Howard L. Simon<\/p>\n
Another legislative session brings another opportunity for Florida policymakers to protect our water and our health.<\/p>\n
So far, state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith has stepped up to the plate. His proposed\u00a0Senate Bill 1386\u00a0tasks the Department of Environmental Protection with setting standards and rules for onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems, aka septic systems. It also requires septic systems (and presumably the adjacent surface and groundwater) to be inspected every five years.<\/p>\n
Presumably, if warranted, repairs will be required. A grant program should help alleviate the burden on low-income homeowners.<\/p>\n
This is a long-simmering problem \u2013 and with shrinking agricultural land and unceasing development, it is getting worse.<\/p>\n
In 2019, after the twin disasters of extensive red tide along the Gulf Coast and massive outbreaks of blue-green algae in the Caloosahatchee River, the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon, newly elected Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a\u00a0Blue-Green Algae Task Force\u00a0consisting of some of the state\u2019s leading environmental scientists.<\/p>\n
One of\u00a0the task force\u2019s recommendations\u00a0noted that there are \u201cmore than 2.5 million septic systems in Florida that treat approximately one-third of the wastewater generated in the state. The nutrients in the effluent from these systems contribute to the development and maintenance of harmful blue-green algae blooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
The task force recommended \u201cthe\u00a0development and implementation of a septic system inspection and monitoring program with the goal of identifying improperly functioning and\/or failing systems so that corrective action can be taken to reduce nutrient pollution, negative environmental impacts and preserve human health. At present there is no requirement that conventional septic systems be inspected post-installation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Florida Realtors association also pointed to the urgent need to address this problem. In 2024,\u00a0the association reported\u00a0that with \u201c2.7 million septic tanks buried in Florida and an estimated half of those more than 30 years old and 9.5% continuously failing, Florida is facing mounting environmental and water-quality challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what the Sunshine State faces is not only a threat to the quality of our water supply \u2013 alarming as that is. We also face a significant threat to our health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that toxins (aka poisons) produced by blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria)\u00a0make people and animals sick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What is insufficiently appreciated is that one particular toxin, BMAA (Beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine),\u00a0has been linked to neuro-degenerative diseases\u00a0like ALS and Alzheimer\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dolphins, specifically the brains of beached dolphins, may be the \u201ccanary in the coal mine\u201d warning of the elevated risk of neuro-degenerative diseases from chronic exposure to blue-green algae.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In September, researchers at Brain Chemistry Labs; the University of Miami\u2019s Miller School of Medicine and its Rosenstiel School; Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute and the Blue World Research Institute\u00a0published findings\u00a0that the brains of beached dolphins found in Florida\u2019s Indian River Lagoon contained the cyanobacterial toxin BMAA and had the neurological hallmarks of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That toxins produced by cyanobacteria can trigger neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer\u2019s in dolphins is a warning for people residing or recreating in and around waterways polluted with blue-green algae.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This threat may be underappreciated in part due to the difference between how we experience exposure to red tide and blue-green algae. Those who came close to an outbreak of red tide typically experienced \u2013 almost immediately \u2013 headaches, itchy eyes and respiratory illnesses.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, liver and other cancers and diseases of the brain linked to chronic exposure to cyanobacteria have a longer latency period. The elevated risk of these serious illnesses with longer latency means that we are being slowly poisoned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Legislature addressed this health risk 16 years ago, adopting legislation sponsored by former state senator and now Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine. Sadly,\u00a0it was repealed\u00a0before the inspection program went into effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Septic-to-sewer conversion is the policy of the DeSantis administration. Good \u2013 but until enough sewage treatment plants are built and every home is hooked up, there will be hundreds of thousands of old and malfunctioning septic systems along our rivers, streams and waterways leaching nutrients that feed blue-green algae.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If there ever was legislation that is non-ideological and urgently needed, bringing together environmentalists, scientists, Realtors and medical researchers \u2013 requiring regular inspections of septic systems is it!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Howard L. Simon, Ph.D., is president of Clean Okeechobee Waters Foundation. He served as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida from 1997-2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Howard L. Simon Another legislative session brings another opportunity for Florida policymakers to protect our water and our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-129595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}