The mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus, he noted, could well come back. Putnam was oblivious, however, to the likely recurrence of the blue-green algae, a toxic bacteria that takes hold whenever water levels in Lake Okeechobee force the U.S. Army Corps to flush the filthy excess into our coastal waterways and estuaries as a flood control measure.
Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is right about Putnam’s opposition: “If there was ooze and poisonous fluids flowing down the center of Bartow and Polk County (Putnam’s hometown), we wouldn’t be talking about an abstract schedule or making comments that somehow this is a political effort.”
For decades, there has been broad scientific consensus on the solution to the algae crisis: Increase water storage south of Lake Okeechobee, so the stored water can be cleansed and put to use, saving a dehydrated Everglades and collapsing Florida Bay.
Putnam is having none of it. He apparently knows better than the hundreds of scientists who have long advocated a reservoir south of the lake despite the commissioner’s suggestion that the proposal is out of left field.
