Russell Chisholm
Environmental Journalism Final
12/6/14
N.Santaniello
Coral reefs have long been a main attraction here in South Florida. People travel from all
over the country to hop into the warm Florida water and swim over living and thriving homes to
hundreds of different kinds of marine life; both big and small. Some of the smallest life forms
that exist below the surface are algae, and they could prove to be some of the most dangerous.
When runoff is dumped by sewage companies into the ocean near coral reefs, algae
experiences exponential growth and can wind up overtaking the coral and taking all of its food,
causing its eventual death. In Florida, this has been a very hot topic in the past 25 years. Because
coral reefs are homes to so many other forms of marine life, we could see a lot of negative things
happening if this isn’t placed under control soon. From Palm Beach County all the way down to
the Florida Keys, this is a commonly seen anomaly.
Chelsea DeMore, a lab technician at The Florida Keys Community College, sees these
algae blooms almost daily and can see where our waters are headed if changes aren't made.
“When you are diving and doing labs in the water, it’s very cool to see all the life that surrounds
the reefs and to watch it go right in front of your eyes. If this pollution and algae growth keeps
happening, we probably won't see that much longer. It also makes the water very murky and hard
to see.”
If a coral reef is killed, a home to thousands of other species is also destroyed. If it keeps
going at the rate that it is now, we may start to see the decline of familiar marine species off our
coasts.
Most of the time, algae is good, living symbiotically with the coral reefs. Sometimes,
however, when the conditions are right, algae growth can begin to spike and start to take over the
coral reefs that it calls home. Since both the coral and the algae thrive off of sunlight and oxygen
(amongst other nutrients) in the water, it can become a constant struggle to eat and eventually a
fight for survival between the two now ex-symbiotic species.
According to The Pure Water Gazette, nitrogen is most commonly introduced as a
pollutant via sewage treatment pipes that pump out into the ocean but can also arrive as runoff
from the Everglades.
Scott Donahue, a science coordinator at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, said
this “nutrient pollution” has been going on for a very long time, reaching back all the way to
when Lake Okeechobee was dammed in the 1920’s and even before. “Look at it like this,” said
Donahue “pretend you had a big aquarium stocked full of algae and coral. When left uninhibited
in safe water conditions, both can thrive. If we spiked the water with fertilizer though, you would
get an accurate picture of what is happening to some of Florida’s reefs.”
Donahue sees the destruction of coral reefs on a regular basis. “Upwelling isn’t really
something that is controllable, but leveling out the nutrients within a certain area of water is
something that is easily done.”
It took until the late eighties and into the early nineties for people to actually be
concerned with what was happening to the reefs that were around their homes. When they began
to complain, the US Government responded by opening up the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary in 1990. They serve as a marine sanctuary as well as monitoring water quality, coral
reefs and sea grass.
It is a hard task to control the nutrients in the water when there are six sewage pipes in
Palm Beach, Miami Dade, and Broward counties that pump out around 300 million gallons of
partially treated sewage on a daily basis, states an article published online by Save Our Shores
Florida.
Another way that nutrients are being loaded into the water is via runoff, usually
through the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee. People in Florida love their lawns and love for
them to look their absolute best year round. It isn’t unusual for the average Floridian to fertilize
his lawn at least four times a year.
Lake Okeechobee itself acts as a holder for water. A lot of the water that people use ends
up directly in Lake Okeechobee, waiting until it either evaporates or is leaked into the Florida
Everglades. When the nutrient filled water leaks into the Everglades, it eventually makes its way
down to sea level and out into the ocean via estuaries or simple runoff locations. This is another
huge way that nutrient loading occurs.
Brian LaPointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch
satellite campus, has tons of firsthand experience with South Floridian marine ecosystems and
the topic at hand. Living both in Fort Pierce and in the Bahamas, LaPointe knows the ins and
outs of coral reef life and what they are being faced with on a daily basis.
“The only other thing in history that has been this harmful to coral reefs is when the army
corps of engineers tried to get rid of all them all in the 1850’s. They wound up realizing that it
was not possible within the bounds of science and just wound up stopping,” he says.
LaPointe described the algae that kills the coral almost as a green blanket of slime that
acts as an oxygen vacuum around the coral, depriving it of what it needs. Most of the time,
unusual smell and color will appear around the area of over-nutrition.
An end to this issue could come around as soon biostitution ends. Biostitution, according
to LaPointe, although not a real word, can be linked to the idea of undermining and buying out
people (government employees) by corporations to overlook certain things or completely ignore
them. Whether or not it is good for the environment, these “biostitutes” will write or pass
anything if it is for their personal gain.
Apparently, closing up those raw sewage dumps in the ocean and regulating the chemical
levels in waters that are stored in Lake Okeechobee are low on their list. This issue is slowly but
surely moving into the public eye and hopefully when it happens, LaPointe and Donahue will
have one less thing to worry about.
SOURCES:
Brian LaPointe
Research Professor, FAU (Harbor Branch)
Scott Donahue
Science Coordinator,
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, (Key West)
Chelsea DeMore
Lab Technician, Florida Keys Community College
WRITTEN:
The Pure Water Gazette “The Ocean is Always Fine”
SaveOurShores Florida “Coastal Runoff: Coral Reefs at Risk”
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary “Water Quality Protection Program”