Water in the lagoon at Rockledge is the clearest it has been since spring of 2011 or maybe even 2007. But we need rain something terrible. Problem is the fertilizer guys are working overtime in our hood. All that pyrodinium is just sitting out there begging for some nitrogen like a dog drooling for a treat.

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We lucked out with the slow drizzle I hope.

The summertime ban seems to be working, just imagine what the rivers would look like if there was no fertilizer.

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I was right.

Had a nice short paddle this morning 6km into the wind and 6km downwind for the return. Return leg was straight down the channel. Could see the bottom the whole way. I haven't seen it that clear since June 2004 nearing the end of a long dry spell and just before the hurricanes got cranked up that year. Haven't seen much grass yet. Lots and lots of caulerpa which is not as good as grass but much better than red drift algae. It's a pretty solid carpet of the stuff out there.

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Just a couple notes: we're entering our second round of Basin Management Action Plans with FDEP for the Lagoon. These are the Plans where nutrient reduction allocations are rolled out and cities and county put in their projects to meet them. Brevard has the 1/2 cent tax to fund these planned projects and has been doing a remarkably good job. Some of the clarity we're currently experiencing may be related. Going to make a couple short posts because of lack of line breaks.

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Edited: 04/23/2020 at 07:15 AM by tom

About septic tanks, they're designed to protect human health, not the environment. IF you live on the end of a 2 mile dirt road surrounded by acres and acres of pasture or whatever, a septic tank is a good thing. If you live in a neighborhood, septic is bad. Not bad in and of itself but because it's essentially unregulated. When was the last time the "septic tank inspector" was at your place? Never. There aren't any. Compared to sewer, these facilities are permitted with FDEP, trained licensed operators etc., and there are limits on their discharge. Regulated. Sure, they have problem too, often related to the idea of $$$. They're essentially underfunded. A second problem with sewer is that "reuse water" has no set level of nutrients allowable. This needs to change by rule. Advocate that with your elected representatives. Just one more thing, retrofitting septic to sewer is expensive: Martin Co., way ahead of Brevard, was figuring around $15K/unit without any upgrades at the treatment plant. Lots of funding for septic-to-sewer projects from National Estuary Program this year in Brevard. Yay!

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About fertilizer, if you're using it grow food it's one thing. If you're growing grass it's another. Nobody on here eats grass, at least the St. Auggie kind. Fertilizer doesn't need to fall into the Lagoon or ditch to be a problem. Putting it in the watershed anywhere IS a problem, I'll spare you 20 paragraphs of why. Fertilizer, like septic, is essentially unregulated. Fertilizer inspector? Right. If you want to do something to personally help the Lagoon, stop using the stuff! Quick question, how much does it cost to NOT fertilize your yard? Fight the chemical industrial lawn complex!!!

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Got a little rain today.
I don't remember the indian river in Cocoa/ Rockledge ever being this clear!
Even with the wind blowing hard like it has been, visibility was still excellent.
The grass looks amazing as well.

Thanks to those of you who were wise enough to ban fertilizer in the summer and to people like Mayor Ben in Cocoa Beach who helped usher in a more bio friendly fertilizer for the Cocoa Beach golf course. It's looking like every little bit helps.

Now to those of you who are still stacking that crap on your yards in the summer: STOP IT! Quit being assholes.

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yeah now lets jump on cities and the county for allowing poop water to overflow into the water system, huge fines and civil penalties need enforced

Another thing that the lack of rain has helped. No poop water overflows. Now if we could quit wasting the lagoon tax on baffle boxes and get people to clean up their act and not let the storm water get contaminated in the first place. Spend that tax money fixing the poop water infrastructure. Water is so clear in Rockledge right now that you can actually sight fish. But it won't stay that way. We saw what the abnormally wet winters of 2015 and 2016 got us followed by the Irma and other 2017 summer deluges.

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I need someone to explain a leaking septic tank to me. I've worked on them before and anything that escaped soaked into the ground and seemed to filter the way nature intended. What am I missing here?

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Cheater fishes in it and charges "6 hundy" to go with him.

Septic tanks are a source of nutrient loading even if they are working correctly, unless they are a super fancy special type. They are just designed to handle solids and remove pathogens. Stuff needs to sit in the tank to break down. A badly leaking septic system can contribute pathogens to surface waters if the water table is high. Back in Virginia there were a lot of areas closed to shell fish harvest because failing septics contributed a lot of ecoli. The amount of nutrient loading depends on proximity to surface water and local groundwater dynamics. Neighborhoods like "Breeze Swept" between US 1 and the lagoon up in Rockledge and a canal communities like on Merritt Island are hot. The current county plan for septic to sewer conversions targets the septic systems in areas with the most outdated tanks/drainfields and most prone to loading nearby surface waters.

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When they flood, does the crap bubble at the surface? Or does the rising aquifer deposit the soiled water through springs in the river?

I manage 160 stage and groundwater sites all over Central Florida and the ground water sites are very slow to react to any type of rainfall, in fact many barely react at all to even hurricane level rain. Are the coastal aquifers different other that salt intrusion of course?

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And I'm not talking about the Floridan, it takes an eon to change those levels.

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Moves through saturated soils or bubbles up and moves in surface water in an Irma type situation. DEP hired these guys to do an analysis. Within 200m of water is a major criteria for loading. . That water can be the canals all through Palm Bay or the lagoon itself. Too many septic tanks too close to drainage are a major cause of Sykes Creek always looking like pfffffftttttttt.

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Edited: 04/22/2020 at 12:31 PM by scombrid

DEP put out an interactive map with click-able areas showing their strategy for addressing the worst areas. Darned if I can find it on this machine though.

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And when Irma put everything from Immokalee to Lehigh Acres to Bonita Springs under water the local loading to the Caloosahatchee was insane. The folks over there want to blame everything on Lake O discharges but it was lake O discharge rolling on top of a bunch of swamped sept systems and sewer overflows.

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They dump "reclaimed" (they have an official title for it but I forget) sewage on the sod fields next to Oak Creek on Micco Bluff Road in Bassinger. The smell is anything but reclaimed. Oak Creek flows directly into the Kissimmee River just north of highway 98. That area has cost me more pairs of shoes than I care to remember. Nasty stuff.



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"biosolids"

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Probably is CAFO waste in Basinger. The human sludge is all coming up to the St. Johns Basin since around 2013.

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I've worked on human waste sewers and the scent or stench is the same.

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Had decent rain Friday before last. St. Augustine lawns were practically glowing by early last week so you have to figure they were fertilized prior to the rain. Water in our area of the lagoon is looking more like it did in January after the rainy December. Not blooming but definitely greener and not nearly as clear as a week or two ago.

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My weeds loved the rain, but the grass itself didn't seem to excited by it, but then again I don't fertilize.

Speaking of grass, what's the growth rate of our local sea grasses? Can they recover if we get a decent run of clearer water?


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I biked down to the river scouting for finger mullet. The lawns looked wonderful; deep green, fluffy, well manicured. The water was too murky to see any mullet.



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Shoe saver that is an all day boot for comfort. I have a short pair and a high pair Of Bogs Boots. Super comfortable but hot in August.

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Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Little rain a couple of weeks ago. Middle irl looks like shit. Lots of bioluminescense though. Pyrodinium mostly.

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Residual Application Site is what it's called next to Oak Creek.

As per the boots, they are so nasty that I can't keep them in the cab, so they take a beating in the back of the truck. A few times forgetting them in the rain and it's new boot time too. lol

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Lagoon is tea colored from Rockledge to T'ville. Hog Chokers, Puffers, and Spade Fish were swimming lethargically at the surface yesterday morning. There were a scattering of dead Toad Fish floating. I think it was likely overnight oxygen depletion. The Pyrsodinium creates a BOD at night and the shading of the thick caulerpa carpet probably isn't helping. Sad all it took was one little shot of rain to chuck us right back in to shit water territory.

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I wonder how many yards were coated in fertilizer when rainy days were forecast? Gotta load up before the summertime "ban."

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Low grade fish kill confirmed. Classic oxygen depletion. Heavy plankton is present and Friday was overcast all day. DO bottomed out early Saturday Morning. Lethargic fish observed on Saturday. Dead floaters observed on Monday. Puffers, hogchokers, and a few big Black Drum bloated and floated. Dead crabs on the bottom where you could see the bottom. Seems it was largely demersal things that got caught. Most mobile fish got out of town and escaped the kill zone. Water is still dark tea colored which indicates that the pyrodinium is still thick and active. Not much hope for any seagrass that was trying to elbow its way into the caulerpa and bare sand.

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Hey scombrid, north IRL, Rockledge shoreline area? All the Kilroys are are in Banana but show a pretty good sag night of 20th, nothing below 30% though. On a separate note, I'm on work from home and have noticed a couple neighbors fertilizing. Maybe their service wouldn't do it for them during the ban? Haha, ugh.

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Yeah, IRL between the spoil islands across from Park Avenue and Cocoa Village. Lethargic fish were widely scattered near shore out to the channel but weren't abundant anywhere. Dead stuff was drifted into shore by Sunday and Monday morning. The huge tarpon are around and they were gulping air in between smashing tiny baits out in the channel. Too bad there is no longer a logger over here.

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I looked at the station up by the Bee Line. Shows ~1.25 mg/l early Saturday AM. Classic overcast weather fleeting sag. Saturations >150% during that really sunny weather between the 8th and 15th are pretty crazy.

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Both rivers are still good off Pineda. The Indian is slightly better, but both were clear and lively. I even saw some Thread Fin next to one of the bridges.

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Yeah IRL does look nice Pineda to Eau Gallie. You can see the difference in the O2 data too.

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IRL in the Cocoa/Rockledge area looks like Lake Jesup this week. Had a fish kill Wednesday morning when oxygen went below 1 mg/l. That is the second fish kill in the last 6 weeks.

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Heavy rain north and south of Vero, not in town

Cocoa Beach canals are an unwholesome yellow.

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Transparency is <20 cm in the IRL out front today. All the way across. Worried about the overcast conditions causing another DO crash.

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Ya, I'd go with that eyeball secchi. Tic tic tic

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Just got off the water. Couldn't see my feet in ankle deep water. Pyrodinium bloom was bad enough a couple of weeks ago. It has been replaced by pea soup "nano plankton". Lot of fresh storm water from the rain day before yesterday. Lot of dead rotting water hyacinth and other debris out there. Lots of "True Green", "Blacks", and other lawn company signs in yards too. You know they are putting down their usual monthly herbicide/fungicide/insecticide/fertilizer mix; fertilizer ban be damned. St. Augustine grass is not going to stay super green into August without regular infusions of nitrogen. It would be getting chlorotic by now if it wasn't getting fed. You can watch the lawns start to yellow. Then the little chemlawn sign appears and a couple of days later the lawn is neon green.

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AM dogwalk the other morning, I chatted with a guy spraying a lawn. Asked him about the "ban" and he said, yes they are not fertilizing in compliance. You could smell the ammonia/urea in the spray he was putting down so I'm pretty sure he was not aware. If I were bolder I'd have asked for a little of his concoction; TN/TP analysis would be interesting.

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very sunny very hot very dry last few days. bloom is maxed out with water transparency <20 cm. water level is dropping. sudden collapse is possible.

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Pee in toilet, don't flush for two days.

That what the Indian River off of Pineda looks like now.

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I did a much smaller study for a school project on Little Lake Fairview, which is surrounded by septic systems. I was attempting to illustrate the influence of the systems on WQ. Going back 10 years, I couldn't see any noticeable difference in WQ with relation to growth of the area. Having said that, all of the houses that would be in the ROI, are all >$250,000 and from what I could tell, have modern septic systems.

OBVIOUSLY...my study was very basic and based solely on data (septic systems and WQ) that was provided on various websites, none of which I collected or verified myself. It was a GIS project and not a water quality study.

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Specializing in sarcasm and condescending rhetoric since 1971.

A leak in the tank lets waste bypass the tank and drain field.
The tank and drain field is where microbes have time to do work.