Lagoon report shows a waterway in peril

MELBOURNE —The Indian River Lagoon flunked by most measures on a regional environmental group's first report card of the estuary's ecological health.

The Marine Resources Council, a nonprofit group based in Palm Bay, unveiled early findings Thursday evening from a two-year, $180,000 study of the lagoon's health — the estuary's first ecological report card of sorts.

"You can see that these grades are pretty much failing throughout," MRC executive director Leesa Souto said to a crowd of more than 100 people at the Gleason Performing Arts Center at Florida Institute of Technology.

Souto was pointing to a color-coded map of the northern lagoon, which showed mostly red and orange, indicating poor water quality.

The study was funded almost entirely from local foundations and private donors, and included a $47,000 grant from the National Estuary Program.

MRC examined various segments of the lagoon, looking at 20 years of water quality and habitat data, including measures of chlorophyll, nitrogen, phosphorus, seagrass and the typical cloudiness of the water.

They divided the lagoon into 10 areas and created a standardized scoring system, ranging from 0 to 100.

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The report card provides a baseline for comparison of lagoon restoration efforts. It was inspired by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s annual community report and is based on repeatable scientific methods to measure progress of restoration efforts.

MRC assigned various lagoon segments numerical scores, based on how close they came to meeting established targets for seagrass growth, water pollution reductions and other parameters.

In 2016 and 2015, no section of the lagoon passed. In 2014, the Mosquito Lagoon passed MRC's scoring criteria.

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The full report card won't be released until further review, Souto said, and the full report won't be published until April.

Part of the study focused on identifying additional data needs.

More than half the lagoon's seagrass died off in 2011 when a "superbloom" of algae fouled most of the lagoon, blocking sunlight from reaching the seagrass.

Robert Weaver, an associate professor of ocean engineering at FIT, urged the audience to reduce their lagoon "footprint."

He encouraged homeowners to get their septic tanks inspected. "That's something we can all do to limit our footprint on the lagoon," Weaver said.

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Duane DeFreese, executive director of the Indian River Lagoon Council, does not expect much state money for the lagoon this year. So he urged the community to push state representatives for recurring funding for the lagoon.

Brevard County's half-cent sales tax is expected to raise $340 million over 10 years for lagoon cleanups, said Brandon Smith, environmental specialist with Brevard County.

Much of that money will go toward dredging out organic muck, which clouds up the lagoon, blocking sunlight to seagrass and fueling excess algae growth.

"We're looking at new projects all the time," Smith said. "There are 63 projects due to start this year."

Water quality in the northern and southern lagoon has been fairly good recently, DeFreese said.

But the Banana River and Sykes Creek areas in the central lagoon have been suffering from a brown tide algae bloom.

"This is not the time we want to see algal blooms," DeFreese said.

"We have to do more than want change, we have to be willing to change," he said.

During a question-and-answer session, one citizen asked whether the lagoon is safe for recreation.

"If it looks bad, and if it smells bad, and the government was telling you it was safe, would you go in?" DeFreese said. "For me, if I don't like the look of it, and I don't like the smell of it, I don't go in it."

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

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