At 9:19 AM, March 23, 2016, the skies were overcast; the temperature was a mild 74 degrees; a persistent southeast wind at 12 mph was blowing, and the barometer was 30.13 and dropping; the surf was a semi-choppy two-to-three wind swell. It was Holy Thursday, three days before Easter.
I sat at my desk and wrote in my journal: A LOST LAGOON, but then I was lost for words. It rarely happens.
Three years earlier, after the Lagoon’s first super algal bloom, a group of us paddled and camped for nineteen days along the entire length of the Indian River Lagoon Mosquito Lagoon to the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse (Indian River Lagoon Paddle Adventure). Along the way we saw the signs of her impending death; there was a horrific loss of sea grasses along the Lagoon’s bottom, and we wondered if she could ever come back. But moving ahead to the present day, we now can see death floating everywhere, with little life spared. The lack of oxygen had smothered breeding-size red and black drum, snook, sheepshead, spotted seatrout, snapper, pompano, and flounder. Crabs, shrimp, and even manatees had also suffered the consequences, along with many birds, including ospreys and pelicans, caught in their mid-nesting season.
By late Good Friday I had answered more than a hundred phone calls, emails, texts, and social media posts from people concerned over the historical fish kill taking place along nearly forty miles of the Banana and Indian River Lagoons. I had communicated with doctors, professors, lawyers, real estate brokers, fishing guides, scientists, marina and boating business owners, outdoor writers, news media specialists, power company employees, other anglers and many homeowners.
At 7:15 AM, March 27, it was a glorious Easter Sunday. Karen and I stood to sing Alleluia and greet the other faithful, but as we reached the chorus I wept like a heart-broken mourner. The stunning image of a dead Lagoon flashed over and over in my mind. The unthinkable was happening in our backyard; our nation’s most diverse and prolific estuary was collapsing before our eyes.
By April 1, Brevard County Public Works crews were hauling away dumpsters full of rotting fish and other marine species collected by volunteers, public works employees and inmates from the county jail. Citizens and business owners, some unaware of the Indian River Lagoon’s recent history of decline, started asking questions of city, county and state bureaucrats and employees. Anglers, environmentally concerned individuals and people associated with Indian River Lagoon centric, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) shook their heads and said “We told you so!”
Unfortunately, the water quality of Florida’s lakes, lagoons and springs has been on a steady decline for decades for multiple reasons. Developers, farmers, and government agencies have been filling our wetlands and destroying our swamps for generations in the name of progress. These wetlands were here as filter systems for our waterways, naturally storing and cleaning the watershed’s runoff before it reached our lagoons. We have also allowed the use of septic tanks in areas where they should not be, where they leak into our lakes, springs, and estuaries (lagoons).
The vast majority of homeowners and businesses located along our waterways also continue to use harmful fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides on their lawns. It kills the sea grasses, the most critical marine habitat for manatee, fish, shrimp, and crabs and the bottle-nose dolphin and marine birdlife depending on this chain of food. It also feeds the harmful algal blooms which darken the water and block the sunlight, these sea grasses need to survive.
It has been a slow and painful death to witness. It suffocates all life in and around our waters. However, I believe blaming any or all of the developers, farmers, or government would be a waste of precious energy and resources. Most of us all live in houses built by a developer and eat the farmer’s crops, and without government, we would not have many of the conveniences we have grown accustomed to utilizing, including safe roads, bridges and inlets.
With all the work needed to be accomplished to restore her, we must focus on the cures first; we should evaluate our tools and resources to correct these critical problems with the water quality of Florida’s precious springs, lakes, and lagoons immediately.
Looking strictly at Florida’s Indian River Lagoon system, it is doomed unless we change our priorities and practices. It will take a heroic grassroots effort to get the support needed to make the necessary changes in human behavior to save our Banana and Indian River Lagoons and with all of America’s coastal estuaries, as well.
To move forward with the solutions needed to correct the pollution, we’ll need to get our arms around many changes and work together in synergistic ways. Unfortunately this will take more and research before we actually understand the complete picture and reasons why our Indian River Lagoon system is being marginalized by these super algae blooms.
One of my Ph.D. mentors, one considered the foremost expert on the Indian River Lagoon’s fisheries (I’ve excluded his name; I wouldn’t want to jeopardize the funding for his research projects.) has told me, “I believe it is premature to come up with solutions other than reducing/eliminating the effluent coming from the humanity living around the Lagoon. We need more answers to questions than quick fixes by politicians going for election, who did not pay attention to this Lagoon until now.”
Unfortunately he’s right. There are a number of questions concerning the recent fish kills that are still unanswered. In my next installment of this two-part piece, Will the Indian River Lagoon’s Legacy Be Pollution or Solutions? we’ll be discussing solutions and trying to answer difficult questions.