The Dirty Truth

Stop the Lake Worth Pipeline before it turns into another Delray disaster!

I understand that the concept of human waste is a slippery one at best, but what I don't understand is the astounding amount of stupidity it must take to not understand the word "NO."

If you hope to have the privilege of enjoying the oceans in something other than an acid-resistant hydrofoil in the not so distant future, try it. Say "NO,” to someone with a vested interest in our future. It's easy; just say “NO, you can't lower the water levels in our lakes and rivers to the point where the natural environment is no longer recognizable." Just say "NO, you can't rip out mangroves that protect juvenile fish from predators and our shorelines from backwash." Just say. "NO, you can't dump raw sewage into our oceans or any other waterway for that matter.”

The South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant in Delray, one of six in the tri-county area, is flushing partially treated raw sewage into the Atlantic Ocean from a pipe just 95 feet beneath the surface. According to an initial report filed in 2003 by Ed Tichenor, Director of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, “That plant releases about thirteen million gallons of treated waste every day, and it is approximately just one mile from a living coral reef."

The coral reef in question is still breathing, but its death rattle is becoming more audible, and believe it or not, the 13 million gallons of treated sewage is just a drop in the old outhouse of life. Overall, there are approximately 60,000 facilities in the Unites States in different categorical levels that contribute a discharge of 700 billion pounds of pollutants per year to the environment. So, how come we don't see it?

Florida has a wonderful natural vacuum cleaner called the Gulf Stream. It flows from south to north. The width of the Florida shelf, the submerged seascape between the beach and the continental shelf, varies from as little as 2 km by West Palm Beach to as much as 100 km off St. Augustine. The Gulf Stream washes the nutrient-laden waters being released along the shelf by treatment facilities northward, and then far out to sea. "A stiff southeast wind for a few days would do the same thing,” says Captain Bill Taylor. At any rate, that is why we don't see the dangers lurking in the partially treated sewage being dumped near our beaches. Perhaps if the general public were educated on the commonly used terms for measurements in reference to water quality, they would think twice before allowing little Johnny to swim in water teeming with an abundance of bacteria, viruses and parasites. Those are the dangers we need to worry about, not the general indicators sometimes presented to appease the public.