Riverkeeper Marty Baum Is Out to Stop Florida's Algae Apocalypse

Marty Baum, a sixth-generation Floridian, has vivid memories of the vibrant landscapes and the bountiful flora and fauna that inhabited the state's estuarine habitats up and down the coast when he was a child. "My whole life growing up, I traipsed the Everglades; I was out in Florida Bay, 10,000 Islands, and Biscayne Bay. I knew what healthy seagrass and healthy mangroves and healthy sawgrass—what those things were all about," he told me over the phone. Baum, 62, is the executive director of Indian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organization based in Jensen Beach, Florida, dedicated to the protection of the Indian River Lagoon, a shallow water estuary stretching 156 miles along Florida's Atlantic coastline. As head 'riverkeeper' of the group, Marty works as a full time advocate for the lagoon's waters, plants, and animals. Indian Riverkeeper is also a part of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a larger non-profit that supports marine conservation groups all around the country.

With its olive-colored freshwater, hemmed in from the sea by barrier islands and mixing with saltwater only in certain inlets, the lagoon is the most biologically diverse environment of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere. Some 4,000 different known species of plants and animals live there, including dolphins, sharks, alligators, manatees, countless species of fish and shellfish, a dizzying array of birds, and over 2,000 species of plants. Fifty-three of those species are federally listed as threatened or endangered.

But the lagoon is also under siege. Runaway development and careless discharging of fertilizer runoff from upland farms have led to massive fish kills, poisonous algal blooms, and decreased water quality throughout the lagoon that have put the whole ecosystem in peril. Baum is its leading advocate and steward, speaking on behalf of the environment and the people who live there to try and save what's left of it from irreparable harm.

Baum spent his childhood growing up Miami where his dad was a cop, but as a treat they would often head up to the Indian River Lagoon where Baum would spend his days fishing, boating, and building bonfires on sandbars. "You could fill a five-gallon bucket of clams in a half an hour," he said. By age 20, he and his father had permanently moved to the area. "We'd do all these things that you can't do now. It was so full of life and vitality," he lamented. "And I haven't forgotten that."

Baum eventually went away to the military. When he moved back in the 1970s, things had already begun to change. "There was too much dredging, too much filling—they were taking up mangroves, they were putting in sea walls and moving housing developments right up to the edge." Unchecked discharges of water full of fertilizer from Lake Okeechobee and agricultural fields were damaging the water quality. "It was just getting worse and worse," he said.

The Riverkeeper: Just a Florida Man Trying to Save Waterways From Toxic Algae

He became seriously engaged in water issues in the early 1990s, and has gotten more so since, culminating in his taking the riverkeeper position at age 58. "I have been screening for this job my whole life. Every experience—everything I've learned—applies to this job."

Under Governor Rick Scott, Florida rolled back its nutrient protections in 2013, leading to intensified fertilizer discharges in the lagoon. These nitrogen-rich pollutants have fueled vast blooms of toxic algae. Last July, one bloom carpeted the entire lagoon and forced Governor Scott to declare a State of Emergency. On the shorelines, the mayonnaise thick algae was so built up it burned Baum's sinuses. "You couldn't hardly breathe," he told Motherboard last October. "It made you sick to your stomach. Puking sick."

"The algal blooms that are happening right now are the new normal," Baum told me over the phone. The degraded water quality has created a haven for potentially dangerous bacteria. "Now, we're scared to death of staph, of MRSA, or vibrio," said Baum. "Fifteen years from now are we going to have a massive spike of liver cancer and dementia?" he asked, incredulously.

As much as the state government, or agricultural corporate interests—which have a heavy hand in Florida's legislative decisions—might be the perpetrators of such pollution, the real culprit, says Baum, is your average American. "This is our fault," he said. "The American citizen. The voter. This is our fault. We have allowed this to happen to us by being indifferent."

In the beginning, he explained, the locks and dams would discharge fertilizer-laced runoff from the sugar and cattle fields into the lagoon, "everybody would be up screaming and raising hell." But then the discharges would stop, and no one would remember. "And that happened over and over again," said Baum.

As riverkeeper, he said, "The biggest challenge of all has been to keep people interested."

Environmental causes suffered a major setback at the end of last year with the election of a climate change denier to the highest office in the land, and Baum has no delusions about the current situation. "The outlook, at least politically, especially with the EPA and our Congress right now, is pretty 'effing grim," he told me. "We're being blitzkrieged."

But, he said, "The good news to all of that is they have pushed us about as far as we're going to go. I have great hope in the people rising up," he continued. "Probably the greatest hope that I've had in a long time."

He told me a story of a protest he staged at a discharge lock in 2013. Usually he'd be able to draw 700-800 people at these types of protests, but for this one, some kid put it up on social media, and 7,000 people showed up.

The ag companies and other corporate interests started get more vociferous in their attacks on Baum and other activists in the lagoon. Because, as Baum puts it, "For the first time ever, they're concerned that they may not be able to do business as usual."

"The game has changed," he said. And after a slight pause, "We haven't had a big effect at the ballot box yet, but that's coming."

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