Economic impact of poor water quality in SWFL could be billions

Water is the heart of everything in Southwest Florida, and it’s the lifeblood of Florida’s economy and an 85.9 billion dollar tourism industry.

When the water suffers from a harmful algal bloom or poor quality, so does the Southwest Florida economy. A local study is looking into the true cost to our economy from the algal blooms.

In 2018, Southwest Florida saw a water crisis like never before. Blue-green algae blanketing canals, red tide, and dead fish swamping local beaches.

We haven’t had blooms to that extent since then, but smaller and more frequent blooms are happening.

The study found that if the area had another event like that in Charlotte, Lee, or Collier Counties, it would cost our area not millions… but billions of dollars.

Eight years ago, when Captain Daniel Andrews was 24 years old, he was living his dream as a fishing guide.

But that was in 2016. Back then, that was his sole vocation, without considering anything else.

“And just a few short weeks later, we were getting billions of gallons of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee discharged out of the Franklin locks into our community here, and it completely shut my business down,” said Captain Andrews.

The water was packed with nutrients, which fueled a toxic algae outbreak, red tide.

“Hearing the stories of folks that stopped coming here after 20, 30 years, maybe multiple generations of vacationing this area,” said Captain Andrews.

Nobody wants to walk on a beach covered in dead fish or struggle to breathe with irritated eyes from red tide. But what is the true cost? That’s what the Captains For Clean Water turned environmental advocate, along with the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, and local leaders, sought to uncover.

That’s because, with every bloom since the catastrophic outbreak, they say we all need a wake-up call.

“Simply put, our economic and our ecological well-being hinge on the quality of these waters,” said Rob Moher, president and CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

With the water around Doc Fords as a backdrop, on a foggy morning, Moher reads off the costs of poor water quality.

“An event like we saw in 2018 would spell disaster for our commercial recreational fishing industries, which could lose just that one industry $460 million,” said Moher.

In just one event, property values would be smacked by a nearly 18 billion dollar blow. A loss of 60 million dollars would hit property tax revenue.

“There’d also be significant impacts to the value of outdoor recreation, the ability to walk on a beach or kayak in a river without getting sick,” said Moher.

Those groups say a value loss equates to more than $8 million. While it’s possible to quantify the economic cost of lackluster water, Andrews says you can’t put a price tag on its aesthetic or meaning to locals.

“There’s no amount of billions or trillions that can ever make up for spending your time out here because that’s what brings us here,” said Andrews.

Of those losses, jobs were unanimously the most upsetting cost. One event would cause a loss of over 43,000 jobs.

Click here to read the full report.