http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/u...t-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/u...t-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
At play are many of the forces that define modern Florida: competing environmental, residential and agricultural interests, a failure by state officials to invest in managing the demands of growth, finger pointing between state and federal officials. The result has been an environmental nightmare playing out here, about 35 miles from the source of the problem in Lake Okeechobee.
There, an aging dike system forces the Army Corps of Engineers to release controlled discharges through channel locks east and west from the lake to protect nearby towns from flooding. However, those discharges, which carry pollutants from agricultural lands that flow into the lake from the north, pour into rivers and lagoons downstream, which eventually dump into the ocean. When too much polluted discharge from Okeechobee hits areas downstream like the St. Lucie River estuary in Stuart, for example, the blend of fresh and salt water creates giant phosphorescent plumes of algae, making the water unsafe for human and aquatic life alike.
...
But residents along the coast are tired of the excuses. They say there is enough blame to go around at both the state and federal levels, with Big Agriculture playing a significant role.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/u...t-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
At play are many of the forces that define modern Florida: competing environmental, residential and agricultural interests, a failure by state officials to invest in managing the demands of growth, finger pointing between state and federal officials. The result has been an environmental nightmare playing out here, about 35 miles from the source of the problem in Lake Okeechobee.
There, an aging dike system forces the Army Corps of Engineers to release controlled discharges through channel locks east and west from the lake to protect nearby towns from flooding. However, those discharges, which carry pollutants from agricultural lands that flow into the lake from the north, pour into rivers and lagoons downstream, which eventually dump into the ocean. When too much polluted discharge from Okeechobee hits areas downstream like the St. Lucie River estuary in Stuart, for example, the blend of fresh and salt water creates giant phosphorescent plumes of algae, making the water unsafe for human and aquatic life alike.
...
But residents along the coast are tired of the excuses. They say there is enough blame to go around at both the state and federal levels, with Big Agriculture playing a significant role.
