I paddle on the Indian River lagoon almost every day in Rockledge and usually end up covering from Pineda to the Bee Line over the course of a week. Mrs. Scombrid and I ran up to the Bee Line and back yesterday on IR Dr. so I got the bird's eye view from the bluffs of north Cocoa.

The lagoon is absolutely the worst that I have ever seen, worse than the "super bloom" of 2011. We had spots of nasty water off and on since late July but this bloom really set in around Thanksgiving and has only gotten worse.

Is anybody taking notice or at all concerned?

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Hot weather thru New Years has not helped for sure. This algae does prevent deeper grasses from surviving, so not good obviously. I do have some positive news, water seems to be starting to clear North and East of Haulover. Not much, but at least some. A few weeks of sub 65 water can only help. Canal water has been between 68 and 64 for the past week, needs to go lower IMO. Does anybody have a gauge URL for IR in central Brevard. Haulover gauge

We used to have barnacles on our dock pylons in the canal off fourth street south and crabs, shrimp, minnows would hide in there we caught reds, sheeps, trout, tarpon, jacks, ladies, mangroves, pinfish all off the dock. Now i havnt seen a barnacle in three years and the pylons are covered with green algea, slime, and some form of grass that looks like green plastic bags. super bummer no fish either except mullet

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

there are some ORCA "kilroy"s on the river getting real time data, looks like the northern stations are off line

http://api.kilroydata.org/public/

SJRWMD is doing a once or twice monthly (site dependent) monitoring runs

not updated recently but bloom news will be here:  http://floridaswater.com/indianriverlagoon/currentnews.html

IRL Symposium at Harbor Branch Feb 11 and 12:  http://www.indianriverlagoon.org/symposium.html

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I was looking at some of the real time data from the WMD and the dissolved oxygen saturation during the last month is crazy for this time of year.

I was also annoyed that the bloom news had not been updated since September given the breadth and concentration of the current event.

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Grant to the Inlet looked good, not clear but clean.

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

one more item to this: I have not caught a trout; big or small, last few times out. Anybody having same experience?

I live on Sykes Creek in Merritt Island. The water in the canal is usually clearing up by this time, but still pretty murky this year. I was goofing off this evening and caught a 12" trout on a popping cork. But all in all the lagoon is suffering. I try to do my part with fertilizer and such. Sad. I am going to do the oyster program this spring through the Brevard Zoo. If only we could get some of that sand dumping money for our estuary.

News page has been deleted from the district's IRL website.

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Some interesting observations-

http://news.brevardtimes.com/2016/03/brown-tide-causes-massive-fish-kill-in.html

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

 

Station in Sykes Creek south of 520 showed dissolved oxygen below 1mg/l on the 18th and then bottoming out for several hours near 0 mg/l on the 19th and 20th.

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It's killing everything from top to bottom, even the oysters.

This is freaking horrible.

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I was right.

So what causes the daily fluctuation in the DO and Chl readings? Is that a tidal signature?

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Tons of dead mullet, sheephead, and catfish in my CB canal.......some trout and reds, but maybe fish that mainly eat plants/algaE/ barnacles are dying first....... is it(THE DOODOO) in the plant life?

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Oxygen fluctuates in response to production by plants during the day and uptake by everything else at night. Crazy thing about oxygen with this bloom is how much time it spent at >100% saturation in the lead up to the crash.

But it is normal in an algae bloom situation for dissolved oxygen to get really high during period of maximum photosynthetic activity during the day and then decline at night when the plankton respire.

Chlorophyll in the in continuous field samples is measured by flourescence. I don't know if that daily fluctuation is real or an artifact of flourescence changes. I think that fluorescence of the chlorophyll changes as photosynthetic activity changes. I've seen papers where fluorescence change is used to measure changes in photosynthetic activity. Sort of like when the chlorophyll is all charged up by the sun just before the sample gets pulled through the sensor then it fluoresces more than it does at night. If that is the case then the actual chlorophyll concentration isn't changing daily like that. Since chlorophyll is used as a proxy for phytoplankton abundance/biomass then I would expect that there is a calibration to correct for fluorescence changes. But plankton isn't my thing so maybe somebody that knows more about it can answer better.

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https://www.ysi.com/File%20Library/Documents/Technical%20Notes/T612-Alternate-Calibration-Methods-for-the-YSI-6025-Chlorophyll-Sensor.pdf

The link won't attach.

Block, right click, hit "open link"

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I was right.

https://www.ysi.com/File%20Lib...Chlorophyll-Sensor.pdf

Fixed

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GOP:

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project

falling off the front page here

(as well as the tv news, newspaper, etc etc etc)

what else is new?

Well, chlorophyll is returning to "high normal" - my term not an official one -

at the north IRL kilroys, around 40-50 ug/L.

Maybe the bloom is finally fizzling.  

Three months worth.

Long time to shade out the deeper seagrass.

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We  took our little Proline center consol for a run out of Manatee Cove marina at Patrick Sunday evening and saw lots of mullet jumping,  large ones,  and some smaller fish pods that the pelicans were diving for.  Also saw a good sized gator(possibly cleaning up the remainder of the dead fish?) in the water by the water drain.  On the beach near the channel we saw some horseshoe crabs and although they were on their backs for some reason they were kicking their legs so they were alive.  Also noticed quite a few wading herons and egrets,  and saw pods of dolphin on the south side of the Pineda causeway chasing fish.  Saw manatees as well.  Maybe it isn't as grim as I had suspected.  At least there are still mullet around.  I am hoping they are the survivors and not the ones yet to die.

Just saw an article in tcpalm stating that ORCA funding has been cut and they are going to have to scrap some stations.

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That's correct.  Fortunately there's a few stations funded from other sources.  

A bunch of USGS gages along the St. Johns have the following message:

 

ATTENTION - Continuous temperature, specific conductance and dissolved oxygen data collection at this station will be discontinued on October 1, 2016, unless a new cooperating agency or alternative funding can be identified. If you have an interest in the collection of data at this gage, or are able to assist with funding beyond October 1, 2016, please contact Darrell Lambeth at dlambeth@usgs.gov.

 

 

USGS has been monitoring water quality at numerous sites along the St. Johns River with funding from the St. Johns River Water Management District.

That funding must have been pulled too.

 

 

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Water in Rockledge/Cocoa looks terrible. It had been looking decent.

It is now dark reddish brown, characteristic of Pyrodinium. Bioluminescence is vivid. I'd say it is reaching bloom concentrations.

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Floaters in the Banana River again today. Don't know how widespread.

Dissolved oxygen measured by a station at the 520 causeway in the Banana is showing a massive diurnal fluctuation for the last 30 days. Must have gotten pretty low last night.

 

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Edited: 08/05/2016 at 06:16 PM by scombrid

Green lawns brown lagoon.

Companies are laying down the juice right now here in Rockledge. Lots of St. Auggie looking super green. Don't get that deep color in mid summer without supplemental nitrogen.

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True that.  

One of my neighbors got "treated' for chinchbugs and boy did that lawn green up.

The "pros" are not on board with the (toothless) ban.

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Funny the spray tech sprays and then puts up the little pesticide warning sign and two days later the lawn is practically glowing green. That's some magic stuff.

 

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 ,

Edited: 08/15/2016 at 04:19 PM by SurferMic

I ride tropical trail up to crooked mile when I can after work and on weekends.  I get faint whiffs of bloom down toward the Mather's bridge area but not strong lately. 

Strong pyrodinium bloom on IRL in the Rockledge/Cocoa area. Very patchy but the patches are dense. Low intensity fish kill from at least River Ridge development to Cocoa Village today. There were hog chokers, sheepshead, and puffers gasping at the surface this morning at daybreak. This evening there's a funk in the air and scattered dead fish. Its mostly puffers but I saw a mix of other species too with birds and dolphins picking off the weak that weren't quite dead yet.

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The river looked camo between Cocoa Beach and Merritt Island.

Some serious blooms springing up, let's just hope the stay sporadic.

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I was right.

it's not any better up north. i fished dummits cove and a little north of haulover on the IRL side the past two weeks. the water level is the lowest that i think i have ever seen in that area. on top of that i don't think i have ever seen so many tailing catfish. i got fooled a few times from a distance (in the morning) thinking it was reds, nope. tailing or not tailing, the catfish population is nuts. came across 4-5 reds the entire day in really skinny water. almost had one swim right into my kayak he was so consumed with feeding. i have almost stopped fishing anywhere south of haulover down to mathers over the past year. i'm sure there are pockets of clean water but finding them in a kayak isn't the best method but that's all i got. i remember the days of gin clear water, those were the days.....i hope those days come back.

It's bad in scottsmore, Biolab and oak hill, all checked within the last 2 weeks. Visibility isn't even an inch. Hopefully this cooler weather will lower the water temps enough to clean the water up some.
Why won't they consider punching an inlet in the seashore around playalinda to let some clean water in? Seems like that would offer some relief and balance things out some.

haulover wtr under 60 finally

they need to open the locks on a full moon tide and let it flush. this should be done every full moon. been working the river all over brevard and indian river for years and the northern areas are a dead zones. wish these guys would figure this out before it is too late to recover in our life time. I think the flooding of the low lying homes/property has a lot to do with lack of flushing.

Least invasive solution I have heard to date, you should propose to those who could take the idea further. But I'm afraid Disney may not be too interested in some fish or clean water.

I'm usually diving this time of year and the water clarity is decent, or at least clears up a couple feet from the bottom. But i dove the river last month and its 6 inch viz top to bottom i couldnt see my hand in front of my face

was on SJRWMD's GIS this morning for another reason and pulled this graphic

these are some very high (>100ug/L) CHLa levels, Haulover looks similar

bloom for sure

Here's the link: http://webapub.sjrwmd.com/agws10/hdswq/

Titusville:

 

 

 

 

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salinity way down too in last 2 weeks

I'll be curious to see how the annual report on the BMAP treats these data.

The oxygen supersaturation is nuts. That's part of the issue with clarity. In addition to dense plankton there are precipitates forming because the pH is getting so high.

Hope we don't get an all-at-once bloom collapse. That would be bad.

 

 

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^yeah, true on all counts

and fwiw,

we could fix fertilizer this year,

even with BIG $$$$,

it would take a decade or more to fix septic

oh, and...

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My concern at this point is that even with drastic reduction of inputs, the internal loading will keep the system in a hyper-eutrophic state for a long time.

I'm worried that we are witnessing a flip to an "altered stable state" in which plankton become dominant over submersed plants in perpetuity. (like Lake Jesup, Lake Apopka, Lake Marion, Harris Chain....Chesapeake Bay).

 

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This site is not working today.

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was talking with some of the bio guys at work today

they say yes, the brown bloom is pumping right now

not unusually bad in their eyes, blooms are common now 

duration and spread remain to be seen

(caveat - I'm not a phyto guy, just relaying anecdotal info)

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Saying it isn't that bad because it is now common is a sign that things are pretty bad.

Silver lining? Could a winter bloom suck up enough nitrogen that the water clears just in time for the growing season?

I'm  not very hopeful.

 

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Edited: 01/22/2016 at 11:58 AM by scombrid

 

Seems the HABs folks at game and fish don't give a crap as long as it isn't Karenia Brevis and/or there isn't an acute die off of carismatic megafauna or prized sportfish.

 

Brown tide in the dead of winter is not common either.

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hmmm, just heard channel 6 new people say something about red tide in lagoon.  someone is going to talk about it. 

Opening the locks on high tide and closing at low tide would create some flushing.

Core of Engineers looked at that too and the scouring from the hard flow from leaving the locks open when there is a couple of feet of head pressure would wreck the locks.

At the very least they'd have to retrofit the locks to tolerate that type of operation.

Plus the benefit would likely be restricted to the banana and near to the locks.

The lagoon needs a better supply of clean fresh water from the uplands in order to function at an optimal level, not an influx of full salinity sea water.

 

 

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Edited: 01/15/2016 at 11:48 AM by scombrid

They would never consider that. The amount of sand and sediment that fill the port would require even more dredging then they already have going on. It would jeopardize their cruise and shipping industry. Pollution is the real issue.

I hope we're not at the edge of the flip,

remember that we had 10 good years of water clarity and seagrass recovery 

right up until the superbloom.

I think that if we could essentially eliminate ornamental fertilizer

we could "buy" another 20 years.

This would be similar to the years "bought" by implementing the NPDES

which took the domestic wastewater discharges out of the Lagoons.  

Follow that up by realistic legacy load removal, ie: dredging for muck,

not just navigational dredging with a feel good "muck removal" component added in,

and full septic to sewer conversion and we have a real shot a saving the Lagoon.

Cheap and easy first - fertilizer control.   And start directing $$ to the other two expensive solutions.

Problem is sustained effort.  Few actually care if it's not in the news.

 

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St. Augusting lets you know when it is getting hungry. You know who and when fertilizes during the wet season by the color and vigor of the grass.

It is a majority of people still.

 

I doubt if 1% of people riding over the causeways have any idea what the brown water below means. If they don't see/smell rotting carcases everywhere or see some crazy neon green color they just don't get it.

Plus there are a lot of people that refuse to be regulated on principle. I had one NSR regular tell me emphatically that natural lawns look like shit and that it was his land to do with as he pleased. The point about his not owning the receiving waters was not well recieved. He felt that if people care so much about the lagoon then they'll voluntarily change their ornamental horticulture practices. I think that opinion regarding the commons is common around these parts.

 

 

 

 

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Edited: 01/19/2016 at 02:29 PM by scombrid

I had one NSR regular tell me emphatically that natural lawns look like shit

Yep, that's a fact. My lawn is living, well, almost living proof, but I have a canal across the street and I'd rather have trophy trout and snook than a trophy lawn.

Unfortunately, the elderly lady on the canal uses Black's Spray Service every other month.

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I was right.

yes, those attitudes are out there and anecdotal

I don't have any measure of how prevalent they are compared to those who might be more interested in conservation

regaredless, that should not prevent repeating a formula of how we can restore the IRL

who knows, if you repeat it often enough....

 

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Take a drive in August and you'll see who feeds lawns right through the wet season.

Some fraction of those don't have a clue and some fraction don't care.

Doesn't seem to matter which is which or who is who.

I'm curious to read the water bill that Scott just signed into law.

 

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It's been considered. It's been modeled. It would fundamentally change the chemistry and ecology in the area.

Best option is to fix the nutrient load issue.

Neither one is going to happen. Nobody in Rockledge obeys the fertilizer ban in summer. Movement on getting septic tanks removed and replace with municiple treatment is too slow.

 

 

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I would rather take the changes that come with a new inlet letting clean ocean water in compared to watching the Lagoon die. What's worse, some changes or doing nothing? Fixing the nutrient problem will take decades. If the Lagoon goes through another long bloom come summer, or if this one never really clears the results could be catastrophic. It's already in bad shape.

If it's thriving in the cold I imagine the warming temps in the spring aren't going to help.

Fished north end of lagoon this weekend. Water was crystal clear but the seagrass was gone in many areas.

Cocoa Beach canals are the color of mustard and as cloudy as a cup of tea with milk.

Very high turbidity for this time of year.

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I was right.

Good Job Jim!

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2016/01/25/brown-tide-returns-indian-river-lagoon/79315290/

 

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Myself and some other S Beaches property owners have filed for a state grant from the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program/ IRL Council.
We are proposing a grant to extend the sewer lines all the way down to the inlet. Right now, county sewer service does not extend south past Publix. Lots of septic and small sewer plants from there south.
2 yrs ago, our proposal came in 2nd or 3rdplace. Last yr, no one applied for the grant. We are trying again this yr. This first section would get the lines just past the ponce park /archie carr reserve area. Hoping to get as far south as we can get. We are also in contact Brevard County Council member Trudy Infintini to see if we could waive or discount hookup fees. Its a long shot,





> Good afternoon: Thank you for submitting a project
> proposal for review and possible inclusion in the IRLNEP FY
> 2016-2017 Work Plan. It is now time to schedule your project
> proposal presentation before the IRLNEP Management Board
> Subcommittee (MBS). The date and location for your
> presentation is: DATE:
>
> February 2, 2016 Location:
>
> IRL Council
> 1235 Main St
> Sebastian, FL 32958 Attached to this message please find a
> PDF document with the time that you will need to appear
> before the MBS and present your submitted project proposal.
> Plan to arrive 15 minutes prior to your scheduled
> presentation. The IRL Council will provide a laptop
> and projector for your presentation. If you desire to use an
> electronic media presentation, bring a PowerPoint copy of
> your presentation on a CD or "thumb" drive. You will
> have a maximum of 10 minutes for your presentation, followed
> by 2 minutes of questions and answers with the review
> committee. Each presentation will be timed and stopped
> at the 10 minute limit, so please plan
> accordingly. This meeting is publicly noticed,
> and will be conducted "In The Sunshine". Thank you for your time and your
> efforts to keep the IRL one of America's outstanding
> waterways. B. Frank Sakuma, Jr.
> Chief Operating Officer - IRL Council
> Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program
> 1235 Main Street
> Sebastian, Florida 32958
> (321) 609-0868
> sakuma@irlcouncil.org
>

Good luck with that grant application. That is a great effort.

We need that throughout the watershed, even up on the uplands west of the lagoon.

Update from the automated monitoring sensors. The sensor in the Banana River Lagoon near 520 has read pH between 9 and 9.5 for the last 30 days. That is why the water looks like mustard in the worst bloom locations. The algae are pulling so much CO2 out of the water that the carbonates are precipitating and adding a milky backdrop to the color of the algae. Makes the water turn from brown to okre. IRL in Cocoa was pretty bad on Saturday.

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Great job on the grant application Matt, sorry I missed this post earlier.  

FWIW - there is a GIS based application, ArcNLET, that can be used to calculate nitrate transport from septic tanks to surface water.  Don't know what your access is but it could put some digits on how much of a load reduction your project would achieve.

 

And in other news, the bloom goes on  

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Wow! That image is saddening. And the water is chilly right now. Hate to see this summer.

Where can we see regular updates of this landsat?

I pulled that out of a SJRWMD update.

Landsat data are free here:  http://landsat.usgs.gov/

I confess that I don't use it so am not familiar.  

I played with the LandsatLook viewer for a bit, pretty fun,

but could not get the same image that SJRWMD has.

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I was there but could not find path 16 row 40

Total brownout in S Brevard now!

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

heard the lockes from Okeechobee are open ???

Okeechobee discharges out of St. Lucie.
I wouldn't expect effects north of Ft. Pierce.

Are waste water utilities still spilling into the IRL?
New development drainage?

WTH...

Yeah, our brown is locally grown.

There is treated discharge sill but no new ones.

Rockledge/Cocoa discharge runs through a few retention areas then under US/1 and Rockledge Drive a bit south of Rockledge Gardens. There's a diffuser dumping under US1 in Eau Gallie.  The nutrient supply is fairly stable.

As for new development, the newer developments do a better job of stormwater management than all the old stuff.

The nutrient buildup is legacy. 2010/2011 may have been a tipping poing that shifted the internal cycling to plankton dominance.

Still a crapload of septic and still way too many fertilizer intensive lawnscapes.

Thing is, if you've flipped a system to plankton dominance it takes a radical reduction in the nutrient load to turn back.

Rockledge is managing to send more and more storm-water west. Vierra discharges to the St. Johns. Palm Bay still largely discharges to Turkey Creek. The St. Johns Water Management District is working on the "C1 Rediversion Project" to keep more of that Palm Bay water in the St. Johns basin. That C1 project is a major challenge because so much of west Palm Bay is barely above the elevation of the St. Johns. That new school is often below the level of the St. Johns when the river is at season high stage. It takes active pumping at the west end of C1 plus gravity feed to the east to keep that area dry.

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What about organizing funding for conversions to native-scapes?

Maybe a 50/50 cost share type of program, something to motivate people
to get rid of turf, exotics, irrigation and fertilizers.

"Are waste water utilities still spilling into the IRL? 
New development drainage? "

No, loading is fairly stable, as far as anyone knows, especially point source.

Some suggest that the nitrogen and phosphorus have shifted pools,

from seagrass and drift algae to phytoplankton.

Bad juju.  And portend of more to come.  

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Guy bought the place on the river 5 houses down from us about a month ago. He ripped out the native drought tolerant landscape and replaced it with sod.

Then you have the HOAs require St. Augustine.

I'm not sure how you change people's aesthetic preferences. Most people just don't care about the lagoon unless there are carcasses washing up in their yard and making a stink.

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We need to appeal to the tourism industry above all else. The water here in FL is what makes this state go around. Tourism is far larger than sugar which is one of the main contributors to this whole mess. Not sure exactly where to start but tourism stands to take the biggest loss. They will have leverage with the people that can make the changes we need.

Cool water, high turbidity and no fish.

This might get really out of hand when the water warms. Bad, very bad.

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I was right.

13 has a story finally, no mention of Okeechobee/Sugar link

Okeechobee / Sugar = St. Lucie / Stuart areas of the Lagoon.

Fertilizer / septic / stormwater = Banana River, north and central Indian River (north of Sebastian Inlet), Mosquito Lagoon

Although they are all the "Indian River Lagoon",

they are separate hydrologic units with some unique issues.   

Some of the problems overlap, some are separate.

 

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Here is an interesting link.

http://floridawaterdaily.com/

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I was right.

Radioactive isotopes leaking into Biscayne bay from Turkey Point... Never heard about that... that site is disturbing to say the least Here's another article http://www.floridatoday.com/st...river-lagoon/79813372/

South brevard clearing up nicely!

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

first positive observation, would love to see an updated Landsat pic

continuous monitor at 192 causeway show a very nice drop from 300 to 50ug/L

Banana river at 520 causeway still 400

titusville, north IRL, closer to 100

"normal" (if there is such a thing) would be lower double digits 

http://webapub.sjrwmd.com/agws10/hdswq/

 

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I could see rocks in about 1 foot of water under the light at the end of my street this morning in Rockledge when I went for a paddle. That is an improvement. Crazy to call that an improvement but for the last couple of months you couldn't see 2 inches below the surface. The tiny brown tide plankton make for very opaque water.

Banana River still looked incomprehensibly bad at the race by 520 on Saturday and at 1000 islands where I took some guests for a paddle sheltered from the wind Saturday PM. Ulva was pilled up thick too around 1000 islands. Nasty.

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Edited: 03/14/2016 at 12:59 PM by scombrid

Bloom has to run out of gas sometime. It hasn't rain significantly in a few weeks.

A lot of people were blaming the lack of cold for the bloom but the lagoon bottomed out at 14C which isn't far from normal minimum winter temp. Heavy rain in January poured gas on the fire that started in November/December.

People associate the cold with the clear water but it is really the dry season reduction in nutrient load that usually brings us clear water in the winter/spring. Plus this "brown tide" organism doesn't behave exactly like the native plankton. It has different nutrient/thermal/light requirements.

Question is whether or not this mess clears out in time for the sea grass to grow now that the growing season is on us. Without the sea grass to take up the wet season nutrient pulse then other plankton like the dinoflagellates that were causing episodic blooms last summer are going to go crazy.

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Saw an update on seagrass recovery at the IRL Symposium last month.

Big disparity on recovery rates but some was evident.  Strange though,

areas that should recover fast, near Seb Inlet for example, clear water etc.,

had lousey recovery rates compared to some areas where water clarity was worse.

This bloom will be another setback as deeper grasses are almost certainly shaded out.  

 

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I'm seeing reports of fish kills in sykes, 1000 islands, and other banana river areas. Anybody that is seeing these first hand should report to fwc fish kill hotline. At last then in is recorded. I noticed a Florida Today article about the fish kill referencing FWC and it looked like an isolated report that the hotline got from someone. All points bulleting needs to go out on this.

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Edited: 03/19/2016 at 06:29 PM by scombrid

Scott's veto pen.

. $700,000 for a project aimed at restoring natural filtration systems in the Indian River Lagoon.

http://www.floridatoday.com/st...fsc-building/81850304/

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I was right.

That's a lot of oysters!

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

Continuous water quality monitoring station at 520 causeway shows a drop from 500 ug/L down to 100 ug/L with dissolved oxygen bottoming out below 1 mg/l and that is out in the open lagoon. Fairly classic bloom collapse scenario.

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How far south, and how big of an area?

Palm bay to the Inlet, not sure how far N or S of there.

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

I think a big part also was the barnacles disappearing off pylons even over a year ago, they used to be everywhere(I have scars to prove it) and they would wave their little "arms" in the water and filter.....long gone

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

My neighbor said he saw tarpon sucking the dying mullet off the top of the water in the canals a couple weeks ago, maybe they will have a strong year!?

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Was in Sykes creek yesterday saw lots of mullet.

The manatees ate all the seagrass which filtered the water which caused what seagrass was left to die......we need to get rid of these man-yetis

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

It took them 150,000 years, but they managed to eat all the grass.

Damn manatees!

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I was right.

Ah!  I see that now!

When we protected the manatees, it allowed their population to surge

and decimate the seagrass and thereby, the whole IRL ecosystem.  

If we just returned to manatee control by eating (Ais) or boats (Uss),

the river would recover in no time!

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The lack of grass will once again reduce the manatee population, so the grasses will recover.

Don't worry about the mocha water, it's perfectly natural.

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I was right.

The heat should break in a month or so. Hopefully with the cooler weather the water cleans up some. Always has in the winter with the exception of this past winter, but we had unusual levels of rain and mild temps.

I think a trop storm is needed... 20"+ of rain should flush all the bad stuff out. Everywhere is a good foot below normal levels for this time of year. #9 may do just that this week.

Grant area 4"-6" vis, looks like mud!

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Romans 8;18-32 John 3;16-18

Unless it breaches the Okeechobee dike.

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Big pulses of heavy rain increases the nutrient load and doesn't reduce the water residence time enough to flush the system.

Lower salinity might change what plankton are growing though.

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Hate to bump this thread for bad news but...

I haven't been across the bridge in the past week so I haven't seen Banana River bit I've been on IRL from Suntree to Port St. John this weekend at the brown tide is dominating. Transparency is very poor and the water is that brown color that looks like a cross between burnt umber and yellow ocre.

Mathew did actually seem to do us some good in Rockledge. It didn't put down much rain and the wind really disrupted the pyrodinium bloom that was in place. We had pretty good clarity from mid October to about Thanksgiving in the IRL between Rockledge and the 528.

The water looks terrible this weekend. Timing of the onset of brown tide is just about the same as last year. Looking back I started this thread in early January 2016 after about a month of looking at doodoo water and wondering why there was no mention of it anywhere.

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burnt umber and yellow ocre

That was the exact color of the canal water last year during the Cocoa Beach boat parade.

A month later the canals were piled with dead fish.

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I was right.

I was checking out the water from family dock in the 4th street canals, ZERO barnacles on the pylons.

Used to be able to pull up and old bait bucket, covered in barnacle and full of baby crabs, shrimp, little mud guppies......All the things sheephead would hang around and eat.

Now all I see on pylons is "fresh water" looking algae and weird plants that look like dollar weeds....anyone know what they are?

Never seen them in 20 years of being on that canal...

Also, not trolling, anyone think the manatees helped destroy lagoon by eating whatever seagrass was not being choked by algae?

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

nope - not the mantees

take a picture of the weird plants?

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I will def get a pic, but you dont think the manatees could have a negative affect given the shear tonnage they eat(more abundant now than ever) and the toxins in their poo?

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

nope, it's a little like asking if buffalo caused the dust bowl 

plenty of research and evidence, here's a start if interested

http://myfwc.com/media/415241/Manatee_habitat_human.pdf

just a clip "Etheridge and coworkers calculated that 18 manatees per hectare would be needed in Crystal River alone just to maintain the measured standing biomass of hydrilla at a constant level (Etheridge, et al., 1985)."

and if you've been to Crystal River recently,

you can see the hydrilla is still winning...

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Have had very little rain since early October. Subsequently the nutrient load is down and the water is clearing up a lot compared to last year. Looks good in spite of being so warm that there is still some pyrodinium bioluminescence.

Plus, a lot of lawns in the hood are being allowed to go dormant in this dry weather with just enough water applied to keep them on life support. On a negative note, a few neighbors are watering 3 or more days per week and laying down the nitrogen to try to force their lawns to stay super green through the dry season.

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Weird plants were not on seawall over xmas, water actually looked a little better, still no barnacles though. Tons of mullet at night and a few little trout under the light.

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Panda spent time looking for barnacles in CB canal.  Not as profuse for sure.  But some living.   Water not as clear as winters past yet.  Still time.  First time in a while dolphins jumping playfully.   This lagoon needs help.

Would a cold snap of merit help?

Winter brown blooms seems to be kicking up again.

Nothing formal, just an eyeball assessment.

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Was just looking at the ORCA kilroys and noticed that chlr A is in RFU, relative fluorescence units.

Weren't they in ug/L before?

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I hope it gets better, the dolphins I saw on the flats were having a field day as no grass to hide in!



Houston we need a translation lol

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Apologies, my geek was showing?

the kilroys are the real time monitoring station in the Lagoon http://www.teamorca.org/orca/kilroy-map.cfm

chlr a is chlorophyll A, a common measure of phytoplankton density

it's usually reported in micrograms per liter, ug/L, which is parts per billion

the kilroys are collecting data using a fluorescence method that reports in RFU

and that needs to be converted (how down and geeky do you want to get here? )

to ug/L so we can get an idea of what the phytoplankton are doing out there

about 0-10ug/L or even 20ug/L is kinda normal for the Lagoon.

30ug/L is getting pretty thick and the "superbloom" had readings in the 200 ug/L range

we now return you to your regular program

"Dancing with The Surfers"

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Haha thanks Tom. Here is a link to a cool website that shows old arial photos, some of the 1000 islands you can see the amount of seagrass that used to flourish.

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/aerials/map.

shot of old flats


current google view

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Yea, those old aerials are fun to look through.  I always look up my house first, haha.

Also, fun fact, our IRL TMDL targets are based on seagrass cover at the deep edge in the lagoon.

The deep edge and extent of seagrass cover historically

(what we'd like to get back to through the TMDL process)

was determined from those old aerial photos.  

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Big rafts of floating goo in the Cocoa Beach area right now. I've never seen anything like it anywhere, and I work in the water industry.

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I was right.

Grab a handful and take a pic

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IRL Symposium yesterday - some good talks.

 

Seagrass update was disappointing.  

After the big losses in '11-'12, 

there was some recovery in '13-'15 but

'16 was a big loser again and

"state shift" from seagrass to algae is the word of the day.

My 2cent summary.

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