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The opening and closing of inlets may or may not have any beneficial effect. The change in salinity (and overload of nutrients) as a result of all the fresh water from last summer is probably the cause of the situation today. Opening an inlet may help, but it would be another change in salinity and flow patterns. Flushing a lagoon is a little more complicated than flushing a toilet.
Dang...you are still are around. I've missed your postings in the Big Bend forum lately.
Bill
Exactly. Depends on how close you are to the inlet. The closer you are to an inlet the higher the tides. There is no inlet between Ponce and Sebastian, the better part of 100 miles. Of course, smack in the middle - Merritt Island - would have the least "tidal flow", which is contrary to what you stated. There is no "tidal flow" to speak of in parts of the IRL and the primary reason is the lack of inlets.
You mean this wet winter (dry season) we just experienced. The rainy season last year would have minimal impact on what is going on now. I don't know about up there, but down here there is a fertilizer ban in place from June to November, the rainy season. So all the winter long you can fertilize the crap, literally, out of your lawns. The problem is this "dry season" has been incredibly wet, so all that fertilizer just washed in to the lagoon.
I have never eaten a booger in my entire life. -Jim Harbaugh
http://www.freshfromflorida.com/Divisions-Offices/Florida-Forest-Service/Wildland-Fire/Fire-Weather/Forecasts/Year-to-Date-Rainfall
I have never eaten a booger in my entire life. -Jim Harbaugh
Saw y'all fished ozello again, give me a call next time, if I ain't working beer is on me at the Outpost.
Sorry for the derail guys.
See My XF20 Build Here
See Pictures of my XF20 Finished Here
Q: Why is the lagoon so unhealthy?
A: The problem has been brewing for years. Decades of pollution from septic tanks, fertilizers, stormwater runoff and other sources, coupled with a "perfect storm" of drought, followed by record cold in 2010, set the stage for harsh algae blooms in 2011.
A "superbloom" of green algae that year and subsequent brown algae blooms killed some 60 percent of the lagoon's seagrass, the barometer of the estuary's ecological health. Hundreds of manatees, dolphins and pelicans also died in the wake of the blooms.
Q: Did the large water releases from Lake Okeechobee cause the current bloom?
A: No. While those water releases cause blooms in the St. Lucie River and the southern Indian River Lagoon, most of that water exits inlets before it reaches Brevard's portion of the lagoon.
"It's not Lake Okeechobee, that's pretty much certain," said Ed Phlips, professor of algal physiology and ecology at the University of Florida. "Lake Okeechobee discharges more for the St. Lucie (River). That's a whole different ballgame down there."
Q: What's being done now?
A: The Legislature has allocated more than $72 million to Brevard County over the past three years, most of it for large-scale muck removal projects. There are two major muck-dredging projects going on right now to remove the nutrient-laden soils that have built up in the lagoon over decades.
The dredging is intended to remove nitrogen and phosphorus in the muck that fuels harmful algae blooms. The muck also stirs up, clouding the sunlight seagrass needs to grow.
County officials and the Brevard Zoo have been growing and placing oysters in the lagoon to filter-feed on algae and remove excess nitrogen from the water.
Q: Why not just open up Canaveral Lock?
A: It's been tried, and it didn't do much other than causing expensive dredging and repairs.
When Tropical Storm Fay caused severe flooding along the Banana River Lagoon in August 2008, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers left the lock open and used it as a spillway to drain the lagoon. The lock was opened for at least a week, Corps officials said, which prevented millions of dollars’ worth of flooding damage to properties.
But when operators tried to close the lock gates after the storm, two sector gate couplings broke, because silt had built up in the gates recesses.
Recent research by the Florida Institute of Technology showed that simply keeping the lock open wouldn’t do much to improve the lagoon, but there may be other ways to improve the exchange of lagoon and ocean water near the port, or elsewhere. Specifically, small inlets or culverts along the most narrow strips of barrier island, coupled with a pumping station, could provide significant benefits, the FIT study found.
In simulations, either a narrow tidal inlet or pumping station in the southern Mosquito Lagoon produced complete flushing of the Mosquito Lagoon and the northern Indian River Lagoon within about 70 days or less, the study found. A tidal inlet just north of Patrick Air Force Base also substantially improved flushing of the Banana River. But doubling Sebastian Inlet’s width did not noticeably improve flushing rates or extent.
Q: What can I do?
A: Beyond maintaining your septic tanks and reducing fertilizer use, here's just a few of the things what the city of Cocoa Beach suggests:
•Contact Federal and State representatives urging support for remedial and preventative legislation to clean up the Indian River Lagoon
•Keep grass clippings or landscape trimmings from falling into the Banana River Lagoon
•Don't sweep organic and road debris into the storm drainage inlets at the street
•Monitor private landscape services to ensure they handle grass clippings and landscape trimmings properly
•Support more stringent regulations than required to prevent organic material from being discharged into the Banana River Lagoon
•Support funding for more infrastructure projects
http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2016/03/23/what-we-know----and-dont-know----fish-kill/82163574/
:hail
I have never eaten a booger in my entire life. -Jim Harbaugh
They forgot the most effective option: Move back north. :grin
Florida's current Governor Rick Scott was born in Bloomington, IL 12/1/1952. He was raised in North Kansas City, MO. He graduated from North Kansas City High School in 1970. In 1997 he launched Richard L. Scott Investments in Naples, FL.
Here in Florida I'm afraid it's "way too late" for "a wall".
The impact extends beyond the shores of the Indian River Lagoon — comprised of the Mosquito, Banana River and Indian River lagoons — and into the pocketbooks of Floridians, especially those in the state’s two most profitable industries: tourism and fishing.
“Our oysters are dead, seagrasses are dead,” said Conner, the fisherman. “It (will be) hard to recover. You never fully recover.”
http://fox13now.com/2016/03/25/fish-kill-in-florida-heartbreaking-images-seen-for-miles/
Latest news on ecosystem devastation
Florida Sportsman is investigating a massive fish kill in the northern Indian and Banana River system.
According to East Central Field Editor Bill Sargent, multiple species of fish have been observed floating or washing up on shorelines from as far north as Mosquito Lagoon south of Oak Hill, along the Indian and Banana rivers in Brevard County, and as far south on the Indian River as Melbourne and Palm Bay. Sargent, a Melbourne native who has been reporting in this region for 47 years, described the kill as “greater than anything we’ve seen before outside of winter kills."
http://www.floridasportsman.com/2016/03/24/indian-river-fish-kill/
I have to agree with you for the most part, without AC the population would be much smaller.......
However it is the Developers, and most all politicians are tied to developers including all of the Water management people. We could do something even with moderate development, but the cost would become very high for new buildings, and the needed technology to create a solution to over used resources especially Water. Our taxes would go up and yes energy cost also, and that may happen anyway some one has to pay for the "modern development"
Greed is what killed our State.
Bill