Miami-Dade has a history of ignoring and fighting its Clean Water Act mandate to reduce nutrient loads to its coastal waters and is currently under a federal court consent decree to clean up sewage discharged to ocean outfalls. The phytoplankton and macroalgae (seaweed) blooms reduced light levels to seagrass beds and either directly smothered them or caused low dissolved oxygen levels resulting in massive seagrass die-offs. In January 2019, Miami-Dade’s Division of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) presented a damning report to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the County Commission titled, “Report on the Findings of the County’s Study on the Decline of Seagrass and Hardbottom Habitat in Biscayne Bay.” It provides a detailed description of the history of the well-documented linkages between excess nutrient loading from Miami-Dade’s 100,000 septic tanks, stormwater from Biscayne Bay’s watershed and algal blooms. During the past two decades, obvious ecological responses to the bay’s nutrient pollution problems were reported to Miami-Dade’s leadership and, subsequently, ignored. The fish kills are a visible and tragic result of a glaring sequence of flashing red lights. Like COVID-19 patients in need of supplemental oxygen, Biscayne Bay’s fish are suffering in oxygen-depleted waters. In desperation, local officials sprayed water into the bay from pumps on the shore and vessels, all in a vain attempt to raise oxygen levels. Thousands more fish had already suffocated to death. The bay’s dissolved oxygen levels had tanked.
Onlookers recently were shocked as thousands of fish and rays swam to the surface along the shores of northern Biscayne Bay gasping for air. Peter Barile, ‘ Biscayne Bay is suffocating, and Miami-Dade County leaders continue to let it die‘ originally appeared in the Miami Herald September 6, 2020. Authored by the American Water Security Project’s Science Director Dr.
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