Battle won, fight goes on

Southwest Floridians horrified by this summer's unprecedented environmental disaster received some good news on the water quality front recently.

Gulf waters off the beaches of Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach saw an abatement of the red tide blooms that resulted in not only massive fish kills, but the deaths of sea turtles, dolphins and manatees by the score.

Also abating is the blue-green algae blooms that slimed the Caloosahatchee and canals in Cape Coral and other communities.

Water quality samples for both red tide and Cyanobacteria are finally showing minimal levels of the algaes that had proliferated to record numbers coast to coast, fed by nutrient-laden discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee here and the St. Lucie River on the east coast.