Poop is wrecking our Florida reefs

The real problem is that this is not an exception to the rule. This is the
norm in wastewater treatment.

For example, in the Florida Keys, people are obligated to install an Aerobic
Treatment Unit that is supposed to bring BOD, N2, TSS and P to safe
standards.

The reality is that this systems, ATU, work only for a year or so before
failing. I have a list of readings averaging, for example, a P of near 200
units when the optimal was supposed to be 1 unit.

Yeah, those systems don't work.

The point is that people are obligated to install these useless systems BY
LAW, 64E-6 FAC. But, these ATUs don't work.

This untreated sewage is ending up in all beaches along the keys causing the
closure and quarantine of many of these beaches.

Not only that, the reefs are dieing, mangrove looks brown not green, and
algeal blooms are all over.



Yes, I was a DOH employee and because I whistleblowed the problem, the
system got rid of me.

jrs
"kryppy" kryppy@. wrote in message
...
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...home-headlines


Suppose I need to further south to get my water. Now I understand why
they test the water at the beach daily.



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Treated sewage triggering algae blooms that endanger popular coral
reef

By Neil Santaniello
Staff Writer
Posted October 16 2005


A pipe dumping millions of gallons of treated sewage into the Atlantic
Ocean daily from a wastewater plant operated by Delray Beach and
Boynton Beach is triggering algae blooms that have killed part of a
popular coral reef.

A group of recreational divers called Palm Beach County Reef Rescue
discovered the alleged connection between the pipe and the damage. The
group's scientific study of the reef's demise has drawn the attention
of state and county environmental regulators. The divers say a
30-inch-wide pipe from the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment
and Disposal Plant is spewing a nitrogen- and nutrient-rich flow that
drifts north with the Gulf Stream current. That is fertilizing the
profuse growth of filamentous red algae on the north end of Gulf
Stream Reef, an outcropping in 45 to 85 feet of water off Boynton
Beach, 1.5 miles down current from the pipe and directly in line with
it.

"It's fairly straightforward; it's clear-cut," said Reef Rescue
Director Ed Tichenor, a former New Jersey environmental consultant for
private industry. "There are areas of [the reef] that look like a
parking lot now."

The algae, as wispy as fine hair, gets hung up on spiky corals and
rough-textured reef features, thickening and blotting out sunlight
those organisms need to survive, said Palm Beach County environmental
analyst Janet Phipps.

Gulf Stream Reef is part of the northern reach of a reef line that
starts in the Dry Tortugas and proceeds north past the Florida Keys.
Coral reefs have been called rainforests of the sea because of the
abundance of varied life, or biodiversity, they harbor.

The same kind of algae overtaking Gulf Stream Reef has cropped up on
extensive areas of Broward County's middle reef tract the past two
years, environmental officials said.

After the Gulf Stream Reef bloom began in March 2002, Tichenor, a
Boynton Beach resident, took notice with other divers, and began to
check out what they suspected was the source: the pipe streaming
cloudy green to brown sewage into clear blue water off the beach end
of Atlantic Avenue.

Tichenor had given up a 20-year career focused on contamination
assessment to own and operate a window treatment business, but he put
his old expertise back to work. He and his group gathered treatment
plant outflow data, made numerous monitoring dives and kept logs of
changes in the bloom, snapped photos and prepared graphics to build
their case.

After its work received a cool reception at first from state
environmental regulators, Tichenor said, the group cranked out more
reports and approached more agencies.

The result: The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and
Palm Beach County's environmental department both think Reef Rescue
has built a compelling case.

This summer, the department told the plant's executive director,
Robert Hagel, to devise a monitoring program that would collect water
samples near the reef and pipe. The agency also asked him to
investigate ways to reduce the volume of treated sewage or nitrogen
content injected into the ocean, and suggested examining whether the
pipe could be extended farther offshore to avoid affecting the reefs.

The plant is run by a board of Delray Beach and Boynton Beach city
commissioners, and its permit is up for renewal by the state. It pumps
about 13 million gallons a day of treated sewage out its ocean
disposal conduit installed in 1964.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, sewage plants must demonstrate that
their discharge does not degrade the water it goes into. There are no
federal or state numeric limits, however, to regulate more precisely
what levels of nutrients can leave ocean outfalls, the Department of
Environmental Protection said.

The red algae invasion of Gulf Stream Reef, though, could lead to such
limits for the plant, said Timothy Powell, a department supervisor in
West Palm Beach.

Though the Delray Beach outfall has operated for decades, Tichenor
thinks its nutrient emission gradually climbed to a level that
launched the algae explosion, which might explain the recent
appearance of the problem.

Hagel, the South Central plant chief, is not persuaded that the pipe
is the culprit.

Other reefs off the coast suffer similar harmful algae blooms, which
means there could be other sources of the Gulf Stream Reef problem, he
said. "I don't think at the present time there's enough information
that we have to verify what they're saying," Hagel argued.

Mike Ferguson, chairman of the treatment pant board and a Boynton
Beach commissioner, agreed, but said an investigation is under way to
see whether the connection can be verified.

Palm Beach County's environmental director, Richard Walesky, told the
state DEP in a letter Aug. 15 that the algal bloom, a species called
Lyngbya, is ravaging the reef.

"This once beautiful reef is only a shadow of its former self,"
Walesky wrote. "Staff feels that the [dive group] studies make a
strong case implicating the outfall effluent in the decline of Gulf
Stream Reef."

Phipps said when she tracked down one of the reports, "I read it and
went, `Holy smoke.'"

The pipe is not the only one that dumps domestic wastewater into the
sea in South Florida. Boca Raton, Broward County and Hollywood operate
similar outfalls. Two others empty into coastal water off Miami-Dade
County, Powell said.

The South Central plant is working to reduce its reliance on ocean
dumping, Hagel and Ferguson said. The plant used to send 17.5 million
gallons a day of effluent through the outfall, but now diverts 25
percent to irrigation uses, Hagel said. This week, the plant won $1.5
million from the South Florida Water Management District to expand
that recycling effort.

"We're not sitting on our hands," Ferguson said.

Tichenor said he got involved because the reef was declining and
environmental agencies weren't responding, or weren't even interested
at first, in his attempt to draw their attention to it.

Powell of the Department of Environmental Protection said the
situation needs more study because other factors can contribute to
extensive algae growth on reef, including upwellings of nutrient-rich
water from deeper areas of the ocean, stormwater runoff, leakage from
coastal sewage systems and ground water seeping up through the ocean
floor.

In the meantime, Reef Rescue proclaims on its Web site, the red algae
"is killing one of the last healthy coral reef tracts in South
Florida."