I would be nice to reclaim more of the flood plain west of Lake Washington and west of C40/St. Johns Marsh.

I don't guess there's any hope of those folks selling that land back.

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

All of the land to Nova rd is underwater, rode all the way to the bridge, those pastures are flooded, that was an inordinate amount in a short span

The bottomland along Taylor Creek is not what I was referencing.

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

i was out a perkins a week or two before irma came through. water was pretty clear, mullet were swimming under/around me. tarpon were blowing them up right in front of me. even had a couple mullet wiz right by my head they were in such a panic. need to start bringing a rod in the line up and make a couple casts while i'm waiting between sets unfortunately now the water is stained up pretty good (inshore).

The monitoring station just off of 192 on the St Johns is completely under water, the kissimmee River looks like a massive lake and the big lake is at capacity.

In times past, the cooling of the water seemed to keep the algae at bay, unfortunately, that's no longer the case. It's going to be nasty for awhile.

-------------------------
I was right.

I just checked the Stick Marsh gauge. It isn't even 6" above the schedule seasonal flood control low and is actually below the scheduled winter high right now. Level in Stick Marsh is falling as they continue to dump >2000 cfs out C54. I'm hoping that they'll close C54 soon and start sending water north again as things down stream of the upper basin project stabilize.

Blue Cypress has turned the corner and stopped rising. Water going out S96C is finally exceeding inputs from the creek.

Jane Green Detention Area (Bull Creek WMA) has a ton of water in it and that is where about 1/2 the flow in the St. Johns at 192 is coming from right now.

The marshes are very happy though. There's a widespread low grade fish kill in the river but not terrible considering the oxygen demand from flooded soils, tannins, etc... The marsh plants are loving the water and the ditch minnows and grass shrimp are going to reach plague abundance which is a boon to the bigger fish and all the fish eating birds when the water recedes. The white pelicans should like what they see when they show up after last year's drought conditions.

The flooding can be problematic for the folks that happen to be in its way, but the St. Johns marshes need this. Most years the soils are over-dried and oxidizing which causes a big discharge of disolved organic carbon when the rains do come (that DOM is the primary cause of the low oxygen fish kills). The over-dried soils are also what is allowing the willows and paragrass and such to over-run so much of the marsh.

I just hope that the tap doesn't get shut off like it did after Mathew last year and sent the St. Johns back into drought mode.

Look at the historical data from the 192 gauge going back to the 1940s and see how the river functioned before the flood control project really got cranked up in the late 1950s. The current water elevation is barely passing the annual high from the olden days.

We can't ever get the old hydrology back because it would flood too many people but the St. Johns does ultimately benefit a lot from these high water events and it would be nice to hold onto the water a little bit longer so the duration of annual drying of the marsh soils would be a little shorter.

 

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

" plague abundance  "

 

I may need to borrow that phrase, thanks!

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

 

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/pests-diseases/freshwater-pests/species/gambusia

 

Sadly, I didn't invent "plague fish". People where our gambusia aren't native have found them to be rather invasive.

 

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

Lake Washingington crossover, now an underwater structure. Fished Stickmarsh last night, water flowing in from Fellsmere Reservoir, Blue Cyress pipe and all gates from Garcia, fishing is all time but at least a 4 to 5 knot current running through to c 40 and c54. Probably not as high as last January but lostsa water running over weir at Malabar, like scom said hope they hold some back for the spawn. It will be epic this season

Houses at Sarno extension/ Lake Washington still under water. What a mess

Parts of Polk County are still under water and the Kissimmee River is still four feet higher than the high water mark during a rainy summer. Mosquitoes at the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve are at the ridiculous levels I've read about in settlers journals from the 1800's. My legs were black with the vicious little bastards in the middle of the day.

The outflow into the gulf and Atlantic is going to be nasty, the water in the Kissimmee is anything but clean.

-------------------------
I was right.

Some of this falls under self inflicted wound territory given the river's history of flooding. Gage heights 2 feet higher than the current level at SR 192 were common before the river straightening, ditch digging, levee building etc... was really ramped up in the 1950s. The baseline level was close to what is now our average annual maximum and the annual difference from high to low was smaller. The whole system just stayed wetter and drained more slowly.

 

The river is about 5 feet above the land that Heritage High School is on. I wonder how many people in Palm Bay realize that their fate is in the hands of the Army Corps and SJRWMD and the ability of C1 to convey water meant for the St. Johns down into Turkey Creek?

 

Astor drives me a little crazy. Flood stage is 2.8 feet and that is with the gauge zero point below sea level so that the 2.8 foot flood level is like 2 feet above sea level. I have trouble calling it a "flood warning" when the properties getting flooded are 200km from the river mouth and are getting flooded by water maxed at 3.5-4 feet above sea level. There's plenty of high ground in Volusia and Lake County so building that low should be entirely at the risk of the builder without flood insurance subsidy or the need of some kind of emergency declaration by authorities.

Butt, it might be a flood of historic proportions if we get a big rain on top of the water that is here. Bull Creek WMA already has a lot of water (Jane Green Detention area is the biggest volumetric storage in the St. Johns system). If the river hits 19 feet at 192 then they'll close the gates at Jane Green and really flood Bull Creek.

I ran around between 50 and 46 yesterday. We definitely have enough water already. Not really keen on seeing the Kissimmee Basin or the St. Johns go any higher.

 

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

Brevard got a solid dump of rain last night and it was concentrated on the St Johns. Those up-down stream aren't out of the water yet.

-------------------------
I was right.

Radar estimates 4-6 inches over an area from 95 to the county line from about Fellsmere to Vierra. 

There is a convergent band dumping on southern Brevard again this morning and the river is backing up from downstream because of the northeast wind and heavy rain from Flagler on north.

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

https://www.change.org/p/11632192/u/22098922?utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_campaign=200356&sfmc_tk=JDqz%2fvQkRXpUIBAthewIQE9nUY47W2lFCpYB1gempVTzPChgBNhbMCVYPmxigkE4&j=200356&sfmc_sub=508889893&l=32_HTML&u=36987292&mid=7259882&jb=9

i went fishing in the banana river this past weekend. put in at the end of banana river drive and paddled a couple miles past kars. the water clarity the ENTIRE paddle was horrible . 1ft deep and couldn't even see the bottom. lots of mullet and lots of dolphin feeding on them. didn't see one tail the entire time. spooked a couple trout/reds and that was about it. anybody know of some semi clean water? i'm not looking for exact spots, just a general area.

Water was decent in south Mosquito when I was up there a couple of weeks ago.

Middle IRL in Cocoa/Rockledge/Suntree is terrible. Still have bioluminescence as of my paddle up to the bee line and back this morning. Color looks like a mix of brown tide and pyrodinium. Fishing isn't that bad here though for either species of drum. Can't sight them though.

Irma put a lot of nutrients in the water and there isn't any seagrass to use it so the plankton are prolific. Water won't clear until the plankton have worked through the available nutrients in the water column and that is only if our current dry spell persists. Hopefully we don't get a bloom collapse like in BRL in March 2016.

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

Yea, I don't think camo is a good color for river water.

The flushing from the Irma bitch helped, but this dry period might set it off again.

-------------------------
I was right.

Banana looked bloomy Saturday when I crossed the 520.

The water quality sensor that SJRWMD has up there is showing chlorophyll >200 micrograms per litre. That is very high.

For comparison. The south Mosquito Lagoon station has been <10 for most of the last month.

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

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

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

The DO was low, but it looks like the gale force conditions have helped.

-------------------------
I was right.

It will be interesting to see what the wind and sudden drop in temps do to the river water.

Hopefully, the temperature will stay above the snook threshold.

-------------------------
I was right.

I know our poor jacksonville snook(the few up here) will have it tough but a few creeks are spring fed and believe that is how some survive. Im sure many will hunker down in the port or at the power plant, would be a shame as the stocks seem to be recovering well from the freeze 5-6 years ago that killed them all the way down to the everglades!

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

2010 was the last big chill.

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

The extra runoff from Irma primed the pump. Now the increasing day length, steeper sun angle, and calmish mostly sunny weather is fueling the growth. 

The monitoring station at 520 on the Banana is showing chlorophyll over 300 ug/L and dissolved oxygen above 150% saturated today. 

This is tripping into March 2016 phytoplankton density.

IRL in Rockledge-Cocoa is looking pretty bad too as of my paddle from Rockledge to the BeeLine and back this morning.

I know in my neighborhood that people were laying down the fertilizer heavy in the couple of weeks before Irma. I assume lawn companies were doing that all over. Through in the out-dated waste water systems that dumped raw sewage as icing on the plankton cake. Hell, several of my neighbors have been watering 2-3 days a week right though the winter/dry season and adding straight nitrogen to keep some green going when lawns should be mostly dormant. 

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