Forgive me, this is sort of a “throwback” post. What I mean by that is that I wanted to talk to you about a situation from the summer of 2018, when Florida, including southeast Florida, were experiencing an influx of algae of several types such as the blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and RED tide.
One of the sneakiest and most prominent species is the blue green algae. There are many debates in Florida as to it’s current contributor, but I really think it’s no ONE thing. If you spend even just a little time researching the “causes” of the outbreaks you come across many theories. You will find that it is a perfect storm of corporate interests and farming communities up the state contaminating the environment in countless ways (thank you big sugar, and thank you potash and phosphate mining!), to altering water flow throughout the state through releases from Lake Okeechoobee. It involves pesticides, and herbicides, and all the different” cides” we use everywhere, on our lawns, etc to manage different pests and disrupt the flow of things, as us humans are so good at doing. It involves letting all our dogs defecate all over the place in public places with no efforts to clean it up. When you have a whole urban neighborhood doing this, you can realize things can get pretty overwhelming, and is carried away with the rain, down in to the sewer drains.
Anyhow, Last year, around the time it was coming to light that Fort Lauderdale had also become home to the blue-green algae, and the Red Tide, I had taking a bike ride around my city. I had already seen sewage main breaks in this area in the previous years, so it was always an area I check out out from time to time. It’s a small canal that runs under a bridge around 8th street. It’s now surrounded by large high-rises that have since been constructed and are still in construction since 2018.
Below is a collection of images from Downtown Fort Lauderdale last year. This is at the end of the New River, where it meets the Himmarshee Canal. The construction site had to put those barriers in in order to contain their waste site from items getting out. The irony is that it was holding out of the algae that had drifted downstream.These images also pain me, because it just encapsulates how our systems get overwhelmed when we overgrow as we have. The city of Fort Lauderdale by many accounts is overgrowing it’s boundaries and ability to contain itself. Ask any resident or local and they can tell you how the cities sewer system is rife with issues. The system is aged. Between construction mishaps causing complete water outages for all of greater Fort Lauderdale. This is the same problem that is being repeated over and over in city after city. People’s health are declining in many places where there are large reports of aging sewer systems. I want you to know, It’s not only happening on a “Flint” level in places like Flint. This is happening in “million dollar nieghborhoods” like where I live in Fort Lauderdale too. I’ve seen so many sewer main breaks both off main roads, and in bodies of water (George English Park 4 years ago, Himmarshee Canal 4 years ago, Federal and Broward 2019), that I know enough sewage has spewed all over our local water ways and upset the balance of our water. It’s sad when I don’t even feel safe to put my hands in the water in our waterways, and after last year, I quite honestly lost faith in feeling safe going in our oceans. I still do, but the more I learn, the more cautious I become in wanting to know more about the environment I find myself in. Through education I believe we can make it better, and that’s why I am here. Maybe in your day to day life you haven’t seen the reality of this. Maybe you don’t know it’s happening? That’s what motivates me to be curious about this. I was shocked to find out that even in the water coming out of the tap, I found algae like filaments in my water (unfiltered). It makes me wonder, why we even wonder why we are getting sick?
Also, please note the trash in the images, we really need to do better as a society in managing our waste on so many levels. If we did that, perhaps, these algae crises may not occur, because we won’t upset the balance so horrible.
The Water Mediator 