We are all blessed to live right here, in "God's country," our little bit of Paradise, in St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach and St. Johns County. But, "why not the best?" (as Admiral Hyman Rickover once asked Jimmy Carter, then a fledgling Navy officer. See Jimmy Carter, "Why not the Best? (1976) Sadly, we have suffered from kakistocracy (or kleptocracy) for decades in St. Johns County. Our local governments have a wretched environmental record. Our Nation's Oldest City's past illegal sewage pollution (from a pipe that was more like a colander), and its illegal dumping of a contaminated landfill in a lake. These" environmental crimes against nature," as RFK, Jr. would call them. rightly resulted in FDEP fines and consent orders. Time to enforce the law. Time to stop letting corporations write our laws, instead of obeying them. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." See Robert Kennedy, Jr, "Crimes Against Nature -- How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (2004).
San Sebastian River in St. Augustine receives failing grade on contaminants report card
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The San Sebastian River runs through St. Augustine, some of it along U.S. 1.
It eventually connects to the larger Matanzas River which is next to the fort and the Bridge of Lions.
And now the San Sebastian River has a problem.
Jen Lomberk, the Matanzas Riverkeeper, said, "We are seeing consistently high levels of total nitrogen as well as chlorophyll."
And when there’s too much of those, "that can lead to some degraded conditions, things like harmful algal blooms," as well as fish kills, according to Lomberk.
Prompted by concerns of researchers at Flagler College, Lomberk and team started taking water quality samples from the Sebastian River this year. The latest test results show failing grades when it comes to too much chlorophyll and nitrogen.
Where is it coming from?
"A common source of nutrients could be residential fertilizer. Another common source could be wastewater from either wastewater treatment facilities or from septic tanks," Lomberk said.
Both wastewater and fertilizer runoff could be on the rise because there are more homes and businesses in St. Augustine.
What can be done? Lomberk suggests making sure septic tanks are working properly as well as "reducing or eliminating residential fertilizer."
Lomberk notes that San Sebastian River has not seen a fish kill or dangerous algal bloom yet, but these latest water tests show that it’s on the edge.
"There could be a fish kill in the future if we continue to have too many nutrients in this water. So we would like to get out ahead of this. We would like to try and bring that waterway back into a healthy condition before we have those really obvious impacts," Lomberk said.
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