According to FWC chemist Homer Royals of Eustis, good water quality is essential for the survival of fish, desirable aquatic plants and, yes, even the human population. (Editor's note: the Department of Environmental Services is responsible for monitoring pollutants, and the Department of Health monitors factors that affect human health, including issuing any health advisories about fish consumption).

Included among pollution sources is an agricultural industry which discharges water containing fertilizer and pesticides from pastures and crop lands into our waterways.

Developers also alter watersheds and wetlands through fill operations, paving and construction. Storm drains discharge nutrient-rich runoff and toxic chemicals from lawns and streets into Florida's waters.

Royals and others test state waterways, particularly for nitrogen and phosphorus. Other important parameters studied, which are of special interest to fishermen, include pH, specific conductivity, chlorophyll and water clarity.

"We investigate natural and man-made influences on our surface waters," said Royals.

"We've discovered that the large river systems of the St. Johns and lower Kissimmee have been greatly altered by upland development. "Canals have been dug, flow patterns modified and marshes drained," he continued. "Many tons of high nutrient, salt, animal waste, and low-oxygen content water is being diverted into these systems." In Panhandle networks like the Apalachicola and Escambia River systems, Royals said that alterations to the rivers to accommodate barge traffic, in addition to industrial discharge, has negatively affected fish populations.

"Our lakes, once fed with waters filtered through expansive areas of vegetation, are now drainage basins for roads and parking lots." A few industrial dischargers find lakes or their tributaries to be convenient dumping sites, while homeowners wanting lush lawns don't realize the same fertilizer that greens grass will green a lake, causing undesirable changes to plant and fish populations. Similarly, pesticides that kill insects on lawns wash into lakes and streams and kill insects there too–but those insects form the base of the food chain that fish depend on.

"Nutrient loading into a system often leads to the production of algal blooms which, in turn, result in a loss of rooted native aquatic vegetation, a buildup of organic sediments, and a subsequent loss of fish spawning and nursery areas," Royals emphasized.

Effects of poor water quality caused by the factors outlined by Royals are varied and complex. For example, direct effects on fish populations are most obviously expressed as massive fish kills.

These fish kills may result from acute toxicity, or may be the indirect result of disease and parasite problems. Commonly, large numbers of fish are killed as the result of oxygen depletion caused by dense algal blooms. Indirectly, degraded habitat may also displace gamefish and, ultimately, may result in poor reproduction of such sensitive species as largemouth bass.

Since living things can only survive within very narrow sets of chemical and physical conditions, the parameters being monitored by the FWC to maintain healthy sport fisheries certainly deserve the enthusiastic endorsement and cooperation from the bass fishing community throughout Florida and the nation.