SANIBEL, Fla. — The way freshwater is distributed on Sanibel is changing, especially after the last several year’s hurricane seasons.
FOX 4 METEOROLOGIST ANDREW SHIPLEY LOOKED INTO WHAT THESE CHANGES MEAN MOVING FORWARD.
"Right after Ian, all of our freshwater bodies instantly became estuarian to marine water bodies," said Mark Thompson, research associate at Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation.
While all the rain during last year's wet season helped improve the situation; then came Debby, Helene, and Milton.
"They all became salty again," said Thompson.
Thompson says that at the start of this past dry season, these once freshwater bodies were about two-thirds of the saltiness of Gulf water.
This has killed many freshwater species of fish and plant life.
"Gulf water, we will say is 30, what we call psu units, which means it is salty,” said Thompson. “The stuff of the island was about 20 on average, freshwater is zero. So, zero is what we want, 20 is what we have, and 30 is like Gulf water."
With many of these freshwater bodies of water on Sanibel being rain fed, the amount of rain we get this wet season will play a factor in how these ecosystems respond.
"Whether we get significantly fresher, or whether we are somewhere way in between, where it can't really figure out if it is a freshwater system or a marine or estuarian system,” said Thompson.
While the shallower bodies have already shown signs of becoming fresher from our recent rain, Thompson isn't so optimistic about some of the deeper lakes.
"They might never become fresh again in our lifetime,” said Thompson. "The big deep lakes, we may never become fresh again between whatever surge events we have in the future."
Thompson says this means many of the ecosystems on the island will likely have to adapt, with changes to plants and animals, it won't be much different than what we have seen in other coastal wetland areas around the Gulf.
