Turkey Creek muck removal resumes after Irma stirs things up

PALM BAY — A dredge this month is removing the organic muck that Hurricane Irma pushed out from underneath docks and into just-deepened parts of Turkey Creek.

This $1.7 million dredging project began in late January near the mouth of Turkey Creek, after Irma had sent the new muck into recently dredged areas.

Muck — rotted plant matter, clays and soils from construction sites — has been likened to "black mayonnaise." It blocks sunlight to seagrass and contributes to bacterial decay, which consumes oxygen in the water, causing fish kills and harming other marine life.

Gator Dredging of Clearwater plans to remove some 14,000 cubic yards of muck from previously dredged areas of Turkey Creek.

In March 2017, the same company had removed 215,000 cubic yards of muck in a $7.2 million Turkey Creek muck dredging project, part of the initiative to improve water quality in the Indian River Lagoon.

But after Irma, post-storm surveys of the Turkey Creek dredge area showed that roughly 14,000 cubic yards of muck had moved into some of the previously dredged areas. On Jan. 23, dredging began to restore the creek dredge area. Brevard officials expect the dredging to finish in late March.

Decades of runoff and pollution have fed an an estimated 5 million to 7 million cubic yards of muck over the past five decades in the Brevard County and Indian River County portion of the Indian River Lagoon. That's enough to cover a football field 1,000 yards high, according to scientists at Florida Institute of Technology.

For the latest Turkey Creek dredging, Brevard County is asking for federal money to recoup some of the cost, given that Irma caused the muck influx into the previously dredged area.

"We are seeking FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funding for this project and if successful there is a 12.5 percent cost share for the project that will come from the Save Our Indian River Lagoon Trust Fund (half-cent sales tax)," Brandon Smith, an environmental specialist with Brevard County, said via email.

The muck is not from a nearby containment area used to deposit the dredged up muck, Smith added. "It is from Hurricane Irma stirring up material along Turkey Creek from upstream loads due to the increased flow and also from material that was not able to be dredged around docks and seawalls," Smith said. "The dredge must keep at least a 10-foot distance (sometimes more depending on the region) from man-made structures unless the property owner signs a variance allowing a 5-foot distance."

Lagoon advocates hope muck dredging will help begin to cure a lagoon ailing from years of algae blooms, which nutrients from muck help to fuel.

A "superbloom" of green algae in 2011 and subsequent brown algae blooms killed off 60 percent of the lagoon's seagrass, the barometer of the estuary's ecological health. Hundreds of manatees, dolphins and pelicans also died in the wake of the blooms.

Seagrass is the linchpin of the lagoon food web. It's the manatee's main diet. Mutton snapper, lane snapper, gag and red grouper, spotted sea trout, blue crabs and other marine life depend on the grass for habitat. Studies have shown one acre of seagrass can support as many as 10,000 fish.

But stirred up muck also can provide nutrients for brown tide and other algae blooms.

Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter @JWayEnviro