Polluted Lake Okeechobee getting dirtier

Water managers, environmental agencies and conservation groups have been talking about cleaning up Lake Okeechobee for decades.

The water quality has only gotten worse. Much worse.

Two environmental groups on Wednesday released an e-mail from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that shows a troubling buildup of the key nutrient phosphorus -- whose presence in the lake has almost quadrupled since the 1970s and almost doubled since the 1990s.

With current concentrations approaching 200 parts per billion -- considered 20 times too polluted for the Everglades -- the dirty lake looms as major and expensive problem for an Everglades restoration effort who cost is already expected to top $20 billion.

Jerry Phillips, Florida director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which released the September memo with the Civic Council Association, called the declining water quality, primarily flowing in from ranches and suburbs north of the lake, ``the elephant in the living room'' of Everglades restoration.

``If you don't start addressing the issue, you aren't going to get any true restoration on the south side,'' he said.

Phillips blamed lax regulation by the EPA and Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

A spokeswoman for the EPA's regional office in Atlanta said the agency was crafting a response. In a lawsuit settlement with environmental groups earlier this year, the agency agreed to set legal limits for farm and urban runoff that pollutes Florida's waterways.

The South Florida Water Management District, which is overseeing Everglades cleanup for the state, issued a written statement saying lawmakers had approved a North Everglades plan in 2007 to address the issues and had spent $1.8 billion to improve water quality in the Everglades. Most of that has gone into constructing almost 40,000 acres of pollution cleanup marshes designed to scrub runoff from sugar farms south of the lake.

North of the lake, the district said it is working with farmers and cattle ranches to reduce fertilizer use and runoff. It is also constructing a 2,700-acre treatment area to clean water before it flows into the lake.

The memo, written by Eric Hughes, a wetlands biologist based in the EPA's Jacksonville office, said an average of 572 tons of phosphorus flows into the lake each year -- four times the target the state is supposed to reach by 2015.

Excess phosphorus, a nutrient in manure and fertilizer, can choke native plants and fuels the growth of cat-tails and other exotic plants in the Everglades and algae blooms in rivers and lakes.

from the Miami Herald