mammal Pathology Photo

“Why did we learn that almost 40 manatees had died in the north/central IRL from a Tampa reporter and not FWC?” was the pointed question of Marty Baum, the Indian Riverkeeper, during the Harbor Branch Symposium last week. The speaker was clearly uncomfortable as she presented onward, “Investigations into Multi Species Mortality Events In the Indian River Lagoon.”

The Florida Wildlife Commission’s website states: “More than 575 species of Wildllife; More than 200 native species of fresh water fish; More than 500 native species of saltwater fish…..balancing these species’ need with the needs of nearly 19 million residents and the millions of visitors who share the land and water with Florida’s wildlife…”

Hmm? Balancing? Just two days ago Palm City resident, Annie Potts, called FWC to report a dead pelican. FWC told her “they do not monitor any animal mortalities except manatees.” She asked what she should do with the carcass. They replied: “she could throw it in the trash.”

Is there a disconnect here? In the northern and central lagoon, since January 2013, there are now two UMEs, or Unexplained Mortality Events: including over 132 in northern/central IRL (250 for entire lagoon)of manatee deaths, 92 dolphins and 350 pelicans. 40% of the the IRL’s seagrass has died since 2009.

Mind you most of these deaths have been in the north and central lagoon, but wouldn’t it make sense to follow death patterns in along the entire 156 mile lagoon? And apparently when they “were” following them, in the northern/central lagoon, FWC did not share with the public the horrific tragedy that was occurring. A Tampa reporter had to write a story before the public found out on the east coast.

Perhaps this data would have interfered with the “millions of visitors who share the land and the water with Florida’s wildlife?” Perhaps it would have tainted the state’s proud statistics that tourism in Florida is increasing in spite of its dry aquifers, algae filled weak-watered springs, toxic algae blooms and UMEs in the IRL?

Martine de Wit, of the FWC, St Petersburg, told Marty Baum that the information was on their website, but they did not know why the manatees died, so there was no urgency for the report. FWC and other state agencies continue say they do not know why the manatee’s died. And the dead seagrass, oh, they don’t why that died either. Not really.

At this point, the people of Stuart continue to report to FWC, but they are also posting and sharing on Facebook what dead sea and river animals they find along our shores and in our waters.

The Governor appoints the FWC commissioners for a five year term. Like the SFWMD most of these people are “businessmen and women.” I still don’t get it, don’t they know that in Florida, clean water is business? FWC and many other state agencies have forgotten what counts.

The River Warrior Plane

On any given day around Stuart, you may hear the buzz of the engine overhead, or see the unmistakeable bright yellow plane fly past; many know the plane as the “River Warrior.”

This plane is one I never thought I would fly in, as I do not like to fly. In fact, when up in personal aircraft, belonging to my my husband, I am usually saying the Lord’s Prayer and preparing for my death as he rolls his eyes at me. But last summer, the day came when I knew I did not have a choice, that fear had to take a back seat. I knew in an instant that I had to overcome my insecurities, for the benefit of the river.

Then from May, through October 2013 , Ed and I started going up every Saturday, rain or shine and taking photos of the destruction of the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, due to the Lake Okeechobee releases and C-23, C-24 and C-25 as well. These photos have been shared on Facebook, gone to many state agencies and politicians, have been shared with children in classrooms, and more.

Ed and his friend Scott Kuhns have also photographed “The River Beach Protest,” “Hands Across the Lagoon,” “Blessing of the Fleet and River,” and other river events. If you would like your pro-river event photographed just email jthurlow@me.com. Today, Ed and I still go up after big rains or just for fun to spot migrating sharks, turtles, manatees, schools of fish, birds, and dolphins.

I do believe the photos of the river’s destruction, and the ones we will take in the future, made, and will make, a huge difference, in educating, and showing the river’s health, destruction and importance in our lives.

I wouldn’t say I have overcome my fears, and every time we are up there, I am praying that if something happens we live; but I am grateful to the little yellow plane for giving me wings to see and to share. Next time you see it from afar, please wave and say to yourself, the little yellow “River Warrior….” and if you don’t mind, go ahead, just in case, and say a prayer for me…