A Bad Tradition

It has been a tradition to use rivers and the ocean as a dump for human waste. Human sewage, tannery waste, pulp mill waste, dumped into the river and down to the sea. Then in 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was established by the federal government. Florida followed suit and set up the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP decides how much waste can be dumped into our rivers and the Gulf of Mexico.

Buckeye Technologies, Inc. has a pulp mill in Perry Florida. For fifty years Buckeye's pulp mill has been traditionally dumping mill waste into the Gulf of Mexico via the Fenholloway River. The river has become an industrial sewer. Now the DEP, after a hearing in a company town, is considering another public hearing on permitting a fifty million gallon a day pipeline to carry mill waste directly to the Gulf. Fifty million gallons is equivalent to more than 50,000 gallons a day for each resident of Cedar Key.

A recent 388 page book by Dr. Robert J. Livingston entitled Trophic Organization in Coastal Waters uses the Fenholloway River as an example of how pulp mill pollution disrupts the food web of the Gulf of Mexico. Pulp mill waste clouds the water and adds nutrient to the Gulf. The clouding kills sea grass and the nutrients cause algal blooms. Sea grass is a critical species in the food web, of which we humans are a part. Algal blooms are sometimes red tide blooms that kill fish and shut down shellfish harvests.

Dr. Livingston's book is based on thirty-two years of scientific studies. It says that 28 square kilometers of sea grass has been killed by pollution from the Buckeye pulp mill. It says that pulp mill waste in the Gulf has been associated with red tide outbreaks. It says that the Apalachee Bay food web deterioration has resulted from Buckeye's waste.

If the Florida DEP permits construction of a pipeline for Buckeye pulp mill waste the Fenholloway River may eventually become valuable riverfront property, but meanwhile mill waste will continue to damage the Gulf of Mexico food web. The Florida DEP responds to economic interest groups. It is time for clammers, oystermen, fishermen and the consumers of sea food to ask the DEP to reject Buckeye's request to continue dumping waste in the Gulf.