Does your water taste weird? Or smell funny? This might be why, Manatee County says (buying, move)
Sarasota - Bradenton - Venice areaManatee and Sarasota Counties
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This is an oinion piece from Dennis "Mitch" Maley - editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of their weekly podcast.
For full article:
Turning the Garden Into a Toilet at Record Speed
Many Manatee County residents are understandably terrified by the news that the county’s main drinking water source—the reservoir at Lake Manatee—contains toxic cyanobacteria from an algal bloom. It is not difficult to draw a line between our latest environmental issue and the ongoing incompetence of local elected officials whose only real job is fealty to their puppet masters.
The county says that despite the smell and taste many residents are complaining about, the water is safe to drink. However, as TBT reported Friday, it doesn’t look like it’s quite that simple. And while boiling water is the first thing that comes to mind whenever water quality is suspect, according to the EPA, boiling water when cyanobacterium are present can actually make the toxins stronger.
It’s also extremely reasonable to question what role the insane amount of development that is continuing to be approved in our most critical watersheds that surround the reservoir is playing.
Think of all of those massive excavations that need to be done to dig those giant retention ponds that collect the runoff caused by developing over what had previously been permeable land, poised to soak it back up and return it to our aquifers. In order to prevent the dustbowl effect, that land has to be continuously watered from the time of its excavation, taking everything that comes with it into the ground where it will ultimately make its way to the upper levels of our groundwater.
Now consider all of the developments that are getting exceptions from your county commissioners to be approved at ridiculously high density near the reservoir (like this one and this one). Then recall that white paper submitted by lobbyists for developers suggesting that Manatee County scale back its wetland buffer requirements, which would allow them to stuff even more houses closer to the reservoir, reducing the wetlands' natural effect of filtering the water that will ultimately make its way there.
It should also be noted that reservoirs have life spans and they are likely to be reduced just by the effects of a warming planet and certainly do not need to be further reduced for even more unsustainable development. And who is going to pay for all of the mitigation to our drinking water source as conditions worsen and for the cost of eventually creating a new one? Well, the same taxpayers who are already seeing their quality of life deteriorate from all of the overdevelopment by way of traffic gridlocks and additional environmental impacts throughout the county.
A few days ago I spoke about the matter with March Vanderee, a retired engineer who lives in east county and has been a dedicated activist on local water quality issues related to overdevelopment.
"Manatee County Land Development Code 403.10 C 6&9 is supposed to prohibit large-scale excavation/earth moving in and near protected reservoir watershed areas," said Vanderee. "It is not being enforced. Some of the Manatee County surface water contamination and high turbidity may be attributed to the extremely low water table due to the present severe drought, and compounded by the extensive amount of construction excavation.
Vanderee, who I recently spoke with on an episode of our podcast, stressed that while he is an engineer, hydrology is not his area of expertise. Nevertheless, he strongly encourages Manatee County and the State of Florida to employ hydrology experts and work with people like Michelle Atkinson to study these issues.
You do realize Sarasota county buys water from Manatee county?
From the Sarasota County web site:
"Sarasota County utilizes several water sources for its drinking water. Sources include seven wells along University Parkway, 10 wells at the Venice Gardens site in Venice, and 16 wells on the T. Mabry Carlton, Jr. Memorial Reserve where the treatment plant is located."
I suggest that every one of us write our local politicians demanding they shut down Mosaic's phosphate operation right next door to Manatee County's primary water source....& send a donation to the Waterkeepers.
Why hasn't any of this been in the news here? Where's Erin Brockovich when you need her?
"Sarasota County utilizes several water sources for its drinking water. Sources include seven wells along University Parkway, 10 wells at the Venice Gardens site in Venice, and 16 wells on the T. Mabry Carlton, Jr. Memorial Reserve where the treatment plant is located."
I suggest that every one of us write our local politicians demanding they shut down Mosaic's phosphate operation right next door to Manatee County's primary water source....& send a donation to the Waterkeepers.
Why hasn't any of this been in the news here? Where's Erin Brockovich when you need her?
Harmful algae blooms (HABs) created by things like Cyanobacteria are not regulated under the EPA Safe Drinking Water Act. Like PFAS, they get put up to review for nationwide regulation on the CCL, and then it’s put to a vote. The EPA has to prove that the contaminant is A) widespread or common enough to warrant a concern B) can accurately be tested and analyzed C) there are technologies in place that can treat and most importantly D) there is a severe or acute human health risk associated with the contaminant. Many contaminants such as HABs can be treated through conventional water treatment such as sedimentation and filtration and so often times the EPA won’t put a contaminant on the regulated list if it’s already taken care of post treatment. However if many environments routinely (not just in Sarasota but nationally) exceed HAB levels beyond normal conventional treatment, they may get their own entries for independent regulation and the creation of a Maximum Contaminant Level for that type of algae.
Anytime a public water system buys water from another water system (like from Manatee county to Sarasota county), it has to go through the treatment of the originating water system. The originating water system has to prove to the EPA that it is selling safe water by creating a sampling point in the pipes to where the plumbing connects to the other water utility and send samples on a certain basis dependent on system classification. It’s also considered surface water which means it has to go through the most stringent water treatment protocols which should take care of taste and odor.
The enforcement agency for HABs will be the State of Florida government, where the EPA just simply writes the legislation. In fact if you look at Florida’s EPA website, you may find them already talking about and working on algae blooms. If it’s in the news believe me the government already knows about it.
HABs typically fall under the concern more so of the Clean Water Act rather than the Safe Drinking Water Act due to HABs responding very easily to conventional filtration (most algae types). If you’re still experiencing taste and order concerns you can complain to your water utility and ask for latest analytical reports. Once they prove to you they fit SDWA concerns, you can routine and lobby for them to install extra taste and odor treatment.
I'm not noticing anything in Southern Sarasota County, but I have a whole house filter, and use a Brita filter for drinking water, so double filtration. I don't notice anything when I shower.
I'm not noticing anything in Southern Sarasota County, but I have a whole house filter, and use a Brita filter for drinking water, so double filtration. I don't notice anything when I shower.
The sky is not falling onto my head.
Hi I think this article could be of interest to you because you're in Wellen Park.
Southwest Water Treatment Plant in North Port to help with growing population
City leaders in North Port believe a new, state-of-the-art water treatment plant is what the community needs as the region deals with one of the biggest growth periods in years.
On Thursday, July 20th, the $40 million Southwest Water Treatment Plant was unveiled during a ribbon cutting ceremony. Spokespersons for the plant said it will be used to treat water serving the developing Wellen Park area of North Port.
“Although the plant was built with new development in mind, it can also serve the city to the east of the Myakka River,” said North Port Utilities Director Nancy Gallinaro.
Gallinaro added that the plant is the first of its kind in the nation to use a pressure exchanger in a water reverse osmosis system. High-pressure jets force the water through a filter to remove salt which then leaves clean water that can be further treated.
Spokespersons said the facility is geared to handle two million gallons of water a day, but can expand to five million as the need for drinking water increases.
Algae in Lake Manatee that caused drinking water to taste odd last month continues to bloom amid drought conditions, although Manatee County officials say customers should no longer notice a strange taste.
"The algae have reduced, but they are still blooming in the lake," said Katie Gilmore, deputy director for Manatee County's Utility Department. "They are still producing a compound, called geosmin, that was giving a taste and odor to the drinking water before."
"It was never harmful, the geosmin won't hurt you, but it was very unpleasant," Gilmore said.
Similar algae blooms at Lake Manatee can be traced back decades, as far back as when the dam was built in 1967, Gilmore said.
"They were having a blue-green algae bloom with taste and odor that year," she said. "It's not something that we experience every single year, but it's been happening since the inception of the lake when conditions are right."
The bloom will likely continue until the ongoing drought breaks, Gilmore said.
"The algae bloom will probably continue until we get some real rain," she said. "As soon as we start getting some consistent rain in our watershed, then we can open the Lake Manatee dam. The lake water flows out of the dam and that helps the algae bloom go away."
Residents that live near 58th St. E. in Palmetto are still dealing with an odor and taste in their drinking water.
Resident Valerie Gill said the smell is worse in her early morning shower but continues throughout the day.
“I want to say sewer smell but I don’t know if that sounds terrible,” says Gill.
Gill said the experience is not new. She said they have been dealing with it for a while now.
“Probably longer than three or four months. Some days are way worse than others but it’s pretty much there on a regular basis. I don’t want to say that we’ve gotten used to it but kind of we’ve gotten used to it,” says Gill.
Gilmore said when it’s not raining, the damn stays closed to keep the drinking water in there creating a spot for the algae to bloom. Gilmore said luckily the bloom is reducing.
“For about the past four weeks, the levels coming into the plant have been low enough that we’ve been able to treat successfully for it and the level leaving the plant are low enough that most people should not be able to taste or smell anything in their drinking water,” says Gilmore.
Gilmore said despite heavy rain hitting the Suncoast on Monday, Lake Manatee received none of it. She said they expect rain this week that should help reduce or even eliminate the rest of the algae bloom.
Last edited by wondermint2; 08-16-2023 at 07:08 AM..
Algae is a super food actually. There might be some rare types that are poisonous but generally it's edible. The issue is they don't filter tap water much. There's dirt and things in it. They run it over rocks to get the big particles out and use chlorine. So a simple filter will take care of algae.
But there's usually heavy metals and all sorts of toxins in tap water that a filter doesn't remove. It's just in low enough quantities that they permit it. Algae is the last thing I would worry about. Algae actually can absorb and remove a lot of toxins and you'll just poop out the algae cells with the toxin.
Tap water in port Charlotte gives me headaches I don't drink it. It's from the peace river and plenty of toxins have been found in it but the government permits it.
If you want clean water Florida gets a massive amount of rain just by rain barrels. You have to occasionally add a small amount of chlorine to kill algae and bacteria which evaporates in a day or two. It's otherwise like bottled water very clean. If it comes off the roof you have to worry about bird poop or whatever may be on the roof but you can collect it straight from the sky and filter it, treat it. There's no toxic waste of heavy metals other than the off chance of jet fuel coming off a jet. At any rate cleaner than tap water.
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Where's Erin Brockovich when you need her?
