Florida AMENDMENT-1

Now, let's see how "reasonable" our legislature is going to be with regard to actual allocation of the funds brought in through this overwhelmingly approved amendment -

BALANCING

Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) are admittedly two crucial elements for growth – of crops and even our bodies.  We learned that by supplementing these elements through  “artificial fertilizers“,  we enhance crops and can sustain our population and its well being.  As we withdraw these elements from natural resources, and use them in the environment, we upset the natural balances around us causing nuisance or even accute toxicity.  Just remember toxic potable water in Toledo, Ohio, red tide in Florida or eutrophic overgrowth of thousands of fresh-water lakes and streams and poisoning of what remains of Florida Everglades. 

Highly polluting algal blooms - sometimes toxic

The surplus of nitrogen nutrient dissolved in waters we know how to handle. That surplus of contaminaiting nitrogen we learned to turn back into neutral gas and return where it came from – the atmosphere. All with the help of microbes that do it for us.
Phosphorus, however, is a different story - 

“It's the phoshorus, stupid !“ 
- (paraphrasing former President Clinton).
It is an element that we “unearth“ and it lingers in the environment around us where we release it. While some of it supports production of our crops, most of it washes into “receiving water bodies“ - causing havoc.  We do not have any mechanism whatsoever to put that genie back into the bottle.  Wetlands, say some – wetlands remove phosphorus !  However, that just does not quite add up in simple mass balancing that teaches us –
what goes IN, that goes OUT or it ACCUMULATES
(this checks out even for your wallet $$).
So now, wait a minute – where does that phosphorus go when channelled into a wetland ?  It cannot evaporate into thin air.  It supports growth of wetland plants that grow and die in cycles.  As part of this, the phosphorus becomes “mineralized“ – deposited in the bottom soil.  Good, gone !  Not so fast – what happens to that bottom soil ? 
It settles and – remains there with all the phosphorus that was removed from circulation - for the time being.  P-rich bottom muds -

That is also close to the story of phosphorus-rich bottom muds in Lake Okeechobee and everywhere else where phosphorus-enrichment takes place, creating "legacy phosphorus“ mud and soil depositions – a looming threat, a time bomb and a major problem ! Because all that phosphorus can and does keep uncontrollably leaching out again –
By the way – sending water from LO south, as it is nowadays called for -  there is so much phosphorus present AND deposited in LO that it can convert a third of Florida into a “biological desert“ overgrown with life-choking cattails instead of the Everglades native sawgrass.  That LO water needs to be proportioned and cleaned first.  It is a certainty that the indian tribes living downstream from LO just would not allow its pollution pouring south.
Phosphorus is a solid element that remains just that – in its solid or dissolved molecular forms.
Unlike nitrogen that can exist as free gas – and pooof, off it goes then, ‘disappearing‘ back into the atmosphere.  Phosphorus is phosphorus is phosphorus – sometimes dissolved, sometimes in a combined solid, it does not ‘disappear‘ as gas.  While we  desperately need it, there are only rather limited quantities of it to mine on the earth (mostly in Morocco, some in China, some in Florida). We mine it and throw it around, literally. 

Phosphate mining in Morocco - our P is a finite resource !

And so what ?
Some rather nagging practical questions emerge – what happens to the phosphorus “removed“ in the STAs (huge-scale constructed wetlands) that Florida is frantically trying to build ?  For how long can we keep accumulating phosphorus in their bottom muds ?  Is that becoming another “legacy phosphorus“ for next generations to worry about then ?
It would be wise to introduce some common sense in phosphorus husbandry and control.  Using slow-release fertilizers and strictly controling their application could be a good start. Recovery of phosphorus from our waters – and from our muds - should be attempted.  We have to address these issues. 
Of course, it is quite difficult because phosphorus control and recovery goes “uphill“ against the 2nd law of thermodynamics and entropy – am I overwhelming you ? Of course -
Let’s just say – it is easy to go from concentrated to dilute forms of substances - but it is difficult (and energy requiring) to go back from dilute to concentrated.  We would want to not just remove phosphorus when it contaminates our surface waters but to recover it for effective re-use. 
We need a techno-scientific breakthrough there. 
That is what the $10-million Prize recently announced by the Everglades Foundation is all about. Good luck !



Agriculture fields pollute - the problem to be corrected by vast artificial
wetlands (STAs) that are supposed to clean up. Will they ?  For how long ?

TMDLs and BMAPs - what the heck ?

By Linda Young, Executive Director - Florida Clean Water Network

Speaking of pollution and shell games.  The Florida DEP has become the national expert in making sure that big polluters are never held accountable for their pollution and that the Clean Water Act is never implemented or enforced in Florida.  If you live in Florida, then you live near a polluted water body of some kind, whether it is a spring, lake, river, sound, estuary or coastal waters.  Many of you have been actively involved in trying to work within

DEP's scheme designed to circumvent section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act which basically says these polluted waters must be identified and then cleaned up.

Over the past 16 years or so in Florida a series of steps have unfolded through the regulatory process, driven by large polluters such as pulp and paper, phosphate, agriculture, electric power companies, etc. to assure that citizens have no voice in decisions about their waters and that these big polluters are never required to reduce or stop their pollution. They demand assurance that they will never be held accountable for the damage they have done and continue to cause.  Here is a short synopsis of what these steps are and how they have created a trap for any possible enforcement of section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act:

1 - First there is clearly a pattern across the state of doing as few TMDLs as possible by keeping polluted waters off of the 303(d) list; 

2 - then for the waters that do make the list, DEP adopts TMDLs that are based on biased or faulty data;

3 - then eventually (usually late) DEP will develop a BMAP that is hideously inadequate to result in any improvements and usually require very little action by pollution sources; 

4 - then by changing water quality criteria for numerous parameters such as nutrients, dissolved oxygen, and others they can go back and revise the TMDLs  to either weaken the previous TMDL or eliminate them all together.  

5 - Now they are developing the "pollution credit trading" rule which uses much of the voodoo from items 1 - 4 as a basis and then makes it possible for polluters to make money on their pollution.
 

In short - don't step in DEP's/polluters trap.  Working within this system is largely a waste of time.  We need to expose it for what it is and find other ways to deal with pollution.  Most likely, working with your local governments is the best way.  Lee County is a good example of citizens and local governments working together to overcome pollution that is being aided and abetted by our government.  Educate your friends and neighbors and work locally.  Eventually better people will get elected into office and sanity will be restored.
Right now the inmates have taken over the asylum and they are going crazy. With the re-election of Rick Scott, the polluters are foaming at the mouth over his talk of more deregulation.  There will be no limit on what they will try to do.  I'm not trying to depress anyone - just be ready for what may come and be thinking of a way to keep pushing your goals forward.  We will eventually prevail.

Linda Young, Executive Director - Florida Clean Water Network
P.O. Box 5124, Navarre, FL 32566    Tel.: 850.322.7978

 

 

"I'M NOT A SCIENTIST"

Useful conversions first - close to the Everglades:
Water and Math in the Caloosahatchee Watershed
One acre-foot represents VOLUME and it equals:

• 326,000 U.S. gallons
• 43,560 cubic feet
• 1233 cubic meters
• 893 gallons per day for 365 days
• 
  Your bathtub holds about 5 cubic feet. How big is the Caloosahatchee River ?
• 
  In the dry season, the Caloosahatchee River flow can go as low as 300 ft3 (0.007 acre-foot) per second, or 18,000 ft3 (0.4 acre-foot) per minute, or 1.1 million ft3 (25 acre-feet) per hour, or 26 million ft3 (600 acre-feet) per day.
• 
  In the rainy season, the Caloosahatchee River flows at about 2,000 ft3 (0.05 acre-foot) per second, or 120,000 ft3 (16 acre-feet) per minute, or 7.2 million ft3 (170 acre-feet) per hour or 170 million ft3 (4,000 acre feet per day) per day.
• 
  The Caloosahatchee watershed contains 1408 square miles, or 900,000 acres. It receives an average of 53" (4.5') of rain every year. That comes to 4.1 million acre-feet of rain that drains into the soil, runs off hardened parking lots and roads, or evaporates
   (Courtesy of Friends of the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves)

LITERACY

And now, please allow me a to add a few words, a little rumination perhaps - on "science" and some attitudes.
First of all, the above is NOT really "math" or "science" - it is really arithmetic and it is part of what is generally labeled as "literacy". Just like reading and writing, it is an indivisible part of our civilization - and functionality. We need to know how to count our money, right ? We are priding ourselves as being literate. Well, are we really ?
Have you heard of "functional illiteracy" ? It has to do with, for example, writing a message that we post on our fridge - that could be understood by others. Others who are supposed to not only read it - but interpret it and act on it.
Surprise - there is 48.7% "functionally illiterate" people in the USA !
And this is not even considering math or arithmetic skills.

Governor Scott entered history with his 'disclaimer' that "I'm not a scientist". That is true, he has not been trained as one. We can only hope that he does comprehend some level of "science" and can act correspondingly. Also, that he can read and interpret the message on his fridge posted there for him by the experts, the highly trained science people.
It all has to do with literacy and functional literacy.
And at the bottom of it all is EDUCATION - which relies on a certain level of INTELLIGENCE that we claim to posses as human species.

Regarding those two categories (education and intelligence), it does not do much good when highly visible and role-model public personalities, a governor, TV or radio hosts, politicians, celebrities or such, publicly declare that he/she is "no good in math" - and we are really talking only simplistic addition/subtraction skills.
Such a confession does happen every once in a time - much too often in our 'intellectually' dominated media where people do not seem to read and 'think' numbers. Avoiding them since childhood. Hmmm -
Can you imagine the impact of such a public statement ?
Leading by example ? This type of a 'disclaimer' is not only dumb, it is actually a very-very serious intellectual public crime -
Crime on our children who see, hear or read it - and form their attitudes. What a role example, what motivation !
What a leadership.

P-RICH WATER for AGRI

The rumination and idea outlined here may be somewhat raw and only semi-baked. But the more we think of it the more we get the drift of it – and it looks quite logical.  It has to do with Central and South Florida watershed schemes and Phosphorus removal.  At this point, nobody doubts that phosphorus contamination is the main culprit in deterioration of what’s left of the Everglades.

 

These huge-scale ecological systems have to be approached like one HUGE scheme, not so much piece-meal.  The northern watersheds dump nutrients into Lake Okeechobee – that, in turn, has to release its waters further downstream.  We cannot expect these waters to be clean because Lake Okeechobee is thoroughly overwhelmed receiving 500-600t of P/y (max. 105 tP/y allowed).

The South of the Lake, Everglades Agricultural Area, with its vast sugar-cane monoculture, makes the nutrient surplus situation even worse.  A series of new STAs are valiantly struggling with the nutrient (mainly phosphorus) overloads that impair their performance in cleaning up water destined to eventually feed the Everglades Protection Area and the ENP itself.  According to the latest calculations, new expanses of land are now required for expansion of STAs and water reservoirs (FEBs). The latter are necessary for water storage and smoothing the seasonal flood and drought situations.

It is necessary to emphasize that these man-made water storage and cleansing structures are built and operated on taxpayers money.  We shall let the stakeholders argue about this concept, keeping the Tallahassee lobbyists busy (and paid).  

In summarizing the situation, it can be said that -

- we have huge quantities of P-contaminated waters representing a problem;
- large quantities of fresh water AND Phosphorus are used for agriculture operations (NOT going to go away any time soon);
- agriculture needs water - and keeps pumping and using perfectly CLEAN water from underground aquifers – only to contaminate it with hard-to-remove phosphorus.
It is clear that the agriculture needs WATER and P. 
Why not give and distribute both to them already in a MIXTURE ! - and -
- save huge costs of removing P from water (to extremely low levels of 10ppb), and
- preserve the precious clean fresh-water aquifers for city use.

In other words - why don't we have agriculture using exclusively P-loaded water instead ?

Of course, that would mean -
- gathering and holding that water;
- pumping that water;
- conveying that water – perhaps using modern higher-tech distribution PIPELINES rather than canals that suffer from seepage and high evapotranspiration losses;
- have somebody (user ?) pay some (?) of the water conveyance costs.

One could go even one step further, realizing that : 

- As surplus P-rich water from Lake Okeechobee (LO) is currently relased ‘to the tide’ (Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers) it wreaks havoc along these waterways and on the estuaries. 
- The shallow muds in LO contain high amounts of deposited “legacy” Phosphorus accumulation.
- Large land areas in the EAA suffered soil oxidation, depletion and subsidence (5 feet at some locations).
- The key to water quality and quantity problems in Central and South Florida is Lake Okeechobee.

Pumping out P-rich muds of LO

This may perhaps be a longer range challenge –filling in badly subsided and eroded sections of EAA land, enriching and building up the soil. This approach would be helpful in solving numerous existing side-problems. This may be the only way of solving the LO outstanding water quality problem that stands out and has not even been addressed to this day. Too big a chunk to swallow ?

In fresh water we have what is rapidly becoming a diminishing resource. Just like our municipal water distribution structure is rapidly becoming duplicated – for fresh water and for recycled water, we can expect a similar concept used for agricultural irrigation:  use P-loaded water for that purpose.

Now - here is the economics clincher:
This approach may still be CHEAPER than buying out LAND for and operating FEB-STAs combinations. Nedless to say, with Florida dry-wet seasons, water-storing reservoirs will always be needed.

The whole regional water scheme will likely radically change also with the blocking of remaining ocean outfalls - in a not too distant future. A dual water distribution network is quickly becoming commonplace with those purple 'recycle water' pipelines being laid down everywhere.

The water-phosphorus-agri scheme discussed here should become another ELEMENT in the water management puzzle of Central and South Florida - among all those others introduced, like BMPs, RASTAs, LO, dispersed water storage, etc. 
Not one, not two, but ALL of these remedial actions need to be applied in concert since there is no silver bullet of a solution for problems of this magnitude, compounded by a century of wrong and neglect.
Enough -
That's MY five-billion-dollar conceptual suggestion - for consideration and to keep on the drawing board of solutions being suggested, examined, and eventually pursued. 
Examine it. We just have to better look after our water resources.
Naive ? - well, keep it in mind and just see somebody else coming up with it sooner or later.