Quote:
Originally Posted by cuebald
Exacerbated by Rick Scott and the Sugar Industry. Google it.
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That's more opinion than fact.
I've been here for 2 years.
Alot of talk from folks who don't know how it works here like to claim it's because of the sugar industry.
That isn't the full truth. Lake Okeechobee is big enough to be considered a sea. The lake is enormous. That lake floods? Kiss all points east west and south goodbye. It has to be purged. If not... every snowbird city will be under water.
Points south pump flood water up to lake Okeechobee and those paths along with the purge path of Lake O run through farm lands. The simple remedy would be to put clay near the waterways to prevent fertilizers from leeching into the run off ditches.
Farms in NY had to do the same if there were any streams running through their property. 2 of my buddies who had farms had to do just that because of algae growing in fresh water streams that ran through the back of their fields. Rain run off would move fertilizers into the stream. They had to dig down and put tons of clay down along with a berm about 2 feet high near the bank of the streams.
In all of the towns and cities I've worked in down here, I have yet to hit rock, I have yet to hit viable soil, it's all sand. I have yet to hit clay. In some areas digging only 3 to 4 feet deep you hit water. That's why not one house down here has a basement. You would need sump pumps running non stop and the foundations would surely crumble due to water intrusion.
Some call for filtration of the purge water. Most call to stop purging the lake. You stop purging the lake, the state floods. Want to filter the water? You will need quite a tax hike to do it. There is more to Florida than HOAs and coastal vacation spots. Who pays the tab to truck in 100s of millions of tons of clay? Farms? Or the state where they dug out canals for run off?
It really is that simple of a solution to put a clay barrier near the edge of the canals to prevent fertilizers washing into the canals.
Maybe even run a pipeline from the lake and it's canals to California so they can have irrigation systems in their forests to combat wildfires?
So the question is. Who pays? Coastal residents and businesses affected by algae? Broward and Dade for pumping flood water back to the lake? The state for the drainage canals? The farms and residents inland?
It isn't solely sugar farms. There's alot of dairy and beef farms in the areas. I spend most of my weekends in rural Florida. As always, a scapegoat needs to exist rather than examine everything in fine detail... blame Rick Scott, who I'm no fan of, and "big sugar". Because that's the NIMBY and transplant thing to do...
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