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Inside this issue

Lagoon ecotourism

National Estuary Program assists ecotourism professionals

Dredging project

Manatee Pocket work nearing completion.

Understanding the ‘super bloom’

Group of scientists study causes of 2011 algal bloom.

National award winner

St. Johns District scientist recognized for wetlands work.

Florida-Friendly Landscaping™

Workshops help homeowners choose plants that will thrive in Florida’s natural conditions.

Spring/summer 2012

Program to provide lagoon information to ecotourism professionals

Kayaking is just one of the ecotourism adventures along the Indian River Lagoon.

Spend time on the Indian River Lagoon and you’ll eventually witness something memorable. It may be a mullet rupturing the water’s surface in a momentary pirouette or a horseshoe crab scuttling through a seagrass bed. It may be something as simple yet sublime as a sunrise quietly raging across the water’s surface. People are drawn to the rhythms and cycles of nature and these days we give the phenomenon a name: ecotourism.

Ecotourism in the Indian River Lagoon region is thriving, as evidenced by dozens of websites advertising lagoon boat tours, kayak outfitters and fishing guides along the 156-mile-long waterway. Tour operators share the wonders of the lagoon with visitors from all over the world, whether those visitors are angling for redfish in the Mosquito Lagoon or kayaking the Banana River Lagoon.

Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program staff want to help tourism professionals — including tour guides and ecotour operators — provide their clients with exceptional experiences out on the lagoon by providing information about the work of the program, as well as various aspects of the lagoon’s unique cultural, historical and natural heritage.

Lagoon program education coordinator Kathy Hill is serving as a source of information for the Florida Society for Ethical Ecotourism (SEE). The society is expanding its programs into Brevard County and eventually into the entire lagoon region, which stretches south from Ponce Inlet in Volusia County to Jupiter Inlet in Palm Beach County.

Florida SEE originated on Florida’s west coast in 1998 following a local ecotourism conference held in Fort Myers. At the conference, participants sought to form an organization that would establish and maintain a professional code of ecotourism ethics to promote awareness and stewardship of Florida’s natural heritage.

The key to fostering successful ecotourism in a region is to ensure that business owners are armed with information. “Ecotourism in North America is so far behind the rest of the world,” says John Kiseda, SEE director. “We invite people to come to our beaches to see our dunes and such, but how much better an experience is it when a visitor can begin to understand the fragile nature of dune systems and the plants that protect dunes from erosion?”

That’s where lagoon program staff come in, providing SEE with more than 20 years worth of scientific information about the estuary. The lagoon program has partnered over the years with many governmental agencies, stewards and stakeholders to address challenges outlined in the Indian River Lagoon Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, a blueprint for restoring the water body.

“In the future, we’ll be providing workshops to update tour operators and others in the ecotourism industry about the lagoon region,” Hill says. “And information can be exchanged in both directions. We can provide operators with great cultural, scientific and historical information that they can share to improve their clients’ lagoon experiences. Because they’re out on the lagoon every day, they can share information with us about unusual events or conditions in the lagoon. They can be our eyes and ears on the water in helping to protect the lagoon.”

Kiseda says he is excited to have the lagoon program join Florida SEE. “We depend on partnering organizations to provide information to help potential and existing members,” he explains.

Troy Rice, lagoon program director, is pleased that SEE’s goals align so well with those of the lagoon program. “We hope to encourage the region’s ecotour providers to learn more about the lagoon and the work of so many agencies and organizations to protect and restore this waterway. We look forward to sharing the information we’ve gathered to help spread the message of the lagoon’s importance to Florida and the nation.”

To learn more about Florida SEE, visit floridasee.org.

Dredging project revitalizes the waters of Manatee Pocket

Manatee Pocket is near the Intracoastal Waterway, near Port Salerno, Fla.

Bustling with commercial fishing activities and other marine-related industries, Manatee Pocket, in Port Salerno, Fla., is a small, shallow, bay-like area located at the junction of the Okeechobee Waterway and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The Pocket marks the convergence of the St. Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie Inlet.

Over the years, the accumulation of muck within the Pocket and its tributaries degraded the quality of the fisheries habitats as well as navigational access.

In 2004, a group of concerned citizens known as the “Pocket Bunch” encouraged Martin County officials to take action. After thorough analysis of the Pocket area, officials approved a blueprint for dredging the waterway that would protect important natural resources while defining a functional, navigable channel.

Dredging began in July 2010 and resulted in the removal of approximately 280,000 cubic yards of sediment, carving a 100-foot-wide channel that provides navigational and environmental enhancements to the Manatee Pocket and its adjacent waterways.

The Pocket’s salt water is tidal, a mix of Atlantic Ocean waters and freshwater from a series of shallow tributaries, including Manatee Creek, Salerno Creek, Crooked Creek and other smaller tributaries. The Pocket’s water teems with fish and other marine life and provides habitat and feeding areas for a variety of birds and other animals. The estuary is an invaluable and irreplaceable part of the ecosystem and serves as a breeding ground for fish.

The $13 million dredging project was coordinated through Martin County’s Coastal Division. A coalition of supporters, including government agencies, nonprofits, community and business leaders, have helped bring this project to fruition, including the Pocket Bunch, South Florida Water Management District, Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND), National Estuary Program (NEP), Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Port Salerno Community Redevelopment Agency and many others.

Dredging is continuing as part of a private dredging portion of this project, with the overall project expected to be complete within the next few months.

Recent stormwater improvements in the watershed have greatly reduced sediment flow into the Pocket and its tributaries, adding to the benefits of the dredging project. Without the stormwater retrofits, muck would have eventually refilled the waterway, deeming the dredging project a short-term solution.

Guest Column

Consortium of scientists studies 2011 lagoon ‘super bloom’

Margie Lasi, Ph.D.

Environmental Scientist,
Bureau of Environmental Sciences, Estuaries Section
St. Johns River Water Management District

In 2011, the Indian River Lagoon experienced a massive bloom of microscopic algae (phytoplankton) of unprecedented proportions.

The bloom was first observed in the central Banana River in March 2011, and within a month or two had spread northward and westward through the barge canal into the northern portion of the lagoon (near Cocoa), from where it expanded mainly northward into the southern Mosquito Lagoon.

During the peak of the bloom, concentrations of Chlorophyll a (the green pigment in plants) surpassed 130 micrograms per liter, rivaling levels found in highly impacted aquatic ecosystems, such as Lake Apopka. Compared to prior blooms in the lagoon, the 2011 bloom was not only intense, but unusually persistent, turning the waters murky and green from April through about October.

The exceptional magnitude and duration of this “super bloom” raised serious concerns among scientists about the potential consequence to light-dependent seagrass beds, which are critical habitats in the lagoon.

Under a microscope, Pedino are larger than bluegreen algae.

Lori Morris, an environmental scientist and seagrass expert at the St. Johns River Water Management District, reported that in 2011, “seagrass beds retreated in length by 50 percent or more, and in some cases completely disappeared. We have never witnessed such widespread and drastic reductions in seagrass coverage since we began monitoring lagoon seagrasses in 1994.”

Because of their function supporting estuarine and marine food webs, and as nursery areas for many species of fish, seagrasses have long been recognized as the key indicator of the ecological health of the lagoon.

“The loss of this keystone habitat in the lagoon could reduce recruitment of shellfish, crustaceans and fish that support commercial and recreational fisheries. This super bloom event is testing the resilience of the lagoon and may have serious repercussions ecologically and economically for the region,” says Joel Steward, estuaries group program leader at the St. Johns District.

Another, more immediate outcome of the 2011 super bloom was fish kills, a number of which were reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission between July and September in the areas of Banana River/Merritt Island and Cocoa. This is not surprising, as fish are among the first to succumb to low dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions that can be associated with intense summer blooms.

Thanks to a collaborative monitoring effort between District scientists and phytoplankton experts at the University of Florida, the perpetrators of the 2011 super bloom were promptly detected and quantified. Professor Edward Phlips and research associate Susan Badylak confirmed that the samples were dominated by a mix of extremely tiny, single-celled algae (about 1/100th of the size of a grain of salt) belonging to two major groups: photosynthetic bacteria, also known as bluegreens, and a green alga bearing a whip-like tail, within the division Pedinophyceae (Pedino for short). During the peak bloom months (September and October), densities of Pedinos ranged from 700 million to 1 billion cells per liter (or roughly a quart), comprising more than 50 percent of the total volume of these two groups.

While bluegreens are common inhabitants of the lagoon, a Pedino bloom had never been previously observed in the lagoon over the 14 years of intense monitoring. Fortunately, neither of the algal species dominating the 2011 super bloom are known to produce harmful toxins, unlike another common alga, the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense, that has been implicated in past blooms and puffer fish poisonings in the lagoon.

Scientists have a pressing need to understand what physical, chemical and biological factors contributed to the development and extended duration of the super bloom. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus (that are found in fertilizers in stormwater runoff) undoubtedly played a primary role in driving the bloom, but was there a larger-than-usual pool of nutrients present in the waters in early 2011, and if so, what was the source of these nutrients? Furthermore, could the drought-induced high salinities of 2011 have favored the particular bluegreens and Pedinos over other algae? Did the cold snap of 2010–2011 reduce numbers of zooplankton, the microscopic organisms that would feed on these very tiny algae?

These and other questions related to the causes of the super bloom and its effects are currently being investigated by a consortium of scientists from the District and other state agencies and universities. Over the next several months, consortium members will work in teams to complete their analyses using available data. The consortium will produce a consensus-based position paper summarizing findings that can help guide management actions aimed at controlling and/or mitigating blooms and their consequences in the lagoon.

In the meantime, scientists hope that the “perfect storm” conditions that contributed to the 2011 super bloom do not reoccur.

St. Johns District scientist wins national wetlands award

Ronald Brockmeyer is being recognized for his work to help restore wetlands along the lagoon.

The Environmental Law Institute has chosen Ronald Brockmeyer, an environmental scientist with the St. Johns River Water Management District, as the 2012 National Wetlands Award recipient in State, Tribal and Local Program Development.

The Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program nominated Brockmeyer for the award. Based on that nomination, he was recognized for his leadership in restoring or rehabilitating nearly 20,000 acres of coastal wetlands along the lagoon, as the District’s manager for the coastal wetland components of the lagoon Surface Water Improvement and Management and National Estuary programs.

Brockmeyer has successfully worked with diverse groups to manage and restore the structure and function of severely impacted coastal wetlands within the lagoon. He has accomplished this through the creation of a myriad of local, state and federal partnerships focusing on the reconnection, breaching or complete restoration of impounded and impacted estuarine wetlands. The projects developed under his leadership have had a direct benefit to the unique biodiversity of the lagoon, increasing support for lagoon fisheries production valued at more than $350 million annually, and benefitting more than 60 species of migratory birds utilizing the Atlantic Flyway, including six endangered species.

In addition to being recognized for his accomplishments at a ceremony at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. in May, Brockmeyer will be profiled in the May/June issue of the National Wetlands Newsletter that provides information and analysis on current issues in law, science and management of wetlands, floodplains and coastal water resources.

The National Wetlands Awards program recognizes outstanding individual innovation and dedication to wetlands conservation, and has honored more than 150 wetland champions since it was established in 1989. The program is administered by the Environmental Law Institute, and is supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, Federal Highway Administration, USDA Forest Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.

Protecting the lagoon begins in your backyard

Homeowners in Melbourne who recently received certification of a Florida-Friendly Landscape™ left portions of their yard in a natural state, with natural mulch, shrubs and trees.

Florida’s mild climate lends itself to year-round gardening and landscaping, a benefit for those with a proverbial green thumb. However, our landscaping practices can have a direct impact on local water bodies, including the Indian River Lagoon.

The biggest challenge in protecting the lagoon from degradation is reducing pollution in storm water that flows into the estuary following rain events. It’s a tall order, given the urbanization of large portions of the 156-mile-long estuary. In neighborhoods within the lagoon watershed, excess lawn fertilizers, chemicals, insecticides and loose soil can all find their way into the lagoon and its tributaries.

The Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program and Brevard County Extension Services, part of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), are partnering with participating cities in Brevard County to share information with homeowners about the benefits of Florida-Friendly Landscaping™.

As the name suggests, Florida-Friendly Landscaping is a philosophy of using low-maintenance plants and environmentally sustainable practices. The program is based on nine principals (see sidebar below).

“You don’t have to be an expert gardener or landscaper to create a Florida-friendly yard,” says Sally Scalera, a homeowner horticulture extension agent with IFAS. “You only need a willingness to learn and a desire to create a yard that is beautiful, low-maintenance and good for the environment.”

Scalera and lagoon program education coordinator Kathy Hill recently held public workshops in Melbourne to explain to homeowners the benefits of Florida-Friendly Landscaping. Participating cities receive education credits as part of their requirements to meet total maximum daily load (TMDL) limits established for the lagoon by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Set in 2008 and 2009, TMDLs are a measure of how much pollution a water body can absorb on a daily basis without becoming impaired. These limits are now being used to establish a basin management action plan for the lagoon. An action plan will clarify what local governments, the military, taxing districts and other entities will do to restore impaired waters by reducing the amount of nutrients entering, or “loading,” into the waterway to meet the allowable limits established by the TMDLs. Municipalities are credited for implementing stormwater or other projects and for conducting programs to promote behavioral changes that reduce stormwater pollution.

The Florida-friendly workshops are designed to encourage homeowners to redesign their landscapes to be more environmentally friendly. Florida-friendly plants often require less water and fertilizer, fewer pesticides, and less pampering than other plants.

“The workshops are all about making it easy for people to make over their yards,” Scalera explains. “Kathy makes the connection between landscaping habits and the vulnerability of the lagoon, so this provides the ‘why.’ I explain the ‘how’ by discussing the nine principles of Florida-Friendly Landscaping and giving people everything they need to redesign their yards and become certified,” Scalera says.

Homeowners who make the change can then have their yards certified as Florida-friendly by calling Brevard County Extension Service and scheduling an appointment with a master gardener, who performs site visits. Homeowners who make over their landscapes are presented with “Certified Florida-Friendly” yard signs that recognize their efforts and encourage other homeowners in the neighborhood to make the change.