Turning the Garden Into a Toilet at Record Speed - The Bradenton Times

Turning the Garden Into a Toilet at Record Speed

Opinion

Many Manatee County residents are understandably terrified by the news that the county’s main drinking water source—the reservoir at Lake Manatee—contains toxic cyanobacteria from an algal bloom. It is not difficult to draw a line between our latest environmental issue and the ongoing incompetence of local elected officials whose only real job is fealty to their puppet masters.

The county says that despite the smell and taste many residents are complaining about, the water is safe to drink. However, as TBT
reported Friday, it doesn’t look like it’s quite that simple. And while boiling water is the first thing that comes to mind whenever water quality is suspect, according to the EPA, boiling water when cyanobacterium are present can actually make the toxins stronger.

There are natural challenges created by climate change—which not all of our elected officials even seem to believe is real—that make the environment more conducive to such blooms, namely persistent droughts and the warming of water bodies, including reservoirs. During the first week of July, the Tampa Bay region's average temperature was three degrees warmer than the historic average. Think about that for a moment—Florida temperatures averaging a full three degrees higher in July!

That said, it’s also extremely reasonable to question what role the insane amount of development that is continuing to be approved in our most critical watersheds that surround the reservoir is playing.

Think of all of those massive excavations that need to be done to dig those giant retention ponds that collect the runoff caused by developing over what had previously been permeable land, poised to soak it back up and return it to our aquifers. In order to prevent the dustbowl effect, that land has to be continuously watered from the time of its excavation, taking everything that comes with it into the ground where it will ultimately make its way to the upper levels of our groundwater.

Now consider all of the developments that are getting exceptions from your county commissioners to be approved at ridiculously high density near the reservoir (like
this one and that white paper submitted by lobbyists for developers suggesting that Manatee County scale back its wetland buffer requirements, which would allow them to stuff even more houses closer to the reservoir, reducing the wetlands' natural effect of filtering the water that will ultimately make its way there.

It should also be noted that reservoirs have life spans and they are likely to be reduced just by the effects of a warming planet and certainly do not need to be further reduced for even more unsustainable development. And who is going to pay for all of the mitigation to our drinking water source as conditions worsen and for the cost of eventually creating a new one? Well, the same taxpayers who are already seeing their quality of life deteriorate from all of the overdevelopment by way of traffic gridlocks and additional environmental impacts throughout the county.

A few days ago I spoke about the matter with March Vanderee, a retired engineer who lives in east county and has been a dedicated activist on local water quality issues related to overdevelopment.

"Manatee County Land Development Code 403.10 C 6&9 is supposed to prohibit large-scale excavation/earth moving in and near protected reservoir watershed areas," said Vanderee. "It is not being enforced. Some of the Manatee County surface water contamination and high turbidity may be attributed to the extremely low water table due to the present severe drought, and compounded by the extensive amount of construction excavation.

Vanderee, who I recently spoke with on
an episode of our podcast, stressed that while he is an engineer, hydrology is not his area of expertise. Nevertheless, he strongly encourages Manatee County and the State of Florida to employ hydrology experts and work with people like Michelle Atkinson to study these issues.

"Excavation for 40 to 70-foot-deep drainage retention ditches/ponds along Bourneside Blvd and SR64 East may be allowing the upper groundwater to contaminate Lake Manatee and the Braden River," said Vanderee. "Palm Grove development is in the reservoir-protected watershed. Many farm ponds in East County have already been contaminated over the past year. This condition was being studied by UF researchers, but I don’t know if there were any conclusions. All of this deep digging is apparently adversely affecting the upper groundwater hydrology. Furthermore, the extensive amount of barren land cleared for development has made it impossible for developers to contain or suppress airborne dirt from entering Lake Manatee."

Lastly, ask yourself how much better positioned the county might be had this Machiavellian scheme to gut leadership throughout the county administration (
including the long-time director of utilities) that’s taken place over the last three years had not stripped the institution of such an immense amount of institutional knowledge. Manatee County needs real leadership now more than ever. This clown car commission and the leaders they’ve installed are clearly not up to the task. If we don’t get more adults in the room STAT, we’ll be kissing paradise goodbye even sooner than we thought.

weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click

here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available

here.

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Reader Comments Paul D. Smith

JUL 16, 2023 • It was not that long ago that Duette Preserve was created by a Commission that cared. To protect our water source. At the same period in time, there was discussion of creating a buffer around Lake Manatee which would prohibit farming, cattle and any other activity which could harm our source of drinking water. Sadly, the days of the public being protected by elected officials is also history.
Brett Davis

JUL 16, 2023 • Man has always considered this big blue planet of ours as infinite. It is not. We are like locusts, spreading out far and wide and destroying everything in our path. “Sustainability” is an oft used word that few folks really understand and can be best demonstrated as “max population density is directly proportionate to land or surface area”. These developers don’t look past their ‘profits’ and our elected officials are no better. Hell, we have a ‘high school grad’, with no science background, proposing we put radioactive waste from phosphate mining into the pavement of our future roads…. Eyup, we are seeing first hand what impact we humans are having on our environment and are doing nothing about it. In the immortal words of one George Carlin: “ We’re going away. Pack your sh_t, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. The planet isn’t going anywhere, WE are”…
Jon M

JUL 16, 2023 • People don’t even realize how theses PUPPETS and MONEY GRABBING DEVELOPERS are ruining Manatee County forever , right before our eyes. Bring in the DOJ NOW!!!