Copyright 1998 Stuart News Company
The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart,FL)
March 29, 1998, Sunday
SECTION: A Section; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1223 words
HEADLINE: RESIDENTS SEE ST. LUCIE, INDIAN RIVERS SPOILED
BYLINE: Andrew Conte of the News staff
BODY:
Troubled Waters
The St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon are central to
the quality of life on this part of the Treasure Coast. Here are
some observations about the condition of the waters today, plus
thoughts from past observers.
Chee Chee Gunsolus, fourth-generation resident of Martin County
It's been a problem since 1918. Once they opened that ditch (the St. Lucie Canal), we had muddy water and it will never be clear again. I walked across (a small inlet) one time when it was super low and there was silt up to my knees
... But this thing we have now is so much worse than it used to
be. We would have a lot - a lot - of dirty water. It would be
discouraging. I would be fishing with my dad before I ever left
to go to school and there would be dirty water as far out as the
Gulf Stream on an ebb tide ... But I've never seen (the sick fish)
in these numbers. The numbers are too high. People are causing
a lot of this, too. Back 40 years ago, there wasn't one-tenth
of the yards. I'm guilty. I put fertilizer on my yard and water
it. Hope it doesn't all run into the water because I need it on
my yard ... The sea grass is just gone. The reefs are just gone.
Ed Gluckler, member of the St. Lucie and Indian Rivers Restoration
Club, which worked to clean up the estuary during the late 1950s.
The best day I ever had, I guess, was when I had my son and
another little boy with me and we went up the North Fork. We were
catching snook like crazy ... You could see the river bottom all
over the place. The predecessor to the St. Lucie River Initiative
was called the St. Lucie and Indian Rivers Restoration Club in
the 1950s. They had the same argument at that time that (the Army
Corps of Engineers) was washing out all of the junk from the uplands
and it was poisoning the fish. I don't know if they were poisoning
the fish the way that they're doing it now, but they were doing
it. And they were changing the balance of the water between salt
and fresh, so instead of being brackish, it was getting all fresh
... I remember when you could come out of Frazier Creek and look
down on your left-hand side and see a huge oyster bed, but the
fresh water just ruined all of it. I don't think there are even
any shells left.
Lester Revels, 53, commercial fisherman, taking a break from
cleaning a boat at the Fort Pierce Inlet. He has fished the lagoon
and river for 45 years but has not caught a fish in a month.
The only thing that has changed is these people going around
cutting the mangroves and all that stuff to build condos around
the river. You hardly ever saw a light when I was a kid. Now you
don't even need a light to run around the river, they got so many
lights. There's pollution and all this other stuff and it's really
killing the fish off ... You take Taylor Creek over there. It
used to be a beautiful canal. You go over there now and when you
step on the ground, it's like oil coming out of it ... You take
all these condos and they fertilize their yard and everything
right there next to the water. When the rain comes, where do you
think it goes? Right in the river. Each of these canals, you can
go up and down the coastline here in each one of these canals,
and look at stuff. It used to be pretty.
Ernest Lyons, former editor of The Stuart News. From a newspaper column called "Jungle Rivers: Places of Beauty and of Peace," which was reprinted in his collection of essays, My Florida.
The South Fork and North Fork of the St. Lucie upstream from Stuart ... still exist on the sword of private ownership. The owners must pay taxes, and sooner or later they must either develop or sell to developers.
These are lovely and beautiful places which should be preserved
forever as they are for future generations to enjoy. Their jungle
scenery of cabbage palms, live oaks and water maples, bordered
by lush giant ferns, spider lillies and custard apples, enveloped
by wild asters, moon vines and fox grapes, is so dense that it
takes the stiffest breeze to ripple the waters. Most of the time,
the surface is mirror-smooth, black as polished onyx, perfectly
reflecting the beauty of the trees with their crimson spiked air
plants, shoestring ferns and delicate wild orchids.
They are the haunts of black bass and bluegills, gars, mud
fish and leather-shelled turtles. Tarpon roll in the dark waters
and the placid manatee seeks their quiet to bear and nurse its
young.
They are precious places wrapped in a magic spell which cannot
endure the enchroachment of housing or development. The moment
a house appears on one of these banks, the illusion of being far
away and deep in a jungle will be broken.
It took hundreds of thousands of years to create the perfect
scenery of our jungle rivers, but they are so vulnerable that
one bulldozer and an efficient construction crew could destroy
what is there in a few weeks. What remained might still seem beautiful,
with lawns and landscaping and people, but the unique wild beauty
nature made would be forever gone.
Jacob Rhett Motte, Army surgeon, at the Indian River Lagoon
in 1838.
Many bonitas, red fish, grouper, sheepshead, bass, trout and
myriads of other kinds of unknown ... of the finest flavor and
large ... generally 2 to 3 feet in length, as will feast a regiment.
As for the oysters, six are a comfortable meal for one person,
easily obtained, which after removal from the shell measured 6
to 7 inches in length by 2 or 3 in breadth. A whole army might
be subsisted here on produce of the river ... We all began to
grow fat on this good living. Every day our clothes become tighter.
Wade Aycock, Sewall's Point resident who called the state
Department of Environmental Protection to investigate a school
of silver mullet with lesions at his dock.
We've had lobsters living underneath (the dock) - I mean real
nice, edible-sized lobsters, which we didn't eat because we considered
them yard pets after a while. Then the oysters came and they made
their home there, then the barnacles and the sheepshead came and
munched on all of them. So I looked down there the other day and
all the oysters are dead and in the last four days there's a green
moss that's started growing. I mean we've walked back and forth
- everybody's been out here. We've walked around there netting
mullet and that sort of thing, and all of a sudden I looked down
there and it's all growing with some green, mossy-looking growth
and all the oysters are dead. They just opened up and gave it
up.
Marcia Foosaner, angler and resident of Palm City. I was
out there on the river in November and I could look down to the
bottom and I could see the pompano swimming around the boat. The
water was so nice and clean. Then all this El Nino came about,
and they've been dumping water ever since. Two weeks ago on a
Saturday, I was out fishing in a place and I was drifting in water.
I had to go to six inches of water before I could see the bottom.
I mean, you could not see the grasses. I don't think I've ever
seen it this bad.
And the more development you get, the more yuck you're gonna
have. And they can say they can clean it up. Everybody thinks
you can clean it up, but it's never going to be the same.
Story Filed By The Stuart News,Stuart,Florida
CAPTION: Chee Chee Gonsolus gestures in her back yard near
the Indian River.
GRAPHIC: (color) photo by Andrew Conte: Chee Chee Gonsolus gestures
in her back yard near the Indian River.
LOAD-DATE: April 1, 1998