Indian River Lagoon Report Card

Ponce Inlet

M o s q u it o L a g o o n

Oak Hill + LAGOON M D o s q u it o L D a REPORT CARD g Turnbull o o Creek n C Grading water quality and habitat health e n t r a Big Flounder l Creek

M o s q u C- i Grades to L a Lagoon Region 2018 2019 F go on S ou th Mosquito Lagoon North

N BC o

r t Mosquito Lagoon Central h

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

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

Island South IRL - Central F F

a South IRL - South n

a F D

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r Grades

a Port Canaveral

g 2018 2019

o Tributaries

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 C- C Taylor Creek D- D+ Horse 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 Creek t r a l I n d LEGEND i a n

R i 2020 Health Scores v D e r Goat L Creek a g o o A (Very Good) n 90-100

N o r t (Good) D+ h B 80-89 C- C 70-79 (Average) C- Sebastian Inlet D 60-69 (Poor) Sebastian Sebastian North Prong Estuary F 0-59 (Very Poor) C-54 Canal Sebastian Sebastian South Prong

C Wabasso C+ Beach

C e n t r a l

I A Score of n d i a n

R i v C e r

L a g o o n

(B) S o

t 80 h indicates the region is meeting the state regulatory standards.

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 the grades as if you are reading a school test grade (100 is Taylor Creek u t h excellent and 0 is really, really bad). The score of 80 (B) or I Ft. Pierce n d i above indicates that the region is meeting the regulatory a n

R i target of health set by the state. Only a few areas are meeting v e r regulatory standards. L a g D o o n

The Entire IRL Report Card Data Set: N 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 • The Indian River Lagoon Ecological Health Assessment North Fork S o Methodology Report u 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 St. Lucie River

South Fork S o u t h D I R L

S o u t B- h B+ B Middle Upper B+ SW ahatchee www.SaveTheIRL.org Fork Lox Lower Jupiter Inlet Manatees in the Indian River Lagoon Assessing the are at risk of Health of the sliding into Indian River Lagoon extinction INDIAN RIVER Leesa Souto, Executive Director Patrick Rose, Executive Director The Indian River Lagoon, a designated Estuary of Marine Resources Council Save the Manatee Club National Significance, once supported the greatest LAGOON 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 REPORT CARD 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 Grading water quality and habitat health destruction on behalf of the manatees, sea turtles, 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) 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 myriad of species that depend on them. 30 Target = 80 • Please write to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and urge him to support the From this graph of annual scores over 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

time, it is easy to see water quality goes 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. up and down (solid blue line) and the 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 seagrass scores (solid orange line) go up 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 down with water quality to some manatee deaths are just the beginning. Lagoon. extent. As water quality improves, seagrass improves the following year and when water quality There are too few seagrasses left in the Indian River declines, seagrasses decline. However, seagrasses are Lagoon for manatees to survive. Adding insult to The only thing we can do to save the seagrasses and other injury, the underfunded state agency responsible now declining dramatically and preliminary data indicate lagoon species from regional extinction is to keep fighting for for recovering the dead manatees is too this trend is continuing, independent of water quality. Cleaning up the lagoon means clean water. Florida needs a complete overhaul of the way we overburdened with live rescues of malnourished What does this mean? It means our state’s water quality manage our wastewater, stormwater, and development. We manatees to adequately respond. As a result, confronting stormwater pollution. monitoring program is missing something. There must need bold leadership to pass emergency legislation to protect many residents have decomposing manatees left Stormwater is the primary contributor of pollution to the lagoon. After rain be something other than the few pollutants monitored along their shorelines, a distressful and tragic our coastal communities from economic ruin as tourism and real hits the ground, it is channeled down the street like a river carrying with it all of by the state that is negatively affecting seagrass. The reminder of a failing ecosystem. estate markets collapse due to human health risks from constant the litter, animal waste, oil and grease, tire and brake residue, fertilizers, and Indian River Lagoon is not monitored adequately enough pesticides that it encounters. This toxic sludge of polluted water is delivered + fish kills and sustained toxic algae blooms. The lagoon needs The best way we can help manatees is to clean up to understand what is killing it. State monitoring your support now more than ever. With hope and relentless the lagoon so the seagrasses can return. Difficult through the storm drain directly to the closest body of water, where it programs must expand their list of pollutants and determination, I humbly urge you to join the fight to improve the as it may be, we can’t feed the manatees because accumulates as muck, concentrates toxins, fuels algae blooms, poisons animals sampling frequency. and kills seagrass. The lagoon will never be healthy as long as polluted health of our Indian River Lagoon at SaveTheIRL.org. we want the manatees to leave the lagoon in pursuit of seagrasses and other freshwater stormwater is being dumped into it with every rainfall. A better way to handle F 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 SavetheIRL.org 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 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 another winter malnourished without a plan to and contributed to Tampa Bay’s recovery. Florida counties like Pinellas, 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 SavetheIRL.org 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 MRC’s Report Card is independently funded by community partners like you. Help us continue to produce the Report with others. help to make it happen. For more information on LID, please visit www.SaveTheIRL.org. Card by donating on-line at www.SaveTheIRL.org Image by B. Klein