WASHINGTON, April 13, 2016 - There’s a hot debate in Florida
about what is causing massive fish kills in the Indian River Lagoon on the
state’s Atlantic Coast. Some environmental advocates say the algae blooms
responsible for the lagoon’s dead zones are being fed by nutrient runoff from
sugarcane and other farms, while agricultural interests and new research
suggest most of the problems stems from human sewage.
The Indian River Lagoon (IRL) –
the most biodiverse estuary in North America – runs nearly 160 miles along
Florida’s east coast from Ponce de León Inlet in Volusia County through Cape
Canaveral to Jupiter Inlet in Palm Beach County. For decades, the IRL has
weathered toxic algae blooms similar to those that have negatively affected
aquatic and human health in the Western Lake Erie Basin.
Charles Shinn, director of
government and community affairs at the Florida Farm Bureau, told Agri-Pulse
that algae blooms have been more severe in the IRL as of late in part because
of more extreme rain events in the winter and spring, which wash nutrients from
fields, yards and sewers into waterways. He also contends that agricultural
operations – which have notably decreased in number and size along the IRL in
recent decades – aren’t the main source of these nutrients.
Brian Lapointe, a professor of marine ecosystem health at Florida
Atlantic University, agrees with Shinn. “When you look at the basins along the
northern IRL, there’s not a lot of agriculture there. It’s an urbanized estuary
– you’ve got a lot of people and a lot of sewage, including septic tanks,” he
told Agri-Pulse in an exclusive
interview.
The state
outlawed sewage plant discharges into the lagoon in 1995, but sewage pollution
from septic tanks has gone largely unchecked. Lapointe says that’s because
septic tanks were a “magic carpet for rapid cheap growth” in Florida, and
the state wasn’t about to curb their use.
In the
mid-1990s, a Florida Department of Health whistleblower accused the state of hiring consultants known for
doctoring the numbers to favorably evaluate whether septic tanks were polluting
groundwater. The whistleblower, then the top research engineer charged with
regulating sewage treatment, was fired and the state’s regulation of septic
tanks stayed relatively lax.
“It’s one
of those situations where the fox was in the hen house,” Lapointe said. Florida
health agencies “were insisting septic tanks worked just fine” based on those
evaluations, but the firms “apparently fudged the numbers on what septic tanks
are doing to Florida’s environment.”
Today,
it’s estimated there are upwards of 600,000 septic tanks in counties along the
lagoon. Most of them are located in Brevard and Volusia counties at the
northern end of the IRL, where the highest levels of dissolved nitrogen can
also found.
Lapointe
recently published
a study in which he used isotopes to identify the
origin of the nitrogen throughout the IRL. Not only did the isotope values
found in the northern reaches of the IRL “line up with a strong sewage signal,”
Lapointe said, they also lined up with isotope values found in Boston Harbor
and Cape Cod – places where the water is known to be impacted by human sewage.
On the
Gulf Coast of Florida, where algae blooms have been mild compared to the IRL
this year, Lapointe says he has also found isotope evidence that sewage is a
“major” contributing factor to algae blooms, along with farm runoff and
phosphate mining.
When it
comes to explaining the fish kills in the IRL this year, the state’s Fish and
Wildlife Research Institute acknowledges the role algae has played, but won’t
point fingers at where nutrients are coming from.
Kelly
Richmond, spokeswoman for the FWRI – the research branch under Florida’s Fish
and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told Agri-Pulse
that her agency is working to record fish kills and was cooperating with the
St. Johns River Water Management District to conduct algae bloom sampling and
water testing in the IRL.
The
state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, is keeping mum on the cause of the
algae blooms in the IRL, too. The release his office put out in late March included no mention of
sewage, runoff, agriculture or septic tanks. The state’s Chamber of Commerce,
on the other hand, made a move in January to tackle sewage pollution by teaming
up with Lapointe.
“I think
this partnership is the beginning of turning the corner on this issue,”
Lapointe said. Currently, the
team is putting together educational videos for
Floridians on septic tank pollution.
#30
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