Septic systems contributing to Lee County’s water quality issues

FORT MYERS

From fecal bacteria to blue-green algae to red tide, water quality degradation is a common problem in Southwest Florida. Recent research links many of Lee County’s water quality problems to its septic systems.

A third of all Florida homes use septic tanks. Estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000 in Lee County alone. It’s hard to pinpoint because many are abandoned or overdeveloped, but researchers say finding out is vital to our water quality.

Our lifestyle depends on water for drinking, recreation and economy. Our natural treasures—the beaches, wildlife, mangroves, and plants of Southwest Floruida—all depend on it.
But its current state is unreliable.

“We have a number of harmful algal blooms in the county that are getting worse,” said Brian Lapointe, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. “And of course, the million-dollar question is where do the nutrients that feed these different buds come from?”

Five years ago, Lee County hired FAU to answer this million-dollar question. The resulting study showed that septic systems are a significant contributor to nutrient pollution, particularly nitrogen, in the Caloosahatchee River.

“In the rainy season, many of these septic tanks are flooded; they can’t function if they’re underwater,” Lapointe said. “I think this is important for everyone to know: your almost raw waste goes straight into the water.”

This almost raw waste contains harmful nutrients that stimulate algae. How these tanks are designed to work: You have your septic tank, your drain field, and then dry soil.

“As the sewage seeps through this dry soil, it gets cleaned; So unless there’s dry soil, that doesn’t happen,” said Rachel Brewton, author and researcher at FAU’s Harbor Branch. “In the end, only untreated human waste ends up in groundwater, which could then end up in surface water.”

According to Brewton, an estimated 2 1/2 million septic tanks in Florida — there are 40,000 known and 60,000 suspected septic tanks in North Fort Myers alone — aren’t the only things introducing excess nutrients into our waterways, but the connection is there.

“It’s not necessarily that North Fort Myers in particular is fueling the red tide, but it does suggest that throughout the Lee County study area, human waste nitrogen is likely really contributing to these blooms,” Brewton said. “You know, everyone wants to lower them, so lowering that human nitrogen load should really help with that problem.”

Brewton says at the rate Florida’s water levels are rising, it will be a much worse problem 20 years from now.

According to Lapointe, the construction boom in Southwest Florida is also implicated in the negative impact of wastewater treatment plants on our water quality. More people mean more human waste to deal with. While sewage treatment plants used to be out of sight, the problems they cause are right before our eyes.

“The big problem, judging by our data and where we work, is big development without proper infrastructure to deal with the waste,” Lapointe said. “In Florida, due to insufficient planning for the future and rapid population growth, we now have urbanized areas, cities that are still using septic systems.”

Lapointe found that too many are too close together, and with our high water table, they’re not doing their job properly in Lee County. He says the tanks are in groundwater and human waste is never properly cleaned by dry earth. Instead, it drains into our waterways, resulting in fecal bacteria and algae that build up nitrogen in our water.

“When you look at how many new septic systems are being approved in Florida, it’s a scary thought,” Lapointe said.

“This isn’t necessarily a problem that maintaining your septic tank can fix, because if your septic tank is sitting in groundwater, you can’t, you know…you can pump out your tank, but it won’t fix the problem in there,” said Brewton.

“People want to continue growing in Florida because of the economic benefits that come with positive growth,” Lapointe said. “But like I said, that growth has to be matched with proper infrastructure or those chickens are going to come home to settle.”

In other words, poor planning during the development phase means we all have to pay the price.

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