Powerful group of ‘friends’ help protect Loch Haven Chain of Lakes

A stinky, avoidable sewage spill has fostered one of the most potent environmental citizen action groups to come along in quite awhile in Central Florida – the Friends of the Loch Haven Chain of Lakes.

Already with hundreds of members and a recent state allocation of nearly $1.5 million for solutions, the group’s “not-in-my-backyard focus” is on what nobody wants: ruinous water pollution that afflicts springs, streams, rivers, lakes and coastal waters across Florida.

The group’s catalyst was a 2020 summer thunderstorm’s lightning strike at one of Orlando’s modern sewage pumping stations – at the corner of Mills Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, and viewable by Orlando Museum of Art patrons.

The lightning strike disabled the $4.2 million, three-year-old pumping station, unleashing 350,000 gallons of sewage into Lake Rowena, which connects to lakes Formosa, Estelle, Winyah and Sue in the Loch Haven chain.

Two years later, Lake Sue downstream from the spill had the nastiest outbreak of toxic algae – an occurrence tied to pollution – ever measured in Winter Park and Orlando.

The lightning incident had the opposite effect on Margaret Shân Atkins, who lives at Lake Rowena within sight of the sewage station. A veteran of corporate leadership and a Darden board member, Atkins said, in all seriousness, it “sparked” her into collaborative action.

Soon after the spill, Atkins, who goes by Shân, joined neighbors to incorporate Friends of the Loch Haven Lakes Inc., with her as president and with a website: flhcl.org

An accountant with a Harvard MBA, she dove into understanding the lake-wrecking culprits of dirty stormwater, sewage spills, exotic plants and the deficit of remedies, and how they have rendered the Loch Haven chain primed for systemic ecosystem distress.

“This lake chain is really ground zero for a lot of stormwater runoff,” Atkins said. “I didn’t know that when I moved into the area and I think a lot of our neighbors didn’t really realize that quite as well as they do now.”

The Loch Haven Chain of Lakes is not a U.S. Geological Survey place, or even a Wikipedia post. It’s not in Orlando, or Winter Park or Orange County – it’s in all three.

The chain of lakes’ name was coined for a movement that stands to be meaningful beyond the group’s five focus lakes clustered at Orlando’s Loch Haven Park and Leu Gardens.

Lakes Rowena, Formosa, Estelle, Winyah and Sue are a small part of a large drainage area of a river system called Howell Branch that flows north, starting in west Orlando and ending in north Seminole County.

With nearly 65 lakes, the Howell Branch drainage area also spans: lakes Beardall and Lorna Doone near Camp World Stadium; lakes Concord, Highland and Ivanhoe near Interstate 4; lakes Mizell, Virginia and Osceola in Winter Park; lakes Maitland and Minnehaha in Maitland; and other lakes all the way to Lake Jesup, which is part of the St. Johns River.

“We know what happens upstream directly affects Winter Park,” said Sheila DeCiccio, commissioner and vice mayor. “We want to do what we can to help the watershed as a whole.”

With all those lakes interconnected, whatever the Friends of the Loch Haven Chain of Lakes does to improve its lakes will likely bring results upstream and downstream.

The poo, rotting leaves and fertilizers that ooze into Lake Highland, for example, contribute to the organic mayhem in the Loch Haven lakes, muck up Winter Park’s Lake Virginia at Rollins College and ultimately help secure Lake Jesup’s standing as one of Florida’s most degraded.

Atkins said the Loch Haven lakes have high visibility, providing scenic shorelines for Orlando’s art museums and theaters at Loch Haven Park, the main AdventHealth hospital campus and for the city’s Leu Gardens botanical park.

That level of visibility will boost awareness that will help her group get stuff done, she said.

Also an asset: many Loch Haven lakes’ waterfront homes, some with 5,000 and 10,000 square feet, are residences of affluence and influence.

The group has signed up more than 400 members, or two-thirds of the chain’s lakefront homeowners, Atkins said.

While describing herself as a rookie in her quest to restore and protect lakes, Atkins hopes the group’s growing membership embodies the commitment and future leadership to sustain the years and decades of focus needed to make a difference.

She became the group’s leader as she was settling into semi-retirement – “I guess you could say that,” she said of her career status.

She doesn’t think the connotation of the label “environmentalist” fits her. “I recognize that the world is a balance of factors and decisions that have to be taken into account.”

Her voter registration checks the box for no party affiliation.

Still, Atkins has doubled down on her new pursuit, applying to become a public official.

In September, Orange County commissioners appointed her as a member of the county’s Environmental Protection Commission.

Each of the seven seats on the commission is designated for a type – such as agriculture, engineering or government – and Atkins’ is the “Recognized Environmental Conservation Organization Representative.”

“Getting this off the ground, not just for me but for a lot of the others who are very, very involved, it’s been a labor of love, but also a huge time sink,” Atkins said. “So we have to get some velocity going and momentum with other people getting involved.”

Elsewhere in Florida, the challenge of healing Florida’s water bodies from chronic pollution poisoning has settled into a seemingly unwinnable tug of war between committed environmentalists and relentless development pressures.

That’s on top of a problematic legacy that goes back decades: just about every urban and suburban lake in Central Florida has been turned into a stormwater-runoff pond.

Facing a daunting challenge, the Friends of the Loch Haven Chain of Lakes has charted a path avoiding confrontation in favor of cooperation.

Earlier this year, the group turned to state Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, and state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando. They drew up an appropriations request for the “Loch Haven Chain of Lakes Flood Control and Nutrient Management Plan.”

With moments of suspense along the way, the two ushered through legislation that allocated $1.4 million. About a third of that will fund a professional study and the rest will underwrite restoration projects, all to to be administered by the St. Johns River Water Management District.

“It was kind of miraculous,” Atkins said.

Speaking at a recent friends gathering, Brodeur described the legislation’s adventure earlier this year as seemingly careening toward disappointment.

“It was funded on the Senate side, and then not funded on the House side,” Brodeur said. “And then it was funded half on the Senate side and not on the House side. And it was partially funded on the House side. And then, when the final budget came out, it was fully funded on both sides.”

The friends group praised Eskamani for initiating the idea and action for seeking state funding and Brodeur for having a central role as chair of the Senate appropriations committee on agriculture, environment and general government.

“Yes, Tallahassee has a lot of fights – go on social media and you know that – but there are opportunities for commonality,” Eskamani said. “I think this is one of them – the fact that we can come together to focus on what is both of our hometowns.”

Atkins told the two lawmakers they delivered a key victory for the group.

“We look forward to working with you further as this effort unfolds,” Atkins said.

The Friends of the Loch Haven Chain of Lakes group has joined clean-ups that removed tons of trash, launched various education and awareness campaigns, and lobbied local, state and federal officials to embrace the environmental needs of the Loch Haven lakes.

The group also urged and supported the city of Orlando’s steps to revamp its sewage pumping station at Lake Rowena.

At a cost of $273,000, the city hardened the station with underground power, a backup generator and docking station capable of receiving power from a portable generator.

A strategy for reducing Loch Haven lakes pollution is still in the planning stages, with the St. Johns River Water Management District preparing to hire a contractor to inventory the types, amounts and locations of pollution that impact the Loch Haven lakes and to point to the remedies needed.

“Once we get the contractor involved, it’ll take about 10 to 14 months to get it all completed,” said Mike Register, the water district’s executive director of the coming study.

The group has stuck its toe into its Loch Haven waters, raising expectations for deliverables. Atkins said they are motivated to make that happen.

“We are not political opportunists. We are not lobbyists. We are not experienced community activists or organizers,” she said. “What we are is a group of residents who care and who are engaged.”

kspear@orlandosentinel.com