Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Tainted bass have been found as far north as Loxahatchee and as far south as the L-67 canal in Dade. The fish, about 70 in all, were collected with electronic stunning gear. They weighed between 2 and 8 pounds each. Experts were shocked at the amounts of mercury discovered.

The government considers any level exceeding 0.5 parts per million to be cause for concern. Anything over 1.5 is unfit for human consumption.

No wonder health workers were alarmed, then, when one of the sample Everglades bass tested at 4.4 parts mercury per million. Some sites yielded fish with levels averaging 2.5.

Much has been made of these statistics because people want to know how much mercury is safe to eat. Fact: Bass aren't supposed to have heavy metals in their flesh.

In humans, mercury poisoning can damage the central nervous system.The most famous and tragic outbreak occurred in the 19505, when mercury-laden effluent from a factory contaminated the fish in Minamata Bay, Japan. Thousands of people who ate the fish suffered severe mercury poisoning that led to blindness, paralysis and birth defects. More than 300 died.

The Everglades scenario is not so extreme. The average person would have to eat a mess of tainted bass to be affected, but the health risk is larger for pregnant women and nursing mothers.

Actually, the edibility of these fish is the least of concerns. The more urgent riddle is where the pollution is coming from and what it portends for the ecology of South Florida.

"There is no theory at this point," says Frank Morello, a biologist with the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. "It's just a mystery."

The possibilities are far-ranging. Mercury can travel airborne from coal-burning power plants. It's also a common residue of agricultural fungicides, which have been known to be flushed into the Glades.

Over time mercury accumulates in living tissue, and the high levels found in the bass suggest a serious long-term pollution. Sediment samples might provide some clues, if not answers. The trick is tracing the source of this slop and identifying the offenders.

In a way, the invisible nature of the mercury threat makes it easy to underestimate. It's not like a red tide or a chemical spill. You won't see lots of bloated bass or dead panfish floating around the docks; in fact, you won't see much of anything.

A sudden fish kill looks more dramatic, but it tends to be brief and contained. The slow poisoning of an entire ecosystem is more sinister and potentially more catastrophic.

The hushed beauty of the Everglades is deceiving. It is so rich with life that we naturally assume all the life to be healthy.

For now, mercury and all, there are plenty of lunker largemouth bass to be caught. But the way it's going, someday we'll be fishing for them with magnets instead of worms.

News isn't so sweet for Big Sugar March 5, 1990

The sugar industry, despoiler of the Everglades, got some not-so-sweet news last week.

Powerful federal agencies have come down strongly on the side of U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen, who is suing to make Florida clean its water.

A report of the U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency says Everglades pollution is at "crisis proportions," and the state's plan to stop it is too weak.

The prime pollutants are phosphates, and the chief culprit is Big Sugar. Because cane companies donate lots of money to politicians, their disgraceful irrigation techniques have been overlooked for years.

Lehtinen ruined the party with his unprecedented lawsuit, which was filed 18 months ago. It charged the South Florida Water Management District with pumping filthy farm runoff into Everglades National Park. And it charged the state Department of Environmental Regulation with doing virtually nothing to stop it.

The message of the suit was so simple: Make the growers quit fouling our water. It hardly seemed like too much to ask.

But it was. The great state of Florida has spent more than $1 million in legal fees to fight the case. Makes you proud to be a taxpayer, doesn't it? The lawyers get rich while the water gets worse.

All sides agree that the public will be better served if an agreement can be reached out of court. As usual, politics is mucking up the priorities.

Gov. Martinez wants the lawsuit to disappear because it's politically embarrassing. The board of the water district (which Martinez loaded with farmers and developers) wants the lawsuit to go away because it could cost Big Sugar a fortune.

Florida had insisted it would come up with a comprehensive plan to save the Everglades, if only the feds would back off. Given the sorry history of water management, it was difficult to be bubbly with optimism.