A Florida Republican wants to add massive algae blooms to the list of emergencies covered by the federal government after his state was denied emergency funds for a destructive bloom that covered 200 square miles last year.
Rep. Brian Mast introduced the Federal Do No Harm Act last month to add harmful algae blooms in state waterways and coastal estuaries caused by water releases from Army Corps of Engineers-controlled dikes and dams to the list of disasters under the Stafford Act.
The bill is a response to a giant algal bloom off Florida’s Treasure Coast in Southeast Florida that was caused by the release of water from Lake Okeechobee in 2016. The Army Corps of Engineers released water from the lake into an estuary and a river to protect a dike that is under construction along the lake.
The algal bloom spread to cover about 200 square miles and caused beaches along the coast to close. The Obama administration denied federal emergency funding for Florida because algae blooms are not a part of the Stafford Act.
Mast said that must change now.
“The poor water quality on the Treasure Coast is our most important regional priority. Right now the water being discharged by Lake Okeechobee is destroying our community, putting people out of business, killing sea life and even making people sick,” he said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“The federal government has played a big part in causing these discharges, but they aren’t taking responsibility for the damage caused to our community. That’s absolutely unacceptable, and it’s why I introduced the Federal Do No Harm Act to hold the government accountable for their actions.”
The Stafford Act authorizes the president to declare federal emergencies and provide assistance to communities affected by disasters while laying out the process for the federal government to help those communities. Those disasters include hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, high water events, wind-driven water events, tidal waves, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, mudslides, snowstorms or drought, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website. It also covers fires, floods or explosions, regardless of cause, according to FEMA.
The freshman congressman also has introduced legislation to expedite the process to approve restoration projects in the Everglades, including a reservoir. That bill aims to speed up five water storage projects that are aimed at minimizing water discharges into estuaries around Lake Okeechobee and limiting harmful algal blooms.
The lake presents a massive challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers, both for the protection of South Florida residents and the waterways of the area.
John Campbell, a spokesman for the Jacksonville District of the Army Corps, told the Washington Examiner that residents around the lake put up small levees to protect themselves from flooding when the area was settled. In the 1920s, multiple hurricanes caused the lake to overflow and flood the surrounding area, killing thousands.
That led to the construction of the dike that now encircles the lake, the Herbert Hoover Dike. In the following decades, the Central and Southern Florida Project led to the current system of water management by constructing canals and pump stations that would lessen flooding in the Sunshine State and allowed for millions of people to move into the area.
But Campbell said that project was done before more modern concerns about South Florida’s ecosystem came into vogue. In 2000, Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project, an $8.2 billion plan to restore the area’s ecosystem over the next 30 years while modernizing water management.
Part of that plan will be allowing water to escape to the south into grasslands instead of going east and west to the state’s coasts, Campbell said. That could go a long way to helping deal with the algal bloom issues.
The lake contains nutrient-rich water during the rainy season due to runoff from farms and septic tanks in the area around the state’s largest lake. In 2016, the dry season — basically between October 2015 and mid-May 2016 — was much rainier than it usually is, causing the lake to be much higher than normal, Campbell said. Water had to be released, or the 80-year-old dikes would have been strained, he said.
“It puts us in a very tough position where we’re having to release water or increase the dike built in the ’30s that completely circles the lake,” he said. “We haven’t made it any secret that we don’t have a lot of faith in it if the water level gets above 17-and-a-half feet.”
The Corps made the call to release the water into the St. Lucie Estuary, which is a mix of fresh and salt water and goes to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Caloosahatchee River, which drains into the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of fresh rainwater that poured into Lake Okeechobee was released into the estuary and the river, and it overwhelmed the system, Campbell said.
“It pushed waters into the coves and kept things from draining adequately, so you basically had stagnant freshwater filled with nutrients,” he said.
All it takes for an algae bloom to take hold is sunlight, slow-moving water and nutrients, usually nitrogen and phosphorous, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The blooms can produce toxins that sicken or kill animals and people, create dead zones in bodies of water, raise the cost of water to pay for treatment and hurt industries that need clean water like fishing.
The decision to release the water had to be made, Campbell said.
“We tried to manage the water in the lake so that we’d have storage at the beginning of the wet season to capture the water [and prevent flooding],” he said.
The completion of the Everglades restoration project will help fix the problem, but it’s a long way off, he said.
“Eventually, we will have better options, but projects like this are large, big, expensive and take a lot of time to design and construct,” he said. “Because of their nature, they impact a lot of various stakeholders so a lot of people have a lot of ideas on how ecosystem management and dike rehabilitation should be done.”
Massive algae blooms are not unique to coastal states such as Florida. Many residents in Northwestern Ohio and some in Southeastern Michigan were unable to drink their water in summer 2015 due to a massive algae bloom in Lake Erie. That algae bloom was largely attributed to runoff from fertilizers used on farms in the area.
The potential for the bill to help fishing businesses in Florida earned the support of Kellie Ralston, Florida fishery policy director of the American Sportfishing Association.
Ralston said Florida’s waters, which are extremely popular for anglers, must be protected. According to Keep Florida Fishing, about 3 million anglers in Florida account for $9.6 billion pumped into the state’s economy. About 128,000 jobs are supported by Florida’s fishing industry.
“The Federal Do No Harm Act will help mitigate destructive algal blooms caused by water releases from Lake Okeechobee,” she said.
“As the fishing capital of the world, Florida is full of diverse ecosystems that must be protected. We thank Congressman Mast for prioritizing our state’s natural resources and the many Floridians whose livelihoods depend on clean waters.”
