As usual, the Corps ignores multiple stressors on the ecosystem. The Savannah River has the ninth highest mercury levels among U.S. rivers, and Robinette also confirmed that 94 percent of the estuary system suffers from algae blooms spawned by raw sewage from old septic systems. Combined, these stressors are causing the dissolved oxygen levels to fall below EPA’s standards.
Florida
St. Lucie River
Normally teeming with snook, tarpon and baitfish, the St. Lucie River was coated nearly shore-to-shore with a blue-green algae this summer, and signs are that the blooms will remain through the fall.
Not your run-of-the-mill pond slime, this toxic cyano bacteria bloom, Microcystis aeruginosa, removes dissolved oxygen from the water and can sustain itself indefinitely off the nitrates flowing in the river.
The source of this metastasizing Clean Water Act violation is mostly nitrogen and phosphorous concentrations in Lake Okeechobee’s discharge water. The argument has been there is no place to hold Okeechobee’s extra water and smaller, more frequent discharges need to be scheduled year-round to get the Lake—the most important freshwater fishery in the state—to a sustainable level. However, water managers are not adhering to water-level mandates that would prevent huge freshwater discharges during extremely wet summers, and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, which could help remedy the situation, is tied up in Congress.
Repeated channel dredging by the Corps threatens the Svannah River's marshes.
After numerous rallies, petitions, letters, news articles, and the decline of waterfront property values, local activists look poised to file a lawsuit against the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers. Due to mounting public outcry, water managers are discussing leasing land from sugar growers (Big Sugar) for the storage of excessive Lake O runoff. Big Sugar’s fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) south of the Lake are kept artificially dry during wet season to guarantee crop production. Bottom line: There is growing support for the idea of taking a portion of the taxpayer-subsidized EAA by eminent domain, which would ultimately provide much-needed water storage and relief for the runoff-ravaged St. Lucie River.
Texas
San Jacinto River & Galveston Bay
Comparable only to Chesapeake Bay, the Galveston Bay system is the largest and most productive of Texas coastal waters. Despite massive industrial discharges and heavy urban development, Galveston Bay supports a third of the state’s recreational fishery.
Currently, speckled seatrout is the most popular sport fish in Texas. However, last year the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) issued another advisory recommending limited consumption of trout from the San Jacinto River, Houston Ship Channel and upper Galveston Bay area, due to PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) contamination.
In 1976, EPA prohibited the manufacture, processing and distribution of PCBs, which bioaccumulate in the food chain and are stored in the body fat of animals. Symptoms of exposure to this carcinogenic toxin include skin ailments, reproductive disorders and liver disease. And this new advisory comes on top of consumption advisories for catfish and blue crabs due to dioxin contamination. The consumption advisory areas include portions of upper Galveston Bay, Tabbs Bay, San Jacinto Bay, Black Duck Bay, Scott Bay, Burnett Bay and Barbours Cut—approximately 33 square miles of the Galveston Bay ecosystem.
Last year, the Texas DSHS sampled other species, including red drum, black drum and southern flounder. However, only spotted seatrout showed elevated levels of PCBs. At this time the source of PCBs in Galveston Bay is unknown. Since spotted seatrout readily move within a bay system, one potential source of public concern is truly how extensive the PCB problem is within Galveston Bay. John Stout, local angler and Gulf Coast advisor for Saltwater Conservation Association, is worried that the extent of the decontamination is under-demarcated.
Source theories include an Army Corps harbor-dredging project, specifically a lack of contractor oversight by the Corps where retention ponds may have allowed contaminated sediment back into the harbor. Texas Parks and Wildlife contact Lance Robinson says funds are being sought in order to continue sampling and pinpoint the source.
