Water Quality Getting Worse - Pollution Flowing Out into The Ocean

Polluted Waterways Captured From Aerial Photographs Show Water Quality Getting Worse

New images just released to CBS 12 show the mounting pollution flowing out into our ocean, reaching miles to the south of Stuart.

In Stuart, at the St Lucie Inlet, bacteria levels are inching up daily.

The water at the inlet has gone from a Bahamas blue-green in June to a dark brown bubbly foamy water.

The S-80 Locks opened in June and are pumping up to 600 million gallons of dirty water into the estuary a day. N

ow, new images capture the impact from the air.

"At the beginning of the summer we got excited because we started to see blue water back in the river, people seeing some new life and conch at the sandbar," said pilot Dr. William Lippisch, who along with his wife Jacqui, have taken historical images logging the discharges into the ocean since June 2013.

This week Dr. Lippisch began to get concerned.

"As soon as I got over the river I said there's a dramatic difference and I pulled out the iPhone and started taking pictures of it. Brown water, almost black from the crossroads to the manatee pocket to Sailfish Point.

Then I was mostly interested in following the plume." Dr. Lippisch said, "I'm really saddened when you drive over the bridges as the majority of us do you look down and say ‘wow this is beautiful' and ‘watch the sunset, this is beautiful.' But if you stop and think about what you are looking at, and what you are seeing, you realize there's destruction underneath the water."

Thousands on the Treasure Coast protested and fought to save the waterways, but here we are again. Dangerous bacteria levels, and black water.

"I thought this is crazy because they aren't releasing from lake Okeechobee yet, and so all of this is just runoff from rain from the agriculture. When you compare it to ocean blue water it is a tremendous difference," Dr. Lippisch said. The locks are releasing only local water flushing into the Okeechobee waterway. The locks at Lake Okeechobee remain closed. That means its local run off from farms and homes doing the damage now.

"Everybody blames Lake Okeechobee, and that's part of it, but it's not really the whole thing. People need to take a bigger look at everything going on around us," Dr. Lippisch said.

"Most of the plume was heading south into Hobe Sound Refuge and into Jupiter Island and as far as Pecks Lake," Dr. Lippisch said. "It's amazing we live in a beautiful area, lots of water and it's amazing you can't step into the water without fear that you are going to get an infection."

With the dirty water comes bacteria, fecal contamination, and possible human illness.

The Stuart sandbar, still listed as having good to moderate levels of potentially harmful bacteria, is the weekend boating hot spot.

Health officials say it is safe to go in. But many who study the waterways here say they wouldn't touch it, as areas west of the Sandbar are posted by health officials that you not come in contact with the water.

The results for water tests for harmful bacteria levels taken this week. will be back Thursday.

We will bring you those results as soon as they come in to the Health Department.

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Taxonomy

• Environment
• Pollution
• Water Pollution Control