Lake Apopka

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Lake Apopka
Location	Florida
Coordinates	28°37′14″N, 81°37′19″WCoordinates: 28°37′14″N, 81°37′19″W
Basin countries	United States

Lake Apopka is one of the largest lakes in Florida in the United States. It is located west of Orlando and mostly in Orange County, but the western part is in Lake County. Fed by a natural spring, rainfall and stormwater runoff, water from Lake Apopka flows through the Apopka-Beauclair Canal and into Lakes Beauclair and Dora. From Lake Dora, water flows into Lake Eustis, then into Lake Griffin and then northward into the Ocklawaha River, which flows into the St. Johns River. Through the 1940s, Lake Apopka was one of central Florida’s main attractions. Anglers traveled from throughout the United States fish for trophy-sized bass in Lake Apopka, and 21 fish camps lined the lake’s shoreline.

Lake Apopka has a history of more than 100 years of human alteration, beginning with construction of the Apopka-Beauclair Canal in 1888. In 1941, a levee was built along the north shore to drain 20,000 acres (80 km²) of shallow marsh for farming. The discharge of water, rich in nutrients from agricultural and other sources, produced conditions that created a chronic algal bloom and resulted in loss of the lake’s recreational value and game fish populations.

It had a very bad disaster. The Lake Apopka tragedy. It was poisoned and many of the birds that migrated there died.

In the late 1990s, birds at the lake were actually falling from the sky and dying in large numbers^[1]. Most of the dead birds were White Pelicans, but Great Egrets and Ring-billed gulls made up most of the other deaths. The deaths were thought to be tied to pesticides that farmers depended on for decades, called organochlorines.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warned that people shouldn't eat fish caught in Lake Apopka, since the chemicals were labeled as a possible cause for the deaths.