Thursday, August 23, 2012

Memo For Governing Board, SFWMD


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