The plants started to decay, a process that uses up oxygen. The dead plants settled to the lake bottom, triggering a biological bomb.
The solution was to spray as much poison on the plant as possible. At the time, the 1,500-acre lake was one of the best places in Florida to catch prized freshwater fish, such as bass and crappie.īut the lake suffered from invasions of hydrilla, a water plant with kudzu-like aspirations. Olesky purchased the Lake Trafford Marina on the eastern shore of the lake with a group of fishing buddies and investors in 1976.
The lake lies about 3 miles west of Immokalee at the end of a two-lane road dotted with hardscrabble mobile home parks, gleaming-new apartment complexes and Mexican markets. "I wish my wife was alive to see it," said Ski Olesky, who ? with his wife, Ann, at his side ? fought to have the lake cleaned for nearly 10 years. In about six months, the largest natural freshwater lake south of Lake Okeechobee will be muck-free for the first time in decades. The first young bass to have been spotted in years are growing in number and size.Īfter a six-month delay, a contractor began siphoning away the nutrient-rich sludge around the edge of the lake on Dec. Roseate spoonbills, snowy egrets and wood storks line Lake Trafford's shore. This is the final destination for 1 million cubic yards of muck a contractor is dredging from the outer rim of Lake Trafford near Immokalee ? the last leg of a $15.1 million restoration project.Ī mile away, what once was an environmental disaster now is showing signs of coming back to life. Frothy, oil-black water spews from a pipe into a cattail-choked pond that water managers call a containment disposal facility.
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