Just a question for anyone based on the following article. Is this something that SVSY could ever be involved in?
Sunday Feb 27, 2000 - The Miami Herald
Everglades deadline near
Scientists test technology for cleanup
BY CYRIL T. ZANESKI
czaneski@herald.com
WAITING GATOR: A young alligator lies near one of the test cells in the Stormwater Treatment Area in Palm Beach County. The state is building 44,000 acres of the pollution-cleansing marshes.
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Nobody knows how to get water flushing off farms into the northern Everglades clean enough for the River of Grass. Nor can anybody say how much the effort might cost or who will pick up the tab.
One thing's for sure: Florida law says the water must be clean by Dec. 31, 2006 -- and that's not a lot of time.
The deadline weighs heavily on researchers testing seven pollution-scrubbing technologies in a 3,800-acre triangle of man-made marshes at the northwest corner of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County.
'We are pushing it, said Jose Lopez, a senior environmental engineer for the South Florida Water Management District. 'But it can be done . . . because we have to do it.
Lopez and his fellow engineers and scientists are evaluating different types of algae and aquatic plants that might soak up pollutants. They're also trying chemical treatments and filters.
The tests are being done on a small scale -- from large plastic tubs to half-acre plots of marsh grasses. The scientists must choose a technology by the end of next year to have a chance of meeting the state deadline and using the technologies full scale in thousands of acres of treatment areas.
Some critics think it's already too late.
The technical challenge is huge -- to reduce phosphorus concentrations in water flowing from farmland into the Everglades to a barely detectable level -- 10 parts per billion. How tiny is that? Consider that a part per billion is, roughly, the equivalent of a second in 32 years.
No other ecosystem on the planet is so sensitive, the scientists say. No other demands such clean water.
The most stringent standards for phosphorus in other water bodies -- Chesapeake Bay, for example -- are 100 times higher than what the Everglades can tolerate, Lopez said. A can of Coke has 1,000 times more phosphorus, said Lopez, who previously worked as a consultant for Coca Cola.
Phosphorus is a nutrient, a fertilizer that helps plants grow. But the Everglades can tolerate only the tiniest dose of nutrients before its unique prairies of sawgrass explode in unnaturally dense clusters of another type of marsh plant, the cattail.
A marsh loaded with cattails is no longer the Everglades, no longer provides good habitat for species that make the River of Grass unique.
As Florida International University biologist Ron Jones puts it, cattails are grave markers for the Everglades.
Over a period of four years, the amount of acreage of cattails in the northern Everglades has quadrupled. Cattails have conquered a staggering 61,053 acres of the River of Grass -- or 14.5 percent of wetlands surveyed so far by state researchers.
Regards,
Bill |
