Your Wedding and the Blue-Green Algae Outbreak in Florida

You either already have or you will be hearing about Blue-Green Algae in South Florida. Of course that will automatically cause concern about your wedding.

There is no reason to believe it will harm our pristine Florida Keys waters. The problem is isolated to waters further North.

This is a map of the affected areas. It shows that the algae is reported in Lake Okeechobee and the Okeechobee Waterway.

Lake Okeechobee is the largest lake in Florida. Water flows west from the lake to Ft. Myers through the Caloosahatchee River and to the east to Stuart Florida through the St. Lucie Canal.

“There is no reason to believe it will harm our pristine Florida Keys waters. The problem is isolated to waters further North. “

There is a lot of finger pointing as to the cause of the bloom. It probably is influenced by man made factors, but nobody knows for certain why this year the algae has multiplied so far out of control.

I Googled blue-green algae and found that blooms have occurred in a wide variety of areas and climates from New South Wales, Australia, to States all over the US; California, Illinois, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New York, Kansas, Oregon and Vermont. That indicates to me that it exists almost everywhere but out of control growth is rare.

In my lifetime I witnessed rare algae blooms in unpolluted waters off California and Panama. In those cases it was simply a confluence of unknown factors that created a perfect environment for the algae. We should all hope that this year’s Lake Okeechobee event is also an anomaly.