In a state with an extensive record of water pollution, Blue Cypress Lake had seemed protected by remoteness and immune to the worst — until now.
The source of a water supply targeted by the Orlando region and long cherished as a Florida jewel, Blue Cypress has recently joined the Indian River Lagoon, Lake Okeechobee and major coastal estuaries as profoundly sick.
The large lake 70 miles south of Orlando has erupted with pollution-fed algae, spreading as a green layer across the surface and mixing into the depths.
“It makes me cry to think about it,” said Richard Baker, president of Audubon’s Pelican Island chapter.
“I’ve been going out there since 1992 and my wife and I wrote a book about it called ‘Reflections of Blue Cypress,’” Baker said. “I’ve never seen such algae out there. Now it’s all over.”
Other large lakes and coastal estuaries have been assaulted by dirty runoff and septic-tank seepage.
The undoing of Blue Cypress is suspected to be the result of distant cities hauling and dumping sewage-treatment waste — or “biosolids” — as a fertilizer on farm and ranch lands.
Last week, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection thanked a biosolids hauler for agreeing not to dump near Blue Cypress for six months.
The letter identifies H&H Liquid Sludge Disposal Inc. of Branford as disposing of biosolids on the Pressley Ranch west of the lake. Calls and emails to the company and ranch were not returned.
A district director with the Department of Environmental Protection, Jennifer Smith, said in a letter that fields must be dry to receive wet biosolids.
She stated that the Pressley Ranch site near Blue Cypress was not in that condition: “It was noted that the soil was saturated and there was evidence of ponding.”
Smith concluded in her letter to H&H Liquid Sludge Disposal, which also thanked the rancher for cooperating: “We appreciate your interest and assistance in protecting Florida’s water quality.”
Officials at her agency and at the state’s St. Johns River Water Management District have known for months that pollution levels in Blue Cypress have risen alarmingly.
Their response has been to further study the lake.
Frustrated with Blue Cypress’ plunging health, Indian River County commissioners in Vero Beach agreed this week to ban for six months the dumping of wet biosolids in any unincorporated part of the county.
The ordinance states that biosolids dumping has previously been banned in regions that drain to the Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee and St. Lucie River — all part of the greater Everglades system.
That has resulted, according to the ordinance, in cities and their haulers “as the cheapest alternative” dumping in areas that drain to Blue Cypress and the St. Johns River.
While controversial, Central Florida utilities are preparing to pump water from the St. Johns River, which starts at Blue Cypress and flows north through the region and within 25 miles of downtown Orlando.
The St. Johns Riverkeeper, an environmental group based in Jacksonville and an early responder to Blue Cypress’ decline, has urged state officials to take action.
The group warned that Blue Cypress’ deteriorating conditions may worsen ongoing struggles to lessen chronic pollution and algae outbreaks in the St. Johns River.
More immediately and critically, according to the Riverkeeper group, recent tests have detected toxic varieties of algae in Blue Cypress.
“This is much more than an environmental crisis,” the group stated. “It is a human health crisis.”
Indian River County Commissioner Bob Solari said the dumping of biosolids on agriculture land is less about farming and more about cities getting rid of a waste product at the lowest cost.
“I used to be in citrus and there was absolutely no way we would accept a load of something called fertilizer without an analysis sheet with it and there is no analysis sheet that comes with Class B [wet] biosolids dumped on the ground,” Solari said.
“You can trace back where it came from but you don’t know what’s in it,” he said.
The dumping of biosolids on distant farmland may be the least costly option for city sewage plants but the expense of reviving spoiled waterways is staggering, Solari said.
“We’ve spent $50 million on cleaning up the Indian River Lagoon,” Solari said, referring just to his county’s efforts for an ailing lagoon that hugs five counties along the Atlantic coast. “My guess is we will spend another $100 million in the next 10 years.”
“In Indian River County we have no desire to take away peoples’ property rights,” Solari said. “That said, we need to be good stewards of the environment and to learn from the past.”
Barbara Buhr and her husband, Don, own and operate Blue Cypress Lake Tours and take clients out nearly every day.
“When we first saw the algae, it was scattered over the water. And then it was in big clumps,” Barbara Buhr said. “At the south end of the lake, it was a big film, a green film over the top.”
She said the green slime, migrating around the lake according to wind direction, has been a visual motivation for her and her husband, environmentalists and county officials to take action.
“We’re just glad we’ve got this 180-day ban for biosolids,” Buhr said. “That way they can finish doing their testing. But I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.”
Lisa Rinaman of the St. Johns Riverkeeper said the six-month ban on dumping biosolids in the county is a start.
“Governor [Rick] Scott must enact a statewide ban to provide all stakeholders a window of opportunity to develop a long-term strategy to protect Florida’s waterways from toxic, green algae,” Rinaman said.
“We are seeing green slime in the St. Johns from its headwaters in Indian River County all the way north to Jacksonville. We must stop pollution at its source,” Rinaman said.
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
