104 



The present problem with Biscayne Bay, the same problem that has gone un- 

 resolved in most of the other bays along our Atlantic seahoard, is that the bay is 

 what the resource economists call a "resource held in common" and one on which 

 ther are many — and often conflicting — demands. Let me give you some examples 

 of these conflicting uses. If the pleasure-boat operators prefer not to have hold- 

 ing tanks for sewage on their boats but to use the bay as a convenient sewer, 

 those who like to swim can not use for our marina slips where people live on 

 boats as areas for swimming. If you doubt me, look over the side of the piers at 

 any of the big marinas on Biscayne Bay. If you elect to have a big area set aside 

 as a National Monument, you can't exi)eet to build hotels, homes, and condomin- 

 iums there. If you want to save all the red mangroves, you can't dredge and 

 fill the area for an industrial seaport. If you want a causeway to join up a few 

 islands, you can't sail through it. If you want to aside an area for mariculture, 

 you can't water-ski through it. If you want the power required for a fast-grow- 

 ing metropolitan area and use bay-water to cool the generating equipment, you 

 must be prepared to have some warm water put back into the bay. If you don't 

 feel up to paying for proper sewage treatment, the bay is an economical toilet that 

 flushes itself in a half-hearted way twice a day, but swimming, fishing, and the 

 aesthetic resource may suffer. A thriving industrial seaport is important to the 

 economic base of the community, but this involves dredging and filling and getting 

 rid of the spoil. If spoil is spread over the shallows v\'here many of our commer- 

 cial and sport fish spend at least part of their life cycles, then these nursery 

 grounds diminish and the fish population diminishes accordingly. If you want to 

 live on the water you may have to bulkhead and fill in some of the mangrove 

 areas. If you want to dump raw sewage, you can't swim. If you want to preserve 

 the Vv^hole bay in its pristine condition, you can't do anything at all, and so it goes. 

 These, then, are the problems related to the multiple and often confiicting uses of 

 Biscayne Bay. 



I would like to take a look at one of these conflicting uses of the bay in some 

 detail. One of the great resources of Biscayne Bay may in fact be that it is a big 

 hole in the ground, a self -flushing system, and a fine place to get rid of the waste 

 material that we do not want to live with on land. You can spit in the bay, and 

 the bay will probably never know the difference. Two people, a hundred people, 

 could do the same, and the bay would still be essentially unpolluted. So the ques- 

 tion is not "yes" or "no," but rather, "how much" of "what", "where", and "when", 

 and "for how long". Answers to these questions have not been attempted, so the 

 normal course of action by inconsiderate man is just to keep on pouring the waste 

 materials into the bay until the effects become so bad that man himself objects to 

 the results and tries to clean it up. Usually by that time it is too late, the reaction 

 is an irreversible one, and one more bay becomes useful only as an open sewer. 

 This certainly is one use to which the bay can be put, but I doubt that we are 

 willing to pay the social price for using Biscayne Bay uniquely used for getting 

 rid of our municipal and industrial wastes. 



We are, however, well along on just that road. I understand from Dr. William 

 Fogarty of the University of Miami that of Dade Coimty's 90-plus sewage treat- 

 ment plants, less than five were putting out what is termed "acceptable effluent" 

 during a recent inspection. I might add, parenthetically, that the big City of 

 Miami treatment plant on Virginia Key is one of the best. If you fly over the 

 offshore outfall discharge area and look down, you will see that the water coming 

 out of the outfall is actually cleaner and clearer than the brownish bay water 

 coming out of Government Cut. I also understand from Dr. Fogarty that Snake 

 Creek, Snapper Creek, and the Coral Gables Waterways are too polluted even for 

 swimming. But let me put some numbers on this. Sanitary engineers use as one 

 measure of pollution what they call the "most probable number" or MPN. This 

 refers to the number of enteric organisms — human origin — in a water sample. 

 The upper limit for "safe" swimming is an MPN of about 1000. Dr. Fogarty has 

 routinely measured 16,000 in Coral Gables, in Snapper Creek, and in Snake 

 Creek — sixteen times the upper safe limit — not for drinking, but just for swim- 

 ming. Near one point of discharge from a treatment plant, he measured an MPN 

 of 16 million, or 16 thousand times the upper safe swimming limit ! Fishkills 

 have been reported in the local press, and a boat trip up any of these waterways 

 will prove that the situation is bad. There are those in the local government who 

 are working hard to correct this. There are good pollution control laws on the 

 books — some of the best in the nation — 'but unless they can be enforced, they are 

 of little use, and the effluent continues to pour into our once beautiful creeks and 

 waterways and eventually into Biscayne Bay. When did you last go swimming 



