Army Corps, swim in our toxic water
The summer of 2018 is already looking a lot like the summer of 2016. I don’t need to remind anyone of the shuttered businesses, the “No Swimming” signs that littered our community or the regular occurrence of fish kills. It’s only June and already we’re experiencing the putrid stench of another lost summer.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently discharging nearly four billion gallons of water per day to the east and west of Lake Okeechobee without regard for toxins in the water or the health effects for every man, woman and child.
Our waterways, estuaries and beaches are the lifeblood of the area. Our economy is driven by visitors and locals alike — fishing, boating or having a meal at a waterfront restaurant. Our ecosystem is supposed to be home to numerous species now endangered, sensitive plant life and one of the most diverse cross sections of sea life — not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people. When you destroy our environment, you destroy us.
The bottom line is that we cannot afford to continue being used as the septic tank for Lake Okeechobee. The Army Corps should immediately stop discharges until they can prove that the water is safe.
Like the leaders at the Army Corps, I was an Army soldier. We have worn the same uniform. I have to believe that we share the common drive to protect life. But I would never sacrifice the health of an entire community in the name of what might happen sometime in the future. Our ethos as warriors says we never leave a fallen comrade behind, but the Army Corps is right now leaving our community to die.
If the Army Corps thinks this is hyperbole, then I’m extending an open invitation to their leadership to stand by their policy: come for a swim in our increasingly toxic water. If they feel the water is acceptable for our children to play in, for us to fish in and for our endangered animals to live in, then it should be good enough for them to swim in also.
As our fight continues, I’ve also worked in Congress to secure resources that we need to fix this crisis. Most importantly, we secured a commitment from water infrastructure leaders to authorize the EAA southern storage reservoir (from state Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart) once the Army Corps refers the final plan to Congress. My placeholder language for this reservoir was included in the Water Resources and Development Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month.
That bill also included resources to develop a massive water filtration system capable of removing toxic algae from the massive quantities of water discharged into our community, a re-evaluation of the Lake Okeechobee Regulations Schedule (LORS) to reduce the frequency of discharges, beach renourishment for our community and more.
These are all important new policies that will help fix this problem. But, I also know that we need immediate relief for the businesses who have to make a budget this summer, for the families whose children are heading off to day camp, for the fishers who are starting to find more dead fish than they’re catching alive and for everyone else that calls our community home.
BRIAN MAST,