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M o s q u D INDIAN RIVER it o L a g o Oak Hill o n C e n t r a LAGOON D+ l REPORT CARD Turnbull Creek Grading water quality and habitat health M o s q u Big Flounder i Creek to L a go on S o C- Grades ut F h Lagoon Region 2018 2019 Mosquito Lagoon North

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D D I n d Mosquito Lagoon South i a n C- C-

R Titusville i v Banana River Lagoon e r F F L a g North IRL o o n F F F Central IRL-North F F Central IRL - South D+ C F South IRL - North F D Merritt

Island South IRL - Central F F

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o n Turnbull Creek Cocoa F D+ Big Flounder Creek F F Horse Creek B B- Cocoa Eau Gallie River Rockledge Beach D- D+ Crane Creek F D- Turkey Creek D- D Goat Creek D D+ Sebastian Estuary Sebastian North Prong D+ C- D- C- Sebastian South Prong D- C+ B- C-54 Canal Taylor Creek C- C Satellite D- D+ Horse Beach St. Lucie Estuary Creek C St. Lucie River - North Fork D+ Eau Gallie St. Lucie River - South Fork F F River F F + Lower Loxahatchee D Middle Loxahatchee B B+ Melbourne C+ B- Crane Upper Loxahatchee Creek Lagoon House Loxahatchee Southwest Fork B B+ - B- B C D Turkey e n F *A grade of B is meeting Creek t r Palm a l the regulatory target I Bay n d i a n

R i v D e r Goat L LEGEND Creek a g o o n Health Scores N o r t h D+ A 90-100 (Very Good) C- C- B 80-89 (Good) Sebastian Inlet Sebastian Sebastian C 70-79 (Average) North Prong Estuary C-54 Canal Sebastian D 60-69 (Poor) Sebastian South Prong F 0-59 (Very Poor) C Wabasso C+ Beach Winter Beach

C e n t r a l

Gifford I n d i The Indian River Lagoon a n

R i v C e total health score is r Vero Beach L a g o o n

S (F+) o 58 u t a slight improvement from the previous year's score h of 52 (F).

MRC’s Indian River Lagoon Report Card shows the health of the lagoon’s water and seagrass quality as a single grade for all D+ ten regions of the lagoon and twelve tributaries. Please read Ft. Pierce Inlet S o Taylor Creek u the grades as if you are reading a school test grade (100 is t h

I Ft. Pierce n excellent and 0 is really, really bad). The score of 80 (B) or d i a n above indicates that the region is meeting the regulatory R i v target of health set by the state. Only a few areas are meeting e r

L a regulatory standards. g D o o n

N The Entire IRL Report Card Data Set: o r t h Hutchinson • Seagrass and water quality scores for each of the ten lagoon Island regions and twelve tributaries F

• Health scores for the entire 27 years of data St. Lucie River North Fork

• The Indian River Lagoon Ecological Health Assessment S o u Methodology Report t h

I n d F i ...is Available at SaveTheIRL.org a S n t . L R u i c v i e e r

R L i ie E a v uc st . L u g e t a S r o r y o n

Stuart C e n t r St. Lucie Inlet a F C l MARTIN St. Lucie River

South Fork S o u t h D I R L

S o u t B- h B+ www.SaveTheIRL.org Middle Upper B+ Designed by Digital Ink Graphic Design and Printing B SW ahatchee Fork Lox Lower Jupiter Inlet Manatees in the Assessing the Indian River Lagoon Health of the are at risk of sliding into Indian River Lagoon extinction Lagoon earns failing grade of 58 (F+)

Leesa Souto, Executive Director Patrick Rose, Executive Director Marine Resources Council INDIAN RIVER The Indian River Lagoon, a designated Estuary of Save the Manatee Club National Significance, once supported the greatest diversity of organisms in North America. Now, polluted water is not only killing our estuary and the wildlife Manatees are dying at an unprecedented rate in LAGOON therein, but our own quality of life and regional the Indian River Lagoon due to starvation and cold If you want to help manatees – here economy. We are calling on you to help prevent its stress. There have been over 250 confirmed REPORT CARD destruction on behalf of the manatees, sea turtles, Dead manatee in Brevard County. Photo by P. Stasik manatee deaths in Brevard County alone and more are some things you can do: than 600 statewide in just the first three months of sports fish and countless species within the • Report distressed, sick, injured or dead manatees at 1-888-404-FWCC (3922) Grading water quality and habitat health lagoon’s water, and for current and future 2021. If this trend continues, the manatees within the Indian River Lagoon could start a slide towards or use VHF Channel 16 on your marine radio. generations of people who live along its Water Quality and Habitat Changes Over Time extinction. • If you see posts on social media about feeding events or other efforts to shores. Please join MRC as we continue to 100 hand-feed manatees, please share the following reminder: fight for clean water in the Indian River 90 Due to human modifications of the watershed and Lagoon. We need to do more! 80 inputs of excess pollution, the Indian River Lagoon While feeding manatees may seem like a quick solution, giving manatees 70 is experiencing algae super-blooms that create food teaches them to associate people and boats with handouts. This We are at a critical point in the lagoon’s 60 neurotoxins, block light, suffocate fish, cycle action changes their behavior, making them more likely to approach people ecological integrity where we may lose 50 nutrients, increase turbidity, and kill seagrasses. or fast-moving boats that could harm them. Plus, feeding manatees is seagrasses forever and with them, the 40 With over 90% of the seagrass cover lost, the basic illegal. ecosystem function is changing from a seagrass species that depend on them. As water 30 • Please write to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and urge him to support the quality improves, seagrass improves the dominated system to an algae dominated one. With that change, the animals in the lagoon that Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in its role as the lead

following year and when water quality 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 rely on seagrasses will perish – the baitfish and coordinator of the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership. declines, seagrasses decline. However, Water Quality Score Seagrass Score shrimp will disappear and the sports fish and • Write your US Representative and Senator to press the U.S. Fish and Wildlife seagrasses are now drastically declining Water Quality Trend Line Seagrass Trend Line dolphins who eat them, the green sea turtles…The Service to do more to come to the aid of manatees and the Indian River and newly released information suggests manatee deaths are just the beginning. Lagoon. this trend is continuing, even though water quality is improving. What does The Annual Lagoon Health Score is a 58 (F+). There are too few seagrasses left in the Indian River The green line of 80 is the minimum acceptable state target. We are not even close. this mean? It means the Indian River Lagoon for manatees to survive. Adding insult to injury, the underfunded state agency responsible Lagoon’s water quality monitoring for recovering the dead manatees is too Cleaning up the lagoon means program is not comprehensive enough to overburdened with live rescues of malnourished explain what is killing seagrasses. State manatees to adequately respond. As a result, confronting stormwater pollution. monitoring programs must expand their monitoring to overhaul of the way we manage our wastewater, stormwater, + many residents have decomposing manatees left + Stormwater is the primary contributor of pollution to the lagoon. After rain F and development. We need bold leadership to pass emergency F include toxins like herbicides, pesticides and algae along their shorelines, a distressful and tragic hits the ground, it is channeled down the street like a river carrying with it all of toxins (microcystis) and bacteria indicative of legislation to protect our coastal communities from economic reminder of a failing ecosystem. ruin as tourism and real estate markets collapse due to human the litter, animal waste, oil and grease, tire and brake residue, fertilizers, and wastewater. Please urge your state and local pesticides that it encounters. This toxic sludge of polluted water is delivered health risks from constant fish kills and sustained toxic algae The best way we can help manatees is to clean up representatives to make this happen. the lagoon so the seagrasses can return. Difficult through the storm drain directly to the closest body of water, where it blooms. The lagoon needs your support now more than ever. accumulates as muck, concentrates toxins, fuels algae blooms, poisons animals The only thing we can do to save the seagrasses and With hope and relentless determination, I humbly urge you to as it may be, we can’t feed the manatees because we want the manatees to leave the lagoon in and kills seagrass. The lagoon will never be healthy as long as polluted Lagoon’s health other lagoon species from regional extinction is to keep join the fight to improve the health of our Indian River Lagoon at pursuit of seagrasses and other freshwater stormwater is being dumped into it with every rainfall. A better way to handle fighting for clean water. Florida needs a complete SaveTheIRL.org. vegetation. As they travel into new waterways rain is to let it soak into the ground, like nature intended. foraging for food, we need to make sure they are scores a 58 protected. The agencies responsible for assessing MRC is advocating for local implementation of a proven stormwater the manatee’s health and wellbeing must be management solution that has been used in other parts of Florida - Low Impact Development (LID). Low Impact Development is a comprehensive site SaveTheIRL.org adequately funded and manned to monitor the Eau Gallie population’s health and mobility and rescue the planning and engineering strategy that uses the existing landscape and River manatees too malnourished to disperse. Under no vegetation to manage stormwater naturally. Also called Low Impact Design or circumstances can we let the manatees go into Green Infrastructure, these techniques have been implemented for decades Presented by the another winter malnourished without a plan to and contributed to Tampa Bay’s recovery. Florida counties like Pinellas, Marine Resources Council of East Florida, Inc. protect them from starvation. This will require Alachua, and Escambia have implemented Low Impact Development by diligence, planning and implementation of safe modifying their stormwater rules, land development regulations and landscape alternatives on the part of the US Fish and Wildlife ordinances. We are calling on every county and city in the lagoon watershed Service, US Geological Survey and the Florida Fish to do the same. MRC will be coordinating a special assembly on Low Impact and Wildlife Conservation Commission in concert Development to unite the lagoon communities in this goal. We need your with others. help to make it happen. For more information on LID, please visit MRC’s Report Card is independently funded by these community partners and people like you. www.SaveTheIRL.org. SaveTheIRL.org Help us continue to produce the Report Card by donating on-line at SaveTheIRL.org Image by B. Klein