When it comes to the environment of South Florida, science fiction writer Ben Bova must have learned about hydrology while writing about Mars. Obviously, he has no earthly concept of how and where water flows in our regional water system.

In his haste to somehow blame sugar farmers for everything from asthma, immigration and condo development to red tide, he loses touch with reality.

Over 95 percent of the rainfall runoff from sugar farms drains south through 40,000 acres of government stormwater treatment areas south to the Water Conservation Areas and farther south to the Everglades Park.

Water from sugar farms accounts for less than 3 percent of the water draining into Lake Okeechobee. Water entering the lake from the northern watershed is primarily responsible for the polluted waters that are drained out the Caloosahatchee River.

Yet, Bova's fictional hydrology implies that water from the agricultural area goes into Lake Okeechobee, then to the Gulf with some kind of wild detour through the Everglades, far to the south. It would require a set of canals of gigantic Martian proportions and some alien magic to achieve such a course.

The scientific fact is that water leaving South Florida sugar farms is some of the cleanest water in the entire system. Sugar cane, a giant grass, requires relatively little chemical enhancement compared to other crops and land uses. Our rich organic "muck" soils provide much of the nutrients needed to grow sugarcane.

Sugar farmers have spent millions of dollars on modern soil and water management practices to clean the water leaving their farms. These best management practices have lowered phosphorus levels in water leaving the farms by more than 50 percent for over a decade. Today, there is less phosphorus in farm water than in many bottled spring waters.

Water from the sugar farms flows south (not west) through a canal system to Stormwater Treatment Areas that special farm taxes helped to build. These marshes further clean the water before it sheet flows over 100 miles south through the conservation areas to slake the thirst of the Everglades Park or to recharge coastal aquifers. Scientific data shows water entering the Everglades Park meets historical background nutrient levels.

For what it's worth, Bova ought to check out some current materials on Florida's sugar industry. Biological controls (insects and barn owls) are used to control major pests, and machines have been used to harvest 100 percent of cane for more than a decade.
Fields are planted mechanically and global positioning satellites (GPS) help guide equipment through the fields. Sugar employees are typically full-time year-round workers, but even seasonal employees tend to be local residents rather than immigrants. Average wages are $35,000 to $45,000 a year in the sugar industry that provides more than $3 billion in economic benefit to South Florida.

Scientists have worked for decades to understand the Everglades and to develop the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan that is already under way. Fiction is no substitute for this actual science. The Everglades has been on track to a real solution for a decade. We need to focus the same type of comprehensive, scientific inquiry on Lake Okeechobee and the coastal estuaries so that we have facts to discuss, not fiction.

Bova ought to do some actual research or read the local papers.

The consensus of recent news coverage is that more than 50 percent of the water flowing down the Caloosahatchee River each year comes from local basin drainage. Not sugar farmers or the boogey man under the bed.

Clewiston resident Robert E. Coker is the senior vice president of U.S. Sugar Corp.

© 2006 Naples Daily News and NDN Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.