Newsgroups: bit.listserv.biosph-l
Date:         Sun, 6 Sep 1992 20:38:52 EDT
Reply-To:     "Norman C. Saunders" <NYS@NIHCU.BITNET>
From:         "Norman C. Saunders" <NYS@NIHCU.BITNET>
Subject:      Andrew and the Everglades

Washington Post
Sunday, September 6, 1992


                  Storm Left Gash In Everglades' Heart

                    Scientists Wonder How Ecosystem,
                        Long Stressed By Humans,
                              Will Recover


     Beyond the  wasteland of the disaster zone, beyond the ruins of the
muffler shops  and trailer  parks, there is a watery world where the de-
struction of  Hurricane Andrew  was equally  tremendous, but natural and
necessary, perhaps even beautiful.

     The storm's  fierce cyclone  two weeks ago moved across some of the
most diverse  and spectacular  real estate  in the world, from the coral
reefs of  Biscayne Bay,  across the  sawgrass prairies of the Everglades
and on to the great mangrove forests on the Gulf of Mexico.

     Although scientists have only begun to assess the hurricane's envi-
ronmental impact, it appears the storm largely spared the reefs and sea-
grass beds  of Biscayne  Bay and instead focused its rage on the coastal
mangrove forests and the dark, jungle-like hardwood hammocks, which were
shredded as if tossed into a giant food processor.

     Many animals appear to have hunkered down or run for cover.  All 23
Florida panthers  are accounted  for.   So too,  are the black bears who
wore radio collars.

     "I didn't  find one  dead bird,  and naturally I'm looking for dead
birds," said  Ted Below, warden biologist for the National Audubon Soci-
ety, who  surveyed pelicans,  wading and shorebirds on the west coast of
Florida before and after the storm.

     While hurricanes are entirely natural events in South Florida, sci-
entists here  fear the  ageless processes  of death and rebirth may have
been forever  changed by the presence of so many humans, whose dirty wa-
ter, sprawling  suburbs and  invasive exotic  plants threaten to slow or
inexorably alter the recovery.

     "Hurricanes are  normal and,  everything being  normal, the  system
could handle  it.   But everything's not normal," said Harold Wanless, a
marine scientist  at the  University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Ma-
rine and  Atmospheric Science.   "The  entire system  is under  a lot of
stress."

     Military satellite pictures show the peninsula of Florida marked by
a 22-mile  wide gash, a path of dying vegetation across the heart of the
Everglades National Park.

     Of most  concern is not the immediate death of the native mahogany,
palm and  pine but  the possibility  that opportunistic and fast-growing
foreign plant  species surrounding the Everglades could bombard the area
with seeds and out-compete the natives.

     "I could  easily see  the hammocks  invaded by  Austrian pines  and
Brazilian peppers,"  said Mark  Harwell, director for the Center for Ma-
rine and  Environmental Analysis  at the  University of Miami.  "I think
that's what really scares most of us."

     The scientists fear that once-native and natural areas, such as the
densely forested  hammocks, will  become overrun  with exotics,  turning
once-unique landscapes into the equivalent of weedy lots.

     Despite their worries, Harwell and his colleagues say it is far too
soon to  know how the recovery process will unfold.  Indeed, that is the
stuff research  is made  of.   Calls to scientists throughout the region
found many busy drafting grant proposals.

     While many  researchers immediately  rushed into  the field or flew
over the  region, work  was made difficult last week by cloudy water and
constant thunderstorms.   In addition, the research center in Everglades
National Park  lost its  roof and  the facilities at nearby Biscayne Na-
tional Park  were leveled.  Both parks suffered an estimated $30 million
damage and may not reopen for months.

     Despite the  difficulties, John  Ogden, director of the Florida In-
stitute of Oceanography in St. Petersburg, believes Hurricane Andrew may
prove to  be the best documented hurricane in history.  Much information
about the initial damage is pouring in.

     To understand  the storm's  destruction, Ogden said, one first must
understand the  hurricane.   Andrew was  intense and  rapidly moving but
also compact and dry, behaving more like a 20-mile-wide tornado.

     Ogden said  gauges at  Fowley Rocks  Light in  Biscayne Bay clocked
winds gusting up to 167 mph before the instrumentation was lost, but re-
search buoys show waves reached heights of only 5 feet.

     In other  words, Andrew  was fast  and mean, but didn't produce the
monster waves that would have pounded the reefs and scoured the bay bot-
toms.

     Ogden expects there to be some damage to the reefs of Biscayne Bay,
especially among the fragile, branching elkhorn coral.  But the majority
of reefs,  stretching south  from Key  Largo to  Key West, and including
those beneath John Pennekamp State Park, appear unscarred.

     Nor is  there any sign of destruction in the vast waters of Florida
Bay below  the peninsula.  In fact, the storm may have dispersed a giant
blob of algae that was smothering the bay before Andrew struck.

     The sea-grass  beds that  carpet the floor of Biscayne Bay and sup-
port an  intricate web  of life among their blades and branches also re-
main mostly intact.

     "In most  areas, sea-grass beds are untouched," said Wanless of the
University of  Miami.  His theory is that the storm moved too rapidly to
loosen the grip of the sea grass on the bay bottom.

     Wanless said he worries about the possibility of oil and toxic con-
tamination from  sunken boats,  and the discharge of sewage and chlorine
into Biscayne  Bay, but  overall he believes the bay weathered the storm
remarkably well.

     The mangrove  forests on  both the  Atlantic and Gulf coasts, which
act as vital fish nurseries, were not so lucky.

     "Simply put,  the mangrove  forest  was  devastated,"  said  Thomas
Smith, who is research coordinator at the Rookery Bay National Estuarine
Research Reserve near Naples.

     Smith described  the view  from a  flight along  the  state's  west
coast: "Every  tree in  the forest  is down.   It looks like a forest of
toothpicks from 500 feet."

     The dead mangrove trees and their leaves are now rotting in the wa-
ter, injecting  into the slow-moving creeks and bays a tremendous amount
of decaying  organic matter, which may rob the water of dissolved oxygen
breathed by fish and other creatures.

     Significant fish  kills have  been spotted in three west coast bays
of the Everglades although the die-offs are not widespread.

     "If all  this organic  matter is broken down, a tremendous spurt is
possible in  game fish  species," Smith  said.   "But I  don't have  the
faintest idea  if this will happen.  I'm not saying that five years from
now it will be a great time to be a guide for snook."

     Smith said  it is  too soon to know what effect all this will have.
Mangrove will  return, but so too may invading species such as Brazilian
pepper and swamp-loving, water sucking tree pests called melaleucas.

     The fish are the first dead animals reported.

     "I don't  see any  effects at all," said Below of the Audubon Soci-
ety, which  surveyed bird  populations, "though  some of the pelicans do
look like they had a rough night."

     The Audubon  warden suspects  that initial  reports from Everglades
National Park  that the skies were void of birds were shortsighted.  Im-
mediately after  the storm,  Below also  detected a dramatic drop in the
number of  birds, only  to see their numbers return to normal a few days
ago.  Migrating shore birds such as willets and avocets are returning to
the area.

     Alligators and even the endangered American crocodile also probably
survived the hurricane.

     Joe Wasilewski, a biologist who has been studying the population of
the American  crocodile in the canals at Turkey Point nuclear power sta-
tion south of Miami, believes that his subjects rode out the storm quite
nicely, thank you.

     "The older  ones probably  headed for  their caves  underneath  the
berms along  the canals.   I  think they  just got  out  of  the  way.,"
Wasilewski said.

     As for  the newly  hatched crocs?   "The babies that were out there
are definitely dispersed," he said.  Dispersed where?  He is not sure.

     On a  more positive note, Wasilewski said the area around Homestead
"should be  a snake-hunter's heaven in a couple of years" because of all
the downed wood.

     Scientists are  like this.   Many of them see opportunity among the
destruction.

     "You go  to Elliott Key and you think, 'Wow! , this is pretty neat!
There's no boats in the trees, no homes reduced to rubble.'  You want to
watch as  it all  regenerates, because  it'll be  fascinating," said the
University of  Miami's Wanless.   "But  you go to Homestead, it's not so
neat.  It's a horror show because of the human dimension."
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