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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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.

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

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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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

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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