around the Southlands: Okeechobee, discharged

A mess of Florida water—with the potential to alter national politics

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

I wanted to alert you to the two new stories I published elsewhere last week” The first, in Yale Environment 360 looks at the rising lithium industry in Arkansas, and how little is known about the environmental impacts. (It’s an outgrowth of an earlier newsletter dispatch.) The second, in Knowable, looks at the scientists pursuing biologically sourced and sustainable replacements for plastics.

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Lake Okeechobee, at 730 square miles—bigger than the full sprawl of Houston—is the largest lake in the South. It can hold more than a trillion gallons of water, which, these days, turns thick with mud and agricultural runoff. The phosphorous load is, according to biologists, around ten times what the lake can handle. And on February 17, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to dump that putrid water through a series of canals into the Callosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers.

The outcry from the environmental community was immediate. Within four days, salinity near the mouth of the St. Lucie dropped from 25 parts per thousand to just five (WPTV). That’s deadly to seagrass, a foundation of the local ecosystem. The even bigger worry is that the phosphorous will feed blue-green algae and worsen red tide. There is a “risk that this could trigger a full-blown ecological crisis on both coasts,” Gil Smart, the director of the nonprofit VoteWater told WUSF.

The mouth of the St. Lucie River before (2/14) and after discharges (2/25). Credit: Friends of the Everglades

The discharges are the result of a century of engineering—or misengineering, some would say. Naturally, Lake Okeechobee drained south, through the Everglades. But as residential and agricultural development arrived in southern Florida, a dike was built to block the flow. Today, much of the water has to be routed through canals, into rivers to the east and west.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

There is a series of canals and reservoirs that runs south—but this, like so many waterways is now more machine than natural system. The Army Corps has an operational manual that determines how to work that machine—how much water is released when, and where it goes. Many critics contend that current operations one certain industry: Captains for Clean Water, for example, a nonpartisan nonprofit launched in 2016, amid a water crisis, calls the sugar industry “the puppet master of south Florida’s water management.”

In late 2022, Hurricane Ian added 3.5 feet of water to the reservoir. A good bout of rain the next year meant the sugar farmers did not need to draw down the lake. Then came El Niño and its wet weather. By early 2024, the surface of the lake stood 16.3 feet above sea level—too high for the dike. Thus, last month, the discharges began.

Eve Samples, the executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Everglades noted to me that every part of southern Florida is now suffering—except approximately 400,000 acres of sugarcane, which are mostly owned by two massive corporations, U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals. The cane fields, she said, get “near-perfect irrigation” and “ideal drainage.”

There is a new operational plan that, overall, is projected to reduce discharges from the lake by 37%. But its implementation has been delayed many times. That’s led to complaints from local residents and politicians. The Army Corps points out that the new rules are a “moot point,” at least this summer, as current conditions would still allow the releases. That’s a reminder that a new operational plan is not enough: the future of ecosystems all across Florida depends on restoring water flow through the Everglades.

This is not the first time such a crisis has occurred, of course. The last fiasco was back in 2018: “Toxic 2018,” as it’s sometimes remembered, when there were red tides on every coastline. One study put the impact on tourism businesses alone at $184 million. I’ve heard tales of real estate deals that fell through on closing day because buyers saw the red water and decided this was not where they wanted to live. It’s a crisis that changed national politics: Ron DeSantis used the complacency of established politicians to win first the Republican primary and then the general election for governor. So now, with red tide looming once more, what more will change? Only time will tell.

+ A federal judge has vacated a Trump-era policy that put Florida officials in charge of wetland permits—a change that will stall two developments in western Everglades that, according to environmentalists, would have put endangered panthers at risk (WGCU).

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🐊 Okefenokee mining moratorium?

The scramble in south Georgia continues, as opponents seek to block a plan to mine titanium from a ridge along the edge of Okefenokee Swamp. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported late last week,

a bill that would have paused permitting of certain new mines near the Okefenokee Swamp — but had been called a sham by some conservationists — missed a critical deadline to receive a vote from the full chamber Thursday.

The bill would have created a three-year moratorium on mining permits—but that would also place time limits on court reviews of future permits, a clause that earned opprobrium from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages a refuge in the swamp. The service’s acting director called instead for a ten-year moratorium on new mining permits.

+ The Current takes a look at the political contributions of the mining company

+ The overlooked history of an all-Black conservation crew in the swamp (The Florida Times-Union)

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🛶 The drama of rivers and mud

Sure, the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion—one of the largest restoration projects ever launched in the world—is finally under construction, but the soap opera is just beginning. At a meeting in late February, tempers flared, as the Times-Picayune reports.

[Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser] alleged those who spoke out [agasint the projects] had received threats to have funding pulled or to be left out of contracts, using the word “criminal” a couple times to refer to that and other allegations.

He later apologized for his language after a board member said he had implied those who worked on the project were criminals.

By the end of the month, officials in Plaquemines Parish, where the project is being built, issued stop-work orders and requested data on local flooding.

In the meantime, the stakes are only rising higher: Tulane scientists published a paper in Nature that predicts nearly three-quarters of Louisiana’s coastal marsh will disappear by 2070. The paper suggests the diversion offers a chance to slow down the losses:

While this outcome may not be entirely avoidable, climate mitigation along with major restoration efforts by means of sediment diversions could delay wetland drowning and allow for more time to prepare for this large-scale coastal transformation.

+ Some of the same researchers suggest the diversion could yield $530 million in carbon credits (Times-Picayune).

+ A coalition of Mississippi groups is gearing up for the next diversion fight, against the Mid-Breton Diversion—a little cousin to Mid-Barataria, currently in the design phase, which will send water east toward the Mississippi Sound (Biloxi Sun-Herald)

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🪵 A fight over 15 acres

Five environmental groups, led by the Southern Environmental Law Center, have sued the U.S. Forest Service, objecting to a plan to harvest trees in the Nantahala National Forest, in North Carolina. As Carolina Public Press reports,

The site is only 15 acres. But the lawsuit could have dramatic implications for future timber cutting in the region. 

The suit hinges on the impact on rare plants and animals, as well as the “scenic quality” of the adjacent Whitewater River—which is eligible for inclusion in the U.S. Wild and Scenic River system, experts say. Over at the Smokey Wire, a blog that covers national forests, moderator Sharon Friedman, a retired Forest Service employee, worries that the suit might cause National Forest employees to avoid making updates and revisions to forest management plans.

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🚛 Get paid to move south

Outside reports on four outdoor-recreation-friendly sites offering incentives to attract new residents. West Virginia offers one of the most enticing packages: $10,000 over the first year, plus a $2,000 bonus after a second year and an outdoor tourism package worth $2,500. Owensboro, Kentucky—near one of the most well-known stretches of Appalachia, including Red River Gorge—offers $5,000, in addition to other incentives.

Given that other recreation communities are growing overwhelmed with new residents, it’s telling to me that southern sites make up half of this list: We remain, for cultural reasons, a world apart from much of the Western-centric outdoors crow.

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🐡 Avoiding fish fraud

The Washington Post recently ran a service piece on how to avoid seafood fraud, which caught my interest as I’ve been working on a series of stories about seafood. Since seafood is, to me, a key part of connecting with the nature of the coastal South, I thought it was worth sharing some tips. They’re straightforward, really:

• Ask questions—about the specific name of the species (instead of the common name) and the country of origin.

• Buy, if not whole fish, then skin-on filets, which makes it harder to misrepresent the fish.

• And, of course, find a fishmonger you trust—something I’ll be writing about more soon.

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Quick links

An Indigenous food forest in Alabama

Another look at Chesapeake menhaden

Alabama oyster shells rebuilding the coast

Draining an Arkansas lake

How to swim with Florida manatees

Overcoming the cotton stigma

Your guide to ramps

A new trail at Perdido Key