Three Years On, FL Agency Doing Nothing As Sewage Destroys Palm Beach Reef

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The question of what was killing the Gulf Stream coral reef was no deep mystery, even if it was happening far below the ocean surface. Still, more than three years after a group of divers notified state environmental officials that a growth of pollution-fed algae was suffocating the reef, help has yet to arrive. More than two years after the group supplied evidence that a pipe spewing a brown cloud of partly treated sewage into the ocean off Delray Beach was fertilizing the growth, officials say they have no answers to what is killing the reef.

That is because the state agency charged with enforcing the federal Clean Water Act locally did not begin until late last year to discuss the matter with the municipal plant that discharges its waste through the pipe. Now, as officials mull proposals to monitor the pipe's outflow, the plant continues to operate on an extension of an expired permit that sets no limit on the amount of polluting nutrients it discharges into the ocean. Yet the same officials say that the plant that uses the pipe, which began belching waste into the ocean 30 years ago, would be rejected if it applied for a permit now. As volunteer divers begin a fourth year of testing the waters around the reef, some say the real mystery goes beyond the reef they call Palm Beach County's hidden gem, and the pipe they call the area's dirty little secret. "The real question is, why isn't the Clean Water Act being enforced?" said Ed Tichenor, director of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, a nonprofit group the divers organized.

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After he and other divers noticed red clumps of Lyngbya algae flourishing on the section of the Gulf Stream reef known as Lynn's reef, Tichenor compiled data on the bloom in a 27-page report he sent to the state Department of Environmental Protection in September 2003. The report noted that the reef, which supports a chain of endangered sea life, had been severely damaged in the preceding six months. The report suggested officials examine the algae, its surrounding waters and any active waste discharge permits in the area that the department oversees to identify what was feeding the deadly bloom.

Instead, DEP officials did nothing. "After reviewing it, we found that it really didn't have conclusive evidence," DEP Water Resource Administrator Linda Horne said recently. "We reviewed the data. Other than that, we didn't respond to it."

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbccentral/content/local_news/epaper/2006/01/03/m1a_REEF_0103.html