My dogs were sneezing & hacking during the after surf check from the boardwalk in the 32937. My throat had a slight tickle, too.

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Edited: 10/16/2018 at 04:29 PM by SpinK

Well, I honestly have been "out of the loop" for the last 15 months or so but, , , , I understand the Big Sugar/Okeechobee thing but, , , , please clarify the issues in regard to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Feds having control of a lot of the actual drainage, , , ,?

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Dora Hates You

Edited: 10/16/2018 at 06:27 PM by dingpatch

they build and control the pipes. simple as that. hubris is alive and well still in the first half of the 21st century. maybe it won't kill us too quickly.

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sneedeker

Edited: 10/17/2018 at 05:12 AM by harrietdubman

Before dark last night it was pretty bad in IHB and was beginning to show in Satellite.

The Sebastian Inlet test posted at Level High: > 1,000,000 cells per liter

Edited: 10/17/2018 at 05:33 AM by miker

The South Florida Water Management District directs the flow and flow rates. The two you mentioned don't have much to do with day to day operations, but the Corps does dictate when the water for Okeechobee is released.

There has been an explosion of sod farms all along the Kissimmee River floodplain over the last decade and I've never heard of them being factored into the equation. They are far greener than the surrounding landscape, so I imagine a good deal of fertilizer is used somewhere in the process.



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I was right.

Anyone who has a St. Augustine lawn on the barrier island or along the river contributes heavily to the Lagoons decline and fertilizer/pesticide runoff into the ocean.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Wouldn't it be more applicable to say anyone that uses pesticide or fertilizer during raining season where is can run off contribute? Plenty of people doing that without St Augustine lawns, lol.

Edited: 10/17/2018 at 06:31 AM by miker

That would be adjusted by square footage of area & not much comes close to a big, carpet lawn........



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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation
and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our
waterways and ocean

Well it doesn't much matter what kind of lawn you have if you aren't putting that stuff on the yard during rainy season.

St. auggie lawn here in CB but have been letting it fend for itself for a couple of years. I have several neighbors that have given up on fertilizer and pesticide and it doesn't look terrible. A little vacant lottish but the surroundings are quite nice. I do use the CB reuse water on the lawn and not sure that is great for the situation. Sorry to have been part of the lawn generation. It appears that some of our past societal norms were not great for our society.

Red tide check at second street north last night and couldn't detect it. Wind not great for the next few days.

Hopefully it's not thick enough, that a few days of hard onshores could just wash it into the dunes

My assumption is that far more of the pollutants are now coming from developments to the west such as Viera, etc. The populations have exploded along I-95 and all of that runoff goes eventually into the lagoon. Either through direct runoff or from SJWM canal releases.

I think everyone should curb the fertilizer and pesticide application regardless if you live beachside or not.

For Viera specifically all the runoff goes west into the St. John's river but I'm not sure where it goes from there or how long the lifespan of a pollutant is.

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Heavy is sign of reliability

John is on it. Fertilizer is nitrogen (and phosphorus in some cases) brought into the watershed from "somewhere else". Doesn't belong here. Whether it reaches the Lagoon directly as runoff, or indirectly as the primary productivity (plants) it produces, it gets there. Shi..., um, stuff flows downhill and downhill from anywhere in the watershed is the Lagoon. Once there, it's the source of muck that releases the nitrogen. It's an avalanche of fertilizer and plants built up over 50 years. And it's still flowing. Rhetorical question, how much does it cost you to not fertilize your yard?

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add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway

It would be so easy for local governments to offer property tax breaks to people who take out their St. Augustine grass (I use this because it is the most common culprit and requires intensive maintenance) and put in plantings and ground covers of native flowering plants that don't require that level of care. Reduce the problem is cheaper than putting in retention ponds and the reclamation required to fix the problem. AND at the same time provide flowers to give habitat for bees, butterflies and other species. Win Win

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

All the houses around me are either perfect st. Aggy or brown beach grass. The ones with the perfect yards which is about 90% of the hood are also the ones who dive, surf, boat, fish BUT still have to have a perfect yard. It is something in their mindset, Green yard = success, Scrub Yard = lazy, loser, etc. ....No one will be able to change their mindset and again these are indiv. who use the waterways???...........what about the millions that live away from the coast or the ones who do not boat/fish/surf, etc and live in Brevard? . My guess is they really do not care about redtide, algae blooms, IRL fish kills...if you took a sample of the population across the state, I do not think it is in their top 10 things to worry about or commit to change... . Heck my surfing/fishing/boating neighbors fertilize & insecticide run their sprinkelers almost every day. But again nice green yard = success, got your life together, doing well, not LAZY, etc. BUT those who conserve water, have natural yards etc. are looked down upon...until this mentality changes green yards forever, Massey signs on freshly sprayed yards. Bloom and Doom.

Edited: 10/17/2018 at 10:26 AM by SurferMic

Would should someone replace St Augustine with that can handle foot traffic and is grass. Some of these alternatives to grass aren'tt going to work for people with small children.

Miker - Don't replace it with anything. It's called weeds and looks like a lawn from a distance, except during times of drought it gets a little dry looking, but also requires less mowing. My front and back lawn of weeds looks great especially when freshly mowed - seriously. It also feels great beneath bare feet with no sand spurs, and friends' kids that come over do just fine wrestling around in it. There is no excuse or no need to put anything other than rainwater on your property's vegetation, including groundwater. Put up two rainbarrels (even though I've heard it's illegal), and that will suffice for all your plant watering needs. I agree with the irony of the masses relying and playing in the natural environment, yet insist on sucking the high quality aquifers dry (some use reclaimed) and dumping chemicals on their lawn -all for what??

That is Truth Brother. The mindset needs to change- tax incentives could help do that but education is the key.


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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean