National Water Quality Month is a call to action
The lifeblood of the Sunshine State — water and water quality — should always be at the forefront of decision making and a priority in local communities, environmental experts say.
This year, the Florida Governmental Utility Authority and water utilities around the nation are celebrating the 20th anniversary of National Water Quality Month, which was founded in 2005 by the Environmental Protection Agency and backed by the United Nations. The goal of the concerted annual campaign, which occurs every August, is to promote the value of the natural resource, encouraging action at the household and community level to ensure access to safe, clean drinking water for generations to come.
Southwest Florida in particular relies on clean water to harbor endangered marine life, sustain local business, and bring in tourism dollars that greatly impact the economy.
One of the biggest advocates for clean water in the region, the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) puts out a weekly water report that ties into water management decision, especially regarding Lake Okeechobee.
“We’re collecting all that data and talking with stakeholders and partners in the region, and packaging it into those reports that we then can give out to the general public and media and concerned individuals who want it,” SCCF Environmental Policy Director Matt DePaolis said. “That also goes to water managers so that they understand what’s happening in our part of the system, and hopefully that weighs in when they’re making their decisions.”
As far as the current water quality levels in Southwest Florida go, despite a lack of releases from Lake Okeechobee, there are still high levels of nutrients in the water from other sources.
According to data from Protecting Florida Together, which is a consolidated source of information about Florida’s efforts to protect and improve water quality, tidal segments one, two and three of the Caloosahatchee River are all designated “waters not attaining standards.”
In the Caloosahatchee area in Cape Coral, waters are “attaining standards.”
Protecting Florida Together is a partnership among the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Department of Health. It is the state’s commitment to keeping the public informed about statewide water quality and restoration efforts, as well as simple steps all Floridians can take to help prevent excessive nutrients from entering waterways.
On July 21, sampling for cyanobacteria by the Lee County Environmental Lab reported Microcystis and cyano filaments as “present” at the Alva Boat Ramp, appearing as “sparse, light streaks.”
Also on July 21, satellite imagery of Lake Okeechobee showed the presence of an algal bloom covering about 160 miles, or 34%, of the lake.
DePaolis said there are a couple of key components to water quality in the Caloosahatchee Estuary in local area.
First is the water management decisions on how releases from the lake are happening.
“And those hopefully in the future just got a lot easier because we had the opening and ribbon cutting for the C-43 Reservoir,” he said. “What that is going to do is hold water, provide limited treatment of that water, and then when we’re in the drought conditions of the dry season when we need water, we’re not getting water from the lake, we’ll be able to put water into the river from that reservoir, and hold and establish that salinity gradient in the estuary without contending for water to other users in the system.”
Second is the general impairment of water from a more direct source.
“That’s something that we are constantly thinking about, and that has a huge impact on the grand scheme of things — how we’re being impacted by clean or not-so-clean water here in this area,” DePaolis said.
Having a water quality-focused month is a positive in his eyes, as he said getting people to pay attention to and understand water quality outside of when there is red tide or large harmful algae blooms can be a challenge.
“There are times like these when water looks good — it’s much harder to get people to understand that we’re still being impacted by water pollution,” DePaolis said.
When waters are talked of being impaired in areas across Southwest Florida, he said most of that impairment is regarding nutrient pollution such as nitrogen and phosphorus that is coming from watershed, agriculture, septic, stormwater, and home fertilizer and irrigation.
“I think the scope of the problem is large, and it is a little confounding because we have the Clean Water Act which requires labeling of these water bodies as impaired when they’re not meeting the standards needed for the uses of the water,” DePaolis said. “And if you look at our water bodies, a lot of them are impaired around here. That means the federal government acknowledges them as impaired, and they’re not as clean as they should be. State government acknowledges they’re not as clean as they should be.”
He said there are Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) that are supposed to provide tools to clean up the water.
“But what we’re seeing is there’s a lot of time being spent on BMAPs, there’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of talking about these problems, and it’s really odd because this is not an issue that has multiple sides,” DePaolis said. “There’s no one saying ‘I don’t want clean water.’ Everyone is on the side of clean water. But when it actually comes down to making our water cleaner, we’re not using metrics that result in cleaner water.
“We’re talking about it more, we’re spending more money, everyone is pulling for clean water, but the trends we’re seeing are continual degradation of our water sources,” he added. “There’s this issue that we’re seeing that on paper, our water’s getting cleaner … but when you actually go out and measure and monitor the water and the pollution in the water, that’s not the trends we’re seeing on the ground. Clearly there’s a disconnect somewhere between the laws as written, the planning for enforcing those laws, and actual enforcement.”
DePaolis said there is no “silver bullet” solution to improving water quality, as there is no single-source of water quality issues. He said Lake Okeechobee discharges get the crux of the blame, as the lake is “incredibly polluted” and has been used as the “dumping ground for agriculture fertilizer for the last hundred years.”
The lake in constantly blooming with algae, and when discharges happen, impaired water is coming directly into the mouth of local estuaries.
“If that interacts with a red tide, that’s hugely problematic for our communities,” DePaolis said.
While discharges can be detrimental, he said overall, the amount of nutrients that are loaded into Lee County estuaries from watershed sources is greater on an annual basis than the amount of nutrients from Lake Okeechobee.
When water is not clean, especially visually, there are heavy economic and health impacts to both human and wildlife.
“We have a tourism-based economy down here in Southwest Florida,” DePaolis. “Clean water is the driver of our real estate market, of our tourist industry, of all of the supporting industries, and it’s really the driver of our growth down here. We’re putting that all at risk when we can’t protect our water.”
The SCCF partnered with local advocacy groups Conservancy of Southwest Florida and Captains for Clean Water a few years back and released an economic analysis that was “conservative” and focused just on coastal zip code areas of Collier, Charlotte and Lee counties.
The analysis looked at the potential economic impact of just one harmful algal bloom, and showed that the event could cost those three counties $5 billion in lost economic output, as well as cost 43,000 jobs.
ACTIONS COMMUNITY CAN TAKE
Community members are encouraged to not fertilize — especially during rainy season — and to use sprinklers less. It is also important to ask those making decisions not just whether they support clean water, but how they are supporting the initiative.
“The community is the one that are picking our leaders, and the ones that are empowering people to be making these decisions about our water,” DePaolis said. “I think it’s really necessary that people first and foremost become educated about the issues. It’s really easy to not do that. These issues are complex and nuanced and difficult, and they really require people being engaged and caring about what the future of Florida is going to look like. People need to understand they play a role right now, today. A lot people that you talk to in South Florida are shocked at the pace of development they’ve seen — from people that have been here five years ago, to their whole lives. It’s necessary for people to ask their leaders what the future plans are, and what development looks like — and how are we going to develop in such a way that protects the resources that are important to us.”
He added that now is the time, and that there is a real opportunity to protect some of the last areas in Lee County — especially western Lee — from development that will put further strain on waterways and wildlife.
“We have some of the most productive waters in the world in Florida — at least they were,” DePaolis said. “We have amazing waterways here in Lee County that are home to some of the most unique species on the planet. We have one of the most productive sawfish pupping grounds in the world here for that endangered species. I think that’s something to be proud of. If we can’t protect the water and the wetlands, then we’re going to lose not only that species, but (will see a negative impact) on all of the species that rely on them that aren’t endangered.”
To view the SCCF’s weekly water reports, visit https://sccf.org/what-we-do/water-quality/weekly-water-conditions-tracker/.
For more about Protecting Florida Together, visit https://www.protectingfloridatogether.gov/.
To reach CJ HADDAD / cjhaddad@breezenewspapers.com, please email