From the 20th floor of the Wachovia “Gulf Life” Building, the Jacksonville staff of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla) saw sheets white foam blow across the St. Johns River and become wedged in heaps against bulkheads on the north bank of the river. Up close, the foam looked like egg whites whipped to stiff peaks. A man in Fleming Island said the stuff was three-feet thick. An industrial chemist sampled some foam near the Shand’s Bridge with a swimming pool test kit, and he said it contained cyranic acid, a pool chemical.

The following day on Friday, Nelson boarded a water taxi to get a better look himself. He said he wanted to  take a sample directly to the United States Environmental Protection Agency for testing. St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon joined Nelson in the bow of the boat with a cluster of television cameras, photographers and reporters trained on them. The  state Department of Environmental Protection Northeast Florida Director Gregory Strong, the city’s Environmental and Compliance Director Ebeneezer Gujjarlapudi and the city’s Environmental Quality Division Chief Vince Sebold were also onboard.

Armingeon had a message for Nelson. Since early spring, there were algae blooms, then more than 350 dead fish and now the foam. “This fish kill will probably go down as one of the largest fish kills (we’ve had). And then the foam issue, I’m not sure if anybody knows what is going on,” said Armingeon.

Nelson asked if the fish deaths and the foam might all be part of the cycle of an algae bloom. The algae robs the water of oxygen and it kills fish and then when the algae breaks down, the foam is part of the biodegradation. It’s caused by too many nutrients in the river, but it’s not an unusual occurrence.

But Armingeon pointed out the fish didn’t die from algae toxins or lack of oxygen. “These are all signs that the river is sick, that it can’t assimilate what is being fed into it,” he told Nelson

Nelson recalled he had run the length of the river in an airboat in 1974, more than 200 miles over three days, from its source to Jacksonville. He said he was shocked during the trip to learn there were 75 outlets in Jacksonville where raw sewage was dumped directly into the river. He said that compared to 1974, the river has been cleaned up. “But you are telling me we still got so many nutrients in the river that it is causing the river to have this reaction.,” Nelson said. (more…)