Dear Governing Board
Members;
Backpumping is a bet
that a "tipping point" won't be reached turning Lake Okeechobee Lake
Apopka green.
There is even a book
about tipping points subtitled "little things make a big difference".
As in the Lake Apopka
case, Tipping points
notes that once infected -
stay infected for a long time.
The Late Art Marshall
warned of tipping points by the use of stress curves. Bodies of water would
become increasingly polluted (infected), then a single event would push the
ecosystem over the edge, corresponding to the "cliff" on the stress
curve.
The gamble is that just
adding a little more pollution won't bring about a tipping point, whereby Lake
O turns pea green, and kills a monumental amount of game fish, alligators,
birds and other critters, on which the Lake O economy depends, as Mary Ann
Martin so adequately explained at the last WRAC meeting.
Not to mention this
means less than a viable water supply for the local human-kind. There is a
good reason that much of the local residential water supply is pumped from the
aquifer, rather than taken directly from Lake O.
When the next
hurricane/tropical storm stirs up Lake O, no problem right.
Place your bets. In this
case, the odds are against the house.
The cost of such an
occurrence will far exceed the minimal value of backpumping.
The Odum brothers (E.P,
H.T.) put it another way in a 1979 paper: If the perturbation
[addition] involves
toxic substances, or is destructive in some way, then performance is likely to
be reduced - perhaps to a point where the community is replaced by a new more
tolerant species, or ultimately, to a point where life in the area is severely
reduced or exterminated entirely. Art Marshall and H.T. Odum
worked closely on these matters.
So far, it appears that
there is only one user that benefits from backpumping/backflowing. When Lake O
falls below 10.5 feet, all forward pumping takes a one-way path south; at least
it has in the past.
In this scenario, the
water needs of the Caloosahatchee Estuary go begging to significant economic
impact to the local economy, and the City of West Palm Beach is told: At 10.5 Feet, you are on your own.
I live in the City of
West Palm Beach. There could be a lot more sharing of the Lake O water supply,
both for shared prosperity, and in shared adversity.
Respectfully Submitted,
John Arthur Marshall
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