PORT ST. LUCIE — For the second time in eight months, a fish kill has occurred in a retention pond at Sawgrass Lakes, a Port St. Lucie community where residents and city officials have spent years searching for answers.
Thousands of fish were found dead in one of the community’s lakes in September. Residents reported another fish kill this past week.
According to Bob Shonce, a Sawgrass Lakes resident and vice president of the community’s Masterboard HOA, the problem dates back to 2020. Since then, he said, the city has been working to determine the cause.
City officials say environmental conditions likely contributed to the latest incident.
Scott Samples, a city spokesperson, said the summer heat can create conditions that affect water quality and aquatic life.
“As the weather gets a little warmer, we start to see environmental conditions that may cause blue green algae to come up or dissolved oxygen levels to go down,” he said. “Both of which affect the lake. In this case, we saw some blue green algae present, we did a treatment last Tuesday and Wednesday, the fish kill happened subsequently after that.”
While the city has focused on environmental factors, some residents believe another source may be contributing to the recurring issue.
“There’s a lot of us that feel that the Westport facility has some culpability in this. All the vegetation around Westport is dead or dying, just like the perimeter of Sawgrass Lakes,” Shonce said. “We used to have a lot of very nice vegetation growing around the perimeter of the lake, and you hardly see any of it now.”
Samples said testing conducted by the city has not found evidence linking the nearby wastewater facility to the fish kills.
“We’ve done a lot of testing and nothing that we’ve seen would indicate that that has anything to do with this particular situation or any others. Again, it’s designed to be a stormwater tract and that creates some of the environmental conditions that we’ve seen,” he said.
In recent months, city staff and residents have met regularly to discuss potential remedies. Among the options considered were two lake treatment approaches known as TryMarine and MetaFloc.
“Both of these treatments were supposed to do something about that muck. It’s my understanding that the city chose the TryMarine product, which originally they quoted us $1.8 million over three years. Now they’re down to $1.3 million, I guess,” Shonce said. “That was supposed to be done by the end of the summer, pending city council approval for the funds.”
Samples said the city continues to work on long-term solutions, but frustration among some residents is growing as the problem persists.
“A lot of people are upset, of course, and they don’t like the fish kills. They tend to stink. And some of them even got into the sewer system. A lot of people are very frustrated that the city has not solved this problem in five and a half years,” Shonce said. “I won’t say it’s lack of trying, because it seems like Port St. Lucie officials are trying very hard, running a bunch of tests. They’ve spent a bunch of money. We don’t have any real results yet. And of course, we’re still having problems.”
Residents are also concerned about what the repeated fish kills could mean for home values in the community.
“People are very concerned about their property values. I mean, if you were looking for a house in Sawgrass Lakes, and you came and looked at it, and you saw that there was dead fish laid all over the banks, I’m guessing you would walk away,” Shonce said.
The city has not released an official estimate of how many fish have died in the latest event. However, Samples said conditions appear to be improving based on recent monitoring.
“We’re seeing those readings are steadily increasing, and we’ve also seen fewer fish as we’ve gone through this process. So I don’t have a specific number, but we are starting to see some improvements,” he said.