The story below is from an editorial I wrote over ten years ago in response to a 2015 story in the Sunshine State News by Nancy Smith, referencing articles by Drs. Brian Lapointe and Michael Risk. I plan to address more timely articles as I spin up my website. This is a test. However, I think most of what I wrote back then holds up well today, except that the condition of our coral reefs in Florida is now dire. There are few places left that I previously described as in good shape. Bleaching and disease are worse.
By Steven Miller, 2015 Sunshine State News (Not available on their website. I recovered this from old computer files.)
My first response to the articles by Ms. Smith and Dr. Risk was, “Here we go again.” Their stories date back 20 years and rehash a history that is no longer relevant.
I have made a career out of trying to understand why coral reefs look the way they do in Florida, have published on the topic, and currently direct the most extensive coral reef monitoring and assessment program in the Florida Keys, ongoing since 1998, but I’ve lived and worked in the Keys since 1991. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Simple explanations to complicated problems are usually wrong, but they often make intuitive sense. Blaming water quality for the demise of coral reefs in the Florida Keys is an example. But there seems to be something else going on here because Nancy Smith’s story used inflammatory tactics like blaming “bad science” and calling out government officials as responsible for coral reef destruction. The selective use of science in her article ignores decades of work that explains why coral reefs look the way they do in Florida. And her personal attacks are a well-known tactic that is used when facts get in the way of the truth.
Really? Billy Causey alone had the power to save or kill coral reefs? Nobody has such power. And just to be clear, reefs in Florida, like coral reefs just about everywhere else in the world, are in decline, serious decline. However, the reasons for the decline are complicated. This also means that fixing the problem is complicated.
Starting with water quality, because that’s the focus of her article, there are several missing pieces to the story. Contrary to her claims, scientists, managers, and politicians came together to solve concerns about nearshore water quality in the Florida Keys. It took time, sure. But the result was that homeowners paid up big (it cost me $7500 to hook our home to the Key Largo regional system and I’ve seen total costs estimated for the entire Florida Keys at nearly $1 billion) to connect to regional collection systems, dismantling tens of thousands of cesspits and septic systems. Why? Because canals and nearshore waters were clearly impacted by these archaic sewage disposal practices. Brian Lapointe’s work documented the nearshore nutrient problem but cause and effect relationships to explain what was happening offshore to the corals was much less clear. Dr. Risk’s work (cited in the Sunshine State News) also pointed to nearshore water quality problems, but links to the offshore reefs were less certain, even controversial.
Don’t get me wrong, nutrient pollution is bad for coral reefs. That’s not up for debate. The question is whether nutrient pollution was the sole cause of reef demise in Florida, especially related to the previously (1970s and before) spectacular offshore reefs. Smith, Lapointe, and Risk all believed that nutrient pollution killed Florida’s reefs. I don’t. It didn’t help, but it was not the sole cause.
Most people don’t know that the rationale for cleaning up sewage pollution in the Keys never included a promise that our offshore reefs would recover. It was done to deal with nearshore pollution concerns. Obviously, cleaning up nearshore waters won’t hurt our offshore reefs, but let’s assume that we solved all our water quality problems in south Florida. What would that mean for coral reefs? To sort this out an assessment is needed about all the things that affect the condition of coral reefs, not just water quality.
Geography matters. Reefs in Florida are at their northern limit of distribution and winter cold fronts can kill massive amounts of coral. If you look at marine charts you’ll see that coral reefs in the Keys, the ones that attract divers, snorkelers, and fishers, represent only a small percentage of the total area in the sanctuary. We’re lucky to have coral reefs at all in south Florida. Indeed, a couple thousand years ago we had active reef growth off Fort Lauderdale. The loss of these reefs had nothing to do with people. If you look closely at the charts, it’s worth asking “of all the reefs that we have in Florida, which ones are in the best shape?” You might be surprised at the answer. There are thousands of nearshore and mid-channel patch reefs throughout the Florida Keys that are in much better shape than the offshore reefs that attract so much attention. Coral cover and diversity remain relatively high in places that are closer to the potential nutrient pollution sources – sewage from the Keys and whatever might be coming out of the Everglades.
I don’t have space here to address the Everglades re-engineering, but it’s not relevant to understanding the condition of our offshore reefs. If sewage isn’t the sole culprit, then water from the far more distance Everglades is also not guilty. Interestingly, there’s some concern that the entire Caribbean is now nutrient-enriched, from inputs that include the great rivers of South America and the Mississippi River. Indeed, we can sometimes detect Mississippi water offshore our coast in Florida. If this is a problem, then we’re out of luck. Though, acting local still makes sense because it buys us time to deal with any larger regional or global threats.
Climate change matters, speaking of global. It’s a fact that it’s getting warmer. This is not the place to argue why. As a result, coral reefs are threatened because of warming that in the summer increasingly exceeds temperatures that can cause two things to happen – bleaching and disease. Corals get stressed out when it gets too warm. Coral bleaching results that can slow growth, reduce reproductive output, or kill. And there is increasing reason to believe that increased temperature causes a “double whammy.” Coral disease is now strongly correlated with increased temperatures, whether it’s caused by stressing the corals or increasing the ability of pathogens to attack does not matter. The result is massive amounts of coral are killed, starting dramatically in the late 1970s, throughout the 1980s, and continuing today. Some people also claim that ocean acidification, which is caused by the ocean absorbing carbon dioxide that we’re putting into the air, is also a major threat to coral reefs. But we’re just starting to learn about potential acidification impacts to coral reefs, so that’s a story that will emerge more clearly, later.
Overfishing and the loss of an algae-eating sea urchin also matters. The healthy ecology of a coral reef reflects a balance among everything described above and the animals and seaweeds that live together on the reef. Parrotfish and other fish that eat seaweeds help to maintain space on the reef for corals and other animals, by keeping spaces open and grazed. In many places, grazing fish are still caught in fish traps (but not in the Keys) or otherwise badly overfished, which can result in lots of seaweed on the reef. A reef with too much seaweed due to the loss of grazers looks pretty much the same as a reef exposed to nutrient pollution, because seaweeds can take over a reef in both cases. Adding to the potential grazing problem on coral reefs is the fact that a major grazer on reefs in Florida, and throughout the Caribbean, the long-spined black sea urchin (Diadema), died off from a disease epidemic in the early 1980s. You can consider this another “double whammy,” where overfishing and disease have dramatically reduced the number of grazers on coral reefs. However, in the Florida Keys, we have extensive regulations to protect and conserve our fish resources. There are catch limits related to sizes, numbers, and seasons. There are protected areas where no fishing is allowed, at all. When colleagues who work in the Caribbean first see reefs in Florida, among their first observations are, “wow, there are a lot of fish on these reefs.” That’s good news, but not sufficient to result in recovery and restoration of our reefs to their former (pre 1980s) condition. I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Risk on this point.
People matter. There’s no getting around the fact that we have the potential to love our resources to death. Hundreds of boats on one reef, day-after-day, from which people dive or fish, is not sustainable. Mooring balls help. At the most popular places anchors are no longer smashing up corals on the bottom. That’s why special places are needed that allow coral reefs to grow and thrive without the daily impacts that cause overuse. Condominiums along our shores are the most obvious signs of growth, and they are increasing in number. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with economic development because we have management plans in place that help to protect resources. There’s balance today that didn’t exist years ago when development occurred unimpeded.
Explaining why coral reefs look the way they do in Florida requires a complicated explanation. Blaming bad science and calling out government officials is easy, but wrong. Solving water quality problems in south Florida should be a priority for all of us. After all, clean beaches and clear water help to drive our economy. However, it’s not just about water quality. Geography, warming that causes coral bleaching and disease, fishing, and too many people are what will define what happens to our reefs (not just in Florida, but worldwide) in the coming decades. Contrary to Ms. Smith’s article, it’s not too late. Contrary to Dr. Risk’s assertion, our reefs are not “stone dead.” There are “good news” stories in south Florida that provide hope. There are reefs that still have a lot of corals, like thousands of patch reefs (including a couple I saw last week while diving as part of our long-term monitoring program). There is even a species of coral that is listed as Threatened under the US Endangered Species Act that appears to be expanding its range farther north, off Fort Lauderdale. And there are dedicated groups developing innovative methods that are being used to help restore reefs previously lost.
Yes, we have lots of challenges. Yes, the situation appears bleak, but how we respond to the challenges will define what our reefs look like in the coming decades. Cleaning up water quality matters too, but it’s not sufficient to restore coral reefs and it wasn’t the only thing that killed them in the first place.
Death by a thousand cuts is a better way to think about their demise.