Florida waters choke on fertilizer, dead fish and red tides while big agriculture floats above it all, reflecting a crisis for coastal and inland parts of the state alike.
Along the coast, the seagrass that nourishes wildlife can be scarce, and near-shore fish can be hard to spot. Reefs are dying. Sewage is leaking. Stinky seaweed fouls beaches. And many of Florida’s freshwater springs — more than 700 — glow with neon algae.
Then there are notorious algae blooms and red tides along the Gulf Coast, causing massive fish kills. Red tides occur naturally, but scientists say they are likely exacerbated by warming ocean waters and pollution, such as the dumping of 200 million gallons of wastewater from an old phosphate mine near Tampa Bay last year.
The red tide and algae repercussions are profound. Tons of dead fish have washed up on beaches, hurting tourism and cuasing health problems from the toxic stench. Algae blooms also kill dolphins, and in 2021, 1,100 manatees died, nearly double the 2020 count. Blooms destroy the seagrass that manatees feed on, and most starved to death.
The decline in water quality is damaging Florida at its core, threatening sea life, the ecosystem, and the touristm and fishing industries. Yet, except for the long-term restoration of the Everglades, which is critically important, state Republican lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — who has who has vowed to clean up Florida’s waters — have failed to implement more targeted solutions.
To DeSantis’s credit, he sent the state legislature a budget proposal that would spend $920 million to boost water quality and continue a decades-long plan to fix the Everglades.
“They do throw a little money here and there,” Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation Voters, told me. “But without addressing the root problems of the situation, you can only get so far.”
Among the root problems is pollution, and the worst offender is farm fertilizer that spills into waterways, chiefly Lake Okeechobee. The water then gets pushed into rivers, estuaries, the Gulf and the Atlantic by the Army Corps of Engineers to control flooding.
Other culprits are lawn fertilizer, stormwater runoff, septic systems, and municipal sewage systems and wastewater treatment facilities.
Fertilizer triggers algae blooms, worsens red tide and fuels seaweed invasions, starving waterways of oxygen. But in Florida, that’s just the price of doing business with big agriculture.
The state Department of Environmental Protection estimates that as much as 78% of the phosphorus from fertilizer that flows into the Okeechobee watershed comes from Florida’s powerful, regulation-averse agriculture industry. But big ag apparently has little fear of punishment.
“That is a big political issue,” David Cullen, a lobbyist for Sierra Club Florida, told me. “Nobody seems to have the spine to stand up to agriculture. The biggest solution to stopping pollution is to stop it at its source.”
An investigation by the Treasure Coast Palm newspaper found that all 32 drainage basins around Lake Okeechobee with available data exceeded phosphorus limits.
The crisis is so grave that when DeSantis took office in 2019, he formed a Blue-Green Algae Task Force that made several widely lauded recommendations, which led to the state’s Clean Waterways Act in 2020.
Unfortunately, the law, which was hailed as a major Republican victory, has fallen short of the hype. It increased fines and for the first time required in-person inspections and nutrient documentation, albeit every two years. But it did not require a statewide water monitoring system or require farmers to monitor and reduce pollution. As for ramping up enforcement, the law accomplished little. It still presumes compliance.
Florida needs more employees to inspect and enforce, and it needs the will to back them. But what’s the incentive? Angering the state’s agriculture industry can put a political career at risk. DeSantis and his legislative allies have shown little sign during the current session that they’re inclined to do what’s necessary to reverse this environmental disaster.
