They say the deadness in the Gulf of Mexico is a mystery. It is not. It was probably in part due to that one “really big experiment”.
The article about the deadzone Monday.
Gulf of Mexico Mystery
Miller says he’s never seen such death and devastation under water in his 20 years of diving.
“All the coral, all the sponges, all the crabs, not a single living thing, all the star fish, the brittle stars, everything’s dead,” said Miller
They should not have been surprised at all. They knew what was going to happen, and profit for corporations outweighed their caring for the environment.
Last Stand: A Ribbon of Wastewater
“For two weeks, a barge has been dumping millions of gallons of wastewater from a bankrupt fertilizer plant into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, looping currents have drawn water from the dump zone, along with a huge plume of runoff from the Mississippi River, toward the Keys and into the Florida Straits. Satellite tracking showed traces of the stream off Marathon on Friday and it likely will continue to flow up along the East Coast.
Scientists monitoring the state’s ocean dumping plan don’t expect significant effects, but the nutrient-laced stream brings with it considerable uncertainty and the unsettling specter of fish-killing red tides and the ”black water” algae bloom that devastated sensitive corals, sponges and seagrasses in the Keys last year.
”We don’t really know what the impact will be,” said Mitchell Roffer, a Miami-based biological oceanographer hired to monitor the dumping for the fishing industry. “This is really one big experiment.”
There is little to worry about, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection insists.
The agency concocted the controversial and expensive ( about $120 million) scheme to dispose of about 500 million gallons of highly acidic water brimming in pits perilously close to fragile Tampa Bay.
It was still going on in 2003, and in 2004 to some degree after the hurricanes here. Jeb knew it. His legislative friends knew it, the DOE and the EPA knew it. They did not care.
I wish I could find my back records on these phosphate mines. I know that the owners polluted, sold, and left the country. Last I heard, one of them, a close Bush friend was living high on the hog in a middle east country. I will find it someday. These companies knew they were destroying my state in many ways, radio-active gypsum piles still standing, acidic water not controlled.
They knew dumping toxic wastes in the Gulf of Mexico would kill the life there. They just did not care.
Good job, Gal! Outstanding! The article I read about the dead zone was blaming a red tide but you’ve offered a more more likely explanation.
Our whole state is polluted. They gave tax breaks to phosphate companies and have never held them responsible for their pollution.
Thanks for the diary and the links – recommended. I took a look at the original story, and I’d guess what’s happening is that the fertilizer waste is, in fact, acting as fertilizer for the algae and causing algae blooms – they can pick these up by satellite by watching for the wavelength indicating the presence of chlorophyll, which is the data that the original story said scientists are looking for.
After an algae bloom there’s a die-off, and the dead algae and plankton settle to the bottom. And rot, as dying things will. This uses up all the oxygen and kills off all the sea life on the bottom in that area.
There are some bodies of water where this is the natural state of events, like in the black sea; below a certain depth there’s no oxygen and no life other than bacteria. This is not the normal condition for large areas off the coast of Florida, although it’s thought a small dead zone off the Mississippi delta might occur even without human activity.
You’d think Jeb would think about his biggest industry in the state (tourism) before allowing things like this. He must have been listening to his brother’s bad environmental advice… 😛
I am somewhat familiar with that area, and while “red tides” are probably not news to people around there, a full-on dead zone can’t be normal.
Grab a map and draw a box around the area cited. From shore to 20 miles out, from Sarasota to Tarpon Springs. Wow, that’s scary.
People are still throwing tires and old stoves into beautiful rivers and lakes in BC Canada where I live.
From the beginning of first white settlements, bodies of water were dumping grounds.
Thanks for this article. It is really BIG.
This is just the skeleton of the article, but it shows great concern for the dangerous wastewaters stored in this abandoned phosphate plant. It puts a human face on the impending tragedy…..that this plant will overflow in heavy rains. From 2003.
The Monster Above: Sometimes it is a towering mountain of hazardous water. Sometimes it is us.
The wall didn’t breach, but a week later, on New Year’s Eve, my wife and I were on our way to dinner when a great storm erupted and the power went out. I had to use a flashlight to get out of my house.
Sam Zamani was not reveling at any party or on his way to dinner. He was back on top of the hill. He was conferencing with engineers and with a DEP superior in Tallahassee. Water was blowing over the sides of the lake’s walls. The rain was falling again, a torrent. While you and I were dining or toasting or dancing, we were completely unaware that Tampa Bay’s life was, quite possibly, in jeopardy, just as we had no idea of knowing that Sam and his colleagues were saving it, in all likelihood. They made a reluctant decision to let the overflowing water return to the second lake.
If there had been a spill, millions of fishes, birds and tiny organisms would have died on contact. The waters going into the bay would have turned surrounding waters for some distance pea green from algae blooms. The algae would have blocked sunlight to the seagrasses. Those grasses would have died.
“Could a spill from Piney Point under the right conditions be the straw that broke Tampa Bay’s back?” I asked Charles Kovach from the DEP. He and his staff are responsible for testing the health of Bishop Harbor, where the waters would go first before entering Tampa Bay. A thoughtful look crossed Charles’ face, and he did not answer. “We don’t know” is what I think he finally said.
It sure couldn’t help.
Of course, more has gone on in the dying Gulf. Other Gulf areas have done their share. But our state leaders knew that disaster was coming. What did they do…they put it on barges and dumped it out further in the Gulf instead of draining it near shore. A great experiment indeed.
I have delt with these agencies for many years, and in the past 6-7yrs, it is increasingly obvious that the little man has nothing to say, and can only pay, for what the rich ared doing here in Florida.
I wonder if it has anything to do with a “Bush” in the house ; )