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Canal pollution study strengthens resolve
It was front
page news last week when The Nature Conservancy released a report on its
Keys Watch program documenting that Florida Keys canals are contaminated
with human sewage.
Although
anyone with common sense in the Keys has known for a long time that
porous limestone is a poor substrate for septic tanks, much less
cesspits, apparently this is a lesson in geology, biology, economics and
politics that we need to keep on learning.
For years, we
ignored common sense and continued to build homes with septic tanks,
cesspits and shallow injection wells in this porous limestone. Then we
proceeded to build a booming tourism economy based on our pristine
waters and scenic shorelines.
In the past
decade, our denial spree has started to catch up with us. Beaches are
regularly posted as unsafe for swimming and many locals won't swim in
the canals behind their homes. Back in 1994, a state administrative law
judge heard the scientific evidence and ruled the Keys had exceeded
their carrying capacity for nearshore water quality.
For a long
time, deniers played the uncertainty card, claiming that good science
did not back up the legal finding or justify the expense of installing
adequate treatment systems.
That card was
blown away in 1995, when scientists proved that water flushed into a Key
Largo septic tank or down a shallow injection well showed up in the
canal next to the house within 11 hours.
In case that
wasn't scary enough, the scientists then went on to test the canals and
nearshore waters for pathogenic (ie. disease-causing) viruses. To no
one's surprise, they found them. In 1998 report, 15 of 19 sites tested
positive for panenteroviruses, which can cause diseases ranging from
paralytic polio to low-grade fevers. Twelve of the sites tested positive
for Hepatitis A viruses.
The Nature
Conservancy's new report confirms those findings. Enterococcus, a
bacterium considered an excellent indicator of human sewage, showed up
in 14 percent of 546 samples they took. The results were even worse
after rainfall -- 30 percent -- indicating the system is flushing out
quickly.
For the past
decade, we in the Keys have been engaged in our most serious effort ever
to clean up our waters. Key West replaced every public line in the city,
upgraded its plant to the highest standards, closed its ocean outfall
and persuaded more than 8,000 citizens to replace the leaky lateral
lines that ran from their homes to the public lines under the sidewalks.
Other areas,
which did not have the existing public infrastructure to upgrade, have
been slower off the mark but are starting to show encouraging signs of
progress. Marathon and Islamorada both are on their way to projects with
pipes in the ground, the Key Largo wastewater board is speeding its trip
along the learning curve and the county, we can only hope, has learned
some hard lessons from its ugly journey across Stock Island.
All of the
local governments are making significant dollar commitments, the state
is providing a partnership with another $18 million in the governor's
current budget request and even the U.S. Congress appears to be getting
the Keys picture with $2.5 million in the recently-approved federal
budget.
It would be
tragic at this point to start backsliding. State Rep. Ken Sorensen this
fall floated a trial balloon about lowering the state standards for Keys
water quality, which were set in a 1999 law and have a 2010 deadline.
This idea has been roundly criticized by those who work in the water
quality field, most recently in a unanimous resolution from the Water
Quality Protection Program Steering Committee. The state Department of
Health and Department of Environmental Protection also agree that the
law should not be changed. Key West's upgraded plant is proof that it's
possible for larger plants to meet the toughest new standards and
smaller plants (those treating less than 100,000 gallons a day) have
easier standards to meet.
So when we see
front page headlines telling us, to be frank, that there is still crap
in our canals, it is not good news. But it is further impetus for why we
must continue on our difficult and costly journey to truly cleaning up
our waters. |
