OPINION: BRANDON SHULER

Water quality problems bigger than Lake Okeechobee

BY BRANDON SHULER

Much recent hay has been made about the current Lake Okeechobee discharges fueling a low-intensity red tide (Karenia brevis) event occurring roughly Naples to Sarasota significantly north of the Caloosahatchee. While some of the recent focus has been on Lake Okeechobee, many of these accusations are mostly wrong and conflict with the laudable efforts by the Florida legislature toward eliminating the primary culprits: urban and suburban pollution from sewage and stormwater runoff. Robust, forensic science proves that. Meanwhile, the legislature is looking to build upon strategic investments that prevent human effluent from polluting and contaminating our fragile waterways. 

Currently, the United States Army Corp of Engineers is discharging Lake Okeechobee at a rate of 5,953 cubic feet per second with roughly 22 percent traveling west through the Caloosahatchee into the Gulf, 14 percent going west to the Atlantic, and 64 percent sent south. Discharges above levels necessary to protect freshwater vegetation in the upper Caloosahatchee are indeed harmful. However, defaming our nation’s second largest freshwater lake does nothing to solve Southwest Florida’s water-quality problems. Rather, these efforts to blame the lake distracts from efforts to correct the wastewater and stormwater discharges that are rampant throughout the concrete jungles that have replaced the peninsula’s natural filters. 

Academy, peer-reviewed science and empirical data from the South Florida Water Management District largely point to human activity along the Caloosahatchee from west of the lake to the Gulf as the leading culprit fueling harmful algal blooms and bacteria spikes. The sources: septic-tank effluent, intentional sewage discharges ahead of hurricane landfalls, leaky sewer systems, lawn fertilizer and lawn clippings all contribute heavily to the nutrient loads and pathogenic contamination in tributaries feeding into the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf. As discharges travel from the lake to the Gulf, they collect and transport these super nutrients from the local basins that feed the blooms and degrade our waters. The water from Lake Okeechobee itself is chock-full of sewage flowing down from communities along the Kissimmee River, the Lake’s northern tributary with its headwaters in Orlando. 

In 2019, the Lee County Board of Commissioners commissioned the Caloosahatchee – North Fort Myers Nutrient and Bacteria Source Identification Study, which found that sewage was the leading nutrient source in the local Caloosahatchee River basin. Subsequent studies from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute have affirmed these finding and found local basin pollution from human waste is even more prevalent than thought in 2019. In fact, studies by Dr. Rachel Brewton and Dr. Kevin Tyre find that the most widespread contributors are septic tanks. 

Given that roughly 30 percent of Florida’s sprawling population of 23.4 million people utilize septic systems to treat their waste or rely on sewer systems that have been neglected for nearly half a century, one must question the constantly repeated claim that sparsely populated and intensively regulated rural, inland communities are fueling red tides. To boot, 76 percent of Floridians live in coastal zones. In addition, organizations such as Mote Marine Laboratory have long reported that Red Tide forms 40 miles offshore and moves toward the coast depending on currents. All sources of nutrients (coastal and rural) can play a role in intensifying Red Tides. Additionally, there are records of Red Tide forming long before man inhabited the Florida peninsula, when Lake Okeechobee was not connected to the Caloosahatchee River or the Gulf of Mexico.

These coastal pollution issues are complex and expensive to fix. On a broad level, the Florida legislature should task the Department of Environmental Protection to create and implement a comprehensive work plan to modernize water infrastructure statewide, with the goal of water-tight sewer connections feeding advanced wastewater treatment facilities that capture, treat and recycle water optimally. Project approvals and funding should be based upon criteria that advance us toward that goal as rapidly and equitably as possible. One of the most helpful things the DeSantis administration and Florida Legislature can do now is to create a grant program for the Caloosahatchee akin to the Indian River Lagoon Protection Act, with deadlines and accountability measures.

According to the South Florida Water Management District, only 20 percent of the Caloosahatchee nutrient loading comes from the lake, with a whopping 75 percent of nutrients coming from basins west of the lake. Here in Southwest Florida, we need to get behind our elected officials and support solutions to the actual pollution sources that feeds the harmful algal blooms and Red Tides, and accelerate Everglades restoration projects that reduce harmful discharges. 

As the three groups exhaust energy arguing with each other over their fair shares, we all fail at ensuring our future fishing. We must work together to protect the fish.

Brandon Shuler is the Executive Director of the American Water Security Project. He is a former charter fishing captain, a prolific outdoor writer, and subject-matter expert on water infrastructure. He lives in St. Petersburg with his three children.