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.

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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!

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

2010 was the last big chill.

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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. 

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