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Reversing the effects of human progression at Indian River Lagoon has been a colossal task for years, yet researchers can find a solution as close as the ocean on the other side of the barrier island.
In Brevard County, an initiative called Restore Lagoon Inflow (RLI) is underway. The state-funded venture runs through ers at Florida Tech.
Dr. Austin Fox, an assistant professor in Florida Tech’s Department of Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences, is the principal investigator of this work. He was busy Friday collecting other circular water samples near Port Canaveral.
He said one of the most studied and least studied facets of lagoon fitness is found in the sand, which makes up about 90 percent of the lagoon bottom and the useful bacteria that live in it.
These bacteria naturally remove elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus from water.
“You can think of them as a probiotic. Smart healthy sand bacteria that help remove some of those nutrients,” Fox said. “So at 90 percent of the bottom of the lagoon, we think it’s helping to remove nitrogen from the lagoon and balance the inlets. “
Human development, such as the expansion of the barrier island and the construction of causeways, has created, over time, a lagoon pocket where water tends to stagnate more than it would naturally, Fox explained.
The concept they are exploring is to introduce a limited amount of seawater on a continuous basis to repair some of the herbal balance that existed decades ago.
“We hope, we’re reading with this project, that stabilizing water quality a little bit can have effects on those smart bacteria. Can we announce this removal of herbal nitrogen by stabilizing some of the water quality? Renard asked.
This possible solution under consideration is an attempt to undo decades of effects on the lagoon, the effects of which are now beginning to become increasingly apparent.
In 1922, a major excavation task involved draining 40,000 acres of swampy land from St. Johns to identify Palm Bay brought an abnormal amount of new water into the lagoon.
A diversion assignment was carried out in 2016 of the main channel C1 to correctly help influence this, but could not counteract what had been done.
Fox and his colleagues recently finished the timing of this multi-year project. He said his work also shed light on more information about dust that also proved problematic.
“The paintings we are making have known that not all sludge is the same. There’s dust that, if you look at it, you might not be able to tell the difference, but there’s dust that’s 20 times worse in terms of nutrient absorption than other powders,” Fox said. “So the work we’re doing could have helped advise some of those recovery efforts. We get 20 times more advantages by focusing on some of those maximum offensive areas.
The 2020 Phase 1 evaluation noted that the Florida Legislature invested $800,000 for this work. This step concerned the collection of baseline knowledge and the creation of water quality models. Phase 2 included selection, stakeholder engagement and more models.
The next step is to organize a demonstration of the pumping formula to bring this knowledge to policymakers for further evaluation.
“If it succeeds, we can provide that knowledge to lawmakers and administrators and then let them know if we need this to happen or if they need it to achieve it on a larger scale,” Fox said.