"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!)

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