Plume from canal runoff C-44, C-23 and C-24, October 17, 2014. (All photos Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch and Ed Lippisch.)

Today, I will take you on an air tour, hopefully one of the last of this year’s rainy season. In Florida, rainy season corresponds with hurricane season that lasts June through November. Nonetheless, typically the rains start to wind down towards the end of October.

The Army Corp of Engineers has not released from Lake Okeechobee this years so it has given us an opportunity to see what the runoff  in our area is “in and of itself.” I refuse to use the words “local runoff” because the St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon’s runoff is over 50%  of what is was before the Water/Flood Control Districts and the ACOE created since the 1920s in order to drain the land for development and mostly agriculture.

It is the runoff of these…