Brown waters continue to plague coast
Rick Bartleson lowers a metal box into the murky Caloosahatchee River waters.
Once it reaches bottom, he pulls a string that shuts the box, securing a chunk of river bottom. He lifts the box to let it drain, and thick drops of what looks like motor oil splash onto the white fiberglass boat.
"It would be good if there was sand on the bottom and not muck," Bartleson said after opening the box to inspect its contents, which looked like thick, dark chocolate cake batter.
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Historically, the bottom of the Caloosahatchee was sandy, almost beach-like. Today it's difficult to tell what the bottom looks like because it's impossible to see through the suspended solids and excess tannins that have crippled part of the Caloosahatchee River and its estuary this year.
Record rains in January flooded much of the Sunshine State, and controversial practices like backpumping were used by the state to drain towns and farm fields south of Lake Okeechobee. Four months later, environmentalists and people who make a living on the river and its estuary are still worried about water quality and economic impacts.
During the heavy rains, Okeechobee waters were released to Fort Myers on the west coast and Stuart on the east coast. The water flowed, at times, as fast and pumps and gravity would allow.
Waters near the mouth of the river have been largely lifeless since.
Lowell Hillman is a commercial crabber and fished the river for blue crabs Tuesday.
How's the blue crabbing been going this year?
"It ain't been going," Hillman said after retrieving an empty trap.
A second trap produces one crab. The third, nothing.
"It all started about two weeks after they started releasing water from the lake," Hillman said, speaking of the South Florida Water Management District and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the state and federal agencies charged with managing Lake Okeechobee and the South Florida drainage network.
In some areas of the river, the bottom is practically lifeless. Organic material that washed through the lake and from the river's watershed has settled in some areas. Bacteria have been feeding on those solids in a process that absorbs oxygen (which marine life needs) and carbon dioxide.
This causes a thick, slime-like coating to develop on the river's bottom.
"There are no invertebrates that can survive for any length of time," Bartelson said. "And the temperatures are increasing."
Warmer conditions help bacteria reproduce, and May is one of the warmest months of the year.
Lake releases have slowly been lowered from around 9,000 cubic feet per second to about 2,000 cubic feet per second over the past three months, according to the Army Corps.
"It's done in a manner that simulates a rainfall event," said John Campbell, with the Corps' Jacksonville office, of the current releases.
That's right: Less than four months after record rainfall during the dry season, Lake Okeechobee water is being pumped down the river to provide the freshwater necessary to maintain a healthy estuary.
"We're still getting a little bit of water off the lake to the east and west and south, and we're seeing good recedence on the lake," Campbell said. "(But) it's not receding so rapidly that if we have a dry trend we won't be able to provide water."
Lake Okeechobee levels were 14.12 inches above sea level Tuesday. Army Corps protocols say lake levels should be kept between 12.5 feet and 15.5 feet above sea level in order to provide water supply while also not flooding towns to the south.
The record rains were driven by a powerful El Nino system, which typically delivers cooler, wetter winters in this region. El Nino also tends to suppress tropical storm and hurricane formation in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.
Meteorologists from various weather outlets have called for average or slightly below average rainfall for this region over the next two to three months.
The lack of marine life locally has impacted fishermen like Hillman, but the poor water quality conditions have also impacted the tourism, real estate sales and the recreational fishing industries.
Local guide Daniel Andrews, a member of the Captains for Clean Water group, said there are tarpon near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, but that the estuary still looks brown and bleak.
"There's a lot of silt in the mouth of the river and in San Carlos Bay," Andrews said. "(The sea) grass has died off but there's still some patches of live turtle grass."
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By the numbers
11.54: Inches of rain fell in January across Lee and Collier counties
557: Percentage of average rainfall for January
3.5: Inches of rain falls on this region during an average May
10: Inches of rain fall here during an average June
98: Degrees is the hottest temperature recorded (May 26, 1975)
49: Degree is the lowest temperature recorded in Fort Myers (May 8, 1992)
11.45: Inches of rain fell on the wettest day of May record (May 8, 1979)
Source: South Florida Water Management District, National Weather Service