Alva, FL Finds River Covered With Algae - Dogs Die After Drinking, But Rubio Says Regulation Bad!

The Caloosahatchee River is in trouble — and with it, the residents and businesses that line its banks. The river, like many Florida waterways, has been inundated with large-scale algal blooms, likely brought on by an abundance of nutrients found in failing septic tanks, home fertilizers and industry runoff.

Florida currently has no regulatory safeguard in place to protect its waterways, and citizens, from such nutrients. Attempts to create a nutrient standard have been railed against by lawmakers like Sen. Marco Rubio, who has argued time and again that such regulations would be bad for business. But according to residents of the small town of Alva, it is the lack of criteria, and the overwhelming presence of algal blooms, that is proving bad for business.

Alva is a sleepy little town of just around 3,000 located near the southwest coast of Florida. Richard Spence, an Alva native who owns a convenience store on State Road 80, has seen (and smelled) the stuff firsthand. ”It looks like some kind of fungus, like a liquid type of moss — and it’s very thick, almost like a putting green, and about an inch thick,” Spence says.

He believes the gunk is not only aesthetically displeasing and extremely noxious, but that it’s making people sick. In addition to the belly-up fish floating in the river, Spence has heard of dogs dying after drinking the water. Talk at his convenience store — which he describes as a neighborhood water cooler — is that the blooms are having a physical effect on humans. “Lots of people are complaining of stomach pains and all that stuff,” he says. “I’ve personally been having lots of problems with my eyes. … It’s a safe guess that it’s the river making people sick.” Recent rains have washed much of the bloom away, but concern among residents remains widespread. “OK, so we don’t have the bloom now, but the chronic implications of extended exposure is incalculable,” says Alva resident Michael Dove. He says he has heard of others with intestinal bloating brought on by cyanobacteria — neurotoxins that have been shown to cause chronic illnesses in laboratory animals.

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http://americanindependent.com/193561/lack-of-runoff-regulation-in-florida-town-turning-people-sick-killing-dogs-say-residents

:patriot:

They "say" algae too. Yeah, right. Then further down in the piece they are saying they didn't get enough money from BP, not for cleanup purposes, but for MARKETING to draw people down here to vacation.

Excuse me, but you wants to go to a beach or swim with dead fish floating around? Oh, and yes, the oil spill just magically disappared and has had no effect whatsoever?

scaled according to damage. The punishment --a supervised green cleanup and restoration, and dismantling of the company and liquidation of all assets distributed to the families harmed. At least in a sane universe.

has killed many a dog. And humans are not magically immune to the problem.

And yes, it's cause by pollution - too much phosphorus fertilizer runoff from farm fields, because, you know, you can NEVER have too much of a good thing......