PINNED POST.

A pinned post is one kept at the top of the blog for a period of time. In this case for the rest of the day. The bad news is the situation with water levels here in Palm Beach County (PBC) is of great concern for government officials so early in the Wet Season. The good news is one government agency in particular has had enough of the irresponsible news reporting and is fighting back. But in a very proper and responsible way like a government agency should.

SFWMD: Bypassing the news media and communicating directly to the public.

Please watch the video at the end of this blog post produced by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). If you’re short on time today please scroll down to begin watching the video right now and finish watching later on if you wish. The video is thirty-four minutes from start to finish.

Why is this so important? Because this is very important information many of you are not receiving from the press and news media here in PBC. If you think the big problem in South Florida is blue-green algae you would be wrong. Toxic algae may become an issue later on, but at this point in time blue-green algae toxin is being detected in levels so low, on the order of small parts to a billion in recent samples, way below levels to cause any health issues; way below levels even the World Health Organization considers unsafe.

What happened in 2016 happened in 2016. Will there be a repeat in 2018 of blue-green algae blooms in the St. Lucie Estuary? Please read the previous sentence once again. That is called an open-ended question. That is what the press and media is doing for higher TV ratings and to sell more newspapers.

The big problem is managing the massive
amount of rainfall last month.

Last Friday’s video produced by SFWMD goes a long way in setting the record straight. Leading this meeting was Randall (“Randy”) Smith who is the press officer at SFWMD. Smith encouraged the public to email him with any questions. The press office main phone number is 561-682-2800.

Also in attendance from the executive management at SFWMD (from left to right in the video) was the Chief District Engineer John Mitnick, P.E., Terrie Bates from Water Resources, and Eva Vélez, P.E., from the office of Everglades Policy and Coordination at SFWMD.

The information and updates from Smith, Mitnick, Bates, and Vélez stands in dark contrast to the information groups like the Everglades Foundation are pushing out to the public. While SFWMD is focused on the entire water drainage system north, south, east and west of Lake Okeechobee others are just focused on a new reservoir south of the Herbert Hoover Dike which is many years away from becoming reality, if it ever happens at all. Here is an excerpt from recent information sent out by the Everglades Foundation:

The single most important thing we can do to solve this problem in the future is to build the Everglades Reservoir [south of Lake Okeechobee] where the water can be diverted, stored, cleaned, and sent south to the Everglades and Florida Bay.


After watching the video below, ask yourself this question: Is constructing another reservoir, “The single most important thing we can do?” Or is the single most important thing completing projects already underway and others now in the planning phase to “solve this problem”? This topic is also discussed in the SFWMD video.

And this is also very important: The decision to release water from Lake Okeechobee west into the Caloosahatchee and east into the St. Lucie estuaries is made by the Jacksonville Army Corps of Engineers, a bureaucracy within the Federal Government tasked with making certain the Herbert Hoover Dike remains intact and is not breached. Prior to this year’s water releases the salinity levels in both estuaries was already near zero due to the tremendous amount of runoff from last month’s heavy rains. And thus far, once again, no blue-green algae blooms have been detected in the lake or in either estuary. Many in the news media comparing this year to 2016 are just stoking public fear and they need to stop. And that includes The Palm Beach Post, the Sun Sentinel, and our local TV news affiliates here in Palm Beach County.

Cannot emphasize enough how important, informative and educational the update from SFWMD is for the public. And hope to see more updates such as this going forward.

Please share this video (see links below) with everyone you know concerned about things like Lake Okeechobee and the Herbert Hoover Dike, Hurricane Season, algae (toxic and non-toxic), and the importance of putting pressure on our elected officials in Washington, D.C. to then put more pressure on the Federal Government to fix what is happening in Miami-Dade County vis-à-vis letting more water flow south and east into tide, at least until the current water levels subside. This is Hurricane Season.

Something has to give. Eight million people here in South Florida are counting on SFWMD to fix this problem.

Copy & paste this link to the video below and send to your contacts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=671&v=POOHuqe9Dto


Here is the link to the SFWMD Twitter page. Click on this link for SFWMD’s “Water Storage Strategies”.

The sounds of thunder in the video are from thunderstorms that passed over SFWMD’s main office located in suburban West Palm Beach two days ago. And with those storms came a lot more rain.

Please do what you can to get this
information out to as many people as you can: