March 30, 1998 Community Columnist Article

Tim Lynch, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis
Florida State University
850.644.7357
 

A Pending Economic and Ecological Disaster Haunts Our Lakes
 

Prominent wetland scientists tell us that our beloved Leon County Lakes are dying!  Is this terrible news a looming ecological disaster or an economic disaster?  It is both. Economics and ecology stem from the same root “eco” which comes from the Latin term “oeco" meaning “household” or “household management”. The first deals with management of the fiscal and man made social-physical world and mediums of value of exchange. The latter with our biophysical natural world often owned in by all of us. In sum the very wealth of our economy is largely dependent on the quality of our ecology.

These terms are the flip side of the same coin. As our local, national and international populations continue to grow, the inseparable link between a robust economy and a healthy environment becomes even more critical. They are two constants in our lives. As a society, we seek to grow. Without a vibrant ecology, we cannot grow.
 

• As a practicing Environmental Economist, I have worked on many of Florida’s environmental crisis over the past 28 years. Some of my work had focused upon evaluating the economic feasibility of restoring some of Florida’s most complex and intractably destroyed environmental wonders, such as the restoration of lake Apopka and the chain of lakes south of Orlando, the Kissimmee river basin, and the Florida Everglades itself.

I have learned that it is ten to thirty times more costly to restore something than to prevent its initial destruction.  While nature took many millions of years to create the Everglades, man required only a few short years and several millions of dollars to destroy most of it.  Now it is costing we the public billions to only partially restore a system which is still worth many billions of dollars to our economy.

A local example is the rapid deteriorating fresh water lakes across our community.  The competing economic and ecological demands for use of these finite resources are bringing about their sudden demise. They are being loved to death. The demands we put on our lakes is enormous, they are used for a number of competing ecological, economic, and social purposes.   They include:
 

• Habitat for propagation of fish, foul and mammals and plant species diversity
• recreational hunting,  fishing, and water sports (swimming, water skiing, boating)
• valuable sites for residential and commercial high valued property development
• substantial public tax revenue (high valued source of property based and other public taxes)
• tourist attraction with it’s associated economic value of commercial spending and local and state sales tax revenue
• Drinking water recharge area
• a  “free public source of pollution absorption (and limited) treatment of substantial urban pollution
• A valuable source of fish sustenance for a number of residents.

To illustrate just one example in 1993, Dr. Fred Bell, (an internationally prominent Environmental Economist and FSU Economics Professor) examined the economic value of only Leon County’s Lake Jackson water body. He concluded that recreational economic activity alone associated with Lake Jackson generates the equivalent of almost $12 million (1999 dollars) including $2.3 million in wages and 100 full time jobs every year across our region.   Additionally, the Lake’s recreational users generate an additional $2.1 million annually in recreational user values. Finally, Lake Jackson users believe that water quality can and should be improved and are, on average, willing to pay $2.6 million annually to improve water quality.  Lake Jackson and the other stressed and dying lakes across Leon County are important engines of economic growth. They need to be nurtured and protected.

Who is to blame for the deterioration of our lakes?  Is it the developers (easy targets)?  Shopping malls and roads and those who use them (all of us)? Recreational users (many of us)? People that own property within the urban drainage area (most of us)? Government? Casting blame is easy and never leads us to a solution. We have all contributed to the stress on our environment and we all have a stake and a responsibility in solving these problems.

Tallahassee and our north Florida region is potentially only a decade or two behind central and south Florida in destruction of our fragile lake system habitats– and we have the time, knowledge and talent and resources to not repeat their costly mistakes here. The question is do we have the political will? Solutions are desperately needed.  I urge all involved to increase their efforts at communication and consideration of the greater needs before it is to late.  Fashion a long-term solution that will not pit one segment of our community against the other and will be a gift to all of our children and their children.

The Romans had it right - if we delay with apathy and inaction we will have failed our responsibilities as stewards of both our economy and ecology and pass forward to our children a household very much diminished in value from that which our parents handed us at birth

Dr. Tim Lynch is Director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at Florida State University and served ten years as Florida’s Chief Environmental Economist at the Department of Environmental Regulations and can be reached at lynch@cefa.fsu.edu