Story by Jana Eschbach / CBS 12 NEWS
STUART, Fla. – New images just released to CBS 12 show the mounting pollution flowing out into our ocean, reaching miles to the south of Stuart.
In Stuart, at the St Lucie Inlet, bacteria levels are inching up daily.
The water at the inlet has gone from a Bahamas blue-green in June to a dark brown bubbly foamy water.
The S-80 Locks opened in June and are pumping up to 600 million gallons of dirty water into the estuary a day. N
ow, new images capture the impact from the air.
“At the beginning of the summer we got excited because we started to see blue water back in the river, people seeing some new life and conch at the sandbar,” said pilot Dr. William Lippisch, who along with his wife Jacqui, have taken historical images logging the discharges into the ocean since June 2013.
This week Dr. Lippisch began to get concerned.
“As soon as I got over the river I said there’s a dramatic difference and I pulled out the iPhone and started taking pictures of it. Brown water, almost black from the crossroads to the manatee pocket to Sailfish Point.