This essay discusses the negative affects of the Florida sugar fields on the environment. It goes into detail about how the pollution of the sugar cane fields effect the Florida tourism and fishing industries. It talks about the chemicals that the fields dump into the waterways which end up effecting anywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. The essay also talks about the burning of the fields and how horrible the burning actually is for the surrounding areas. The essay talks about how the wildlife in the areas around the fields is taking a death threatening toll and how the algal blooms are destroying Florida’s waterways.
Sugar has been apart of the American culture for years and still
Striving in most food and …show more content…
Florida is known as the “fishing capital of the world.” and Florida will not have that title anymore is the dumping and burning of sugar fields. The farming of the sugar cane fields have started to pollute the surrounding area including the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, and the reef system off south Florida. For the fishing industries in the state of Florida, those reefs, beaches, canals, lakes, and runoff levees are the sources that drive industry. Hundreds and hundreds of commercial fisherman and recreational fisherman are either going out of business or having to question if fish will get them sick from the sugar field pollution. Coastal fishing guide Mike Connor said, “his business is off 50 percent this year because of the algae blooms” (Guest 2015). The sugar fields are discarding waste in the surrounding freshwater watercourses and the contaminated water flows into the saltwater canals throughout south Florida from the levee runoffs. The rest of the waste is thrust into canals joined to both the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, sending numerous of hundred billion gallons a year of phosphorous laden fresh water to the saltwater sounds at the mouths of both rivers (Ferguson). This pollution wrecks havoc with the soft ecosystems there, causing vast amounts of algae blooms that kill fish and crustaceans. In 2011, a field study was done in the St. Lucie when the first super algae made its way to the saltwater canals, the death toll for the wildlife was estimated to have killed more than 1.2 million animals compared to the year before that only had 7000 deaths of animals in the same area (Hendry 2008). For months during 2016, loads of toxic algae turned South Florida’s pure waters to the color of coffee and smothered its inlets under a fetid blanket of guacamole-green goop that killed all types of the wildlife and triggered an aggressive outcry from coastal
Sugar has been apart of the American culture for years and still
Striving in most food and …show more content…
Florida is known as the “fishing capital of the world.” and Florida will not have that title anymore is the dumping and burning of sugar fields. The farming of the sugar cane fields have started to pollute the surrounding area including the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, and the reef system off south Florida. For the fishing industries in the state of Florida, those reefs, beaches, canals, lakes, and runoff levees are the sources that drive industry. Hundreds and hundreds of commercial fisherman and recreational fisherman are either going out of business or having to question if fish will get them sick from the sugar field pollution. Coastal fishing guide Mike Connor said, “his business is off 50 percent this year because of the algae blooms” (Guest 2015). The sugar fields are discarding waste in the surrounding freshwater watercourses and the contaminated water flows into the saltwater canals throughout south Florida from the levee runoffs. The rest of the waste is thrust into canals joined to both the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, sending numerous of hundred billion gallons a year of phosphorous laden fresh water to the saltwater sounds at the mouths of both rivers (Ferguson). This pollution wrecks havoc with the soft ecosystems there, causing vast amounts of algae blooms that kill fish and crustaceans. In 2011, a field study was done in the St. Lucie when the first super algae made its way to the saltwater canals, the death toll for the wildlife was estimated to have killed more than 1.2 million animals compared to the year before that only had 7000 deaths of animals in the same area (Hendry 2008). For months during 2016, loads of toxic algae turned South Florida’s pure waters to the color of coffee and smothered its inlets under a fetid blanket of guacamole-green goop that killed all types of the wildlife and triggered an aggressive outcry from coastal