Lake Apopka - History

History

Through the 1940s, Lake Apopka was one of Central Florida’s main attractions. Anglers traveled from throughout the United States to fish for trophy-sized bass in Lake Apopka, and 21 fish camps lined the lake’s shoreline.

Lake Apopka has a history of more than 100 years of human alteration, beginning with construction of the Apopka-Beauclair Canal in 1888. In 1941, a levee was built along the north shore to drain 20,000 acres (80 km²) of shallow marsh for farming. The discharge of water, rich in nutrients from agricultural and other sources, produced conditions that created a chronic algal bloom and resulted in loss of the lake’s recreational value and game fish populations.

In July 1980, Tower Chemical Company (TCC), a local pesticide manufacturer, improperly disposed of significant amounts of DDE, a known endocrine disruptor, along with other toxic chemicals. As a result, these chemicals spilled into Lake Apopka, and the US Environmental Protection Agency was alerted. TCC shut down their operations in December 1980. In 1981, an EPA investigation began and the site was decommissioned and designated as a Superfund clean-up site. Despite their efforts, some of the chemicals seeped into the Florida aquifer and have proliferated into some of Central Florida's interconnected lakes and waterways. This chemical has caused health problems in much of the lake's wildlife population, and has caused infertility and other sexual disorders in several species, including alligators.

In 1991, a coalition of real estate interests from the West Orange Community organized the Friends of Lake Apopka (FOLA) with the goal of reclaiming the lake from the agricultural interests who were discharging phosphorus laden water into the lake basin. Water from the lake was used to flood the farm fields during the hot summer months to restrict erosion and then discharged back to the lake before the growing season. A series of canals and high capacity pumps allowed the water to be introduced for irrigation and flooding or to discharge it when necessary. The phosphate laden water created a hypereutrophic condition resulting in algal blooms, robbing the lake water of oxygen and sunlight necessary to sustain plant life on the lake bottom. Over the decades, this condition caused the sandy bottom lake to be covered by a deep layer of muck.

In 1996, Governor Lawton Chiles signed the Lake Apopka Restoration Act that provided funding to purchase the farmland responsible for the discharges. The shuttering of the farms allowed for the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWD) to begin plans to convert the fields back to the marsh area it had once been. A survey was taken of the site that identified the hot spots that contained chemical contamination and clean up was initiated.