The St. Lucie - river of tears
In 1986, I escaped Palm Beach County and moved to Little Martin. In just a little less than 20 years, our beautiful St. Lucie River has been despoiled to the point where people can no longer use it to safely swim or fish for food.
Old-timers tell me that the river was once crystal clear and that its degradation began in earnest in the early 1970s. I myself remember taking my boat out and looking down into its clear, tea-colored, tannic waters to find grass beds and likely spots for fishing. I also remember when I had to start scrubbing the hull of my boat after each river excursion because of suspended solids and algae caused the water to become an ugly, dirty brownish-black.
Fresh water, algae, and death
You see, for decades now the South Florida Water Management District and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been discharging unimaginable amounts of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee and agricultural canal runoff into the estuarine St. Lucie. As the freshwater releases continued and increased through the St. Lucie Lock and Dam, slimy algae blooms, sick fish and fish lesions, dead oysters, and deteriorating sea grass beds resulted. The river's delicate salinity balance was affected and it was no longer able to support its own natural systems.
According to the Florida Oceanographic Society, polluted freshwater is currently discharged into the river at a rate of 1.6 billion gallons per day - that's billion with a B. Because of its potential impact upon my profession, I know that on occasion the discharges have been of a much higher rate.
Protected and fragile areas that have been adversely impacted include two State Aquatic Preserves, the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary, NOAA Essential Fish Habitat, EPA Critical Habitat for Seagrass, the St. Lucie Inlet State Preserve Reefs, and the St. Lucie Nearshore Reefs nominated for National Marine Sanctuary designation. These estuaries and coastal ecosystems are habitat for over 4,000 species of plants and animals, including 33 endangered and threatened species.
Solution remains elusive
What do we do about it? There is no clear-cut answer. Lake Okeechobee was diked in 1929 to control flooding and foster growth of towns and the sugar industry to its south. The meandering, natural filter of the Kissimmee River Basin to its north was straightened to dry out livestock rangeland in Central Florida, allowing an unimpeded flow of nutrient-rich water to the lake. The naturally-flowing Caloosahatchee River to its west and St. Lucie River to its east were connected to the lake with locks and dams to provide a cross-state riverway.
The Kissimmee River is now being re-engineered to revert to its original meandering ways to the tune of several billion dollars, but the program is in its infancy. And short of abandoning Belle Glade, Pahokee, South Bay, Clewiston, homesteads, and sugar cane fields south of the lake, the Hoover Dike around the Big Lake will remain. As long as there is a dike (a very unstable dike, I might add) lake discharges will continue whenever the water levels rise high enough to threaten dike integrity - this means each day, every day.
There is no doubt that the decline in the river's health has also made unhealthy all water-related activities, and are causing a major economic impact on Little Martin as well. But it also means that children can no longer swim and play in the river, and I can no longer eat my catch.