South Florida ecological disaster

[Triggerjay]

Currently in southwest Florida we are having an ecological disaster. We have a lake in the center of Florida that is filled with No3 and Po4 due to the over use of fertilizers on nearby sugar cane crops, as well as other contributors.

The water in this lake is being discharged into two rivers (untreated) leading directly into the ocean. This has resulted in a massive Cyanobacteria outbreak in the brackish river systems and the excess nutrients are free flowing into the ocean killing everything in its path with a red tide bloom.

Over 100 miles of shoreline and going as far as 10 miles out into the ocean is nothing but death. Sea turtles, fish by the TONS, dolphins, manatees, a whale shark and everything else is dying.

The news is downplaying the situation so many may not be aware of the devistation we are currently facing. We are looking for a solution and I feel it is my duty as a saltwater enthusiast and human being to help contribute to the resolution of this ecological disaster. I am asking the reef community as a whole to put our heads together and see if we can come up with a plausible solution to propose to the “leaders that be”.

A little background on me:
I entered the saltwater hobby around 2007/2008. Since then I have acquired the knowledge to maintain several full blown SPS systems. I am a pretty good “backyard mechanic” with a decent understanding of water chemistry and marine biology, but by no means an expert.

Here’s a couple of thoughts on a proposed solution:

1. Treating discharged water from polluted lake with ozone and/or UV.

2. Creating additional reservoirs to temporarily hold water from the lake (pre-treated with ozone/UV) which would be heavily planted with harvestable plants to aid in the removal of No3 and Po4 such as duckweed, and harvested regularly to export excess nutrients.

3. Once levels in the reservoirs were safe, then discharge to the river system.

4. Kind of goes without saying, but reduce the amount/types of fertilizers being used on crops.

Any thoughts on if this may be an effective treatment? Unfortunately the scale we are dealing with is much larger than anything we would/could imagine.

I am attaching a few images that the news won’t show you so you can see the scale of this problem:

 

[cracker]

This is terrible ! We have an big algae bloom in the ST Johns river here in the North East prt of the state. It gets worse every year. I took the boat for a spin several weeks ago the water line in covered in black scum Looks just like our Skimmers . Your right about hardly reported news .

 

[Diesel]

That is a disaster I must say.
A red slime remover ain’t going to work here nor H2O2 dosing.
Maybe @Cruz_Arias want to chime in on this as he’s a master engineer in water purification treatments

 

[Triggerjay]

Army corps held a conference here in my city Cape Coral discussing the issue (no answers though). During the meeting, a dead female manatee washed up with two live babies clinging to it just outside, feet from where the meeting was taking place.

 

[Fishfinder]

The problem isnt finding a solution. There are solutions. The problem is getting our politicians to care more about wildlife than money.
It'll never happen. They will never spend the money needed to fix the problem. Not when big business is working hard to make the problem worse.

We have the same problem in the indian river lagoon. It is basically a brown muddy canal now. Not a healthy river.

 

[cracker]

It's a tricky thing to stop . The agriculture & livestock industry is BIG money in the state .
I'm very concerned about this . We just heard about it but every year in the warmer months it keeps getting worse here .

 

[Triggerjay]

Anyone interested in more info on the disaster take a peek at my Facebook profile. My real name is Jason Sanders. My profile is public.

 

[Bill from OZ]

I live in Kansas and we are having similar issues due to the over use of fertilizers. Toxic blue green algae blooms make many of our lakes and reservoirs unusable during summer months. Farmers have lost hercattle from drinking toxic water.

In the 90s the state government, in conjunction with conservation experts, set up buffer zones around waterways. The idea being a strip of unfarmed land to absorb nutrients and prevent them from entering the water. They have had little effect. Native grasses were chosen to grow in these buffer zones, where as a reefer would have chosen plants with a high nutrient uptake. It is specifically zone 3 that I feel needs widened and modified to better control modern fertilizers. Possibly even adding a 4th zone.

We dump hundreds of thousands of gallons of fertilizers on miles of fields, then expect as little as 50 feet of natural growth to absorb excess nutrients. While they help, they are not evovled to uptake the ammount of fertilizer we create in our labs.

I have thought hard about the option of planting harvestable plants to remove these pollutants. The problem is that it must be sustainable economically. A second reservoir(sort of like a sump) would give an area that would be farmable, however It would increase water loss due to evaporation and drainage into the soil. With so many farmers in so many states fighting over the rights to water, I dont believe this could be the standard in the midwest. We need to stop the polutants from reaching the water in the first place.

I believe that we have an obligation to take great care of this planet. While we have 7.5billion people on this planet to feed, we can and must be more responsible in our agriculture. Yes, using less fertilizer sounds great but its not the only option. Would you feed your corals less and let their growth suffer to reduce nutrients if simply turning your skimmer up or adding a new algae to your sump would give the same result? We can and mustndo more and I think these ideas are great options to consider.

 

[Katrina71]

I absolutely hate to see this. Heartbreaking. I certainly hope our younger generations can do things smarter. Ignorance is bliss until it looks like this.

 

[Cruz_Arias]

Aeration, Micro nano bubble scrubbing and aerobic bacteria...

Bacteria can out compete the other red bacterial slime... pair that with highly efficient oxygenation and oxygen infusion into the body of water will trigger a metabolic increase in the aerobic form of the beneficial bacteria...

That's the simple answer in layman's terms.

If they want the science behind it, contract me in the restoration projects as the Chief Engineer.

 

[Cruz_Arias]

That is a disaster I must say.
A red slime remover ain’t going to work here nor H2O2 dosing.
Maybe @Cruz_Arias want to chime in on this as he’s a master engineer in water purification treatments

Thank you Ben.