PRINTDon’t go in the water
April 10, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
In Florida, where the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico breezes keep the air clean, commutes are of no concern to residents. When you can’t see a haze of smog permeating city air, it’s hard to understand the daily impact cars have on the environment. Likewise, recycling has been slow to catch on: My Orlando-dwelling parents recycle aluminum cans, but bottles and newspapers still go in the garbage.
In fact, the one rule in the state is to never, under any circumstances, swim in a lake. The heat makes the standing bodies of water perfect breeding grounds for sickness-inducing amoebas. As I’ve grown older and seen construction pop up faster than cattails around these little bodies of water, I’ve realized there could be some new reasons not to swim in the ponds. Construction runoff into any body of water presents as much of a safety hazard as any microscopic bit of life.
But people aren’t the only animals that should think twice before getting in the water. Just ask the pallid sturgeon, the subject of this week’s cover story. Perhaps it’s common household products (not to mention daily pharmaceuticals) that make it through water treatment systems and into freshwater that are causing reproductive abnormalities in the males of the millennia-old species. Or it could be the very same construction runoff that’s made me think twice about swimming in the country’s freshwater.
In any case, fully developed eggs have been found in the males of this fish that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. Although no one is entirely certain why it’s happening, there seems to be some consensus that it’s something in the water.
It makes me glad I have a choice about taking a swim.
