US Army had to release contaminated (arsenic, pesticides, deadly red alg) waters of Lake Okeechobee (Florida, one of the most polluted fresh water lakes in the world) into other Florida rivers, polluting them and polluting Gulf or ocean waters on the long term. After Michael's flooding, that must have flood the lake with sewage and more industrial waste, there's no way to get current information about that global threat.
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/scientists-suspect-water-spilling-into-gulf-from-lake-okeechobee-is-intensifying-the-red-tide-crisis
https://eu.news-press.com/story/news/2018/10/08/what-effects-hurricane-michael-could-have-red-tide-and-blue-green-algae/1564035002/
Red alga is also causing unsolvable problems in Mediterraneo sea but I don't know if it's the same kind of alga. Here, it wraps arounds posidonia alga and kills it, suppressing that way a secure nest for fishes. It reproduces just with a single thread derivating. There's no way to fight it, even picking it up hand-done worsen the things and the expansion of the alga.
Florida has tremendous water pollution problems. With reference to the first post, Hurricane Michael did not affect Lake Okeechobee, which are in completely different parts of the state.
Long-term failed state water quality policy and law are slowly being replaced (e.g., see new federal standards on phosphorous pollution, https://www.epa.gov/wqs-tech/phosphorus-water-quality-standards-florida-everglades). This new rule, just created in 2018, was required to be created by US EPA in 2010 under a ruling imposing findings that Florida failed to meet federal water quality standards.
One should keep in mind that across the US, there has generally been a failure to met the water quality/anti-pollution standards established by the Clean Water Act (CWA; official name, Federal Water Pollution Control Act). The CWA amendments of 1972 required that rules be established to make "all US waterways fishable and swimmable" by 1983, and to eliminate water pollution discharges by 1985. These federal requirements have not been met yet.
The most recent EPA assessment of US water quality can be found here: https://ofmpub.epa.gov/waters10/attains_nation_cy.control
Generally, in relation to US water quality, the report shows that of the assessed water ways, (1) 53% of US rivers and streams are impaired (failed to met federal water quality standards) -- that means that about 589,000 miles of rivers and streams remain polluted 45 years after CWA was amended; (2) 71% (13.2 million acres) lakes/ponds/reservoirs = impaired; (3) 79.5% of bays and estuaries (44,625 square miles) = impaired; (4) 72% of coastal water shoreline (4,627 miles) = impaired; (5) 89.5% of near ocean waters (6,218 square miles) = impaired; (6) 54.2% of wetlands (1.242 million acres); (7) 97.6% of the shoreline of the Great Lakes (4,345 miles) = impaired; (8) ALL (100%) of Great Lake off-shore waters (39,321 square miles) = impaired.
Additional water quality data for the US are available here: https://iaspub.epa.gov/apex/waters/f?p=ASKWATERS:EXPERT
You can use links from the later page to obtain the state specific water test results to observe variations in meeting CWA across states. For example, while nationally, 53% of rivers/streams are impaired, in FLORIDA 80% are impaired; while nationally, 71% of lakes/ponds are impaired, within FLORIDA, 90% are impaired; while nationally, 72% of coastal water shoreline is impaired, n FLORIDA, 96.5% are impaired; while nationally, 79.5% of bays/estuaries are impaired, in FLORIDA 97.4% are impaired.
Florida has WEAK water control regulations and enforcement, causing US EPA to intervene in efforts to attempt to force the government of the state to meet federal water pollution control standards in order to provide adequate protection to the health of the state's citizens (and all other living things).......
How terrible, like going full-speed in a wall, how disastrous for future generations, how concerning for your Earth neighbors, how worrying for oceans... Thanks for your very complete information. Do you think elections results in Florida were a consequence of water problems in the state? Does both parties in Florida have the same plans on water sanitary control?
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