Traffic on the Matanzas Pass Bridge, which leads out to Fort Myers Beach, was at a standstill, as it always seems to be in February, the height of tourist season.
To those who stood on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway chanting and waving signs, occupants of the cars that crawled along were a captive audience. The protesters were denouncing the US Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to release fertilizer-ridden water from Lake Okeechobee into delicate estuarine waters on either coast after heavy rains threatened to cause the lake to spill over into neighboring agricultural lands. That decision sent toxic, coffee-brown water to the southern Gulf Coast via the Caloosahatchee River, and to the Atlantic Coast through the St. Lucie River, and with it, toxic algae blooms and marine life die-offs.
The toxicity comes from fertilizer-rich agricultural runoff that has for decades been dumped into the lake. Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) within the fertilizer feed algae blooms that are harmful to marine life as well as humans.
“It’s dangerous stuff, potentially dangerous stuff,” said Cris Costello, a water expert and senior regional organizing representative with the Sierra Club. “But beyond that, not very beautiful, not welcoming; a sure turnoff to both tourists and full-time residents alike. You don’t want to swim in it, you don’t want to fish in it, you don’t want to bathe in it, you don’t want to boat in it.”
The brown tint of the water itself comes largely from decomposed plant matter, but even if it’s safe, it doesn’t exactly look that way to tourists.
Environmental groups say state officials’ negligence on the matter — best characterized by their refusal to buy up agricultural lands south of the lake, into which that stormwater would instead flow, eventually filtering through to the currently parched Everglades — is already having grave consequences.
Aerial news footage from either coast showed a dramatic contrast between the clean, blue coastal water and the brown water that was invading it. Images of dead fish blanketing coastal waterways peppered social media feeds.
For those living in communities heavily reliant on tourism and fishing, the dark water and imperiled sea life represented an existential threat to many aspects of coastal life, from public health to environmental quality to the local economy.
“It affects everything,” said Kenny Hinkle, a Stuart resident, environmental activist and protester. “Paddleboard companies had to shut down completely at the height of tourist seasons. Tackle shops. People aren’t going in the water… our whole community’s based on the water.”
The bridge protest took place February 13, approximately the midpoint in what was to be a record-setting quarter for tourism.
Two months later, tourism leaders and elected officials, including Governor Rick Scott, heralded the unprecedented volume of visitors for the first three months of the year at Clearwater Marine Aquarium. That 30 million people visited the state between February and March, they said, was a sign that the state’s investment in tourism development via Visit Florida, a public-private partnership, is working, and the $76 million the state will invest in the next fiscal year will yield major returns, including badly needed jobs for Floridians.
“What’s great about our state is that we have people coming from all over the world and all over the United States,” Scott said. “So all the focus on tourism, all the investment of your tax dollars through Visit Florida and other things like the aquarium, they’re paying off… When we do the right thing with your tax dollars … it creates jobs for families. It’s the most important thing you can do.”
That record-shattering quarter followed an all-time best tourism year: 2015 saw 105 million visitors, who spent a grand total of $89 billion in the state, said Will Seccombe, CEO of Visit Florida, and this year’s poised to be even bigger.
“To kick off 2016 with an all-time record quarter is a huge testament to the strength of the tourism industry,” Seccombe said. “There’s no question that we have the best tourism product in the world, but it doesn’t happen by accident.”
Environmental advocates would argue, though, that failing to prevent the dramatic coastal pollution associated with the Lake Okeechobee release could lead to unintended consequences for the tourism industry.
“The big impact of the polluted discharges of the Lake Okeechobee water is going to be the perception in the European tourist market, and also the tourist market in other parts of the United States, that Florida is a place that’s a developing world that can’t keep the water clean,” said David Guest, managing attorney for the Florida division of Earthjustice, who is retiring in early June. “It sounds like the Florida government is just about the same as the Brazilian government in that they can’t get a bay for the Olympic games that’s not so contaminated you can’t get in it.”
It’s now the time of year that families with children gear up for summer vacation.
Just as unseasonably heavy rains led to the release of untold amounts of polluted water into coastal waterways, extensive storms common in summer may result in similar releases; it’s happened before.
Kenny Hinkle said it was such a release three years ago that inspired him to get involved. He and a family member were trying to fish in the waters off Stuart, but were having a tough time finding a decent — unpolluted — spot.
“We had to go over 10 miles out of the inlet to avoid Lake Okeechobee discharges,” he said. “It just blew my mind.”
It’s unclear whether visitors, after witnessing firsthand the visual effects of the releases, will return.
And while Pinellas County and other tourism-dependent Tampa Bay communities may be somewhat removed from the mess, there still may be impacts here.
Environmentalists say the nutrient-dense wastewater may not make it up this way from Southwest Florida, but those nutrients may lend themselves to another hazard: harmful red tide blooms.
Caused by naturally occurring bacteria karenia brevis, red tide causes fish kills and can cause respiratory problems for children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
“Red tide, to a very small extent, is natural, of course, but so is bubonic plague. We didn’t invent bubonic plague. But the reason it spread was you’ve got this gigantic number of people living with rats and fleas,” David Guest said. “You can’t get away with it by saying it’s natural. And what we’ve done by contaminating the waters with sewage and fertilizer and manure, is we’re kind of creating perfect conditions for the red tide that’s already out there to go crazy, the same way the bubonic plague went crazy when it got into the right conditions.”
The Sierra Club’s Cris Costello added that, even if Tampa Bay doesn’t see a dramatic direct impact, the environmental havoc that’s occurring south of here signifies the state’s lack of political will to stand up to the sugar industry, which can be seen in the way the state treats federal environmental regulations like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act — both policies over which the state is trying to fight the feds.
“The influence of big sugar is statewide,” she said. “The influences that keep elected officials’ attention away from the solution of sending water south from Lake Okeechobee are the same influences that are anti-any Clean Water Act influences.”
After the aquarium press conference, CL asked Scott whether he thinks the Lake Okeechobee releases might have any potential adverse impacts on tourism. He didn’t have an answer. Instead, he touted environmental measures taken at the state level before attacking the federal government for not doing enough to strengthen the wall around the lake.
“Thanks to the support of the legislature, we’ve made significant investments in our environment,” he said. “When I first got elected we settled a decades-old lawsuit over the Everglades. We’re investing $880 million to improve water quality. We also invested significant amounts of money to move water south… But the federal government needs to do their part. They need to step up. They need to do more work to fix the dike at Lake Okeechobee.”
Guest said he’s not too surprised Scott is placing the blame at the feet of the Obama administration, even if the sugar industry’s influence on public policy in Florida is pervasive and easily seen in campaign finance records.
That, he said, is why Florida government is failing at protecting its own water.
“The root problem here is very simple, and that is that industrial-scale agriculture has been able to persuade Rick Scott and his friends that regulation of their contamination of waters is bad for the economy,” Guest said. “Invite the governor to store some water, and drink a cup of it on television, and see if it’s really a water storage problem.”
Yet environmental advocates have long argued that the money the state raises through the wildly popular Amendment 1, a measure directing the state to buy up environmental lands to protect them, ought to be used to purchase 46,800 acres of what’s currently cane fields south of the lake, and engineer the area so that water flows south — a project that could cost as much as $700 million.
“You can’t keep ignoring the problem of filthy water in Florida, and just distribute it around,” said Alisa Coe, also an attorney with Earthjustice. “The answer lies in actually cleaning up water, and that’s going to require more filter marshes or treatment systems, stormwater treatment areas like we have in the Everglades, more of that to actually make sure that there’s clean water. Water’s needed in the system, it’s just that we need clean water in the system.”
Without it, the Sunshine State’s bustling tourism economy may soon be just a memory.
“The draw of Florida is really the beauty of its environment and if we want people to visit, we’re going to have to learn how to keep the place clean,” Coe said.
"Red tide is natural, but so is bubonic plague."
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 2, 2016.