Sunrise along the Indian River Lagoon. Photograph by John Whiticar, 2015.
“Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly fly the years,
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears…”
1st verse, of song from musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” 1964
The beautiful sunset and sunrise photos of our area’s photographers invoke a deep appreciation of our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, as well as the struggles and successes of our lives.
Sunsets and sunrises seems intrinsically linked to inspiration and reflection in all of us.
Thankfully, here in the Indian River Lagoon region, we can still see our sunrises and sunsets, although the health of our river, and thus our ability to enjoy the river, is “impaired.” This was scientifically determined by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) in 2000. (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/southeast/ecosum/ecosums/SLE_Impairment_Narrative_ver_3.7.pdf)
In Beijing, China, last year, the government erected a televised screen showing sunsets, as the people could not see their sunsets any longer— due to the tremendous smog in their city. What a price to pay for economic “success.”
China starts “televising” the sunset in Beijing, as the city is continually blanketed in smog, 2014. (Source earthfirstjournal.org.)
Oddly enough, on some level, we have experienced the same thing. On a level of world comparison, we have a “thriving economy;” however, somehow, over the past 100 years, we have “lost our river.” Yet in most of the adds one sees, the river still looks beautiful and healthy.
Right now, the Army Corp of Engineers (ACOE) is discharging water from Lake Okeechobee, while the South Florida Water Management District canals C-44, C-24, C-23, and C-25 are also dumping polluted water into our estuary. All of this extra water has been “engineered” to come here so agriculture and development can thrive. Us included…
Sunset, St Lucie River, 2014. Todd Thurlow.
So, right now there is “no other way,” and the ACOE and South Florida Water Management District are locked in a cycle of struggle to send more water south when the entire southern area south of Lake Okeechobee is blocked by the Everglades Agricultural Area— other than a few canals, to “send water south.” Plus the water is too dirty for the Everglades—but not for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon that is already “impaired.”
The “mighty” Kissimmee too has been “engineered for the success of farming and ranches and development in its former watershed. It is being partially restored by the SFWMD; this is wonderful, a testament of the ability of the system to recover if given a chance….
And after all, it’s not so bad here right? We can still see the sun…..AGGGGG!
Let’s continue to turn this ship; let’s continue to fix our own yards, towns, cities, and counties; let’s keep pushing the State for a reservoir/flow way to store, clean and convey water south. As Eric Eichenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation said yesterday at the Rivers Coalition meeting, this is the “only way” as the Kissimmee River’s continued restoration is simply not enough to hold all the water.
“Sunrise, sunset….sunrise, sunset….”we are thankful and we are inspired….
The Florida legislature has dubbed 2015 as the “Year of Water.” But how exactly can Amendment 1’s “Water and Land Conservation Initiative” monies be spent, and how can we have a voice? (Water, public image.)
Hello again. Before I start, it is necessary quickly to review…:)
In yesterday’s blog, we discussed that when the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corp of Engineers write or discuss “approved,” and “authorized,” projects, this does not mean they are “working on those projects” as the federal and state monies for those projects, like CERP and CEPP, may not have been “appropriated.” —Meaning the state and federal government has not given the agencies money to do the projects even though they have been “approved.” (http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/about_cerp_brief.aspx)
That’s a mouthful!
So basically, stakeholders are sitting around fighting about something that may never happen or might happen in 100 years.
Don’t get me wrong, the ACOE and SFWMD are working on projects, but not all of the 60 plus that are part of the Central Everglades Restoration Project/CERP. Rather, the agencies work and stop, work and stop, work and stop, waiting and hoping for more money to be APPROPRIATED for some of the projects, or maybe just one of the projects they are working on, before elections start up again, and the government officials change their minds!
Terrible isn’t it?
This is not the issue with Florida’s Amendment 1 monies. These monies will be here this year in 2015, and although it is not the 12 billion plus needed to accomplish CERP quoted in 2007, it is substantial monies, perhaps 700 million this year after debts, and billions over time? Amounts will depend on the real estate industry as monies come from “doc stamps on the deed:”
According to Scripps Newspapers, “The measure requires the state to set aside 33 percent of the money it raises through real-estate documentary stamp taxes to protect Florida’s environmentally sensitive areas for the next 20 years.”
Money to clean our dirty SLR/IRL water…(Water, public image.)
These state of Florida monies, will be real and will be doled out each year by our hungry, varied, and ever-changing legislature….
It will be great to have the money, but this will be a bloody fight for the Florida legislature.
Picture throwing a steak into a gathering of starved pit bulls. This is about the scenario…
Nonetheless, our elected legislative “pit bulls “have a responsibility to listen to their contingency while they are fighting, and this is why it is absolutely necessary that we all weigh in on issues of the polluted St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and its surrounding canals; Lake Okeechobee; the purchase of US Sugar option lands for a reservoir to store, clean and convey water; and eventual type of “flow-way” south to the Everglades…
Option Lands Map SFWMD River of Grass, Option 1 is 46,800 acres and shown in brown. (SFWMD map, 2010.)
Let’s be good students and quickly review the language of Amendment 1 so we know who our competition is and how to outsmart them; I know it is always kind of boring to read this sort of language, and it is somewhat long, but read it; know it; use it to your benefit!
Amendment 1 added a Section 28 to Article X of the Florida Constitution:[3]
SECTION 28. Land Acquisition Trust Fund. — a) Effective on July 1 of the year following passage of this amendment by the voters, and for a period of 20 years after that effective date, the Land Acquisition Trust Fund shall receive no less than 33 percent of net revenues derived from the existing excise tax on documents, as defined in the statutes in effect on January 1, 2012, as amended from time to time, or any successor or replacement tax, after the Department of Revenue first deducts a service charge to pay the costs of the collection and enforcement of the excise tax on documents. b) Funds in the Land Acquisition Trust Fund shall be expended only for the following purposes: 1) As provided by law, to finance or refinance: the acquisition and improvement of land, water areas, and related property interests, including conservation easements, and resources for conservation lands including wetlands, forests, and fish and wildlife habitat; wildlife management areas; lands that protect water resources and drinking water sources, including lands protecting the water quality and quantity of rivers, lakes, streams, springsheds, and lands providing recharge for groundwater and aquifer systems; lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area and the Everglades Protection Area, as defined in Article II, Section 7(b); beaches and shores; outdoor recreation lands, including recreational trails, parks, and urban open space; rural landscapes; working farms and ranches; historic or geologic sites; together with management, restoration of natural systems, and the enhancement of public access or recreational enjoyment of conservation lands. 2) To pay the debt service on bonds issued pursuant to Article VII, Section 11(e). c) The moneys deposited into the Land Acquisition Trust Fund, as defined by the statutes in effect on January 1, 2012, shall not be or become commingled with the General Revenue Fund of the state.[4]
Did you read it? Did you see it? It says right there in the legal language: lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area and the Everglades Protection Area….
Let’s ask the legislature to support the SLR/IRL so we can have clean water…(Water, public image.)
Pretend you are a legislator: “Fix Lake Okeechobee and the estuaries, or beach re-nourishment?” Get it?
So let’s compete! $$$$ Contact the Florida Senate. They have set up a web site to take our Amendment 1 requests. Just click and fill out below. Thank you for supporting our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon!
Approve and Appropriate. What’s the difference? Isn’t the government working on fixing the Everglades? (Public image.)
“approve”
VERB
–officially agree to or accept as satisfactory: “the budget was approved by Congress” synonyms: accept · agree to · consent to
“appropriate”
VERB
—-devote (money or assets) to a special purpose: “Congress finally did appropriate money to the Everglades C-111 project after 15 years…” synonyms: allocate · assign · allot · earmark · set aside · devote
Sometimes, when I finally “get” something, I cannot believe it took me so long to understand. This has certainly been the case over the past six years when it comes to money, and projects, to help save the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon as part of the Central Everglades Restoration Project— known as CERP. (http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/about_cerp_brief.aspx)
SAVE THE WATER; SAVE THE SLR/IRL and the EVERGLADES. (Waterfest art, 2nd graders, City of Stuart 2013.)
Although the projects for CERP were “expected” to take 30 years, 15 years has passed, and not one of the projects is fully completed. The kids that made the poster above may be grandparents by the time a couple of the dozens or so projects, that are necessary to fix the Everglades SLR/IRL, are completed.
Today, I thought I’d share this post just in case you are a bit confused by this long time line, like me.
I think another aspect of difficulty in “understanding” all of this is that many projects are written about, and talked about, in the press,and by the state and federal agencies, as if they are “under way,” when they are really not, or its just government officials arguing over projects that may never be.
As all things in life, understanding this “mess,” may help us to overcome it.
Today’s lesson:
So, there are two words you will often hear: 1.”approval” and 2. “appropriate.”
Just because something is “approved,” does not mean it is “appropriated,” because in the world of government, “appropriate” means GETTING THE MONEY TO DO THE WORK, and “approval” just means a bunch of people at one point agreed something is a good idea.
Just like in a small town, a commission may agree the town needs new street lights, and advertise this in their newsletter, but the commission may never, over time, actually do what is necessary for the staff to buy the lights and get them installed–like giving the staff the money. This is complicated by election cycles every two, to four, to six years! New people may not agree with the previous monetary decisions that were “approved.”
Water and money….
Let’s apply this to the US and State Government:
In the year 2000, the US Congress “approved,” the Central Everglades Restoration Project to help fix the messed-up south Florida Everglades system that was created mostly in the 1950s and 60s after a big flood in 1947. Stakeholders celebrated at the time, that the “over drainage,” dying estuaries, and the drying up of the Everglades would be fixed, but this situation is still not fixed enough to make a huge difference….Also, all the people that were in Congress in 2000 are mostly gone, and there are different priorities now.
Nonetheless, today, the Army Corp of Engineers/South Florida Water Management’s shared website on CERP reads:
“The Plan was approved (by Congress) in the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2000. It includes more than 60 elements, will take more than 30 years to construct and the current estimate in Oct 2007 dollars is $9.5 billion for projects ($11.9 overall including PLA and AAM).”
OK if you read this, you would think this might mean it was “approved” so it is going to, or is being done. This is not the case because the money needed to construct and complete these projects has not been APPROPRIATED (set aside.)
The streetlights were never purchased and put up!
The scenario becomes even more complex in some instances as the State of Florida may be bound by contract to also give money or “cost share.” And if the US Congress has not given their “approved” part yet, the State can’t really get going and give its part. Sometimes the State moves ahead anyway……
Anyway, so everybody is grumpy, and fighting, and it’s a big mess.
So the bigger question is after 15 years:
Even though we all have our hopes up that the US Congress will APPROPRIATE the money for the CERP project to help fix the Everglades and St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, and people worked very hard to achieve this we must think…
—-If we are true to ourselves, viewing history, we see a situation, like a bad relationship, where someone promises you something, but never gives it to you…you keep hoping but it never happens….
—-Finally, after many years, you start to realize that although you have a “promise,” YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET IT!
(Or that it is unlikely anyway, or that you will be dead if you ever get it….)
Not a fun realization, but such is life…so do you stay in the relationship or break it off? Or maybe just become less dependent?
So here we are…..and there is some light now…
In closing…
Although the state of Florida cannot afford to fix the Everglades all by itself; it is too expensive, in the billions and billions of dollars. With the advent of Amendment 1 passing by 75%, there may be some ability for Florida to do this.
But that is another blog, for tomorrow!
River Kidz Naia and Kiele Mader in front of the White House, 2013.)
Option Lands Map SFWMD; Purchasing optional lands would start the process of having enough land south of Lake Okeechobee to store, clean and convey water south. (SFWMD map, 2010)
Map showing SFWMD boundaries overall, as well as Everglades National Park, and Water Conservation Areas. (Map courtesy of Florida Backroads Travel.)
This week, in our attempt to save and be knowledgeable about the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, we have learned about the STAs, Strormwater Treatment Areas, and the WCAs, Water Conservation Areas; today, will we will ask the question, “Where do the WCAs end, and where does Everglades National Park begin?”
After all, “send the water south” means to the Everglades…
On the Army Corp of Engineers’ Periodic Scientist Calls, the South Florida Water Management District is alway reporting how “full” or “not full” the WCAs are, so as to explain how much water “they have been able to send south/or not” through them…. The SFWMD has even created an amazing web site, that if you take the time to navigate, will teach you more than any of my blog posts ever can: (http://sfwmd.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=a9072c94b5c144d8a8af14996ce23bca&webmap=d8e767997b0d494494243ffbc7f6f861)
The point is: in order to save the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon, we have to keep an eye on the “big picture,” saving the Everglades…or what’s left, as “Everglades National Park.”
We have developed and altered this area so much very little is remaining–the drainage of the land, the redirection of the Lake Okeechobee’s waters through the estuaries, the construction of the Everglades Agricultural Area, as well as development of the coast and inland, is a testament to the impressive determination of humankind and our ability to alter our environment; but it is also an embarrassment of our inability to constrain ourselves or think long term. (See below.)
South Florida’s southern Everglades, 1950 vs. 2003. (Map courtesy of SFWMD.)Redirection of water to the estuaries. Late 1800 and early 1900s.(Map Everglades Foundation.)
So back to the original question, where do the WCA stop and Everglades National Park begin? Well, looking at the map below, we can see that Everglades National Park “proper” pretty much starts right under the Tamiami Trail. And we can tell from the other maps that the WCAs are above this area, as well as above the development on the south-east coast and inland areas of Florida, especially the City of Homestead. (See image 2 down.)
Knowing about the STAs, the WCAs and ENP will help us to save the SRL/IRL!
Map of the 6 Storm Water Treatment Areas south of Lake Okeechobee. (Image courtesy of SFWMD, 2014)
This week, focusing on learning our Everglades-St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon history, we turn our attention to the Storm Water Treatment Areas, better known as “STAs.” These STAs are controversial in two areas that you may have heard about: “Can they hold more Lake Okeechobee water;” and “why does the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) get to put their water through them with priority over straight Lake Okeechobee water?” This short write-up will not explore these questions in depth, but rather give an overview of what the STAs are and why they are there.
The Florida’s Everglades Forever Act of 1994 (http://www.floridadep.com/everglades/efa.htm) is the reason the STAs were constructed; the act mandated and funded construction of treatment areas for cleaning phosphorus from stormwater through “recreated wetlands.” The building of the STAs was basically due to a law suit from “downstream” as phosphorus, mostly coming from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), but also from other developed areas, was causing tremendous problem with flora and fauna and wildlife habitat as it flowed into lands south of the lake like the Miccosukee Indian Reservation, as well as Everglades National Park.
Presently, there are six STAs: “STA 1 West and East; STA 2; STA 3/4; and STA 5/6. They are read on a map “backwards” so to speak. You read them right to left, or east to west, like Hebrew. Maybe they built them that way…? This threw me off for a while, but now I’m getting it.
Anyway, let’s learn a little more.
STAs or Storm Water Treatment Areas take up phosphorus through aquatic plants. The dirty storm water from agriculture and development must be cleaned before it reaches the Everglades. (Image SFWMD, 2014)
The building of the STAs has been a huge success story and our own Martin County resident, Dr Gary Goforth, (http://garygoforth.net) worked intimately them when he worked at the SFWMD.
At present, 57,000 acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee, most once in the EAA, have been converted to STAs. In 2014 more water was put through the STAs than in years before as the SFWMD has been apparently afraid putting too much water through them would “hurt” them or they would exceed the phosphorus level allowed to go into the Everglades by a “consent decree.” Dr Goforth had encouraged using the STAs to their full capacity, and so far, from what I hear, the STAs are doing well, maybe even better being fully utilized.
According to the ACOE Periodic Scientist Calls I attend, the only STA that does not seem to get used as much is STA 5/6 in Hendry County. Supposedly this has something to do with how hard it is to get water into the STA.
Hmmmmmmm?
Well that’s enough for today! Lots more to talk about though! 🙂
With “my kids” at Pensacola High School, 1993, 9th grade English Class. (Photo courtesy of photography teacher at PHS.)
History shows that “things can change.” This doesn’t mean it will be easy, or perfect, but things can change.
Today is Martin Luther King Day, and as a former middle and high school English teacher, I have read Dr King’s speech “I Have a Dream,” many times together with my students, and each time, my eyes filled with tears at the prospect that these words could one day come true in spite of the pain and difficulty of “getting there.”
This held especially true when I was teaching in Pensacola, in Escambia County, which at the time was one on the very poorest counties in the state of Florida and may still be… I had two classes of “at risk” kids and my observation was basically that many of my students were “locked in the past” in their thought processes often quoting the Civil War and why things were as they were in their world.
Approaching Martin Luther King Day, we would read aloud Dr King’s speech, and I would tell them that although things are bad, they must remember, that years ago, things were worse, and most of all with the power of collective thinking, THINGS COULD CHANGE. And for that to occur, they had to believe it, live it, and be part of that of change.
I also taught my students some hard facts, noting that if they didn’t know their history, they would not have the tools, fire, or respect to create change in their world.
I believe that this lesson applies to river advocacy for the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon as well. To make our advocacy work, we must know the history of Florida, the the Army Corp of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, agriculture, the EAA, development, and ourselves: then we must believe in change for the river, and we must be a part of that change.
Below are statistics of the history of the St Lucie River and releases from Lake Okeechobee, from 1931 to 2013. In 2014 there were no releases. Right now, in 2015, the ACOE has started again.
Thank you, to Dr Gary Goforth (http://garygoforth.net) for providing these numbers and an explanation of how he achieved them. The two columns are: “Estimated Releases to the River” (SLSR/IRL) and “Estimated Flow from Lake O to C-44 Canal.” Both are in acre feet. I use the first column often to compare and understand how much water has helped destroy our estuary over the years; ; I hope it becomes useful to you as well. And may we have a dream that things will get even better.
1931-2013 numbers for release from Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie River. (Courtesy of Dr Gary Goforth, 2014.)1931-19601961-19951995-2013. (2014 = 0 to SLR)
Below is history and explanation from Dr Goforth:
History:
A state-authority – the Everglades Drainage District – constructed the St. Lucie Canal (later known as C-44) between May 28, 1915 and 1928. During this time they also built a lock and spillway at the Lake end of the canal and a lock and spillway at the present location of S-80. On June 13, 1923, water from Lake Okeechobee began flowing through the canal into the St. Lucie River.
In the 1930s and in the late 1940s the Corps enlarged the St. Lucie Canal, and it was then known as C-44.
In the 1940s the Corps completed S-80 – the St. Lucie Lock and Spillway – at the site of the original lock on the east end of the Canal. Flow data beginning 10/1/1952 for S-80 are reported by SFWMD.
In the 1970s the Corps constructed S-308 – Port Mayaca Lock and Spillway – west of the site of the original lock on the west end of the Canal.
Flow estimates:
I cannot find flow data for Lake releases to the Canal prior to April 1, 1931.
Between April 1, 1931 and September 30, 1952, Lake releases to the C-44 are reported by U.S. Geological Service.
I cannot find flow data for Lake releases to the C-44 between October 1, 1952 and December 31, 1964. However, flow data is available for S-80 beginning 10/1/1952, so I estimated Lake flows to the Canal for this period based on the S-80 flows and the correlation between concurrent observed flows at S-80 and S-308 (1965-2013).
Beginning January 1, 1965, Lake releases to the C-44 are reported by SFWMD.
I’ve also provided estimates of Lake releases to the St. Lucie River.
Lake releases are currently made to the C-44 Canal for two reasons: 1. Irrigation demand for agriculture in the C-44 Basin. This Lake water enters the Canal at S-308 but does not leave the Canal at S-80. 2. Regulatory releases from the Lake to the St. Lucie River.
Historically, some Lake water was sent to the St. Lucie River for perceived beneficial purposes – however today both Mark Perry and Deb Drum insist that Lake releases provide NO beneficial purpose to the River.
To calculate the Lake releases to the St. Lucie River, you need to compare the flow that enters the Canal at S-308 with the flow that passes through S-80. The minimum of the two flows is estimated to be the Lake flow to the River.
As an example, say 1000 gallons entered the Canal from the Lake on Day 1. The same day, no water passed through S-80. So for Day 1, the estimated Lake flow to the River is the minimum of (1000, 0) or 0 gallons.
As another example, say 1000 gallons entered the Canal from the Lake on Day 2. The same day, 500 gallons passed through S-80. So for Day 2, the estimated Lake flow to the River is the minimum of (1000, 500) or 500 gallons.
Using this method, we can estimate Lake flows to the St. Lucie River (Figure 2 and Table 2). Because flows were not available at both S-308 and S-80 for the period 1931-1964, I estimated these flows based on the correlation between concurrent observed flows at S-80 and S-308 during the period 1965-2013. Other folks (SFWMD or Corps) may estimate the flows differently based on different assumptions. —-Dr Gary Goforth
“Let’s Keep Working” was Gov. Scott’s 2014 reelection campaign slogan. “Clean Water” was part of his promise and for many it is an important piece of creating jobs, building the future and economy of Florida– a number one priority.
I met Governor Rick Scott when he came to Stuart during 2014, in response to the “Lost Summer of 2013,” and then again during his campaign reelection.
One of the most interesting things for me, was that he carried around a blue Sharpie pen. They say little things tell you a lot about a person’s personality….
When I gave him my booklet to sign, the booklet, Let’s Keep Florida Beautiful, dealing with Spring’s protection, his reelection campaign booklet he brought and shared with the area Chambers of Business, I handed him a ball-point pen to autograph my booklet. When he went to sign, it did not work!
He quickly reached inside his suit pocket and pulled out a blue Sharpie pen and proceeded to sign the booklet. (Photo below.)
The inside cover of Rick Scott’s campaign booklet “Let’s Keep Florida Beautiful,” 2014. (Photo JTL.)
As the Treasure Coast sits awaiting the ACOE opening of S-308 and S-80 structures this morning at 7:00AM, to once again pour polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, I would like to thank the Governor for his press release in response the releases yesterday, (below) and ask that CLEAN WATER becomes the height of his campaign promise.
I ask him, in this second round of water trouble, that he take out his Sharpie pen and fix the problem.
My personal request too, as is the Rivers Coalition’s, is that he consider the purchase of 46,800 acres of option lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area to create an area for dynamic (moving storage). A place to store, clean, and convey lots of water. Much more water than his present plans allows for.
I appreciate all that has been done by the State, but unfortunately these things are not enough to truly “Save Our River.” (http://riverscoalition.org)
Please leave a legacy of a lifetime, sir.
Option Lands Map SFWMD River of Grass, Option 1 is 46,800 acres and shown in brown. (SFWMD map, 2010.)
______________________________________________
The Governor’s press release statement regarding releases from Lake Okeechobee starting 1-16-15:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Governor Scott released the following statement today on the news by the US Army Corps of Engineers of upcoming Lake Okeechobee releases to the east and the west, in anticipation of upcoming rainfall levels.
Governor Scott said, “The Corps’ announcement of releases today from Lake Okeechobee proves that we cannot relent in our mission to restore Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. We must stay the course on our current water restoration commitments and complete the projects we have already started. We also need the federal government to step up their commitment to Everglades restoration by immediately requiring the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the Lake Okeechobee dike. “The discharges from Lake Okeechobee in 2013, and the resulting harm to our estuaries, serve as a major signal that we must accelerate work on the restoration projects needed to safeguard South Florida’s waters. Addressing the environmental challenges of South Florida requires the simultaneous investment in projects to store excess water, clean polluted water and send the clean water south – away from our estuaries and into the Everglades.” Over the next four years, Governor Scott is committed to: • Fully fund the state’s share of the restoration of the Kissimmee River (which Governor Scott has already funded at $5 million); and • Fully fund the construction and completion of the C-43 (Governor Scott previously funded at $18 million) and C-44 (Governor Scott previously funded at $60 million). Focusing on completing these initiatives, while not a silver bullet, is essential to quickly increasing water storage space around Lake Okeechobee and restoring the Everglades. Together, these projects will create more than 300,000 acre-feet of new storage to help fight future releases from Lake Okeechobee. The Governor is committed to moving forward with sending water south. This year, the South Florida Water Management District sent more than 69 billion gallons of water south, sparing the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries. ###
“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
In the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the winds have died, and the sailors sit surrounded by ocean water and they are thirsty, but no water is drinkable…a Mariner passenger had shot the albatross following the ship, a sign of “good luck.” Now the sailors feel they are cursed—-surrounded by the ocean, having no fresh water….the water of life…The sailors glare at the mariner knowing he is the cause of their situation….They make him wear the dead albatross around his neck as punishment.
One could say, this tale applies to today’s South Florida as well…
The sailors are those living in Florida today wanting clean water.
The mariner, who shot the albatross, would be yesterday/and some of today’s agricultural and development interests; state, local, and national governments; agencies; even some of our ancestors…..ourselves?
Perhaps it is not that simple to casts roles, but I’m sure you get the point. There are questions the tale makes us ask:
Is there someone to blame? Will it help if we change our ways and realize we did something unwise? Will we, indeed, make it to shore?
In any case, today, we all sit here on this grand peninsula of Florida wondering how it could be possible that we are surrounded by water and yet have so many problems because of it….
Could it be possible that one day we will wish “we” did not shoot the albatross by allowing the Army Corp of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District to send so much of our fresh water out to sea?
And then there is the knowledge that one day, truly, we may not have enough water…Desalination plants are an option, but they are tremendously expensive.
Right now, as we know, there is a movement to “send the water south.” To keep more water on the land.
The key for more water on the land is land acquisition. As Mark Perry of Florida of Oceanographic preaches over and over again: “store, treat, and convey…”
Mark Perry, lifetime advocate for the SLR/IRL and Executive Director at Florida Oceanographic.
Recently, I posted stating that according to Robert Johnson, the Director of South Florida Natural Resources Center, at Everglades National Park, 800,000 acre feet of water, goes south to the “southern estuaries.
“I made a mistake. “Southern Estuaries” refers to Biscayne Bay and such. “We” are the “northern estuaries”….So to correct myself, Mr Johnson’s slide below implies that only 67,000 acre feet of water a year goes to the SLR/IRL and 390,000 acre feet goes to the Calooshahatchee.
Slide from Robert Johnson’s presentation, Everglades Coalition 2015.
Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic (http://www.floridaocean.org) disagrees; he says it is more than that. His research shows that the amount of water coming into, the NORTHERN ESTUARIES, annually, is around 1.4 million acre feet, with 442,000 acre feet going to the St Lucie and 976,000 acre feet going to the Caloosahatchee.
More easily translated, this is 20% to the St Lucie/IRL; 44% to the Calooshahatchee; 23% to Agriculture in the Everglades Agricultural Area; and only 13% to the Everglades. (See slide below.)
Slide showing average annual water dispersed , Mark Perry, 2013.
You know what?
In spite of the numbers, we all know “it” is a ton of water. More water than we can imagine. An ocean of water. Water we need for the Everglades and for the ourselves….
Option Lands Map SFWMD River of Grass
So let’s not end up like the sailors in the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” with no water to drink, or the Mariner who had to wear the albatross around his neck as punishment for killing “life and luck.”
In fact, let’s change our luck. Let’s keep some of this precious water on the land rather than wasting it to tide.
As Mr Perry states in his slide show 1.7 billion gallons of water is wasted to tide per day through the canals of south Florida, translating into approximately, 5.9 million dollars a day.
Slide, Mark Perry.
Look up! Do you see an another albatross approaching our ship? I do.
Let’s allow it to fly with us this time, as we work for a better water future for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon…
_____________________________________
ONLINE ASK: What does the Albatross symbolize in the rime of the ancient mariner?
The albatross in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is supposed to symbolize a good omen. The ship’s crew thought that it brought good luck. However, the Mariner shot and killed the albatross and so it became a curse. He was made to wear the albatross around his neck.
Structure S-80 releasing water into the C-44 canal which flows into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, 2013.(Photo Dr. Scott Kuhns.)
I believe the awful situation regarding the consistent degradation of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon by the Army Corp of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District could be helped if we would learn to “speak their language.”
Communication is particularly difficult for the public during dumping of polluted Lake Okeechobee water through the C-44 canal into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. (Which may start again any day now…)
Let’s learn some “releasing terminology” in case we don’t speak it that well….
When the ACOE/SFWMD starts dumping, there are two major terms: CFS and ACRE FEET that are good to know.
1. “CFS” means “cubic feet per second.” This is a “RATE of discharge representing a volume of 1 cubic foot passing a given point during 1 second of time.”
2. An ACRE FOOT, the second term, is a VOLUME of water “that covers one acre at a depth of 12 inches.”
Obviously, higher CFS numbers translate into higher ACRE FEET numbers. But what do these numbers mean?
Easily put, for the St Lucie River, none of it, if dumping, is “good.”
For reference, during the “Lost Summer” of 2013, the highest CFS discharge I heard reported was up to 7000 cfs during the very height of the releases. Usually, it was lower,May-October, ranging from about 200 to 4000 cfs.
Now acre feet.
According to Robert Johnson, Director of South Florida Natural Resouces Center at Everglades Nation Park, who presented at the Everglades Coalition last week, —-NOT during 2013, but ON AVERAGE, “800,000 acre feet of water from Lake Okeechobee flows per year towards the southern estuaries.”
Mind you, the larger Caloosahatchee on the west coast takes the majority of that water. I am no expert, but I think I can safely say, they usually take closer to 2/3 the water the water the St Lucie does.
Can you do the math? I need my calculator! AG! Over 200,000 Acre feet for sure going towards the St Lucie and over 500,000 going towards the Caloosahatchee.
In the end, no matter what, the numbers are staggering! Truly mind-blowing. 800,000 acre feet, would need 800,000 acres to hold 800,000 acre feet of water at 12 inches. The EAA is 700,000 acres….
So, let’s learn to speak the language and communicate our wishes! And take a look at the handout below. It’s a good one!
This sheet was shared at the Everglades Coalition Conference’s session “Beauty and the Beast: Lake Okeechobee and the Herbert Hoover Dike.” 2015
Generally speaking, during an El Nino, ocean waters are warmer and thus there is more rain. (Public photo)
Last night, my husband, Ed, walks into my office, sneaks behind me, looks at my computer screen with an El Nino water pattern photo on it, and says jokingly: ” What are you now? The weatherman?”
I look at him with a wry smile:”No, I’m not the weatherman; I am going to write about El Nino in my “Indian River Lagoon” blog tomorrow. I think the ACOE could start dumping into the St Lucie River soon. There’s a connection with El Nino, and it’s a terrible way to possibly start the new year.”
Ed leaves the room laughing…”Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch- weatherman!”
Well, Ed did make me laugh for the moment; but today, I am not laughing.
From what I have witnessed over the past few weeks, before I had a wonderful holiday break, as I hope you did, the scientists on ACOE Periodic Scientist Conference for Lake Okeechobee and the Estuaries, were alluding to releasing water from Lake Okeechobee to the estuaries. I have been thinking about this the entire break. This could happen, or not happen. And although the reasons are many and multi-layered, let’s start with a simple question.
“What is an El Nino?”
Apparently the word which literally means “Christ Child” (Little Boy) is derived from Spanish-speaking fishermen who noticed that sometimes, around Christmas, ocean waters get warmer, thus the name. Because the warmer waters are not as nutrient filled as the cool waters, this radically affects fishing, and bird life, as well as weather patterns—causing more rain during the winter season.
So, during the recent ACOE Periodic Scientist calls, that I sit in as an elected official, most recently on December 23, 2014, NOAA reported that there is a 65% chance that there could be an “El Nino” this winter. (http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/) Thus the projections for rain this winter are “high.”
For scientists from the Army Corp of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District tying to manage Lake Okeechobee, (http://w3.saj.usace.army.mil/h2o/reports.htm), this affects how they will manage the lake. The lake is now at 15.20 feet. This is almost a full foot higher than last year and high in general for this time of year. Usually at this time of year one would hope that the lake is going down so it will be ready to hold the waters of the next rainy season…
All things considered, now the ACOE/SFWMD might dump to “make room.” You’ve got to be kidding me?
Why can’t the ACOE send this lake water south?
According to them and the charts below, they can’t because they already sent so much water south in 2014. Sending water south is good. More water was sent south in 2014 than in many, many years before. Still….
Hmmm…. So am I supposed to feel OK about this? No.
It’s kind of like understanding why you are going to get beaten. You may understand, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less….
Also, one other thing they don’t mention is that the Storm Water Treatment Areas and Water Conservation Areas south of the lake are reserved first for the Everglades Agriculture Area’s (EAA) water….
In my opinion, this is not right….
It is also not right that the estuaries repeatedly get destroyed. We must fight on.
So take a look at these slides and “understand,” but may it give us ammunition to fight harder as part of our new year’s resolution for 2015, and definitely, not to accept our plight.
ACOE/SFWMD summary at last Periodic Scientist Call, 12-23-14.ACOE/SFWMD chart from PSC showing how much water they “could” have sent the SLR…12-23-14. Blue what LORS allowed. Red what they sent this year.(LORS 2008) Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule chart. Although the ACOE’s chart “tells” the ACOE that they can send the SLR 1170 cfs of water, and has for months, the ACOE has been sending 0.
Happy New Year. Happy 2015. 2014 was “progress” because of you. So let’s keep learning, and pushing for a third outlet south of the lake, and lands to hold that water, so one day in the future, we don’t have start the new year with an ax over our heads.
Below is the last message from the ACOE, regarding the next Periodic Scientists Conference Call, so tomorrow, will be an “epiphany.”
12-24-14: “The next periodic scientist call will be 6 January 2015 at 2:00 PM. We anticipate continued discussions regarding Lake Okeechobee levels, weather forecasts to include El Nino conditions, and dry season lake release strategy.” —ACOE
Home Page for new SFWMD website “Moving Water South,” 2014.
In case you have not seen it, managers at the South Florida Water Management District have created a wonderful new website entitled “Moving Water South.”
This website shows the incredible “work-around” the District performs to send water through the Everglades Agricultural Area, (EAA), to get water to flow south. The EAA, of course, is one of the nation’s richest agricultural areas and completely blocks the flow of water from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades. Since the 1920s, the EAA has been the primary reason for the Army Corp of Engineers building canals C-43 and C-44 for the “overflow” waters of Lake Okeechobee. These excess waters are then dumped into our precious estuaries of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatchee. This destroys them.
If you go to the link above and view the website you will see a combination of ten different structures, (S); stormwater treatment areas, (STA); and water conservation areas (WC) that either basically send, clean, or hold water in its journey south.
They are as follows: Lake Okeechobee; S-354; S-351; S-352; C10A; WC1; WC2; WC3; STA3/4; and STA 2.
I really think this is a great site and as a former 8th and 9th grade teacher, I appreciate that it is something that can be visually shared with young people so that they can easily understand why our estuaries are periodically destroyed; the value, but difficulty of the EAA’s location; and why our Everglades are being starved of the amount of water they originally received.
My greatest hope with tools like this is that future generations will be able to figure out a way for us all “to have our cake and eat it too–” allowing enough water to go south so as not to destroy our estuaries, and allow the state’s long time best friend, historic “Ag” to do what it does, make money and feed people….
I definitiely commend the SFWMD for the transparency of the web-site; let’s take a look at what they are reporting today.
From Nov. 1, 2013, through Oct. 31, 2014, South Florida Water Management District operations moved approximately 339 billion gallons of water from Lake Okeechobee – that’s the same as 782,367 football fields filled with 1 foot of water or about 2.2 feet of water depth of Lake Okeechobee.
Holy Toledo! 339 billion gallons of water. Hmmm? How much is that?
After the 2013 Lost Summer and looking at the ACOE’s website for so long, I understand acre feet better….so how do we convert gallons to acre feet? (An acre foot is one foot of water standing on one acre of land…)
Thankfully, I have friends who can help me answer this question.
My friend, Dr Goforth, (garygoforth.net), a former long time employee of the SFWMD and designer of the Storm Water Treatment Areas told me:
“To convert from gallons to acre feet, divide by 325,872.”
All joking aside, thank you SFWMD for the website. By the way, it is important to recognize that the ACOE and SFWMD have “moved more water south” in 2014 than at least since 1995. Bravo!
In conclusion, in conferring with Dr Goforth, he thought it was a great site too, but mentioned it would be nice if the site explained how much water “made it to Everglades,” as this is a tremendous part of the overall goal.
Below is Dr Goforth’s chart showing water to Everglades among other complicated transactions. Like I said, thank God there are people who can read this stuff and do the numbers; all I really know is that sometimes there is an ocean of water coming into our estuaries and it needs to go somewhere else!
Dr Gary Goforth’s chart for moving water south to the Everglades, May-Oct. 2014.
*Thank you to Ted Guy for calling the Move Water South site to my attention!
12-20-14: After completing the above post, I am adding the chart below of Dr Goforth’s showing how much water by year comparatively moved south into the STAs from 1995 to 2014. I think it is a helpful visual and now I can reference this photo in Comments of this blog post.
Dr Goforth’s chart showing amount of Lake O. water sent south to the STAs from 1995-2014.
I am also adding this Option Lands Map as it too is referred to in the comments on this blog post as a way to send even more water south and create a type of flow way in the future….
River Warrior Solidarity Fish T-Shirts in many colors for the holidays!
The River Warriors recently contacted me to tell me that they now have an office, and that I was invited to make Solidarity Fish T-shirts for those walking tomorrow in the Stuart Christmas Parade beside the River Warrior Float. They also invited me to sit on this float along with other River Warrior Ancients. 🙂
I was honored and intrigued….an office? So, yesterday evening, I drove to 745 NW Federal Highway, right over the north side of the Roosevelt Bridge, very close to the St Lucie River.
What I saw almost brought tears to my eyes! A true River Warrior office with energetic elf like River Warriors working away!
River Warrior office.With Gayle Ryan who greeted me at the door…
There were kids and adults and music and all sorts of river and political posters on the walls…busy River Warriors applying acrylic paint to brightly colored T-shirts, and others blowing the paint creations dry with blow dryers, and then neatly folding the shirts on a long straight table…
When the River Elves saw me, they joyously exclaimed, “It’s Jacqui!” Let’s make her a red, white and blue fish!”
I stood there in amazement. “This is so awesome…am I dreaming?”
There was Gayle Ryan at the door, the power-house behind getting the space…Julie Williams who was instrumental in the storefront donation…Marty Baum, the Indian Riverkeeper, and his girl friend Robin and their friends and a huge Santa Clause sitting in the corner. There were children cutting out manatees, dolphins, and sea turtle shapes…
The fluorescent lights juxtaposed to the darkness outside made everything seem brighter…I read every poster on the wall as a flood of memories came back to me….
“So, in 2013 we had the toxic “Lost Summer;” the people had an uprising, and now they, “we,” have an office? Holy Cow!”
With my head spinning, I took great pleasure in seeing a huge flag that read DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!
DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!
Artist Janeen Mason’s art also covered the walls; she is the originator of the Solidarity Fish that the River Warriors use as their symbol. (http://www.solidarityarts.com) These fish will tonight be part of Christmas tree lighting in Washington DC! Janeen is a marketing genius.
River Warrior ladies busy creating shirtsCreating the solidarity fish…River Kidz!Janeen Mason’s art at entrance of office.
It’s official. Solidarity for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon is here to stay along the Treasure Coast, hopefully in Washington DC, and in our local government offices too! A couple of days ago, I received this holiday card from the “Martin County Ecosystem Restoration and Management Division.” They made their own solidarity fish T-Shirts. Go Deb Drum and Team!
Martin County Ecosystem Division 2014 holiday card with solidarity fish.Me with my solidarity fish/River Warrior T-Shirt.
After a short time, when my shirt was ready, I put it on right over my dress: I was so exited! I am so thrilled to see so much passion for the river one year after the releases by the ACOE and SFWMD from Lake Okeechobee and C-23, C-24, C-25 and C-44 that killed our river.
Well no one will stop us now….we will in time bring our river back.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a yet another Solidarity New Year for our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon!
Stop Taking…Save Our RiverUpside down solidarity fishsolidarity fishPatriotic solidarity fish!Rock the Boat!Bright paints.Discharge Kills!March to the Locks.With Riverkeeper Marty Baum and Santa.SAVE OUR RIVER in lights above the office door.
Looking at the clouds over the St Lucie River, Roosevelt Bridge, Stuart, Florida. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lipppisch 11-14)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that…” Martin Luther King, Jr.
The situation for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon remains a bleak one, but I am telling you, “I can see the light!”
At last week’s Water Resource Advisory Commission, (WRAC), of the South Florida Water Management District, (SFWMD), Dr Gary Goforth, (http://garygoforth.net) the great scientist watchdog of the District and former employee who designed and “built” the Storm Water Treatment Areas, (STAs) for the SFWMD, stood before the commission and gave thanks to the District and to the Army Corps of Engineers for “sending more water south” through the STAs to the Everglades in 2014, than since 1995.
273,188 acre feet in fact!
Although 273,188 acre feet of Lake Okeechobee water will not save the St Lucie, sending this much water south is an incredible move on the part of the SFWMD and the ACOE. Of course there is more work to do and the situation wouldn’t be as rosy if we had had as much rain fall as in the “Lost and Toxic Summer of 2013.” Nonetheless, those who worked hard for this must be given credit.
Doing so meant taking risks of breaking the WQBEL, or how much phosphorus can enter the Everglades Protection Area. Over a certain amount is a breach of federal law. Sending so much water south also meant irritating some powerful stakeholders, like the EAA and Homestead sugar and vegetable farmers who need dry feet to grow their crops and stored water to insure they can grow them…..
Dr Goforth’s chart showing amount of Lake O. water sent south to the STAs from 1995-2014.
The situation is difficult, really the”razors edge” as the “water going south” does not just include the waters of Lake Okeechobee but also the waters of the EAA that have precedence.
So….
This year was markedly different. Why?
Because of the pressure put on the ACOE, SFWMD, the Governor, DEP and others by the SLR/IRL and Caloosahatchee River Movements, the public, Scripps Newspapers, Martin County, St Lucie, and Indian River Commissioners, the IRL 5 County Coalition, and powerful “linked-in” politicians, like Senator Joe Negron and Congressman Patrick Murphy who are watching, and forcing the agencies to follow the requirements of state and federal policy to send water south even though it is a very slippery slope.
The clouds and sun are always moving….
Change happens slowly; it requires altering the culture and habits of institutions and society. Looking at what happened this year, is proof that this indeed is occurring.
I am a no “Pollyanna;” I know that what has to happen to save the St Lucie and Indian River Lagoon is tremendous, almost beyond comprehension, but in order to overcome darkness one must begin by recognizing the light…
THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN FOR MR LARRY ROBINSON AND HIS “CUB CLUB” THAT WILL BE FLYING INTO HISTORIC BUCKINGHAM FIELD AIRPORT CLOSE TO THE CALOOSAHATCHEE RIVER IN LEE COUNTY; I THOUGHT THIS MIGHT BE OF INTERESTS TO ALL.
Cub Club of Florida
When flying into Buckingham Airport near Ft Meyers, one will surely get a view of the beautiful Caloosahatchee River that runs from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico.
The river, named after the warlike Calusa Indians, has a great history and is unfortunately under great pressure due to man-made changes in its surrounding hydrology. The original lands of the watershed allowed for the waters of the Kissimmee Valley, near Orlando, to move south through the then winding Kissimmee River, into Lake Okeechobee, and then slowly make their way to the Florida Everglades.
Historic flow of Lake Okeechobee. (Map courtesy of Everglades Foundation.)
Before the late 1880s, the Caloosahatchee was not truly connected to Lake Okeechobee; its headwaters started at Lake Hicpochee, west of today’s Clewiston. Marshlands filled from Lake Hicpochee to Lake Okeechobee in times of heavy rain “connecting” the waterway but this was not lasting.
In the late 1800s investor and land owner, Hamilton Disston, following an old Calusa Indian canal, connected the river permanently to Lake Okeechobee by digging a wide canal. This was done in order to drop the level of the lake and drain the surrounding lands for agricultural development.
Disston was not completely successful but he did inspire others to complete his work in the early 1920s.
Redirection of the waters of Lake Okeechobee through the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie Estuaries. (Map courtesy of Everglades Foundation.)
People had been farming in Florida south of the Lake Okeechobee since the late 1800s as the muck was very rich and produced wonderful crops. But flooding was a constant issue.
After the horrific hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 that completely flooded the area south of the lake and took thousands of lives, the state of Florida begged the federal government for flooding assistance which resulted in the Cross State Canal being built from Ft Meyers to Stuart and the building of the Herbert Hoover Dike around southern Lake Okeechobee.
The canal allowed not only for east west navigation across the state, but also redirected the waters of Lake Okeechobee that traditionally flowed south to be sent east and west through nearby estuaries: the Caloosahatchee on the west and the St Lucie River/Southern Indian River Lagoon on the east.
After another great storm and flood in 1948, and repeated outcry of the state and public, the Army Corps of Engineers “improved the system” through the Central and South Florida Project by widening and deepening already constructed canals and by building many more.
By the 1960 the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), south of the lake, became the number one sugar and vegetable producer of the state and one of the top in the nation; fortunes were made in the post-wartime era.
Simultaneous to the success of the EAA, development exploded along the two estuaries, the Caloosahatchee, and St Lucie/Southern Indian River Lagoon. Both of these areas depended heavily on fishing, tourism, and real estate values for their economies so when Lake Okeechobee would overflow and billions of gallons of fresh water would pour into the estuaries disturbing the brackish balance, killing seagrasses, destroying fishing stock and wildlife, of course these cities along the coasts complained.
Over time, even more people have moved the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie areas, and the massive population of Orlando has complicated the situation as “Orlando’s” polluted water full of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilized lawns and farmlands travels south filling Lake Okeechobee. Since the water cannot go south, it is redirected to the estuaries. As a result, the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie estuaries experience toxic algae blooms during heavy destructive discharges.
This “health and safety” situation came to a head recently during the summer of 2013 when the Army Corps released from Lake Okeechobee for five months straight: May 8th- October 21st. This time became known as the “Lost Sumer” as health departments warned citizens and pets to stay out of the water for months on end.
Due to public outcry, Florida Senator Joe Negron, chair of the Appropriations Committee, organized a “Senate Hearing on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee Basin” that included studies of both estuaries. Congressman Patrick Murphy invited citizens to Washington DC.
The east and west coasts and many politicians unified during this time, thousands rallied, and news of the toxic waters was told by local, state, national and global media.
The Florida governor, state legislature, US Congress, along with “water managers,” Army Corp of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, felt tremendous pressure to find alternative ways to store water and clean water north of the lake and to “send more water south.”
Under the 2013/14 state legislative sessions the state legislature and federal government designated monies for both estuaries to help abate these issues. Part of the Tamiami Trail was even “opened” to allow more water to flow south and plans are being made to lift and open more areas in the future. University of Florida water experts are studying the issue.
Unfortunately, in spite of what can be done, this is just the tip of the iceberg as the amount of water that needs to be redirected away from the estuaries is enormous, truly beyond comprehension. This is why many believe Everglades restoration plans are taking entirely too long and that we must find a way to fully restore the Kissimmee River and create a third outlet south of the lake.
McCarty Ranch is/was located in St Lucie County and will be the future water supply for the City of Port St Lucie.
The first time I heard about McCarty Ranch was from, at the time, City Manager Greg Orvac. It was 2012 and he invited me up to Port St Lucie to see all the wonderful work they were doing building areas to clean water run off and to learn about how the city was planning for its future water supply.
I was told that the idea of McCarty Ranch was that the city would build a water treatment plant to withdrawal the polluted agriculture tainted water in the C-23 canal before it gets to the river, hold it, treat it, and use it.
“Wow,” I thought. “This is wild, I have heard of things like this in other areas of the state, but right here at home?”
This is great news about cleaning the filthy C-23 canal water that is one of many canals along with Lake Okeechobee releases killing our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/southeast/ecosum/ecosums/c23.pdf) but there is also a tang of future “water wars” in this scenario as cities jostle for securing their future water supply.
Port St Lucie recently has become the 9th largest city in the state of Florida and has approximately 250,000 residents. By 2060 or so, they expect 400,000 or more. Three years before I was born, in 1961, a handful of residents petitioned the legislature for the fish camp area to become a city…
By looking at the Google map above, one can see that McCarty Ranch is located just above the C-23 canal east of Gatlin Boulevard. The C-23 canal is the “county line” between Martin and St Lucie Counties. I do not really know the details, and I think the city and county are still arguing over details in spite of a front page article in Scripps Newspapers today, but one would think the city will either have to also annex some of the lands below the McCarty piece or just have giant pipes connecting it to the C-23 through a small connected parcel. Either way, I am sure over time it will occur. They will build what they need to remove by South Florida Water Management District, (SFWMD), permit, water from the C-23 canal and use it for their citizens.
You may be thinking, the McCarty name rings a bell because you know or because I recently wrote a blog about Dan McCarty awhile back. The blog was about how I stumbled upon a grave in Palms Cemetery along Indian River Drive that read: “Governor Daniel McCarty.”
Yes, the ranch belonged to this prominent St Lucie County, former 1800s pineapple, then ranch and citrus family.
If you have the time to listen to the first video link below, there is a fascinating video interview with Mrs Peggy McCarty Monahan, the granddaughter of Charles Tobin McCarty, talking about her father, the brother of Dan, the governor, saying to her when she was a young girl: “Water is gong to be an issue, water is going to be the most important thing…”
Through these words he was telling her that one day the ranch’s proximity to the City of Port St Lucie would make it ideal for water storage and supply. Many of these old time ranchers preached this theme to their children knowing we had worked so hard to get the water off the land and one day we would be trying to put it back on…
Apparently there are lakes and mined areas on the property for water storage; I am unsure if the original McCarty idea included drawing water from C-23 canal; it very well could be, as C-23 was built in the 50s and 60s and waste tremendous amounts of water to tide in order to drain the surrounding lands for agriculture and development.
C-23 is one of the dirtiest canals dumping into the St Lucie River; it will be good to remove some of the water before it gets to the river but will there ever be a day when it takes too much or Martin County wants that water too?
Sounds far-fetched for sure, but all I know is that stranger things have happened along the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Who would have though Port St Lucie would one day be projected to have over 400,000 people?
Aerial of what was to become the City of Port St Lucie, 1957. (Photo Ruhnke/Thurlow collection, courtesy of Sandra Henderson Thurlow.)
This aerial shows the area of the future almost 10,000 acres that will become the C-44 Storm Water Treatment Area and Reservoir. A landmark of this area is Indiantown Airport, a grass strip located above and north-east of the lake in this photo. So far the C-44 STA/R. project’s four mile intake canal has been built. The immense lands beyond, east, north and west of this area will become the STA and Reservoir.
I spend a good amount of time studying the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon; nonetheless, I am constantly amazed to learn what I don’t know. In a nutshell, the C-44 storm water treatment and reservoir is part of the Indian River Lagoon South Project to clean up the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon by storing and cleaning water from our huge C-44 basin.
The project is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and even though I have read about it for years, I did not know how or the order of it being built. Today I will share my experience in learning just the beginning.
To look back a bit for the history, building the C-44 storm water treatment area and reservoir is combined effort of many years of work of local, state and federal governments and it is one of the most expensive water projects being built in the Florida, with an estimated costs of almost 4 million to complete.
I wanted to SEE this because it is so hard to understand it all.
So a few weeks ago my husband Ed, and his friend Shawn and I are flying over this area and I’m saying “where is it? It’s supposed to be here. I want to take some pictures. Hmmm? I don’t see anything…I was expected a big lake like thing off of the C-44 canal or something.”
Ed calmly, says: ” This is it Jacqui. Over the past years the ACOE has been working hard to build this new intake canal. We have seen it for years as we fly over. It must be built first probably; you can see the results.”
So we flew north over the four mile intake canal that finally stopped in a wilderness of agricultural lands.
Intake canal on east, agricultural lands on west.End of intake canal.
The intake canal was completed in July of 2014 at of cost of 28 million dollars. This is huge accomplishment and this is only the beginning. This is what we can SEE so far.
So what will we SEE in the future?
To get an idea as seen below, the FPL cooling pond off the east coast of Lake Okeechobee is 5,000 acres. The C-44 STA/R. will be almost 10,000 acres. So in the future, when one looks at a Google Maps, there will be another gigantic lake looking thing consisting of the STA (6300 acres) and the reservoir (3, 400 acres) east, north and west of the Indiantown Airport, the red dot below.
Area from Lake O following C-44 canal to St Lucie River in Stuart.Indiantown Airport along C-44 canal.Map of C-44 STA/R black. Basin in pink.Engineering map from ACOE/SFWMD showing where the cells of the C-44 STA/R. will be.
The monies and energy needed to build the C-44 STA and reservoir is and has been tremendous. In spite of one’s political affiliations or the project itself, we must recognize those who have recently helped ensure the success of the project: the SFWMD, the ACOE, Senator Joe Negron, Governor Scott, Congressman Murphy, the Martin County Commission and the public. I am sure there are many others that I do not know. This gigantic project has taken many years and has been no easy feat. Kudos to the decades of people who have worked to make this first step of the intake canal possible. I recognize your efforts.
Yes it is good to be positive, the C-44 STA and Reservoir is a great start, but it is important to also realize that the resovoir will hold about 50,000 acre feet of water. During some storm seasons we get much more than that just from the C-44 basin alone, and that is NOT counting releases from Lake Okeechobee.
We have a lot more work to do, to get to where we want to be, but finally we are beginning to SEE RESULTS of something getting built to help improve water quality, and that is something more than Martin County has ever seen before in its long fight to save its treasured St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.
The area of Ed and my back yard where grass has slowly been removed, planting areas enlarged, and mulched with leaves.
In 2010 the Town of Sewall’s Point passed a strong fertilizer ordinance, the first on Florida’s east coast. It was during this time, that I became “anti-turf grass.” Today when I look at a “beautiful” sprawling yard of green grass, all I see is fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, and heavy water needs that are contrary to a healthy St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and a successful Florida future.
Native coontie.
In order to put my “money where my mouth is,” in 2010, I informed my husband that I was going to start removing the grass from our yard and mulching with leaves from our oaks, strangler figs, and other trees. As usual, he looked at me like I was slightly crazy, but as usual, he agreed.
This decision was made easier in that around this same time our well was starting to go dry and I had gotten estimates in from $5000 to $8000 to replace it. Not to mention the well guys said if they did drill, as it is well-known wells are going dry in this high hammock area of Sewall’s Point, and they were unsuccessful, Ed and I would still have to pay half.
“Not my kind of odds.” I thought, especially knowing water issues regarding wells, and salt water intrusion are only going to increase. Last week, in 2014, I changed the house over to “city water” as our well has finally died. I am very glad that over the past few years I have de-grassed the yard for the most part, a heavy water user, and filled it with Florida Friendly (http://www.floridayards.org) plants that do not require much watering. I am hoping to irrigate only once a week, or never, and just water by hand.
City water is expensive! The South Florida Water Management District states that “up to 60% of a south Florida homes’ water use can go to irrigation. That’s insane and a huge waste of water and money.
I have read that Florida produces 25% of the WORLD’S turf grass.(http://floridaturf.com/about/) Considering that, I’d say the state has an interest in keeping us “in grass.” This is a problem…a conflict of interest. I wish they were investing in inventing an attractive low-water/low-or no fertilizer, ground cover other than floratam type grasses; they would make billions, and help save the state’s precious spring, lake, and estuary waters rather than encouraging us to destroy them. The sod and fertilizer industries are multi-billion dollar industries that want to keep us “addicted.”
Well, I have broken free. 🙂
Back to my family, I have to say, also, that my brother-in-law, landscape architect Mike Flaugh (http://mikeflaughla.com) and my mother, always ahead of her time, also inspired me on this issues. As they too have de-grassed their yards years ago and their yards still look beautiful. Mike has “natively” and “Florida Friendly” landscaped some of the newest and finest homes in the area with no or little grass and these homes are examples of the “new yard,” “the conscious yard,” “the yard of the future.”
Today, I’d like to share some photos of my de-grassed yard in hopes of inspiring you, should you wish to be inspired, and hopefully are already! 🙂
Font of house is now ferns and other plantings.Creeping jasmine vine has replaced grass in the front yard. Loves shade or partial sun, but not full sun.Back yard where grass was removed and replaced with stepping stones and Florida Friendly plants.Front yard with stepping-stones and edged with ferns and plantings.Leaves from the trees in the yard are used as mulch, as they break down they enrich the soil.One area of the house in the front was left with grass for our dogs to run, and play, and…Bird houses for wildlife; wildlife increases dramatically once grass and chemicals are removed. The birds eat bugs.More native plants like this satin leaf started to germinate and grow once the grass was gone. I am letting more natives grow-letting the yard “be itself.”Native Beautyberry provides food for wildlife and color.Wild coffee grew like crazy in our area once the grass was out. It has colorful berries for wildlife and a shiny green leaf.Native firebush attracts butterflies.Golden dew drop with its pretty purple flowers is a butterfly magnet.Lantan, another butterfly and low water plant.Purple porter, yet another butterfly and low water native.Once grass was gone, this Mexican star, or something like that, started to come up all over the yard; it has a pretty yellow morning flower and is native.this century plant needs little water and has an interesting shape; native beach sunflower vine in rear.Crotants are not native but use little water and add color.Side yard…no more grass, with lots of blue flowering plumbago, also a low water, butterfly attracting, Florida Friendly plant.
St Lucie River Initiative’s Report to Congress 1995; River Dayz ’96 Festival booklet; and historic newspaper info in this article courtesy of historian Sandra Henderson Thurlow.
A woman’s right to vote did not come come in a day; stopping the horrors of slavery in the Untied States took a civil war and the life of one of our greatest presidents; most recently, we are seeing a revolution in gay rights.
These movements take time, but eventually, there is tipping point were things begin to change direction. As we know, our river movement has been going for almost 85 years as the first time the Martin County commission asked the ACOE to stop releasing Lake Okeechobee water into the St Lucie River was documented in their minutes of 1930.
1930 request of the MCBOCC for the ACOE to halt releases from Lake O to SLR.
Today I wanted to encourage you not to feel discouraged that the St Lucie Indian River Lagoon movement has been going on so long, but to feel empowered that you are part of something that is big, that takes years, and has a moral element to it just like human rights. This moral element is what in time will force the State of Florida and the United States of America to scrutinize our destructive drainage practices of the past.
As it says in our Declaration of Independence: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires they should declare the cause which impels them to the separation.
For me, this document gives permission to pull away when necessary. We are and have been pulling away. We envision something better and we are willing to fight for it. Just for the record, some of those before us include:
1. Commercial fishermen in 1925, two years after the canal opened in 1923, in the newspaper of the day, The Florida Developer fought the destructive abundance of fresh water from the lake.
2. A 1931 article from The Florida Developer’s editorial team notes it was “critical” that the releases from Lake Okeechobee be stopped.
3. 1945 another paper, The Stuart Messenger notes that the river had turned into a “mud soup,” killing fishing; tourism; and real estate.
4. 1958 local citizens filled the Martin County Courthouse to discuss with a delegation of the Flood Control District and the Army Corps of Engineers the possibility of a third outlet from Lake Okeechobee. Although hopes were high, nothing materialized.
5. Editor, and writer for the Stuart News, Ernest Lyons (1931-1974) wrote many award-winning articles against over canalization in our area of not only C-44 from Lake Okeechobee but also C-23, C-24 and C-25 further north that drained even more polluted fresh water into the rivers. His newspaper/writing career continued for many years.
6. In the early 1950s the Izzak Walton Group; the Martin County Conservation Committee and the St Lucie- Indian Rivers Rivers Restoration League all fought for the river even garnering meetings with top government officials. Apparently the ACOE met with locals and a report was done “but nothing ever happened…”
7. In 1990 Ernest Lyons, who had been prominent in all groups listed in #6, died: to fill that void, “Leadership Martin County” in 1992 , with the help of Mr Bud Jordan, Kevin Henderson and Tim Kinane, founded the St Lucie River initiative whose report to Congress is today’s blog photo. Their “River Dayz Festival” on behalf of the river brought hundreds together, they created river materials for elementary, middle and high school students, focused on muck removal and business support.
8. In 1993 the Greater Martin County Board of Realtors joined in its support of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, sending out a letter stating that the organization had joined the St Lucie River Initiative and encouraged a “call to action to contribute to the organization and to write letters to government officials.”
9. In 1998, after the worst toxic algae bloom and fish kill/fish lesion outbreak ever documented in Martin County during heavy releases from Lake Okeechobee, the Rivers Coalition came into being unifying businesses and an education program as well as developing the Rivers Coalition Defense Fund set up to sue the Federal Government and others on behalf of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Realtor Leon Abood, became the longstanding and outspoken chair.
10. On December 4th, 2010, a Rivers Coalition Lawsuit against the Federal Government was heard in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington DC. According to edited words of Karl Wickstrom, chair of the Defense Fund at that time, U.S. District Judge Lynn Bush wrote in her explanation:
“The St. Lucie River is by all accounts, a national treasure.The longterm environmental consequences of defendant’s, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,’ massive discharges into the river are tragic, and the court takes note of plaintiffs’ tireless efforts to reverse that damage.”
The court ruled that a remedy to stop the harmful discharges must come not from the courts but from Congress; she dismissed the case, but it garnered national attention and moved issues of the river forward.
11. In 2011 the River Kidz were born of two 5th grade girls and became a division of the Rivers Coalition. They held two river rallies at the St Lucie Locks and Dam in 2012 during discharges from Lake Okeechobee. Senator Joe Negron, Chairwoman Sarah Heard, and other politicians mingled with parents looking for a way to deal with the discharges. Congressman Patrick Murphy later also supported the Kidz in their efforts. The key: parental involvement and youth.
12. 2009-2011, going public in 2012/13, it was realized a that a super bloom and brown tide algae bloom had killed 60% of the seagrasses in the northern and central IRL. Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs), declared by NOAA, followed for both endangered manatees and the protected bottle nosed dolphins. Hundreds of pelicans also died. This galvanized the counties of the IRL, southern, central and northern alike.
13. 2013, the ACOE starts releasing from Lake Okeechobee May 8th until October 21st. This time becomes the “Lost Summer,” toxic conditions ensue. Young Evan Millar and Clint Starling and others call for a rally at the locks on Facebook. Over 5000 show up. Beach rally later brings over 2000. Hands Across the Lagoon unifies thousands across the 156 mile lagoon as well. The STUART NEWS/SCRIPPS NEWSPAPERS starts a river news campaign that has educated thousands and is still going today. St Lucie County as well as Lee County River Kidz is born…
14. 2013 the Sugarland Rally in Clewiston; Senator Negron’s Senate Hearing on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee Basin; Congressman Murphy invites the state and local officials, the River Warriors, and River Kidz to to a meeting on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake O. in Washington DC. …..Commissioner Ed Fielding forms the Indian River lagoon County Collaborative unifying all counties along the lagoon. (Palm Bach quits.)
15. In 2014 the fight has continued. The pressure has not let up. Presently the University of Florida is studying the issue of “sending water south…”
16. 2014, last week, the South Florida Water Management District and Dept of Environmental Protection and others recommend against Sugar Hill, a proposed development in Hendry County on option lands, most designated for Everglades restoration or trading.
It has been a long journey, but I am confident that the tipping point is coming. We have over drained our lands, we have destroyed our rivers and lakes, we are wasting 1.7 billion gallons of fresh a day to tide knowing we have a growning population coming…
If nothing else, it will be the need for fresh water and the knowledge that wasting it is wrong that will in the future push the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon movement tipping over the edge…
Charlie Crist visits the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon October 3, 2014. (Photo by Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch.)
As you probably saw in the paper, Charlie Crist, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Florida, visited Stuart on Wednesday, October 3, 2014. Very exciting! I have been waiting for the governor’s race to crank up and for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon to be in the spotlight as it should be.
In my dream of dreams Governor Scott and Charlie Crist would come to Stuart debate. For now, I will be satisfied that this year both have visited and spoken and are aware of health issues facing the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
I had seen Charlie Crist speak before at the Florida League of Cites, in Hollywood, but it was fun to see “the man, the myth,” our former governor, up close, face to face, along with his beautiful wife Carol.
I shall tell you of my short experience…
As I did not learn of the visit until the day before, I already had commitments and thus was one hour and a half late to Mr Crist’s planned arrival to tour the lagoon at the invitation of Marty Baum, Indian Riverkeeper.
This was inconsequential as the Crist team was late itself, so when I arrived at Sandsprit Park, Mr Crist and his team had just gone out in the boat with Marty Baum, Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic, and others.
Coming in off the boat.Marty Baum and friends.
As Mr Crist came off the boat I moved to greet him and grabbed his hand to help him onto the dock. I thanked him for his visit. His wife, Carol was at his side holding a sign that read, A FAIR CHANCE FOR FLORIDA. I knew that the couple had married in 2008 and that she was a very successful business woman who ran the family business, Franco American Novelty Co . and was most well-known for inventing the slogan: “Where Fashion Meets Halloween,” and creating sexy Halloween costumes that were big sellers. She is a talented marketer.
I wondered what she thought so far of Stuart. She smiled, stepping off the boat in high heels.
Charlie Christ’s wife, Carol, was at his side on the boat ride. (Public photo)
Once off the boat they got their sea legs as apparently a big wave had hit…the small crowd loved him and gathered around.
Mr Crist composed himself, a calm and confident speaker. This was obviously a man used to being in the public eye.
The questions from the reporters about the lagoon were many, and Mr Crist did a good job answering. Nonetheless there was an awkward moment that must be noted.
Tyler Treadway from the Stuart News asked Mr Crist about how he would stop the discharges from Lake Okeechobee and Mr Crist answered that “he would put the right people on the South Florida Water Management Board and the discharges would stop; like they did before, when he was governor…”
There was silence. Tyler’s lips quivered; he said something like …”Sir I don’t know how you can say that? …That you stopped the discharges….”
Charlie Crist repeated again that he had.
I watched this crowd who adored and appreciated Mr Crist but they were too educated and too far into this not to know that stopping the discharges is a lot more complicated that that….and that they have NEVER stopped for long.
The was the pregnant pause….Silence….Tyler looked at his writing pad….the crowd stared into space.
As usual I could not stop myself and I finally blurted out: “Temporarily…..”
Charlie Crist looked straight at me; I respectfully held my gaze, head slightly down.
We all looked at each other….and stared. It was time to go.
We all thanked him. It was a great visit.
I believe Mr Crist’s intentions are good, I just don’t think, he like all politicians, is used to speaking to such an educated public.
We know the truth, we need a third outlet from the lake and other water holding areas, there are no saviors, no boards that will fix our terrible St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon/Lake Okeechobee problem.
“Why didn’t he speak about his US Sugar buyout plan from 2008?” Said someone as we were all walking away?
“He didn’t know who he was taking to,” I answered. “The most educated public in the state. Politicians are not used to that…”
We waved goodbye. And Charlie flashed us that winning smile. We hope he’ll come again.
Pam Joy hold a sign SAVE OUR RIVER.SAVE USSt Lucie River Kidz were there to meet Charlie Crist. Their mission is to speak out, get involved and raise awareness….
Flying west towards Clewiston and the proposed Sugar Hill development, along the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee, looking north, one sees wet lands inside of the lake, the rim canal, a water structure, a southerly canal, agriculture lands, and highways…(All photos, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch.)An open field exposes the land’s black gold. Pahokee area heading to Clewiston.
On Sunday, a beautiful day, Dr Shawn Engebretsen flew my husband and I, in his Piper Lance, to get a “higher view” of the proposed Sugar Hill Sector Plan around the area of Clewiston in Hendry County and to get a shot of its heart, Airglades Airport.
I decided to continue this planned trip even though on Friday, October 3rd, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) sent a letter to the state land planning agency “recommending against approving the proposed Sugar Hill Sector Plan, DEO #14-3SP, as it does not provide sufficient information to show that future Everglades restoration efforts will not be harmed…” The letter goes on to give additional comments on flood protection, pollutant loading , irrigation sources, and ecosystem restoration.
Kudos to the SFWMD!
Nonetheless, we must keep a close eye on this the project as it still has other state reviews and could resurrect itself at any time depending on timing, politics, and money.
So let’s go!
The most interesting way to fly to Clewiston from Witham Airfield in Stuart is to follow the C-44 canal from the St Lucie River to Lake Okeechobee and then fly to the southern edge of the lake. In doing so one sees the towns/cities of Canal Point, Pahokee, Bell Glade and South Bay on the easterly and southern side of the lake and Clewiston and Moore Haven further west.
It is a huge place out here and time and space somehow seem enlarged, like in the American West. The distances are vast and it takes a while to get one’s bearing.
After about thirty minutes, passing Pahokee and Bell Glade, hugging the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee and looking out toward the horizon one finally one sees, emerging out of the smoke of its processing plant, the historic city of Clewiston.
Lake Okeechobee, cities and agricultural lands.Circling over the city of Clewiston, the headquarters of US Sugar.
In the photo above one sees the sugar processing plant (smoke), the old Clewiston Airport which is no longer functioning, parts of the city and the agriculture lands south. The sector map below shows this same area but looking straight on. Clewiston is the gray square at the edge of the lake.
Sugar Hill Sector Plan map, Clewiston area. Courtesy of Miller, Legg.
Continuing, the next landmarks out in this open agricultural land, one sees the Airglades Airport and Highway 27 turning north. This area would be the “heart” of a Sugar Hill development. Right now there is just the air strip and miles and miles of agricultural lands. I believe many in this area are citrus.
Airglades Airport and surrounding agricultural lands.Looking south to Highway 27 turning north-miles of agricultural fields.Map of Airglades Airport and surrounding proposed development. Note curve in highway 27 at top left side quickly turning north. Courtesy of Miller /Legg.
The third area on the far western edge of the proposed Sugar Hill development has Lake Hipochee as a landmark. Lake Hipochee was the headwaters of the Caloosahatchee River that Hamilton Disston put a canal through and dynamited its waterfall in order to lower Lake Okeechobee in the late 1800s. Although the lake appears as “a lake” on maps it has been destroyed by drainage and is now a sprawling wetland.
Lake Hipochee with canal to Lake O.Lake Hipochee wetlands area with encroaching agriculture lands.“Lake Hipochee” and agricultural lands south into proposed SH sector lands.
So hopefully this little tour has helped you get your bearings and not totally confused you.
Why do we need to know about this?
Basically many of these option lands need to be purchases by the state by October, 2015 for Everglades restoration and or trading for other lands, to create a “flow way south.” Otherwise certainly, in time, there will be one more sprawling city in the area of the historic Everglades blocking it regaining a healthy future and water supply for south Florida. Personally I believe the way to build an economic future for the people south of the lake is through Everglades restoration not development.
But presently, the state does not want to buy these lands as they say there is not enough money to manage them and the purchase would impede on the continuation of projects already in progress.
I believe this to be true, but sometimes you’ve got to take advantage of an opportunity before its gone. Sometimes you just have to “do it,” or you never get another chance.
Entire map of proposed Sugar Hill area. Lake Hipochee is the blue dot in the very upper left corner that is cut off.Key.
“River of Grass” US Sugar Land Acquisition map. US Sugar website 2014.
Do you remember the historic Everglades restoration plan entitled the “Reviving the River of Grass?” In all honesty, “I do, but I don’t,” as I was just jumping into the boiling pot of small town politics at this time having run for my Sewall’s Point commission seat in 2008.
From what I recall, this was an amazing time, in that it appeared possible for the state of Florida to purchase lands south and around Lake Okeechobee so that overflow waters could flow south of the lake and thus not cause such incredible destruction to the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatcee estuaries.
The short version of this deal and how it changed is as follows:
2008: included 180,000 acres for 1.34 billion; 2009: included 73,000 acres for 536 million with option for remainder; 2010: 26,800 acres was bought for 194 million in cash, with option/s to purchase remaining 153,200 acres.
The clock is still ticking on these option lands and although it is not on the state’s agenda to buy these lands at this time, the recent sector lands’ land use change/s proposal has brought the US Sugar Lands Option and Everglades Restoration back into the limelight.
Even though our governor and state legislature would consider it a headache, now would be a good time for the people to push for the purchase of these lands.
Let’s learn about them and let’s begin by reviewing the history according to the deal’s biggest player, US Sugar Corporation:
“2008 through 2010 was a bittersweet time for U.S. Sugar – a company that has been farming in the Lake Okeechobee region for more than four generations. It was during this time period when the Company agreed to sell a considerable amount of its sugar cane and citrus acreage to the South Florida Water Management District for the “River of Grass” restoration project. U.S. Sugar is firm in its belief that the sale was for a good cause and is proud to be part of this historic opportunity to make extraordinary progress in Everglades restoration and restore much of the natural footprint of South Florida.”
History of the Agreement
2008 In June of 2008, an announcement was made that the South Florida Water Management District would purchase 187,000 acres of U.S. Sugar’s land (292 square miles or three times the size of the city of Orlando) located in environmentally strategic areas that would help restoration efforts for Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries and the Everglades. Under the terms of the original agreement, sufficient land would also be available for critical water storage and treatment as well as for allowing sustainable farming in the Everglades Agricultural Area and the Everglades to be sustainable.
Over the course of the next two years, modifications were made to the agreement. In May 2009, an amended agreement provided for the initial purchase of close to 73,000 acres for $536 million, with options to purchase the remaining 107,000 acres during the next ten years when economic and financial conditions improve.
2009 In 2009, a proposal for a scaled down acquisition was made due to the global economic crisis. Under the new contract, U.S. Sugar agreed to sell 72,500 acres of the Company’s land for approximately $530 million to the SFWMD. While the SFWMD finalized plans for the land, the Company would continue to farm the 72,500 acres through a 7-year lease that may be extended under certain circumstances. The agreement also provided the SFWMD with an option to acquire the Company’s remaining 107,500 acres for up to ten years.
2010 On August 12, 2010, a second amended agreement was reached for the South Florida Water Management District to buy 26,800 acres of land for $197 million along with the option to acquire 153,200 acres in the future.
In October 2010, the agreement for 26,800 acres was finalized and the following month the Florida Supreme Court struck down a challenge to the land acquisition stating that the purchase of U.S. Sugar lands fulfills a valid and extremely important public purpose in providing land for water storage and treatment to benefit the Everglades ecosystem and the coastal estuaries.
Arrows point to lands with a 2 year non-exclusive option of purchase 46,000 acres by October 12, 2015.
The next part gets confusing, and I don’t think I understand it all, but I will try to share what I think I know. This is the part about the Sugar Hill Sector Plan controversy and how it relates to the US Sugar Option and Everglades restoration.
First: So in 2010 the state purchased two huge pieces of land. This purchase, totaling 26,000 acres, is shown in black in the map above. I believe they are the piece in the upper right east corner and the piece below the lake all the way at the very bottom left.
Second: There was a 10 year option negotiated between US Sugar and the State of Florida to buy the remaining 153,000 acres. This is still out there.
Third: Another element of this option mentioned above is a “2 year non-exclusive option” to buy 46,000 acres by October 12, 2015. This requires the purchase of 46,000 acres of land and it is shown in the map above; the four arrows point to these lands. One of these arrows is pointing to the lands that are the proposed Sugar Hill Sector Plan Lands in Hendry County; it is the second arrow from the left.
Confused yet? Don’t feel bad, I always am!
Sector Plan lands, 44,000 acres, located in US Sugar option lands required to by bought by 2015 if purchased for Everglades restoration.
So it is these sector lands that the second arrow on the left side points to that are the proposed Sugar Hill development in Hendry County. These are the lands causing much controversy because they are located inside “option lands.”
Hendry County wants their land use changed for future economic development; for that I cannot blame them, this is the job of every commission. Nonetheless, the issue for the state and for those of us inundated with toxic waters from Lake Okeechobee every few years is that these lands were set aside for the “River of Grass Restoration Project.”
If the land use is changed from agricultural to residential/commercial its price will be much higher and realistically never purchased by the state of Florida for Everglades restoration.
Overlap lands between option lands and Sugar Hill.
To keep going with this, the map above shows that the possible US Sugar land purchase option lands and the Sector Plan lands of Sugar Hill. You can see in the black lined areas that there is an overlap by approximately 13,250 acres. These are the acres that are requesting land use change that are located within the option lands. So if it is only part of the lands, why the problem?
According to Mr Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic who provided the maps for this blog entry, ”
The issue here is that the subsequent 2-year, non-exclusive option —46,000 acres (by October 12, 2015) must be bought in total and with changing “land use” on part of the lands, it may pose a problem for the State purchase.”
At this time many conservation groups led by the *Everglades Foundation have sent letters to Governor Scott stating stating:
“We are concerned the proposed land purchase can be jeopardized by a recent 43,000 development plan (The Sugar Hills Sector Plan…) We encourage your administration to revue the impact this Sector Plan may have on the ability of the state to move forward with the land purchase with special attention given to the fiscal impact a land use change could have on the market value of the option lands…”
Only time shall tell if development interests or Everglades restoration wins out. One way to help is to write Governor Scott at the website below. Thank you trying to learn all this and for continuing to fight for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
*It was pointed out to me that it was the Sierra Club, not the Everglades Foundation that sent a letter inclusive of many environmentalist groups. The Everglades Foundation did send a letter but just from their board. Thank you Chris Maroney.
Aerial photo over the savannas.(Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch/Ed Lippisch 2013.)
I learned something recently that surprised me…
Hamilton Disston, the titan-developer and “drainer extraordinaire” who bailed Florida’s “Internal Improvement Fund” out of debt in 1881 owned land right here in St Lucie and Marin Counties. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Disston)
My first thought upon realizing this, was “what if he’d started draining here? “
Disston instead started along the Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee and was the impetus and inspiration for draining south and central Florida which has led to our state’s development but also our environmental destruction.
Disston purchased 4,000,000 acres from the state of Florida in 1881, which included much of the land within the savannas. ( Public map, 1881.)
The above map shows in pink the 4,000,000 acres of land that Hamilton Disston purchased which although hard to see included much of the land within our savannas.
Plat map of St Lucie Gardens originally part of Disston’s lands in the savannas, 1911. (Courtesy of historian Sandra Thurlow)
Another wild thing I recently realized in relation to Hamilton Disston is that my friend Sam Henderson, of Gulfport, is the mayor of Disston’s first founded city. Gulfport is in Pinellas County near Tampa. Sam is certainly one of the most environmentally oriented mayors in the state; we know one another from our work on the Florida League of Cities’ environmental committee. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfport,_Florida)
Mayor of Gulfport, Sam Henderson and I at a recent Florida League of Cities meeting, 2014.
So for some reason, before my epiphany last week, I had no idea that Disston’s drainage machine went so far north beyond Tampa, to where Sam lives on the west coast, and so far east, to my home area near the savannas, along the Indian River Lagoon. You’d think I’d know such a thing!
Savanna State Park, Martin and St Lucie Counties. (Public photo.)The Savannas today are located between Jensen Beach Boulevard to Midway Road. (Public map.)
Well my mother Sandra Thurlow did know, and when I ask her about it she told me that in her book Historic Jensen and Eden on Florida’s Indian River, I could read all about the savannas ecosystem that was once almost 200 miles long and has been reduced to 10 ecologically intact miles between Ft Pierce and Jensen Beach, and how the railway running along its eastern edge ironically protected it.
She also noted that in 1854, a Florida state engineer/geologist proposed cutting a canal from the “Main Savanna” into the St Lucie Sound. This did not happen, but some of the land was developed as St Luice Gardens and development certainly has encroached…
What if they’d drained it all…..
To close, we are fortunate that Hamilton Disston did not start draining around the SLR/IRL and that we have a small remnant of the savannas left. Let’s continue building friendships with other environmentally water-oriented people our across our state and put the drainage spirit of Hamilton Disston on the shelf where it belongs.
_______________________________
Many thanks to those who worked to create Savannas State Park like former Martin County commissioner Mrs Maggie Hurchalla.
SFWMD’s simplified publication list of RESTORATION PROJECTS, 2014.
If there is anything I believe in, it is the “power of the people,” and it has given me great pleasure to watch this American principal at work over the past year. For me, presently there is nothing more evident of this than a small, simplified pamphlet that was officially released at last week’s Water Resources Advisory Commission (WRAC) on Thursday, September 4th, 2014; it is simply entitled RESTORATION PROJECTS and could fit in your pocket it you folded it in half.
This little pamphlet was greatly inspired by the people, the river protesters in particular, at a meeting that occurred in September of last year and took place at Indian RiverSide Park, in Jensen Beach. At this meeting the WRAC met for its regular meeting within the South Florida Water Management District, but also to hear the voices of the protesters in light of the toxic releases from Lake Okeechobee during the summer of 2013. In August of that year over 5000 people had protested at the St Lucie Locks and Dam. The District took notice.
As did the press….
You may recall Kenny Hinkel’s video that went viral of many people at the meeting on their cell phones? You may remember locals speaking before the WRAC asking for clarity, in understanding exactly “what and when” the SFWMD was doing to “save our river.” You may remember people being mad. You may remember myself and others begging for a simplification of presentation as the presentations from the District are so erudite only a scientist can understand them.
Note the top priorities have to do with attempting to “send Lake O. and others waters south through the Tamiami Trail area and the Indian River Lagoon South projects in Martin and St Lucie County for water storage from polluted local canals. Great. And it may have been that way before, but we needed to see it on paper!
Many people deserve credit for this simple but huge accomplishment, the River Warriors and SFWMD staff in particularly but I must note that on the day of that meeting, it was Chief of Staff, Dan Delisi, who called me aside after that meeting and said: “That simplification idea…so the public can understand….that is a good idea….we will work on that.”
And they did.
Also, the queen of the publication is Ms Temperince Morgan who compiled tons of information and put it before the WRAC to be digested and fought over and did it with a smile.
And the greatest of all, the pearl in the oyster created by that constant irritation, that grain of sand, is the people!
You created this, you demanded this. You insisted your government talk to you in such a way that you “get it.”
Corruption is easily shrouded in complexity. Simplicity is the light, our light for a cleaner and healthier St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.
The collective teamwork of the SLR/IRL River Movement has had a tremendous effect on state agencies such as the ACOE and SFWMD. “KEEP THE GATES CLOSED!” (Photo of River Warrior and River Kidz mom, Cristina Maldonado, donning her homemade protest shirt at the St Lucie Locks and Dam River Rally. Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, 2013.)
Today I want to share what I consider a huge recent success of the River Movement and our ability to network and work together to protect our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
On August 25th, Jensen Beach activist Jackie Trancynger sent out an email blast featuring a photograph taken by Paul Shidel of an awful looking algae bloom he found while photographing birds at Port Mayaca. Port Mayaca is where structure S-308 is located that allows water from Lake Okeechobee to be released into the C-44 canal to the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
Here’s the photo. You may recall reading about it in one of my previous blogs or seeing it in an email exchange:
August 24, 2014 photograph of blue-green algae bloom east of S-308, Lake Okeechobee/C-44 Canal area/ (Photo courtesy of Paul Shidel.)
So anyway after I saw the photo, I called Jackie Trancynger and got Paul Shidel’s email in order to verify the location of the bloom-certainly appearing to be toxic algae. Paul not only verified the location but provided a map!
Map of algae bloom’s location on east side of S-308, C-44 canal. (Paul Schidel.)
On Tuesday, August 26, I participated as I have for almost two years now, in the ACOE Periodic Scientists Call in my capacity as an elected official from the Town of Sewall’s Point at the invitation of Ms Deb Drum, who oversees Martin County’s Ecosystem Restoration & Management Division.
During this call I sent Paul’s photo and map to the ACOE stating concern that if S-308 were opened this possibly toxic algae would head straight into our SRL/IRL.
Then an amazing thing happened..
The ACOE ask the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to test the algae.
Yesterday, Deb Drum from Martin County reported that the testing came back positive as “Microcystis, a toxic blue-green algae.” The county in turn notified the ACOE that the algae exists in that location to document their concern. If the ACOE were to open the locks at S-308, the algae could travel downstream with the water flow into the SLR/IRL. This knowledge could actually make a difference in a decision of the ACOE to open up those structures.
Wow. Thank you Paul!
I have complained before on the ACOE call about toxic algae being released from Lake Okeechobee as the SLR/IRL does not seem to “go toxic” from its local canals, but only when Lake Okeechobee’s waters are unleaded to our shores. Toxic algae has been seen in the area between S-308 and S-80 many times but we need to start documenting this. Documentation is a powerful tool in changing the tide of destruction.
So thank you for your teamwork! Together we can help KEEP THEM CLOSED! The “Gates of Hell” that is…
Subject: Lake Okeechobee, Okeechobee/Glades/Hendry/Palm Beach/Martin Counties: Florida CyanoHAB Tracking Module has received a record update
On August 27, 2014, Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Southeast District staff sampled an algal bloom found in Lake Okeechobee. A single grab sample was collected of surface scum at the Port Myakka Lock (C-44.) Following are the laboratory results for this sample:
Result: Class Toxin potential * The dominant taxon was: Microcystis aeruginosa Class Cyanophyceae yes
Other taxa present: Dolichospermum circinale ** Class Cyanophyceae yes Pseudanabaena sp. Class Cyanophyceae undetermined Eudorina elegans Class Chlorophyceae – Pediastrum simplex Class Chlorophyceae – Glenodinium sp. Class Dinophyceae
* Information based on literature searches and personal communications; information is continually being updated. “Undetermined” refers to specimens for which the lowest practical level of taxonomic identification is genus and some, but not all, species within that genus have the potential to produce toxins or toxin information not available for the identified species but is available for genus level.
Yesterday’s August 3rd, “2nd Annual March Against the Lake Okeechobee Discharges,” was remarkable. One year later, after the toxic releases from Lake Okeechobee, and the putrid discharges from our local canals, the grass-roots momentum has not stopped and is expanding with respectable allies.
Some 1500 people, artists, news agencies, and many politicians (in office or running to be) came with political signs, costumes and with children in tow. They sat in the baking sun and dead air, under one lone oak tree if they could fit, to listen to almost two hours of “educational speakers” and then to march to the locks. I was inspired.
Most jaw dropping for me, was to see the conservative and well spoken Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer, Robert Lord, (http://www.martinhealth.org/executives) for Martin Memorial Health Systems, climb the stairs and pledge the institution’s support for our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and publicly note the institution’s concern for the SLR/IRL’s related health issues.
“Wow.” I thought. “Now this is a turning point. They can’t call us tree huggers anymore…”
I did not write down what Mr Lord said, but I stood there at his feet basically and watched him. I have known the family for my whole life. His father was a famous Country Western singer/later developer Bobby Lord, and I went to school with Cabot, Rob’s younger brother. Rob noted that he is “sixth generation,” and that his family grew up in the area, and that he, as a child, enjoyed our area and these waters. They were wonderful days. He noted his dear family friend Jo Neeson, a river supporter and organizer of the event, and all the fun they had growing up here. He then said something to this effect:
Robert Lord, MHS, 2014.
I am here today to speak on behalf of Martin Memorial Health Systems. We are concerned…We cannot prove that the many health issues- that have taken place- happened because of contact with river water but we can state that all of these people had contact with the water during the discharges….we are concerned. We are concerned for the health of the people and for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. For Martin Memorial, I am here today to say we support the movement for the river…
With such support and honest revelation, how can our state and local agencies such as the Army Corp of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, the Department of Environmental Protection and the State Department of Health ignore our cries?
They can’t. The hiding is over. The years of allowing destruction of our most precious resource, water, is done. The “cat is out of the bag,” “Pandora’s box is open.” Let’s keep talking and keep pushing and give our children a place to fish, swim, boat and see the magic of a dolphin break the waves…
Thank you Martin Memorial Health Systems and the other who will be coming along as well….
Yesterday’s speakers:
– Sierra Club
– Rivers Coalition
– Stonecrab Alliance
– Florida Oceanographic Society
– Indian Riverkeeper
– Maggy Hurchalla
– Fly & Light Tackle Angler
– River Kid
– Treasured Lands Foundation (Land and Legacy, Amendment 1)
– Miccosukees tribe & Love the Everglades Movement
-Jonathan Flick- Pro Surfer
-Brent Mienhold – Pro Surfer
-Jordan Schwartz – Ohana Surf shop owner
– River Kidz
– Save the Manatee
– West Coast Resident
– Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Martin Memorial Hospital Services
-Others
Great passions surround issues of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
Over the past month, I have have been “corrected,” like a middle school child, not only by some friends but by institutions, for my outspoken comments for or against certain politicians or programs affiliated with the Indian River Lagoon. This berating came as a shock to me as I have not “been corrected” since I lived in my parents house and was constantly corrected. I was not good at it then, and I am not good at it now.
When I complained about this recently, my husband Ed just looked at me and laughed saying, “Get used to it, if you want to be involved in politics!”
“I am working for the river, I replied, not politics.”
Ed looked at me like I was in outer space and again laughed that infectious laugh of his.”
“Sure Jacqui…”
Of course Ed is right. Water is politics. And politics can be even more toxic than our St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
This Sunday, August 3, at 10 a.m. , at Phipps Park, (St Lucie Locks and Dam), the River Warriors with the second year leadership of Evan Miller and the help of the Rivers Coalition, the Indian River Keeper, and the Sierra Club, will hold the “March Against the Lake Okeechobee Discharges.”
There will hopefully be hundreds if not thousands of people there. And even though there will be people of many political affiliations, backgrounds, and beliefs, when the “powers that be” see the group together in one place our differences fade and WE ARE ONE. It is this oneness, this togetherness that has brought us from obscurity to state and national recognition for the problems of Lake Okeechobee, the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon in just one short year.
I have an old chest in my living room that came over to the United States in the 1700s. Its owners were French Huguenots who were openly persecuted and killed for their religious beliefs. When I see that chest, I think of its journey across the great ocean and it reminds me that people came to our county for many reasons, but the protections of “free speech” and “freedom of assembly,” to many may have been most important.
May we exercise our American Freedoms with dignity on Sunday and with the protections of the First Amendment of our United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
And please remember, in spite of our differences, or what we believe is the best way to support of our rivers, we are most powerful when WE ARE ONE, and we can still be ONE with our many differences.
__________________________________
History of the First Amendment:(http://illinoisfirstamendmentcenter.com/history.php)
History of the French Huguenots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot)
System Status Update is a presentation slide from the ACOE periodic scientist calls. It shows how much water is going east/west and south, in this slide, from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) to the Everglades.
Today I am going to share an entire 25 piece slide presentation from the Army Corp of Engineers’ Periodic Scientists Call, 7-25-14. It’s a lot of slides, but I think you’ll enjoy trying to interpret them, and I’ll help the best I can. These presentations include a lot of information and show how the ACOE decides how much Lake Okeechobee water is going to go the estuaries, south, to the Everglades, and held, or released, to other places. This information is UNCLASSIFIED so I can share it.
I first was invited to sit in on these calls in 2012, as I was former mayor and continued commissioner, as today, for the Town of Sewall’s Point. I have talked about this before in my blog but I will restate. I felt like a complete idiot for the first six months as the ACOE kind of speaks in their own language. A military language.
Eventually, I started to catch on, and even gained the confidence to comment. Although not a scientist, as an elected official I am allowed to give succinct perspective.
These calls take place approximately every two weeks depending on the circumstances. During the terrible 2013 releases from Lake Okeechobee into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon and the Caloosahatchee, calls took place every week. “Stakeholders” from the lakes south of Orlando to the Everglades participate in these calls. Representatives from agriculture, the state agencies, counties and others are present.
Here is the entire presentation from the last call on July 25, 2014.
In the slides one sees weather outlooks; inflows/outflows (west, east, south) from Lake Okeechobee and/or the southern flow of water from the EAA or Storm Water Treatment Areas into the Water Conservation Areas and Everglades; position/historical analysis of water levels in the lake; Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS) guidance for releases; estuary salinities; basin and lake runoff/releases into the estuaries; ongoing emergency storage of water…
In all honesty, it’s a lot for me. I mostly pay attention to the level of Lake Okeechobee and how much they may or may not decide to release into the St Lucie River/IRL. Here the LORS guidance said they could release 1170 cfs cubic feet per second into the SLR/IRL but the ACOE chose not to. Yes, many times the ACOE actually cuts us a break. But when the lake is really high, over 15 feet or so, there is no break.
I also pay more attention to how much water is going south, as this would help alleviate our situation. It appears to me that usually the water “going south” is from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), not from the lake, as in this presentation, the canals just south of the lake are not noted or say “0.” Understandably, the agriculture people like to hold the water in the lake, in case a drought comes, as they need water for their crops.
I will never interpret these calls like a scientist and some the scientist may cringe when I make my non-scientific statements. But that’s OK. I am “trying.”
I think the ACOE and shared South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) slides have gotten better and show more information than when I first started attending. I think they know the people and some politicians of Martin and St Lucie Counties, really all over the state now, are watching like hawks and demanding more disclosure and transparency in how the ACOE and SFWMD decide to manage Lake Okeechobee and surrounding areas.
I do hope you find this information interesting and not overwhelming. You can find some of it on the ACOE Facebook page (Jacksonville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) or on their website (http://www.saj.usace.army.mil).
Personally, I still find the info for the SLR/IRL hard to find. I wish the ACOE would devote a special area on their website to us like the SRWMD has because the more we as citizens can easily learn and pay attention, the better chance we have, one day, for a healthier St Lucie River Indian River Lagoon for our children.
South Florida Developer headline 1931, “Locks in Canal Closed; Fishing to be Benefited. (Newspaper courtesy of historian Sandra Thurlow.)Written minutes from a Martin County Commission meeting in 1931 asking the state to close the locks, mentioning destruction to the river, and the importance to fishing industry. (Photo Martin County archives.)
The St Lucie Canal connecting Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie River was constructed at the request of the state of Florida, the US Federal Government, and the local Martin County Chamber of Commerce, by the Army Corp of Engineers from 1915-1928. As this antique newspaper article of the Florida Developer above shows, by 1931 the Martin County Commission was already asking the state of Florida to close the gates and reporting clear evidence of the destruction of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
I must thank my mother, historian Sandra Thurlow, for sharing this information and the photos in this post. She transcribed the 1931 article from the Florida Developer, a Stuart paper of the era. It reads:
South Florida Developer, November 6,
1931, LOCKS IN CANAL CLOSED; FISHING TO BE BENEFITED
Job of Checking Water Movement Was Completed Saturday TO KILL HYACINTHS; Fishermen Look For Decidedly Good Fishing the Winter
The east locks of the St Lucie Canal were closed Saturday, after being open nearly two years. In that time the level of Lake Okeechobee has been reduced from 18 to 14 feet.
The work of closing the locks began Friday morning under the direction of engineers for the Okeechobee Flood Control District. When they finished the job Saturday night, water continued to pour over the dam about as fast as before, in spite of the fact that the level of the canal had been raised 7 feet.
This morning the crew went to the west end of the St Lucie Canal to close the locks there and thus check the flow of water from the Lake.
The closing of these locks is regarded as highly important to the people of Stuart and adjacent communities, primarily because as long as they remain open, the ingress of water from the Lake made the St. Lucie River fresh, driving out the salt water fish and bringing in hyacinths. With the water cut off from the Lake, it is expected that the St Lucie River will again become salt and this should bring back the fish and kill the hyacinths. Fisherman say it will take about 30 days for the effects of the is change in water to be felt, but they are exultant that this change had come about in time to promote good fishing in local waters.
The minutes from the Martin County Commission meeting in 1931 also shown above are a bit harsher. The minutes state:
Be it resolved that the Board of County Commissioners herby instruct the Clerk to write the Trustee of the Internal Improvement Fund petitioning that they closed the gates at the Lake end of the St Lucie Canal until April 15, 1931, for the reason that the constant discharge of a large volume of dirty fresh water into the St Lucie River has killed all the shell-fish, driven out salt water fish from the river, filled the river with hyacinth and polluted the St Lucie River as to completely take away its attractive features and ruin its commercial value to our community.
According to local Everglades SLR/IRL expert, Dr Gary Goforth, (http://garygoforth.net/resume.htm), 1931 was the first year the amount of water released from Lake Okeechobee in to the St Lucie River was documented. Although there is no documentation of the releases that occurred prior to 1931, in 1931 it is documented that 1,414,414 acre feet of water was released from the lake into the river. This is over three times as much as was released into the SLR from Lake Okeechobee in 2013, (419,951 acre feet.)
The historic photos below document and show local people taking the water hyacinth issue into their own hands.
Downtown Stuart in 1931 showing over abundance of water hyacinth in SLR.(Thurlow collection.)South Fork of the St Lucie River, hyacinth removal, Rod and Gun Club-effort to solve problem with herbicide and dynamite, 1949.( Thurlow collection.)SLR filled with hyacinth, near Treasure Island. (Thurlow collection.)
On August 3rd at 10AM the people of Martin and St Lucie counties, on behalf of their government, will ask one more time for the state to close the gates from Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
As we have seen this summer, we have enough problems with our own local runoff that has been expanded since 1931 to include the building of C-23, C-24 and C-25 as well as the widening and deepening of C-44 for its enlarged “local” runoff. Things must change, we have known this for a very long time. Finally there are enough of us to make a difference.
Hope to see you at the rally and may the state and federal government know that we will never stop asking, some would say demanding, that the ACOE, through the federal government and the state of Florida “close the gates!”
West of the red line shows the edge of what was once the Everglades in South Florida. Development has crept and continues to creep over this edge. (Photo/map courtesy of Chappy Young,/GCY Inc. Surveyors, 2014.)
We in Martin and St Lucie Counties make up what is referred to as the “Northern Everglades.” Before the Army Corp of Engineers, (ACOE), changed the course of Lake Okeechobee’s waters in the 1920s and directed it to go east and west through canals to the estuaries, Lake Okeechobee’s water would slowly crest over the southern edge of the lake and flow south. For many, myself included, the long term goal of saving our St Lucie/IRL and Caloosahatchee estuaries includes recreating a type of “flow way, or floodway south” to Everglades National Park. The parched park needs our water just as Nature intended.
There are many challenges to this scenario but the most visual are the following.
The first is the Everglades Agricultural Area, (EAA), 700,000 acres located just south of the lake; the second is east coast development that has crept in over the years “into the Everglades.”
The red colored blocks south of Lake O. are the EAA,700,000 acres of sugar lands, vegetables, small historic agricultural communities, and infrastructure. South of the EAA are the water conservation areas in purple and green. (SFWMD map, 2012.)The red line surrounding Lake O. shows the Everglades wetlands that historically filtered the water before it got to Florida Bay. As we can see humankind has “filled in” a lot of this. (SFWMD map, 2012.)
I have written before about the “seepage barrier” an underground permeable wall that runs along the east coast to keep the water out of these developed areas through pumps that send the seeping water back inside the Everglades. Crazy. If needed, the EAA also pumps its ground water and surface water off its lands to keep the level as needed for the crops. They are assisted by the SFWMD. This is a historic relationship. It is how our state was “built.”
This satellite photo shows in blue the water on lands in 2005. One can see the lands in the EAA just south of the lake are devoid of water. This water has been pumped off the lands into the water conservation areas, sometimes back pumped into the lake, and also stored in other canals. The water would flood the crops if it were on the lands. (2004-2005 SFWMD aerial photography.)
The above photo shows the EAA dry while surrounding lands are wet.
I really do not have an answer of how to build a flow way through all this agriculture, infrastructure, and development as I am not a scientist. But I have not given up the idea. I have faith one day there will not be another choice.
What I confidently can say is that we all know water is valuable, “the new oil.” Water issues whether they be pollution or the need for water usage in a growing state demand attention and we know with the future coming we should not build anything else inside those red lines. No port, no windmill farms, no more development, no more agriculture.
FWC map for 2060 projected population growth, state of Florida, 2011.
If the the Florida Wildlife Commission’s map is right and Florida’s population in 2060 is around 36 million, (today it is 19 million), we are going to need more fresh water. Also if we are to save the northern estuaries and the Everglades so our children have some semblance of what the planet once was, we must redirect more water to go to where it once did, south.
Let’s draw a new line for water. A line that clearly shows we know its value not just to agriculture and development, but to the environment, and the children of the future.
An antique post card reads, “A Native of Florida,” ca. 1910. (Thurlow collection.)
I have always liked alligators. I have been around them as long as I can remember in one way or another. When I was a kid and we would go water skiing near North River Shores close to the North Fork of the St Lucie River, we would see small ones leisurely resting in storm pipes coming out of people’s seawalls; in my household everyone was always cheering for them as my grandfather Henderson, my parents, and later myself and brother also graduated from University of Florida. Jenny my sister is a traitor and went to Emory. 🙂
My parents have an awesome collection of alligator postcards that I will share today, and I figured now is a good time to write about gators as their babies should be hatching soon in nests along the fresh and some brackish areas of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. The females lay their eggs in early June and the little ones hatch out about 65 days later.
“Crocodilla” fossil records show alligators have been on the earth for more than 200 million years. That’s pretty amazing in and of itself. But they have had many hardships.
According to Sandra Thurlow’s history writings on our Treasure Coast, when many of the first pioneers came to Florida and took river tours, they often just shot as many as they could “for fun.” This went for egrets and herons too. Sorry. But what a bunch of idiots. I know, I must be open minded and look at things “historically” within the context of the times….kind of like how people drained the whole state with out thinking…
As far as alligators, more recently, hunting, poaching, the fashion industry, pollution, and loss of habitat pushed the Florida alligator to the brink of extinction by the 1950s. In 1967 the US government listed alligators as an endangered species and gave them protection. In one of the great comebacks of the “endangered,” alligators were increasing in numbers by the 1980s. They still have protections today, but are off the “endangered” list.
Here are some of the antique postcards from my parents’ collection.
Alligator post card collection ca,. 1910-20 (Thurlow collection.)
Recently, a friend called me up and asked if there was someone who could move a small alligator on her property in Palm City. I called trappers recommended to me, and each of them said by law, if the alligator was reported as a “nuisance” and was over four feet, it would be removed and killed, not relocated.
I found this depressing but this is how the state manages the “nuisance gators.” Apparently they may be used for their leather and meat keeping the population in check. Hmmm? The trapper also said, “If you don’t want it killed, just leave it alone, chances are it will move in time to another area.” This makes sense to me.
According to a Stuart News article by Ed Killer in 2010, in the state of Florida, the Florida Wildlife Commission from 1948 to 2009 documented that there were a total of 512 allligator bites; unprovoked: 330; provoked, 182; fatalities, 22. There have been two deaths in our Martin/St Lucie area. In 1978 a 14 year old boy was killed while swimming across Hidden River Canal off Bessey Creek and in 1984 an 11 year old boy was killed while swimming in a canal in St Lucie County. The alligators were 11-12 feet long.
This is terrible and heartbreaking. Like sharks, alligators share our environment are dangerous when large; we must be careful in their presence.
To end on a more positive note, in my reading I learned alligators have been noted using tools, like humans, a trait that belongs only to a few “intelligent” species. Yes. Alligators have been documented purposefully diving under the water putting sticks on their heads so water birds will land on them when looking for sticks to build their nests. Ingenious!
Maybe if we destroy the Indian River Lagoon and St Lucie River completely, along with the rest of the planet, they will return walking on two legs? Perhaps they would manage the waters of South Florida a lot better than humans…
Caulkins Grove off of Citrus Blvd. in Martin County is a pilot project of the SFWMD for water farming. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch 7-18-14.)
On Friday, July 18th, Dr Gary Goforth (http://garygoforth.net/resume.htm) and I met at Indian River State College just after noon. I jumped in his truck, wearing my dress and heels, and we drove the back roads to find our destination. Our destination was long time Martin grove, Caulkins Citrus, located off Citrus Boulvard, near Indiantown, adjacent to the C-44 canal which of course connects to the St Lucie River/IRL and to Lake Okeechobee.
Kevin Powers, of the South Florida Water Management District governing board, longtime Martin County resident, and family friend, had invited Gary and I to see a pilot project of “water farming.” Water farming is idea that has been in the works for the past few years and is now finding its reality. If it works, thousands of acre feet of polluted water along the C-44 canal, in this case, will not find its way to the St Lucie River/ Indian River Lagoon. Farmers are paid for this service and their lands are not sold to development.
How could this be? Farmers “growing” water?
First we have to go back a bit.
In a Stuart News article dated April of 2013, Doug Bournique, executive vice president of the Indian River Citrus League, is interviewed by reporter Paul Ivice. Ivice writes:
“Diseases, (greening and canker), hurricanes and urban expansion have all cut into Florida’s citrus acreage which is down 38% from 1996…Nowhere in Florida has acreage fallen as sharply as in Martin County. It has less than 15% remaining of the 48,221 acres in production in 1994. The county has suffered the greatest loss for four consecutive years and and been declining sine 1994.”
A diseased citrus tree stands in what was once a thriving orange grove, Caulkins Citrus. (Photo JTL.)
As the citrus industry is dying, so is our economy. While farmers figure out what else they can grown on their land, the idea for some farmers to hold precious fresh, all be it polluted, waters on their lands came into being. This helps the river and it helps the farmers and it helps our local economy. Boyd Gunsalus, among other scientist at the SFWMD, has worked long and hard for the past many years on this concept.
Caulkins Citrus is in a prime location and were one of the farms that competed for a bid to try out the new technology and receive a DEP/SFWMD grant.
An example from Google Maps showing C-44’s close proximity to Citrus Blvd. Hwy. 76 is south of canal and Citrus is north.
When Gary and I arrived we were met by Tom Kenny, Kevin Powers, and Ronnie Hataway. After introductions, they explained to us how the “farm”operated, how it was created, their hopes for the future, and gave us a walking and driving tour. It was pretty amazing if not surreal. Egrets and herons perched in the dying orange trees surrounded by water. A deer track was at my feet. Water was everywhere and from what I was told could one day go to the horizon.
Although Gary and I had been somewhat skeptical, we left feeling very hopeful and impressed.
So how did they create it?
Basically the grove is fallow due to poor health, and although the farm is much larger, (thousands of acres) a berm was constructed around a few hundred acres of the grove for the pilot study. Then water was/is pumped from the C-44 canal into the old grove. The berm holds the water inside.
The water can go as high as four feet but according to Mr Kenny it is percolating so well through the soft sandy soils that basically the pump can stay on all the time. The nitrogen and phosphorus and other pollutants are cleaned and eaten by healthy bacteria as the water filters through the earth.
The pilot’s long term goal is to hold 6600 acre feet of water but things are looking like they will be able to hold more. The water is slowly filtered into the water table replenishing the aquifer about 40 feet below. Caulkins is installing a number of apparatuses that they call “wells” that will read where the water is going and what is happening underground. If things work out, Caulkin’s acreage to hold water will be expanded.
Various photos of the SFWMD pilot water farming project at Caulkins Grove: fallow orange groves surrounded by berm, pumps bringing in water from C-44 canal right next door, sandy soil, and deer track.
Although this is wonderful, we must note that it would take many water farms to offset the water flowing into the SLR/IRL.
Dr Goforth states in a recent writing: “For the 34 days between June 13 and July 17, approximately 51,000 acre feet of C-44 runoff was sent to the St Lucie River…”
With that in mind, if a water farm similar to Caulkins could hold 10,000 acre feet, we would need five just to hold the water that has come in this summer SO FAR from C-44 basin runoff. Of course in time, 2020 maybe, the C-44 Storm Water Treatment and Reservoir and Storm Water Treatment Area will be one line, and hopefully working, and that is said to hold about 56,000 acre feet. (http://www.tmba.tv/broadcastanimation/everglades-restoration/everglades-restoration/)
In the end, really though, no one knows how much water can be held until these projects are working. Hopefully all of them, like Caulkins Grove seems to be so far, will exceed expectations.
As we tied up our tour, shook hands and left the property Mr Hataway said, “I have been telling them for years to keep this fresh water on the land….”
Mr Kenny noted, “The goal is to have less water going into the river and out the inlet…”
It is an ironic twist of fate. We worked for 100 years to drain the lands so we could grow agriculture. Now we are trying to keep the water on the land for the health of the river, because fresh water is extremely valuable, and because the citrus industry needs a new crop.
Words such as these about “keeping the water on the land,” especially from successful agriculturally minded businessmen, are an inspiration to me, and give hope for a better water future.
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After the fact, I am including this 2 page summary provided to me by the SFWMD when I asked about costs on behalf of blog reader George Gill. Click to enlarge.
Aerial of the confluence of the SLR/IRL off of Sewall’s Point, June 27th, 2014. (Photo courtesy of Scott Kuhns.)
If there is one thing constant about the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon’s problems, it is that they are multi-layered and complex. I believe this is one reason it has been so hard to “fix.” If there were just one problem, it would be easier, but there is not one problem, there are many.
So, today I wanted to focus on C-44 basin runoff, again, as it has been in the news a lot, especially the two weeks since I was gone as I heard it really rained and we even got our first named hurricane.
The photo above shows the waters just off of the tip of Sewall’s Point on June 27th, 2014. Disgusting.
Basin map Martin/St Lucie SLR.
The basin map above reminds us of the C-44 basin’s location in southern Martin County. The “basin” is the large area surrounding the C-44 canal in black lines. As we know, this area is largely agricultural and was expanded over the years to drain more land than nature intended.
Through permits with the South Florida Water Management District the agricultural businesses are allowed to use water from the C-44 canal for irrigation when needed, especially during the “dry” season. The Army Corps of Engineers manages the level of the canal mostly for agricultural use; this is an historic relationship. In spite of “best management practices” much of the water used to irrigate their fields, runs back into the canal, over and over again, filled with fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc…This is the untreated, polluted water that goes straight into our rivers.
As we can see looking at the canal map, over the years, the C-44 basin has become tremendous in size in order to drain land for agriculture and development. Millions of gallons of water come off these lands when it rains, as has been the case the past couple of weeks.
This recent photo below by local river activist and fishing guide, Michael Conner, shows what the C-44 basin water looks like when it comes out of the S-80 gates at St Lucie Locks and Dam, the same gates that are used when water is released from Lake Okeechobee when the ACOE opens S-308 at the lake. This can be confusing because usually we associate this type of photo with releases from Lake Okeechobee. S-80 can release just C-44 canal water or “just lake water,” or both lake and C-44 water…
Releases from S-80 from the C-44 canal at St Lucie Locks and Dam, July 2014. (Photo courtesy of Michael Connor.)
So why haven’t we talked about the C-44 basin until this summer, or seen or very much about it in the newspaper “before?”
Well, it is confusing to the lay person, and I don’t claim to know everything, but I will explain what I can.
Generally, in the past, the ACOE did not usually release the C-44 into the river during the summer…but this summer they are. Why?
Well according the the “Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the 2008 Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS),” the document the ACOE uses to manage Lake Okeechobee:
“All alternatives assume back flow from the St Lucie Canal, C-44, to Lake Okeechobee to be allowed to occur at lake stages of 14.50 ft or 0.25 from the bottom of the the lowest non-baseflow regulatory zone, whichever is lower.”
Basically this means that under most circumstances if the lake is under 14.5 feet, which it is now, (13.38), the ACOE will “back flow” C-44 canal runoff water into the lake through S-308, rather than sending it east to the SLR/IRL through S-80. This summer the ACOE has chosen not to do this, so we are getting C-44 basin water released into the SLR/IRL so the water looks gross. In the ACOE’s July 11th, 2014, public periodic scientist call email statement, explaining their choices, it reads:
“The Water Control Plan deliberately allow some flexibility to consider real time and forecasted conditions and decisions made within the guidance provided by the Water Control Plan…for the specific decision not to flow water from the C-44 basin into Lake Okechobee since 12 June 2014, the conditions that we took into consideration were rising lake levels, water supply, remaining duration of the wet season and proximity to the low sub band….the 8 July report from the South Florida Water Management District evaluates the condition of St Lucie Estuary and states “salinity at US1 is within the preferred range for oysters in the mid estuary.”
Photo of SLR/IRL off Sewall’s Point yesterday, 7-15-14. (Thank you Ed Lippisch)
Hmmm? Obviously the SFWMD’s salinity report was not that of Mark Perry’s at Florida Oceanographic…Let’s read and take a look.
Mark Perry feels the ACOE should be back flowing the C-44 water into the lake. He says:
“According to the Water Control Plan for the Lake the Corps should be opening S-308 and back flowing this local basin runoff into the lake when the lake is below 14 feet and the C-44 is above 14.5 feet but they have chosen to make steady releases from the C-44 basin through S-80 into the St Lucie at near 1000 cfs since June 14. Not so good outlook for the St Lucie Oysters…”
Please view his chart below that shows what has happened to salinity levels since the C-44 has been flowing into the SLR/IRL. (Mind you C-23, and C-24 are also dumping their basin runoff water, but C-44’s basin area is larger.)
Salinity is going below safe levels for oysters since the C-44 basin at S-80 has been opened.
On the other hand, friend of Mark Perry, Kevin Henderson, long time advocate for the SLR/IRL and founding member of the St Lucie River Initiative, feels the ACOE is perhaps trying a strategy that will help the St Lucie in the “future.” Kevin states:
“I firmly disagree that the Corps should always run C-44 drainage west until the Lake reaches 14.5. That is the pattern that gets us the most continuous lake and C-44 drainage into the fall, and the the patten that kills oysters…It is not basin runoff that kills the estuary, it’s months of continuous discharges at rates that never let salinity recover. This is why I advocate sending C-44 drainage west only when local salinity could recover for a while, then send it east again and do not let Lake O get high enough to wreck us with longer term discharges…”
I think he’s saying, the ACOE, by not consistantly filling the lake up with C-44 basin water during summer, may be avoiding long term runoff into the SRL/ILR in the future come fall…
Hmmm?
Both Mark and Kevin have a point.
My non-scientific perspective?
I think the ACOE was so taken aback by the wrath of the general public last year, the River Warriors, the River Kidz, the River Movement, the Stuart News/media, as well as some politicians, that they will do “almost anything” not to release water from Lake Okeechobee into the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon if they don’t have to.
By letting the C-44 basin water go into the river and not the lake, if a hurricane comes, there is just that much more room in the lake to hold the water so they don’t have to dump here and listen to us scream….
Fresh water releases from basin runoff through local canals C-23, C-24, and C-44 as well as polluted fresh water from releases from Lake Okeechobee through C-44, cover near shore reefs off of Stuart and Jupiter Island. (Photo MC archives, 2011.)
The concept that fresh water is a “pollutant” is sometimes confusing as we typically associate pollution with heavy metals, nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen from fertilizer, and muck accumulation, on the bottom of the river, from sediments running off of lands, through canals. Believe it or not, too much fresh water is just as polluting and has dire consequences for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
This is historically ironic as well, as when the Ais Indians lived in this area, the St Lucie River was a large fresh water “stream.” Throughout history, most of the time, the “St Lucie,” was not connected to the ocean. The natural inlet at what was later called “Gilbert’s Bar” by the Spanish was sometimes open, sometimes not, but never for too long, and the inlet opening was much smaller and shallower than today’s St Lucie Inlet.
Yes, we are going back, before we go forward, but history is important to know!
The “St Lucie Inlet” was permanently opened by hand using shovels, in 1892, by local pioneers who wanted access to the ocean for trade and communication. They had no idea that by doing this they would create “the most bio-diverse estuary in North America.”
As the salt water came in and mixed with the fresh water of the St Lucie and the “fresher than today’s water” of the Indian River Lagoon, one ecosystem, a freshwater ecosystem was destroyed by the salt, and another was born.
Over time, more fish and critters entered the St Lucie/ Southern Indian River Lagoon than at any other time in known history. The forks of the St Lucie, north and especially north, remained more “fresh” as the salt water usually did not go up that high into those areas. Perfect! Salt and fresh water fishing! It was a unique situation and as mentioned in the day before yesterday’s blog, presidents and other famous people swarmed to the St Lucie for its amazing fishing during this era, and all enjoyed.
Then things changed. In the late 1920s and early 30s, due to flooding of agricultural lands and bad hurricanes killing people living and working in the southern area surrounding the lake, the Army Corp built the C-44 canal from Lake Okeechobee to the south fork of the St Lucie River. Then in the 50s and 60s they built canals C-23 and C-24 as part of the Central and South Florida Flood System, another “flood protection project.” Although all of these drainage programs helped agriculture, especially the sugar industry south of the lake, and citrus, in mostly St Lucie and parts of Okeechobee counties, as well as greedy developers, it did not help the St Lucie River. In fact, these drainage canals have been slowly killing the St Lucie and Indian River Lagoon ever since.
How?
Through many things, but believe it or not, mostly through fresh water.
Once the estuary (St Lucie/IRL) became brackish, a mixture of fresh and salt water, this delicate balance was important to the fish, mammals and others critters that made the river/lagoon their home in this new found paradise.
Briefly, I will summarize some of the killer effects of fresh water on its residents:
1. Fish: When there is too much fresh water the fish get lesions. This is from a fungus that only can live and operate in a fresh environment. The name of the fungus is Aphanomycesinvadans and its spores get into fish skin when temperatures are low and water is fresh causing horrible lesions. More lesions have been reported over time in the St Lucie River that any other site in Florida according to the FDEP report at the end of this blog. The worst outbreak was in 1998 after the ACOE had been releasing fresh water from Lake Okeechobee in the winter months due to heavy rains. Thousands of fisherman were reporting fish with lesions; it is well accepted in the literature of our state agencies that this outbreak was connected to the gigantic releases of fresh water from Lake O.
Striped mullet with lesions. St Lucie River, 1998. (Photo, DEP State of Florida.)
2. Bottle nosed dolphins: Dr Gregory Bossert formerly, of Harbor Branch, has done extensive research into lobo-mycosis, an awful skin disease, in dolphins of the SLR/IRL. The highest number of dolphins with lobo in the entire 156 mile Indian River Lagoon system from Jupiter to New Smyrna Beach, are in the Stuart to Sebastian area. Dr Bossert’s 2009-20014 “Application for a Scientific Research Permit” to NOAA states on page 59:
“Water quality in the central and southern segments of the lagoon, is influenced by infusion of water from flood control drainage canals, e.g., in particular, run-off form agricultural watersheds and fresh water releases from Lake Okeechobee. (Sime, 2005.) Discharges from these sources introduce higher amounts of nutrients, metals, pesticides and suspended solids into the system (Woodward-Clyde, 1994). Analysis of spatial distribution of presumptive cases showed that the highs rates occurred in the IRL segments 3 and 4 confirming our earlier observations.” (Mazzoil, 2003/Rief, 2006).”
(Sections 3 and 4 are the “south central” and “south” IRL/SLR-from-south of Sebastian Inlet, to Stuart’s St Lucie Inlet. IRL dolphins are “site specific” staying usually in a 30 mile range. The St Lucie River is considered part of the southern IRL.)
S. Indian River Lagoon Dolphin with lobo mycosis. (Photo Dr Gregory Bossert.)
3. Seagrasses: Seagrasses are the basis of health for the entire SRL/IRL. Seagrasses that live in an “estuary” need sunlight and brackish (part salt/part fresh) water to survive. among other problems, the fresh water releases cause turbidity in the water so the grasses can’t get light and they die. Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic states that during the Lake Okeechobee and canal releases from 2013, that lasted five months, up to 85 percent of the seagrasses died around the St Lucie Inlet. All nursery fishes are affected by this and of course it goes right up the food chain. Manatees, an endangered species, that live exclusively off of seagrasses, are very affected and reduced to eating drift algae that in some cases kills them. Dolphins are swimming around saying: “Where are the fish?!”
Unhealthy looking seagrasses coated in algae as seen 6-14 near St Lucie Inlet at low tide. (Aerial photo, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch)
4. Near shore reefs: The reef system in our area is the northern most of a tropical reef system that goes all the way south to the Keys. It cannot survive with fresh water dumping sediment on its delicate system and altering the salinity of the St Lucie Inlet. Insaine. These reefs are supposedly “protected.”
Freshwater pollution and near shore reef, St Lucie Inlet. (MC archives, 2011.)
I could go on and on, but I will stop here. I’m sure you get the point. Salinity is a delicate and important part of a healthy estuary. Generally short lived fresh water releases during heavy rains by our local canals are bad enough, but long term dumping of Lake Okeechobee releases on top of that, is certain death. It must stop. Send the water south.
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(NOTE: The links below were removed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in 2016. When I called and asked why, I was told they were archiving…JTL)
The St Lucie River basin/drainage map 2013, SFWMD.
For thousands of years, before the intervention of modern man, the Ais Indians walked the banks of a large fresh water “stream,” that flowed to the Indian River Lagoon. When the Seminoles came years later, they called it Halipatiokee, Alligator Water, as it was fresh and full of gators. The Spaniards came in the 1500s, on and off for centuries. They first called the river, Rio de Santa Cruz, river of the Holy Cross, as the river is cross-like. Later, they re-christened the river Rio De Luz , river of light, for the lighting on the water is heavenly. Eventually, the Spanish called the river, Santa Lucea. The English then taking over, “anglicized” the name Santa Lucea, to what we know today, as “St Lucie,” the church’s saint of the blind, and of “vision.”
1883 Geodetic Survey, Indian River Florida, St Lucie River.
Unfortunately, there was not much long-term vision when the watersheds around the St Lucie were altered by modern man. In 1892 area pioneers cut a permanent inlet from the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon to the Atlantic Ocean, killing the native fresh water grasses that supported an entire ecosystem. Nonetheless, they created something wonderful, the brackish estuary we all know today. This area, over the years, before its recent destruction, became one of the most bio diverse estuaries in North America.
That wasn’t enough, the local people and the state, with the help of the federal government’s Army Corp of Engineers, decided they wanted a connection to Lake Okeechobee for trade, travel, agriculture and the convenience of keeping the big lake of Okeechobee, “low.” So they built the C-44 canal connecting Lake Okeechobee to to the St Lucie “River.” In high water times, the overflow from the lake was directed into the St Lucie River as it is today. Later, around the late 1950s the people decided they wanted more drained land for orange groves and development in the north, and less flooding, so they got the state and federal government to build the C-23, C-24 canals in Martin and St Lucie counties, draining some areas that had never flown south before. These canals even drained lands out west, in what is now Okeechobee County, and in the north, known today as the City of Port St Lucie.
Did the people building these canals ever think about the effects on the Saint Lucie River? This seems doubtful. And so today, we have a river system that takes on much more water than it was ever meant to receive.
As Ernie Lyons, the former great environmentalist and editor of the Stuart News wrote in the 1960s about the loss of the headwaters of the South Fork of the St Lucie River during his lifetime:
“…The drainers got to work on the marshes. The cypress bordered ponds became white sand in the dry times. A ditch through them gushed silted floods during the heavy rains. The little stream was ruined. It turned from paradise to paradise lost…”
Not until really the 1970s did humankind start to reflect and realize that we literally were killling paradise, and we have been trying to revive the spirit of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon ever since.
With out a doubt, the spirit of the saint still lives in the St Lucie River; her ancient story is that she lost her eyes to give the people their own “to see .” When you drive over the bridge and look at her, the beautiful St Lucie, open your eyes and ask her to give us all, “better vision.”
Florida League of Cities, 2014. (Photo FLC/Negron)
Senator Joe Negron, Senate Appropriations Chair, and leader of the “Senate Hearing on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee,” brought home more money for the IRL compared to any other water body in the state: $231,998,021. Our springs comrades who have been publicly fighting ten years longer than us, brought home 30 million. Tallahassee is wondering who this new kid on the block is, us….
Whether you are a fan or not, it must be noted that Senator Negron stuck his neck out, possibly compromising his senate presidency, to get our “name on the map” as far as Tallahassee goes. Prior to last year, most “good ‘ol boys in Tallahassee would have said, “Indian River Lagoon…Hmmmm? Creature of the Indian Lagoon, ain’t that a movie?”
Nonetheless, I do not pretend to think that these monies alone will cure the lagoon’s ills, as the gorilla in the room has not been addressed “head on and in its entirety:” the releases from Lake Okeechobee through S-308 and S-80. I believe this will come in time if we keep fighting.
In my opinion, the biggest part of change is the first step. With the outrage of the public over the “Lost Summer’s” toxic St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, and the support of Senator Negron, one of the few people in a the legislature with the seniority and status to act somewhat independently of demanding party pressures to conform, we have taken the first step forward to fixing the lagoon. Actually, a leap.
WE MUST CONTINUE, YES! But let’s be happy that we have made public progress on a state level more than ever before, and let’s look at what we received, as we should be aware of the gift of public monies from people all over our great state and be full of gratitude.
It’s a lot to go over, but it is important, so I will simply go down the list and summarize. Let’s look at the map as well. Please remember the SLR/IRL is part of the greater Everglades system, from the Kissimmee River area in Orlando, south to the Tamiami Trail in Dade, and beyond to Florida Bay. So anything done to help “the system,” helps us move water south, and with our health as well.
IRL/L.O. Fascility and Infrastructure Location Map Index, 2014. (Senator Negron’s Office)Key to stars/locations on map.
Here we go!
1. $32,000,000 for Water Quality storage in Storm Water Treatment Area 1 in Palm Beach County. Water storage is key to stop releasing so much into the estuaries.
2. $3,000,000 for Best Management Practices (BMPs) for farmers in the St Lucie, Lake O, and Caloosahatee watersheds. It is difficult to swallow more public money going to help farmers with pollution runoff, but there is no other way to do this. We must continue to help fund them, big or small. This is a historical issue as they have been here since the 1800s in many cases. I look at it like “grandfathering” with an extra requirement, as in real estate. The good news is that as time goes on, agriculture businesses will have higher standards to avoid pollution fertilizer, pesticides and fungicide runoff that is killing our waterbodies. Hopefully we can make changes before the rivers and springs die off completely.
3. $40,000,00 for the C-44 Storm Water Treatment Area/reservoir in Martin County. This will offset local drainage farm and urban runoff along the C-44 canal, not water from Lake Okeechobee. We must clean our local runoff as well as it is responsible for around 50% of the destruction to our estuary and on an everyday basis.
4. $2,000,000 CERP Picayune Strand east of Naples in Collier County. This area is important to the southern glades and needs monitoring and vegetative management for water flow and storage and improvement. Hopefully it will help some panthers too!
5. $5,000,000 C-111 South Dade. This is a crucial water delivery system to allow more water to “go south.” A must.
6. $5,000,000 Kissimmee River Restoration. The all time worst thing ever done in Florida other than dike Lake O and redirect the water to the estuaries, was to straighten the Kissimmee River. (Hold my tongue!) Restoration of the ox bows must continue. So far the ACOE has restored about 22 miles of the 56 miles of what was once 153 miles of gorgeous serpentine like, vegetative, wildlife filled, cleansing waters.
7. $18,000,000 C-43 STA along Caloosahatchee River. This is the equivalent of C-44 STA/reservoir for the Caloosahatchee. Only fair. C-43 is a must. They take up to three times the polluted runoff from Lake Okeechobee that we do!
8. $20,000,000 IRL muck removal in northern lagoon. The northern IRL has lost 60% of their seagrasses and has 2 Unexplained Mortality Events including manatee, dolphin, and pelican die offs. Give them what they need! Sediment/muck fills the lagoon over the years from canal runoff covering seagrasses; when stirred up, it releases legacy pollution. GET THE MUCK OUT!
9. $2,075,000 Lake Worth Lagoon. Lake Worth does not get the attention it needs being in development happy Palm Beach County. This area was once full of sea grass and life but not after years of receiving dump water from Lake O, like us, but through a different canal. Local advocate, Lee Shepard, is a great advocate for this part of the lagoon. Let’s help!
10. $4,000,000 Water Quality research for Harbor Branch and ORCA. Although it is hard to justify “more tests,” as we can all see the lagoon is dying, these new, scientific studies will help us find sources to our pollution issues that the legislature can’t ignore. Septic leakage, especially, is difficult to trace without such systems. LOBOS and Kilroys, please help us!
11. $1,000,000 Oyster recovery programs for St Lucie and Caloosahatchee Rivers. Millions of dollars worth of oysters, natural and deployed by government programs, died during the fresh water discharges of 2013 and years before. One oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. Government in action….
12. $90,000,000 NUMBER ONE NECESSITY is raising the Tamiami Trail in Dade County so water is not blocked off from going south. They should raise the whole road as the road built in the 1920s cuts off the flow of water south to the Everglades for the entire state. (Another environmental nightmare to fix.)
13, $2,7769,585 This money will be used for pump improvements etc to move more water south and cut away vegetation blocking water “going south,” or hold water in the C-43/44 reservoirs that would go into the estuaries.
14. $2,076,728 The Loxahatchee is one of two “Wild & Scenic Rivers” in the state of Florida and home to tremendous amounts of wildlife. Helping with storm water runoff and preservation is key for the health of this important part of the Everglades System.
15. $2,076,718 The St Lucie Rivers Issues Team has a long history of working with local governments for “close to home” projects along the SLR/IRL. Kathy LaMartina at its helm, South Florida Water Management District. Thank you!
Grand total= $231,998,021
I am grateful to the state legislature, especially Senator Negron, and I must note Governor Scott did not veto one line. But please know everyone, the “fight for right” along the Indian River Lagoon has just begun!
This chart shows that even though more Storm Water Treatment Areas (STAs) came on line (red) in 2004, actually less water is “going south,” (blue). Why? (Chart by engineer, Dr. Gary Gorforth, formerly of the SFWMD, 2014.)
The first time I saw Gary Goforth speak (http://garygoforth.net/services.htm) at Senator Joe Negron’s Senate Hearing on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee in 2013, I was very impressed. He was sitting next to Karl Wickstrom, the founder of Florida Sportsman Magazine, who I sit with on the Rivers Coalition Defense Fund. I knew if Dr Goforth had Karl’s “blessing” he belonged to an elite group of people in the River Movement, as Karl, who I love, is understandably critical of everyone.
I came to learn that this accomplished and well spoken man, had worked at the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) as a Ph.D. engineer, most of his esteemed career and in fact “built” the Storm Water Treatment Areas (STA) in the Everglades Agriculture Area (EAA) as head engineer for the district’s projects in 2004 on onward. Today he runs his own engineering company here in Martin County independent of the district. (See link above.)
Map south of Lake O. showing EAA, canals, STAs, and Water Conservation Areas, (WCAs.) (Map SFWMD, public.)
An STA is an area that filters water through vegetation taking up nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen and even pollution before it goes into a water conservation area and then to the Everglades. It is an area engineered to do what Mother Nature did before we transformed her into farmlands and urban landscapes.
Aerial of STA in EAA surrounded by sugar fields, northern area. (Public photo.)
When the Everglades Forever Act was passed by the Florida legislature in 1994, and after Governor Chiles “laid down his sword,” the SFWMD was required to build more STAs to filter the polluted water running into the Miccosukee lands and Everglades further south. The Miccosukee had sued the US government and the SFWMD, (a long, famous lawsuit starting in 1988), as specifically the high phosphorus from fertilizers and pollution from the EAA’s sugar farms was destroying their reservation’s waters and fauna and therefore all that lived there. The law suit accomplished two major things. It called for 10 parts per billion phosphorus rather than 200 plus so the STAs were built and it called for a certain amount of water to go south to sustain the life of the Everglades.
So in comes the law regarding amounts: In chapter 3773.4592, Florida Statues, “1994 Everglades Forever Act” the SFWMD was directed to send an additional 28 % water to the Everglades, including 250,000 acre feet of Lake Okeechobee water based on base flow statistics from 1979-1988. The Everglades needs water to live.
It is confusing, but although the STAs can send both EAA water and lake water south to the Everglades, the SFWMD gives the EAA water (from the lake, used to water their crops), priority in moving south. Lake water goes south only if the STAs have room….
OK. Here is the kicker.
Although in the recent past, the EAA spent tons of money removing toxic chemicals from the lands they had to give up for STAs and although the tax payers spent billions of dollars building the STAs on those lands for cleaning EAA water and Lake Okeechobee water, Gary Goforth’s charts and engineering show that since 2004, actually less lake water is going south to the Everglades. And most of the water going south is EAA water, very little Lake water comparatively ….Why?
Well, from what I think I understand, even though all this money has been spent in the EAA and tax payers building the STAs, the EAA and SFWMD who work together, are “scared” to send too much water south because if they go over the 10 parts per billion phosphorus limit (an annual limit) they could be sued again. Thus they hold the EAA water in the STAs letting it dribble out and therefore there is no room for Lake O’s water most of the time.
Hmmm?
As Dr Goforth points out, it is the St Lucie River and Caloosahatchee that do not get what was legislated for them: a minimum of 250,000 acre feet of lake water sent south a year.
As stated in an email to me:
“The 1994 Everglades Forever Act (Florida legislation Ch. 373.4592, F.S.) directed the South Florida Water Management District to send an additional 28 percent water to the Everglades, including 250,000 acre feet of Lake water. The 1979-1988 base period flows to the Everglades included an average of 100,931 acre feet from Lake Okeechobee – resulting in a targeted increase of Lake water to the Everglades of 148 percent.
For the most recent 10-year period (May 2005-April 2014) an average of 71,353 acre feet of Lake water was sent to the Everglades – or an average decrease of 29 percent from the 1979-1988 base period.
So – the target was a 148 percent increase – and the reality was a 29 percent decrease. This was in exchange for a billion dollars of public funding for the STAs. Who holds the State accountable?” Gary Goforth
Another chart showing the same ideas.) (Gary Goforth 2014.)
If you are like me, this all may remain confusing, but I think the point is made… I hope so anyway.
“Legally, not enough Lake O water is going south.”
This is a serious situation. Really, only the people can hold the state accountable, but do we really want to sue again? Can this be resolved?
Many say it is impossible to send the water south at 10 ppb. This may be the case. Nonetheless, I say the Miccosukee Indians finally won something after generations of sadness to their people, after being forced to live on a postage stamp, so as “tough as it sounds,” I believe the EAA, the SFWMD, and the state of Florida have some more work to do.
The Jensen Beach Bridge’s causeway, built in 1957-58, severely blocked the flow of the Indian River Lagoon, impacting its flow like a choked artery. Many causeways along the lagoon continue to do this today. (Photo courtesy archives of Sandra Henderson Thurlow.)
“Take your hands off my neck, ” she whispers…
The Indian River Lagoon is not a “river;” she is a “lagoon.” She has no “headwaters “like a true flowing river, but is rather a 156 miles depression along 40% of the Florida’s east coast. The lagoon once contained naturally cleaned waters from surrounding vegetated lands, brooks, larger tributaries and had the benefit of naturally opening and closing inlets to the ocean.
Today not only are its inlet fixed, but the lagoon’s water contains run off from polluted/populated surrounding surface waters, naturally rising and falling salty/nutrient filled groundwaters, and those of impacted water bodies like the Crane Creek in Melbourne or the St Lucie River in Stuart. These water bodies have been channelized and engineered to take on sometimes as much as 50% more fresh water through drainage of lands and lakes than than Mother Nature planned; of course, it ends up in the IRL as it goes to sea.
The lagoon’s water moves only through tides and wind. In some areas of the lagoon where there are no inlets, it is estimated that the water can remain “there” for over three years or more. Even close to an inlet, like here in Sewall’s Point, causeways heavily impact the ability of the lagoon’s water to move and flow cleaning itself, becoming becoming stagnant.
The lagoon was formed over many ice-ages with the rise and fall of the ocean. According to the History of Martin County, “evidence of comparatively recent rise of ocean levels during the past 10,00 years is frequently found in the spoil and dredging of operations along the Indian River through fossils of giant mammals.”
It may have taken thousands of years for Nature to form the lagoon but mankind is close to destroying it in just under 100; one of the primary ways of doing such was/is through the building of causeways to support bridges to Hutchinson Island.
There have been and will be opportunities to improve this situation, most recently in 2004, in Martin County, when the Ernest Lyons Bridge located between Sewall’s Point and Hutchinson Island, was being rebuilt, this problem was addressed, but not corrected, as the public at the time was unwilling to give up its access to the causeways. The causeways were lessened but not removed.
The causeways don’t just impact the water flow but also the lagoon’s wildlife. I remember my parents telling me stories in my youth about the fisherman of early Jensen noting that the causeways sticking out into the “river”confused the migratory fish that had followed its shoreline as navigation to the inlets for thousands of years.
We will have an opportunity to rebuild the bridges before the next thousand years, my vote is remove the causeways and stop choking the already suffocating Indian River Lagoon.
The delay of CEPP, the Central Everglades Planning Project, may end up symbolically being the beginning of Florida’s 4th Seminole War as people fight for water to move south. (Photos public.)
I really did not want to write about the failure of the Central Everglades Planning Project, CEPP, as I have been trying to forget about it. The whole thing is so depressing to me. However, last night, before I went to bed, my husband said, “Dan thinks you should write about what’s going to happen now that CEPP did not make it into the WRDA bill…” So, I had a long series of nightmares, now it’s morning, and for Dr Daniel Velinsky, I will do the right thing, and try to write this piece.
First some history.
It is well documented that Florida’s three Seminole Wars were the longest, bloodiest, and most costly of all the Indian wars fought by the United States, fought on and off between 1814 and 1858. In the end, no treaty was signed and the few hundred remaining native peoples hid in their well known Everglades swamp to resurrect themselves as today’s Seminole, Miccosukee, and unaffiliated Independent Seminole Tribes.
They never surrendered and today their successful 1980s/1990s law suit against the Federal Government and the State of Florida requiring the polluting of Everglades Agricultural Area run off water onto their lands, to be reduced from sometimes over 300 to 10 parts per billion/phosphorus, in my opinion, is a key reason, along with its tartiness and other issues, why CEPP was not included in the Water Resources Development Act, WRDA, bill by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.
I can hear the D.C. ACOE now: “Even if we had the designated land, the mass of water could not be sent south—it’s too dirty. We need so much more land to clean it. So we’ll build all this structure but we won’t be able to send but a dribble of water south…Florida has to lessen the water quality requirements or …”
Well first of all, I say “kudos” to the Seminole and Miccosucci for holding the state responsible for cleaning up its water, even if it is an”impossible” number to achieve under present circumstances. I’d say in the karma department, “we had it coming.”
So now what do we do? Well in my opinion a type of war is going to start, and I liken the people of the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon to the “Fourth Indian War Warriors.” We will not surrender.
The failure of CEPP to pass will historically be the beginning of this war. And like the Indians of the 1880s, we were indirectly lied to, and part of it was our fault for believing what we were told, knowing the facts of history.
We all watched and participated along with the South Florida Water Management District and the Jacksonville Army Corp of Engineers for three years, putting full concentration of resources and creativity– forcing dedicated staff from both agencies to produce a document, CEPP, that the US Army Corp of Engineers more than likely knew, would never make it. So now, “they” want us to continue rallying for another two years for next WRDA bill. “Oh sorry maybe it will be seven years….”
I don’t think so.
Guess what? The people are tired of waiting. They put their money on the state and federal governments’ horse, and our horse wasn’t even allowed to run.
Do you feel the chain pulling and digging into your neck? I do.
This tactic is not new, and honestly I think it is simply part of a dysfunctional federal and state government. Let’s look back.
In the 1990s governor Lawton Childs had the state halt the famous water quality law suit and actually “laid down his sword” in a courtroom-how courageous, but look where we are now; in the mid 2000s Charlie Christ’s “Sugar Land Deal” was downsized due to the Economic Crisis of 2008 and other politics; before that, Jeb Bush started the “Acceler8 Program to quickly complete eight of over 60 Central Everglades Restoration Plan’s (CERP) projects. The SFWMD, functioning under the governor, worked diligently like they did recently for CEPP–the eight projects were not completed; and since 2011/12, under the Rick Scott administration, the entire focus was on CEPP, which also would have bundled some of the CERP projects to begin “moving faster” and to “move the water south.” After years of laser like dedication, for now, the project is “dead.”
Florida has water quality and quantity issues brewing like a hurricane, and our Indian River Lagoon area will be the eye in November of 2014, as former governor Charlie Christ runs against Governor Rick Scott. The race would have been messy anyway, but now it is going to be war as the different sides configure how to “send the water south” with out CEPP. Start thinking about how you want to send the water south or stored, and “never, never, never give up.”
“End of the Rainbow,” South Florida. (Photo by John Whiticar, 2013.)
As we approach hurricane season, we must prepare for rain. Florida is more like Africa than the rest of the county in that there are really only two seasons: dry and rainy. “Officially,” rainy season runs from June 1st to November 30th, and dry season is from December 1st through the end of May.
One of the most interesting accounts I’ve ever read of a “great south Florida rain” was published in 1886 by pioneer Charles Pierce, member the famous Hannibal Pierce family, to which our illustrious Indian Riverkeeper, Mr Marty Baum belongs. We along the St Lucie/Indian River Lagoon are part of the south Florida great rain system and there are reoccurring themes whether here or farther south, as l think you’ll see as I share the story.
Charles Pierce is most well known for his book “Pioneer Life in Southeast Florida” written about the years 1870 through 1894, and published by Miami’s University Press in 1970. It is a five star classic. According to a write up on the book, during this era of Florida history around 724 people were living between Stuart and Miami.
My mother, historian Sandra Thurlow, shared an excerpt that Charles Pierce wrote for the Broward Legacy in 1886, as he was living and overseeing the Biscayne House of Refuge at the time.
According to Pierce:
“In October of 1884 occurred the greatest and longest rainfall ever known on the east coast since its earliest settlement. It poured down for eight days and nights, slacking at times for a few minutes, but never stoping; then came down harder if that were possible. The whole southern part of the state was inundated…
On the eighth day the rain stopped and the next day came in bright and clear, and the sun shone brightly on a rain-soaked Florida…
I was on the east porch looking out to sea…looking up the coast to the northward, I caught the glint of something white about four miles away. At first, I thought it was a sea gull, then it looked like striking fish. I was not certain which it was, so I went for the old long spyglass to get a close up view of the scintillating white. What the spyglass revealed surprised me. The flickering white I had seen was now clearly shown to be whitecaps or breaking seas at the head of a dark body of water rushing down the coast….a mass of dark water some hundred feet in width rushing along to the south and with breaking seas over running the blue water in front.
It was a strange sight and at first we all wondered where it came from. My father Hannibal solved they mystery when he said, ‘It is fresh water from the New River Inlet.’ Could that be possible? It was fourteen miles away but there was no other solution to the phenomenon.
What a mighty volume of water must be coming out of the inlet and with tremendous velocity enough to overcome the resistance of wind and sea for so many miles. By night of that day the entire ocean in sight of the Station was covered with dark coffee-colored freshwater from the New River. Not a bit of blue water to be seen in any direction. Biscayne Bay was fresh for nearly a month after the week of rain.”
Incredible. So even before humankind diked and channelized the entirety of south Florida, when it rained heavily, the black wave of fresh water pushed forth through the south eastern inlets to the ocean; it did not just “go south.” We see a similar but not as intense phenomenon today, although drainage has been modified, when a heavy rain gushes through the St Lucie Inlet, Ft Pierce or Jupiter Inlets. In any case, when one hears a story such as Mr Pierce’s it makes one wonder, with all that water, during a really “great rain” a rain that comes only once in a few hundred years, will our manmade structures hold?
We all know the Army Corp of Engineers, along with support from the South Florida Water Management District, is working diligently to harden the dike around Lake Okeechobee, but it seems that a third outlet, a flow way south, from the lake to the Everglades surely would alleviate some of that natural pressure, the pressure Charlie Pierce describes as a
“tremendous velocity…”
If he were alive today, I wonder what Mr Charles Pierce would think?
Army Corp of Engineers’ structure S-80 releases water from Lake Okeechobee into the the C-44 Canal that leads to the St Lucie River/S. Indian River Lagoon. (Photo Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, 2013.)
Today is what I consider the genesis of the Martin and St Lucie River movement, as last year, on this day, May 8th, 2013, the Army Corp of Engineers opened the gates of S-80 once again, but little did they know, this time things would never be the same….
Before we laud ourselves too much it is important to know our history and its not a fun one to study. Martin County and the C-44 Canal have a long history, in fact the canal, started in 1915 precedes Martin becoming a county which occurred in 1925. The City of Stuart though was incorporated in 1914, and it was their early leaders that supported the the building the C-44 canal.
Ironically most the early settlers wanted it, having no idea of its unintended consequences, and in 1915 even held a celebration when construction began by featuring the high school band and a gathering at Woodmen Hall in downtown Stuart.
According to historian Sandra Thurlow’s book Stuart on the St Lucie:
“The Stuart Times pleaded for a canal in its early issues in 1913. The Stuart Commercial Club pushed for the canal and clashed with BW Mulford and and other promoters of Salerno who insisted that the best route for the proposed ship and drainage canal from Lake Okeechobee would be one cut into the Manatee Pocket.”
The canal was an economic issue and people wanted jobs and trade brought to the area.
After the Hurricane of 1928 the canal was widened and deepened, and the situation really got worse. “Silt and chemicals entered the St Lucie/Indian River and diminished the once teeming fish population.” Again according to Sandra Thurlow, “because the the changes were gradual it took a while to notice that the abundance that had nourished the settlers and attracted the sports fishermen no longer existed.”
Hard to believe isn’t it? I have had some people tell me, “It’s better not to bring this up….” I disagree. Times change and values change. Our country is known for overcoming some of the most difficult of institutions such as slavery and women’s rights. Environmentalism is also a social issue. It is based on how one views the world, what is acceptable or not.
Today most Stuart and Martin/StLucie residents agree that it is no longer acceptable to have up to 9000 cubic feet per second of dirty, tainted Lake Okeechobee water released into our St Lucie River. In 2013 the releases from Lake Okeechobee tipped the scale for toxic algae blooms in the estuary, (FOS, Mark Perry). And it was well known from sampling that the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) knew toxic algae was being released into the estuary at S-80.
In the early 1900 and even through the 1970s, not that many many people lived in Martin County. Having grown up here, I can attest to that. But, that is not the case today. Releases that were simply “accepted” are now “unacceptable.” Unlike years ago, with today’s high population and health and safety issues that are the responsibility of the state, the releasing of toxic waters from outside our basin is an embarrassment and seems illegal.
1930 was the first year the Martin County Commission asked the ACOE to stop discharging and passionate people have been demanding such ever since. But at that time, there were not enough people to really have a voice and the general public was not screaming along side its leaders. Today we are are all on one page. Local elected officials and the public. And we also have tools that allow us to make our cause a state and national issue.
If history has shown anything at all it is that things do change. I believe we are the generation that is in the right place at the right time to finally cause the turn of history for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Happy May 8th, 2014!
