MATLACHA, Fla. — A little over a week ago, Hurricane Debby dumped millions of gallons of water across Southwest Florida. Now question is what is in that water and what is it doing to our environment as it pushes out into the Gulf of Mexico?
“Anything that has been deposited, spilled, leaked under the soil unfortunately will find their way into our local water bodies, which most of those do drain into our estuary here,” said Calusa Waterkeeper Codty Pierce.
And when you mix all those pollutants in our waterways, Pierce says, “There is some piss pour water quality that is being moved around.”
The poor water quality has been leading not only lead to very cloudy waterways, but water full of bacteria and algae which is sucking the water dry of oxygen.
“I believe most of the conditions we are witnessing here are hypoxic conditions. Which basically a lot of these marine organisms are starving for oxygen.”
And the lack of oxygen has already led to several fish kills around San Carlos Bay. And with king tides coming from the upcoming Super Moon, Pierce says that could lead to additional fish kills.
“Bad water quality as well as no oxygen and then you have it pushing further, further in and further out,” said Pierce. “I think, unfortunately, over the next couple of days we are likely to see some more small fish kills.”
And while we talk about Lake Okeechobee being such a driver for nutrient pollution along the Caloosahatchee River, our coastal communities’ runoff still equates to nearly a quarter of total pollution into the ecosystem. Pierce says while we are getting better flood control, that sends polluted water into our estuary.
“Since we do such a great job at ditching and draining this land, the transportation from point A to the watershed being point B, happens in a much, much quicker manner and therefore is kind of compounds these issues when we aren’t careful,” said Pierce.
