Home > News & Media > Flooding threatens Treasure Coast citrus groves

Flooding threatens Treasure Coast citrus groves

Jupiter Courier – August 22, 2008

FORT PIERCE — Pete Spyke is trying to keep his citrus grove from becoming irreparably damaged.

“I’ve never seen it this bad in my 42 years of working in a grove,” said Spyke, owner of Fort Arapaho Citrus in Fort Pierce. “We’re flooded pretty much everywhere. We’ve pumped all day yesterday and today and it keeps coming. The rain just won’t stop.”

Spyke and dozens of other Treasure Coast citrus growers are making little headway pumping water out of groves as the aftermath of Tropical Storm Fay’s rains were felt across the region Thursday.

“We’ve been flooded for 48 hours now, and you’ll usually start to see your damage at 24 to 46 [Hug: 48?: ] [Nad: He said 46, which I took to mean that his groves are already beyond damaged: ]hours,” Spyke said.

Flooding can cause the roots of citrus trees to die after 72 hours because they cannot take in oxygen from the air.

“Most groves are only designed to handle 2 to 3 inches of rain,” said Ron Edwards, president and CEO of Evans Properties, which has 20,000 acres of citrus groves in Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties. “Some of our groves are seeing 10 to 14 inches, which is much more than what we got during (hurricanes) Jeanne and Frances.”

Denise Feiber, spokeswoman for the Gainesville-based Florida Division of Plant Industry, said her office was more worried about the potential drowning of citrus trees rather than the spread of citrus diseases.

“It’s getting very hard for these groves to pump out a week’s worth of rain,” Feiber said. “Certainly this is more than they can handle.”

[Hug: not needed as story says that greening is not as great a worry as flooding.: ]Dan Richey, a former Florida Citrus Commission chairman and president of Riverfront Packing in Vero Beach, said the region sustained little physical damage from fruit dropping during Fay. He said the industry may need to ask for federal and state emergency assistance because of tree damage.

[Hug: story can end here: ]”We’ll make an ongoing assessment in the next couple of days to determine our course of action,” Richey said.

Doug Bournique, executive director of the Indian River Citrus League, said local citrus growers have been using gigantic pumps that run on pricey diesel fuel to get water out of their groves.

“These tanks take 400 to 800 gallons,” Bournique said. “Imagine burning that much fuel and running 10 to 12 of these pumps.”

Some hope that Tropical Storm Fay has run its course and will dissipate by the weekend.

“We won’t know how this will affect us for several months,” said Citrus Commissioner W. Cody Estes Sr., owner of Estes Citrus in Vero Beach. “I hope it’s nothing we can’t handle.”