So what does it take to get some inlets or at the very least pumping stations to start exchanging water with the ocean? Pretty sure it's already too late to save the irl. With all the cold weather you would think we would have clear water, instead we have new blooms all the way up into mosquito lagoon. This is depressing.

We associate cold with clear around here because the cold historically corresponds with the dry season which is when the nutrient load is the least so the plankton aren't as abundant and the water clears up. 

Some plankton are slowed by cold. Some don't like short day length and low sun angles of winter. The pyrodinium that blooms in the summer here lately doesn't like cold water. But there are plankton around, especially the currrent brown tide, that don't mind cool conditions and short days at all. All they need is fertilizer.

Mathew didn't put much water down and then it was quite dry from after Mathew all the way until May or June. The lagoon got the clearest that I had seen it in a few years in March 2017 even though last February and March were very warm. 

Contrast that with winter 2015 with lots of winter rain and the bloom and bust that gave us the March 2016 BRL fish kill.

Also contrast the 16/17 winter following Mathew with the 17/18 post-Irma environment. 2017 was a wet wet season with Irma and another post-Irma rain event putting down tremendous rain. All that run-off carried a lot of nutrients into the lagoon with sewage spills as a cherry on top of a very big fertilizer cake. The plankton out there are still working through all that nitrogen.

Going to take a huge shift in landscape practices from water use to fertilizer application to make a dent. Our one little mimosa lawn isn't enough to mitigate the sea of St. Augustine around me. 

BTW: The mimosa went dormant and neighbors were horrified at the brownnesss in January. It woke up this week and is beautiful green. Pink puff flower and bees soon to come. I've not run water on it yet.

Oh, on the locks. Drop in the bucket and opening them regularly would wreck the structure due to erosion around the structure. Not enough bang for the buck. 

Last time I was down south it looked pretty bad down there too. 6000 cubic feet per second were dumped from the Stick Marsh down C54 for weeks after Irma on top of the runoff straight from the groves into Sebastian River on the south side of C54. There's a lot of grow juice in that ag waste water.

Fixing the nutrient load is the answer but is probably an insurmountable mountain.

 

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