Kreamer Island tire problem just keeps growing

By ELIOT KLEINBERG
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 24, 2008
STUART- — Like a space virus in a bad horror movie, the Kreamer Island tires keep growing and growing.

As the drought shrunk Lake Okeechobee, this 1.8-square-mile island at its southeast corner was exposed, revealing thousands of tires in 2001. They are believed to be from old farming equipment and abandoned for decades.

In June, a contractor paid $45,000 by the South Florida Water Management District pulled out about 2,000 tires. Managers later determined some 3,000 remained. On July 10, the district's governing board approved another $67,500. All the tires were expected to be gone by the end of this month.

But now, "There may be substantially more than that," the district's David Unsell told today's meeting of the district's Water Resources Advisory Commission.

"We're not sure where we'll go from here, " Unsell, director of the Lake Okeechobee division for the district's watershed management department, told the commission, meeting at the district's Martin-St. Lucie Service Center.

The district believes the tire dumping stopped in the late 1970s when a bridge to the island burned. Unsell told the commission today the tires are too decomposed to still contain dangerous chemicals that might leach into the environment. But he said water collecting in them creates nurseries for mosquitoes. And he said there's always the threat of a tire fire.

"The (greatest) adverse impact of the tires appear to be esthetics. They're ugly," Unsell said. "It's kind of disheartening that they're there."

Tires are being hauled to a recycling facility where they will be shredded, but some are too large for that, so they will be tossed in a nearby landfill.

The district and Belle Glade officials want to clear the island to make way for a park.