"If their nutrient management matches their cartography, we are in trouble," Jono Miller, an activist, natural historian, and environmental educator, posted on his Facebook page.
At first blush, the map may look OK — the Manatee and Little Manatee Rivers are in the right place, as are the Peace and Myakka Rivers. But see Myakkahatchee Creek? That's not actually where it is. It drains into the Myakka river — the clever cartographer might have viewed the waterway's name as a clue to that — not the Peace River. Prairie Creek, too, is in the wrong place (it empties into the Peace River, not the Myakka).
So someone mucked up the names. Sure, easy mistake to make.
But, given some of the claims in the ad, one might suspect Big Sugar is trying to mislead people.
The ad claims "water from our sugarcane area south of the lake" constitutes one percent of the water flowing into Lake Okeechobee — but neglects to mention that 5.8 percent of the phosphorous going into Lake Okeechobee comes from "land where sugar fields are located," according to a 2016 article in the Sun Sentinel.
So how can Big Sugar pump only one percent of the water flowing into Lake Okeechobee, but be responsible for a larger percentage of phosphorus — 5.8 percent? That's… that's an excellent question. That's some pretty potent water right there.
What the ad — penned by U.S. Sugar CEO Rob Buker — fails to mention is that Big Sugar is the primary reason we have a dike around Lake Okeechobee at all; if not for Big Sugar, water would flow, unimpeded, into the Everglades.
Before the dike, the Kissimmee River would flow into Lake Okeechobee and out, in a shallow sheet of water, into the Everglades, ultimately flowing south off the edge of North America.
That meant the land south of Lake Okeechobee was also too soggy for effective farming. Unfortunately for every living thing south of Lake Okeechobee, farmers learned in Florida's dry season that aeons of vegetation growing and dying uninterrupted had created some of the richest soil in North America, encouraging them to find a way to drain the swamp.
So when the wet season came and those farmers realized they couldn't farm knee-deep in water, they built a dike. And, after the smaller, earthen dikes proved ineffective for stopping floods during heavy storms, a larger dike was built.
The result? Today, the Kissimmee River now flows into Lake Okeechobee, where it stagnates, waiting for humans to allow it out the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers. And while the bulk of the water in Lake Okeechobee comes from points north, not allowing the water to flow off the edge of the lake into what we now call the "Everglades Agricultural Area" (an area farmed primarily by Big Sugar, although the industry giant grows other crops there, too) means the natural filtration of the Everglades doesn't touch that water before it flows — full of nitrogen, phosphorous, petrochemical runoff and assorted other contaminants — into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
How does this relate to red tide? Well, if you ask Big Sugar, it doesn't.
However, technically, U.S, Sugar is correct. Well, except for their map.
The problem is, that technicality isn't saving the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee or, most recently, Florida's fishing industry, aquaculture industry or the marine mammals.
By the way, if you want to see what the map should have looked like, Miller re-did U.S. Sugar's map — only with the correct names. Take a look.
This article appears in Sep 6-13, 2018.