Wow. My head is spinning from reading that!

Wouldn't it be awesome if they cut an inlet and built a jetty with bottom boulders contoured to create an outstanding surfing wave?

Kill 2 birds with one stone.

I would think that the influx of ocean water would have an effect on the natural environment in the river. Could it be any worse than what we are reading about now with the fish kills? I doubt it but what do I know.

Truth, hope you are doing well. Keep at it!

Fertilizer is always the go-too scapegoat for the lagoon problem. Makes sense to blame a bunch of ignorant homeowners and the stereotype of a guy pouring five times the necessary amount is all too easy to accept. But something doesnt add up. We are coming out of the winter season, where growth is at its slowest and even the most ignorant moron knows you really dont fertilize in the winter. Its a total waste of money and even Joe six pack gets that. Also run-off, even during a super wet season like we just had is at its lowest during the winter compared to summer when it can rain four inches in one day. SO why is this happening now instead of, say the second or third week of September. The ban ends last day of August. Homeowner fertilization must be off the charts during the beginning of Sept and it still rains a ton. Factor in that businesses, golf courses, county and city governments are exempt from the ban and it kinda gets sketchy to blame this on homeowners abusing fertilizer. I smell something fishy...

That is because it underlies and is exacerbated by everything else that is affecting the lagoon.

What we are seeing is a fairly classic case of eutrophication and possibly a switch to an altered stable state of phytoplankton dominance that has already occurred in most of Florida's freshwater lakes and the lower St. Johns River from Lake George to Jacksonville. The bloom events become longer and more frequent until recovery of submerged vegetation does not occur anymore between events. Lake Apopka flipped after a hurricane. Chesapeake Bay flipped after flooding from a tropical depression in 1972.

This bloom started last fall and grew throughout the winter. Water quality was bad off and on all summer here in Rockledge. We had two small fish kills. The species blooming in summer did differ from this bloom that started in November. This bloom consists of a species that flourishes with warm water and lower light. It liked the warm November/December. It was fueled by record rains in December-January. Then we went for 5-6 weeks with virtually no rain right when the water temp jumped up into the upper 70s.  Once the sun angle got high and the water got warm the bloom grew like crazy. By last weekend the water looked like mustard. It out grew its immediate nutrient supply and a plankton die-off occured. The automated monitoring stations that Tom linked in the other thread demonstrate this algae die-off quite well.

It's not just blaming homeowners. Everyone has skin in this game. Everyone also wants to blame everybody else. It is exactly the environment that I grew up in in Virginia with the Chesapeake Bay.

The mangrove swamps that used to absorb nutrients are now tract housing in CCB, South Patrick, a lot of north MI. That bell isn't going to be unrung. But you have a case there where a nutrient sink has been replaced with a source. People and municipalities could do a much better job of reducing nutrient loads.

-------------------------
...

Thank you scombrid for that explanation. Nice to have it explained that way. You sound like you have a solid backround in the sciences involved and I appreciate your knowledge. I do see a majority of the blame falling on homeowners and rarely a mention of those exempt from the ban etc.

Ornamental fertilizer is "low hanging fruit" on the scale of difficulty for remedies for water quality problems. Reconstructing mangrove swamps to replace that which is now canals and houses isn't going to happen. Getting everybody hooked up to a wastewater system so that nutrients are removed from household wash and toilet water is hard and expensive. And so on.

Of course, restricting fertilizer potentially impacts lawn management companies and that is big business around here. They don't want to hear it. It is definitely costing me personal time and money at the house we bought two years ago. I am slowly converting away from St. Augustine grass to something that won't turn yellow by July 4 up on this sand dune that I live on in Rockledge. Previous owners had no landscaping, just 0.4 acres of a type of grass that gets really mad if you don't feed it during the wet season.

There are Basin Management Action Plans for the central and north IRL and the BRL. They are fairly comprehensive. If you noticed your water bill having an extra "stormwater assessment fee" tacked on it last year that was mandated by the BMAPs to raise money for better stormwater management.

There is a page on the DEP website with links to all of the BMAPs in the state. They are long and boring but they lay out estimates of sources of water qualtiy problems and cost to fix them. There are also progress reports that summarize activities toward achieving the action items in the plans.

 

-------------------------
...

It's just my personal opinion but I think that the ban was just a token thing to drawn attention to the problem. It isn't enforced I don't think. I'm not sure that it can be enforced. It is just trying to let people know that their practices on their property affect downstream water quality.

I would be happy if homeowners that self maintain and that hire lawn guys would make sure and blow leaves and clippings back into yards. I'd be really happy if they'd bust out a broom or blower and not leave fertilizer granuals on sidewalks, driveway, street.

I blow the oaks leaves out of the street into my yard before I mow. Then after I mow I get the leave blowing out again and blow the clippings back into the grass. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm odd running the leaf blower twice  per mowing like that. During the big spring oak leaf drop I vacuum the leaves out of the street and mulch them into my back beds. Meanwhile, the old guy across the street takes all the leaves out of his yard and piles them in the street. I think he may have finally realized that the trash guys don't pick up leaves that are piled loose. I don't think he has any concept that nature would rather those leaves be composted back into the sand under the tree from which they can rather than wash down the hill into the river.

Anyway, it is a big problem with a lot things at which to point fingers but there are little things that us peons can do. And I'm not passionate about much but I am passionate about this. I'd be out paddling right now before work instead of reading the forum before work if I didn't have a whicked fever. I'm out there pretty much every day either before or after work or both weekends too. unless the waves are good and then I'll make the treck across to the beach. Aside from it being my personal recreational space I recognize the impact that it has on the livelihood of Rockledge and Cocoa and other waterfront towns. Nobody wants to go to a concert at the park if it reaks of rotting fish. Nobody wants to rent paddle boards to paddle on chocolate pudding. Heck, our property value 5 houses up the street from the river is impacted by how pretty it is for people to walk to the end of the street and sit on the bench and watch the sun come up or watch the rocket launch or (like us) launch kayaks/SUPs to go paddle. One guy on my street launches at the end of the street to shoot ducks. Although I will say that the bluebills didn't seem to mind the turbid water this past duck season.

-------------------------
...

Edited: 03/22/2016 at 04:02 AM by scombrid

"SO why is this happening now instead of, say the second or third week of September. The ban ends last day of August. Homeowner fertilization must be off the charts during the beginning of Sept and it still rains a ton."

" gets sketchy to blame this on homeowners abusing fertilizer "

 

Scombrid lays out the reason we're seeing this now,

the short term event, a fish kill,

is a symptom of a much slower, gradual change few notice, eutrophication.

It's been going on for decades.

And,

It's not "abuse" of fertilizer that's the problem.  

The fertilizer number I put on the first page

is the IFAS recommended rate for fertilizer application to St. Augustine lawns,

not over application, ie, fertilizer use, not abuse.

Look around, we grow very little that we eat here in Brevard.

Essentially, all the fertilizer is used for ornamental (unnecessary) purposes (lawns),

and contributes to the eutrophication of the Lagoon.  

If we eliminated it, we could take a huge bite out of the eutrophicaiton process.

Fertilizer. Just don't do it.  It is the "low hanging fruit".

(and yes of course, hook septic up to sewer and

OMG!! reduce the nitrogen and phos in the reuse water!)

-------------------------
add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway

So if if gets bad enough (there is now coverage on the Orlando news stations which is a good thing) what are the chances of what everyone who uses the ocean/river wants.....A new inlet cut around PAFB? 

The cost would be huge with cutting an inlet , building up the structure to prevent fill-in,  building a bridge over it , road closures for months.  Price of land to have the inlet , etc.   I think a complete collapse will have to occurr for the idea of flushing to be the only answeer, then again would flushing really help? Will the salt water intrusion into the IRL cause more issues?

 

As surfers we want another inlet of course.  Will it happen in my lifetime?

St. Johns River Water Management District commissioned a study on "flushing". They paid an engineer to model a bunch of different scenarios. There's a story about it in FL Today. Cliffs notes version. Cutting an inlet will only have water quality effects near the inlet.Tide comes in, tide goes out. No general flushing. There will also be the increase storm surge risk with the new opening plus knockon down drift beach erosion effects.

Can't leave the locks open at the Port because they aren't designed for that.

Best flushing scenario comes from multiple small inlets or pipes that let water in when the ocean tide is high but do not flow in the reverse. Maybe even achieve the effect with pump stations. This creates a south flowing current that exchanges the water in the river more rapidly.

All are very expensive. All have drawbacks such as altering the salinity regime and creating erosion issue and the price of condemning/confiscating expensive real estate to build the projects.

The best thing for the lagoon is a healthy supply of clean fresh water. That means that we need to irrigate less so that there is a ground water supply during droughts so the lagoon doesn't go hypersaline. We need to curtail the numerous sources of extra nutrients to the shallow ground water. Storm water needs to be cleaner and stored so that it doesn't hit the lagoon all at once and loaded with extra juice. Easy to say, super expensive to achieve.

I posted that thread in the fishing forum back in January because I was marvelling that there was no noise about the algae bloom. I figured then that it would take a pile up of carcasses to get the public's attention. Well, the public attention is being drawn to the smell. When the smoke clears will there be any progress on halting the march of eutrophication?

 

-------------------------
...

We rarely ever cross the bridge to mainland these days unless it's in darkness on way to Arnold Palmer, but went over 192 cswy today and the dead fish and sea life was everywhere floating on the surface and along the shorelines... Awful

-------------------------
"Don't count the days, make the days count." -Ali
#rydyrstrong

+1 on Certon's view. I had never seen it like that before. I asked my dad is been here for over 60 years and he said he's never actually seen floating dead fish like there are today in the river. Of course countless times seeing dead fish and critters on the bank but not the way it looks today with white dots as far as you can see that are dead fish. I think this might be more than just a fish kill we are seeing, more like a lagoon kill. I'm not sold on any of the explanations, I personally think the ASR injection wells have more to do with it than anything else but that is just my opinion. But the fact is neither I or my family Who has been here for generations as ever seen it this bad

-------------------------
Matt B :)

Scombird - you hit it - Florida's addiction to dealing with wastewater and stormwater as cheaply as possible, provided it meets water quality standards.

Start treating stormwater, and stop dealing with watewater on the cheap (i.e. injection wells).  Taxpayers will have to pay - or get tourists to pay.  Too bad our lawmakers and much of the electorate hate spending money on the environment.