>>This week on a special edition of NewsNight, the battle to restore the Indian River Lagoon.

>>The last decade, we're seeing more and more harmful algal blooms.

>>Tonight, we talk to the people taking on the challenge of bringing the lagoon back to health, repairing decades of damage while there's still hope.

>>Because with these challenges also come a lot of opportunity.

>>There is tremendous kind of explosive recovery of seagrass.

>>From Crisis to Conservation, the importance of restoration and resiliency.

NewsNight Conversations starts now.

Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to the first of our two part NewsNight Conversations series, looking at some key environmental challenges facing central Florida's coast and waterways.

Tonight, we'll be delving into the years long battle to restore the Indian River Lagoon.

We'll look at the efforts to breathe life back into one of North America's most biologically diverse estuaries that spans nearly 160 miles.

The lagoon is a brackish waterway where the Atlantic Ocean mixes with fresh water.

The watershed of the Indian River Lagoon covers 2284 square miles.

Five counties, including Brevard and Volusia border the lagoon.

The Indian River Lagoon is actually made up of three lagoons the Banana River, the Indian River and the Mosquito Lagoon.

In a moment, I'll be joined by a panel of journalists and people from the community engaged in the restoration efforts.

But first, NewsNight's Krystel Knowles takes us out to the lagoon to take a look at the work being done there.

>>Faced with an environmental crisis, Brevard County initiated the Save Our Indian River Lagoon plan back in 2016.

Residents had voted in a referendum to pass a half cent sales tax to pay for it.

It was a decisive move, signaling a broad commitment to restoration of the lagoon.

>>We went and had a lot of community meetings.

>>Chief Resilience Manager for the city of Cape Canaveral Zach Eichholz explains where some of the money is going.

>>It's a fund designed to help set up money that can be tapped for lagoon restoration efforts, both by Brevard County itself and by local municipalities, so that can account for anything such as sewer upgrades, converting septic tanks to sewer systems.

Getting rid of those legacy loads of muck that are at the bottom of lagoon have been there for decades and that are flexing out material that add to the overall lack of water quality.

>>But who is to blame for all this pollution?

According to officials, everyone.

Storm runoff filled with fertilizers and pesticides, septic tanks, leaking contaminants all contribute to the problem.

>>Sewage spills and pollution from stormwater inputs from municipalities up and down the coast, from development and things like that.

So the lagoon has been suffering from a lot of nutrient pollution, specifically from an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus that have been feeding toxic algae blooms.

>>Last year, a research grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the county allowed for a company, AECOM, to bring its purpose built algae harvesting ship into the fight to help restore the lagoon.

Here's how it works.

Water flows through a collection system on the ship.

A chemical is then added to lump together all the algae in the water so large amounts can be removed from the lagoon.

Scientists are still in the process of analyzing the results of the work.

>>We have an abundance of nutrients.

A lot of this is coming in from old septic tanks.

We have sewage problems and we also have legacy fertilizer issues.

So we need as many tools as possible to take the nutrients out.

And this particular process and how we harvest the algae allows us to provide also clean water back.

And a lot of this toxic algae or the blue green algae really suffocate out the sunlight and starve out the photosynthesis for the seagrasses.

And we're looking at ways that we can help mitigate that and reduce that problem.

>>It's that seagrass die off that led to hundreds of manatees starving to death in 2022 because of lack of food.

>>When you start taking away some of those key species, such as like seagrass, it can have a trickle down effect that affects other organisms that live in the ecosystem as a whole.

>>To help, Brevard County partnered with the Brevard Zoo and they are focusing on using a natural filtration system.

Oysters.

>>There's like a couple that have been circling-- >>Olivia Escandell says these mollusks are small but mighty.

>>Oysters were once very prolific in Brevard County.

But unfortunately, years of development and overharvesting, we've lost much of those populations.

And oysters are amazing filter feeders.

So one adult oyster can filter up to 30 gallons of water in a single day.

So we're trying to bring these important native filter feeders back because they can help to improve water quality.

There are a couple of different ways by filtering water and consuming the algae, but they also help to remove nitrogen and phosphorus.

>>While oysters are nature's natural filtration systems.

Mangroves provide a further assistance to the lagoon by clearing out some of the nutrients and pollutants which are major contributors to the harmful algae blooms.

So what is the purpose of planting mangroves in the shoreline?

>>We can plant them and their roots can grow out and secure the shoreline from things like erosion caused by wave action.

And in doing so, they also create a habitat space for other marine species because they're called the kidneys of the seas.

They're so good at filtering water.

They're so good at providing habitat.

>>Scientists and officials say there's an economic impact to restoring the lagoon.

Leaders say the waterway is a $7.6 billion annual economic driver.

They also predict that even though many groups are involved in cleaning up the lagoon, it's still likely to take decades to get the job done.

>>I think there's a good chance that the system can be restored to what it was pre development.

I don't know if it could ever go back to the pre human state per se.

But I do believe that through concerted investment and scientific advancement and just general stewardship, that the lagoon can be restored to a level to where it can start to take care of itself and the system can find its own resilience.

>>NewsNight's Krystel Knowles reporting.

Well, joining me in the studio to talk about all things lagoon, Brandon Smith is an environmental specialist in the Natural Resources Management Department at Brevard County, Brevard Save Our Lagoon program, established in 2017, addresses ways to cut pollution in the waterway.

Laurilee Thompson, a Brevard resident and owner of the Dixie Crossroads Restaurant, she works with several organizations that are helping restore the lagoon.

And is part of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

She's also a member of the Save Our Lagoon Citizen's Oversight Committee.

Craig Wallace, Craig is chairman of the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition, which partners with dozens of organizations as well as businesses and individuals to support lagoon restoration.

And two journalists who spent years covering the Indian River Lagoon and the restoration efforts.

Greg Pallone, Brevard County reporter with Spectrum News 13.

And Amy Green, who writes about Florida's environment for InsideClimate News.

Thank you so much, guys, for coming in.

Really appreciate your time today.

Let's start out with a big picture question.

I'll start with you first, Brandon, on this one.

The state of the lagoon today.

If you had to compare where we are today, you say ten years ago, how do you think we're doing?

>>Ten years ago is when we were starting to see a lot of declines in the lagoon.

So I think we've made progress since then and things are on the upswing, but it's still going to take time to restore it.

>>What do you think, Laurilee?

>>I think we're in a lot better shape today than we were ten years ago.

Ten years ago, we were doing our first unusual mortality events for both manatees and dolphins.

We were seeing the first starvation deaths of dolphins and the manatees weren't starving yet then, but they had switched over to a diet of caulerpa which has an organism on it that was affecting their their nervous systems.

And they were they were drowning, literally drowning.

So we've gone through another unusual mortality event of starving manatees.

But things seem to be a whole lot better now.

>>I moved in right at the time we had the 2016 fish kill, so it's dramatically different than what it was then when the whole lagoon was brownish, whatever color you want to call it.

To now I can see down to almost six feet down to the bottom, clear as day.

Amazing difference to me.

>>Maybe a lot of people that move into the area and there are a lot of them wouldn't realize what it was like.

Back then, you were covering the lagoon then.

What do you think about the restoration?

>>I've been covering the lagoon since moving here in 2007, was not familiar with it at the time, but it's just nice to see the seagrass returning.

You know, a lot of people just don't understand how essential that is for the manatees and for the health overall health of the lagoon.

And, you know, I've seen the highs and lows of it as as they have as well.

And I'm glad we're seeing more highs lately than lows because it seems to be coming back.

And it's thanks to all the hard work of the people involved.

>>You've been around the lagoon a long time as well Amy do you agree with-- >>Well, what I was going to say, I really appreciate the optimism.

As a journalist I kind of specialize in pessimism and I think some things are not better.

And these continued episodes that we continue to see, the fish kill in 2016, the manatee die off in 2021 and 22 are really symptoms that point to a bigger problem, which is this widespread nutrient pollution that continues to flow into the Indian River lagoon and our other waterways across the state.

And while the state has taken some steps to address that problem, there really hasn't been a large, ambitious effort to address this nutrient pollution at the source.

>>Yeah, I do want to come to that in a little bit, but let's just talk about some of the strategies that are paying off, if we can, for a moment.

What do you think is most effective at the moment if it hasn't got us all the way, what do you think is working Brandon?

>>We try to stress that it's not just one thing because there's so many different sources.

We can't identify just one source to tackle and address that's going to fix the lagoon.

So we need to kind of spread that out over many different things, whether it's septic removal or upgrades, muck removal, stormwater improvements, all of them play a big part in the pollution in the lagoon, so they all need to be addressed.

>>What do you think, Craig?

I mean, do you agree with that assessment?

>>Everybody kind of blames things on sewage or whether it's septic or sewer leakage or whatever, but people really don't understand.

I think and I'm not a biologist, but, you know, the impact of stormwater, dirty stormwater is probably more significant than any of any of those.

And we've actually proven that in terms of the spill releases, you know, don't compare to the amount of pollution that goes into the lagoon just from stormwater.

>>So when you talk about stormwater, you know, we put in baffle boxes that you put in like at the end of a ditch or at the end of a stormwater pond that overflows and it has compartments in it.

It's good for catching trash like leaves and cigarette butts and straws, but what a baffle box doesn't do is it doesn't stop fresh water from going into the lagoon.

And so we have too much freshwater going into the lagoon.

And if you talk to the fishermen, you talk to the seagrass biologists, you talk to the biologists that are trying to do oyster restoration and clam restoration.

They will all tell you that there's still too much freshwater going into the lagoon.

We need to try to figure out how to keep as much stormwater from going into the lagoon.

There's methods low impact development, which is you try to keep the stormwater that that know falls on, on your property, on the property and not have it go into the lagoon.

St John's River Water Management District is doing some large diversion projects down in the south end of the county.

It's a little more complicated in the northern part of the lagoon, but it's critical that it happens up there too, because the northern end of the lagoon, it's like a nursery ground for the rest of the lagoon.

It's not all developed the way it is further south.

>>On the manatees issue, Amy, how do you assess the situation as far as manatees are concerned?

There's some debate about now about whether they should go back on an endangered list that numbers have come back a bit.

What do you think?

>>Yeah, well, I think, you know, as we look ahead to 2024, I think one thing that a lot of people are watching is whether the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service will restore the endangered status for the manatee.

And you'll recall in 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service down listed the manatee from endangered to threatened.

And a lot of people thought that was really premature.

And so a few weeks ago, some of the environmental groups filed an intent to sue, to kind of pressure the Fish and Wildlife Service to act on that.

And some people think that for the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service to restore that endangered status, it would send a message about the fragile situation that the manatee faces in Florida, and especially in the Indian River Lagoon, which is a really crucial habitat for the manatee.

And it might create some added or it might incentivize some added protections for the manatee and some added habitat protections would which would help the manatee and also other species in the Indian River Lagoon.

>>Of course the manatee is such a beloved feature of Florida.

And I wonder when you do your reporting, Greg, I mean, do you find that people are sort of somewhat out on the coast, invested in the plight of the manatee and seeing it return?

>>I'll say a little bit more education probably should be put forth.

A lot of people just really need to we need to take it and be stakeholders in it and try to get that education out there because it only seems to make national news when we have a big one.

When we have just a few, we still need to bring attention to it because that's the beginning of what could happen again, like it did a few years ago.

>>Always such a tragedy when we see those numbers decline.

Let's take a short pause to hear from another voice in this process.

I talked recently with Jessy Wayles, who is the Northern Indian River Lagoon Community Engagement Coordinator for the Indian River Lagoon Council.

I started by asking her about those concerns we just discussed about algal blooms and how they're tied to the Army Corps' releases from Lake Okeechobee as a way to control levels in the lake.

>>The Lake Okeechobee releases are devastating for the lagoon.

The water coming out from Lake O is 100% freshwater.

We have a brackish water system that's about 30 parts per thousand salinity.

When you add all of that fresh water in those high volumes to the lagoon, it absolutely tanks the salinity and it tanks the ecosystem.

We're also seeing cyanobacteria or blue green algae coming out from Lake O.

Blue green algae can't survive in brackish water systems.

So as that dies off, it starts to create large mats of low dissolved oxygen, and that's what eventually leads to fish kills.

So as we continue to see these discharges from Lake Okeechobee, we're going to continue having the issues that we're currently having in the lagoon.

So the only way to mitigate that is to restore the flow south.

Right.

So we have to completely eliminate any of the discharges east or west of the state and restore that flow back south.

Water is not a partizan issue.

Everybody cares about clean water no matter what side you fall on.

And that is something that we're going to keep working towards is cleaning up our water.

Everything is connected in Florida.

Right.

So all of the waterways are eventually going to lead out into the ocean.

Into the lagoon.

The lagoon is unique in that the only freshwater inputs it's getting are coming from manmade canals or the rain.

So anything we put in upstream as far as fertilizers and pesticides and derelict septic tanks, all of that is going to flow east into the lagoon area.

We are right at the northern cusp.

If you look that way, you'll see the Ponce Inlet lighthouse.

It expands all the way down to Jupiter.

>>In December, the governor committed $100 million to lagoon restoration efforts.

There's also the funds that have been made available in the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.

How do you, as an organization, assess government support both at the federal, state and local level?

And what more can policymakers and agencies do to help in those efforts?

>>We are extremely thankful to the governor to provide these funds through the Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the NEP for the bipartisan funds.

However, we need to make sure that we continue having funding.

So the $100 million for the next five years is going to be a great start to restoring the lagoon.

But we need a continuing source of funding to keep up this work.

>>I mean, do you have a set of guidelines when it comes to deciding how you spend those resources from various levels of government?

>>So the Indian River Lagoon has a CCMP.

It's a comprehensive conservation and management plan.

We put it together back in 2019 by going out to over 130 speaking engagements.

And we asked one question: What is wrong with the lagoon and how can we fix it?

So by doing that and coming up with a comprehensive conservation and management plan, we found six priority issues that we're currently working on.

Harmful algal blooms, wastewater, stormwater, impaired water, and seagrasses.

So now we know that those are the priorities for us.

Those are the priorities for everyone in the community of the lagoon.

And we can make sure that the projects we're funding are going to help those issues.

>>All right, Amy, that was Jessy Wayles there from the Indian River Lagoon Council.

You've covered Lake Okeechobee that we mentioned at the top of my interview there with her as part of your extensive reporting on the Everglades.

I wonder if you agree with Jessy that what happens there in the Everglades restoration has a profound effect on on the Indian River lagoon in our area.

>>Lake Okeechobee is one of the most important water resources in our state.

And what happens in Lake Okeechobee is really important to the coastal estuaries like the Indian River Lagoon because of those releases that she talked about during the piece.

The peninsula, to a degree, is still dealing with the massive amount of rain Hurricane Ian dumped on the state and Lake Okeechobee is relatively high, and that prompted the US Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year to release lake water east and west and to the coastal estuaries, including the Indian River Lagoon.

But there are worries that if we were to get another rainy event like a hurricane and if the lake were to get to that point again, the US Army Corps of Engineers would have to initiate those releases again.

And especially during the summer months, those harmful algae blooms love the warm temperatures.

>>Brandon, Jessy Wayles also talked about spending needs.

I mean, in Brevard there's a half cent sales tax that was passed approved in 2016 that pays for the county's restoration work.

Is that from your department's point of view, the funding needed when you combine it with other sources, state and federal and so forth, how do you look resource wise?

>>Yeah, so we're lucky enough to get to have some sales tax that's generating over half a billion dollars towards lagoon restoration projects.

And with the federal funding and state funding that we've also been able to leverage with that, it helps us to make those dollars go further.

But even then, we still have a laundry list of projects that could be done.

And every time we get additional funding, we can add new projects in.

So we've, you know, more than doubled the amount of projects that we put in the plan when we first started it.

>>I mean, the Sierra Club gave the legislature a failing grade last year, and it mentioned the preemption of local ordinances limiting fertilizer applications.

But the state has put a lot of money into restoration work over the over the last few years.

I wonder how you guys assess the work of policymakers when it comes to the lagoon.

Craig, I'll start with you.

>>Yeah, I think any time you get money, especially in the hundred million dollar bracket, you say thank thank you very much, because it's just not traditional for environmental funding.

And the Indian River Lagoon got a lot of that funding because we have this this half cent local sales tax.

So the fact that we've got that and you've got local dollars being invested, that makes it a lot easier for legislators to say, okay, well where's the matching funds now as opposed to just throwing money and the local people don't really notice.

So that's a real big impact.

But it also is, as Jessy alluded to, you know, the amount of money that's going to be required to really fix the lagoon is in the many, many billions.

And the 100 million a year is great, but it's not in the billions.

So we need to get additional funding to keep that going.

>>I mean, there is a a raw return on investment calculation here, right, Laurilee?

I mean, you're a business woman, I mean, is there more than just the environmental issues that we need to be concerned with?

Does the economy go hand in hand with that?

>>Yeah, absolutely the East Central Florida Regional Council in 2015 came up with the $7.2 billion total economic impact for the whole Indian River Lagoon region that also came up with a $33 return for every $1 that's spent on fixing the lagoon.

That's a pretty good return.

But you think about it, that was, what, seven years ago?

So imagine the the economic impact that the lagoon has now compared to what it had back in 2015.

So the contributions to our economy are huge.

>>What do you think, Greg?

I mean, you've been around Brevard County a long time, obviously covering the business community as well.

Do people there see a link between what happens to the lagoon and the environment with the overall success of the county?

>>We talk to businesses all the time that are that's their bread and butter, is having a healthy lagoon and bringing people in, whether it's someone who rents kayaks or maybe, you know, a fisherman or something like that.

And any time we can put the spotlight on these projects and let people know where this money is being spent and how it's being spent, the return on investments.

People don't say that half cent is going to waste.

It's not.

But it is.

It's a problem that we're decades in the making.

It's going to take a long time to get out of it, too.

>>I want to wrap up by sort of talking about how you guys see things going in the future.

We've talked about some of the successes and setbacks that we've seen so far, but what about going forward?

I mean, are you guys optimistic?

Brandon I'll start with you.

>>I see the projects that we're doing and the number that we have going forward when we're complete with the Save Our River Lagoon program will remove 1.4 million pounds of nitrogen pollution and over 106,000 pounds of phosphorus pollution, which is feeding those algae blooms.

It's taken other estuaries like Tampa Bay and Chesapeake Bay decades to see recovery.

We're getting a lot of anecdotal evidence now, people saying, you know, you've cleared the muck out of our area and now we're seeing animals returning.

Or I got a grand slam off my dock when I haven't seen that in years.

So we're glad to see that progress.

But it's going to take time to get that widespread throughout the lagoon.

>>What do you think Laurilee?

>>Well the lagoon will, it'll never be wild and free the way it was when I was growing up.

We because of development, we have turned it into a system that's always going to have to be managed.

And so we need to keep going forward.

And if the funding stopped, then so would so much of the work that's going on right now, the good work.

So we need to keep it rolling, keep it going.

>>Craig, what do you think?

Are you optimistic?

>>I'm always optimistic.

However, one of the things we need to be aware of is we're all under the control of Mother Nature.

So this is forecast to be a nasty storm season.

We don't know whether we're going to get direct hits or not.

And I hope hopefully we don't.

But that could that could be a big turn around.

So we've seen in the past where we've had long periods of rather dry periods and then all of a sudden we get hit with the big wet storms and that can turn things around quickly.

So we can't expect, as both Brandon and Laurilee have said, you know, we've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

>>Obviously for the journalists here, it's not your job to be optimistic or not.

But I wonder about from the people that you talk to, whether you hear optimism or skepticism about the future of the lagoon.

>>We tell people stories in all we do anyway.

But I mean, if you see the passion here today and you see the people who are involved with this, I mean, you know, yeah, there's a lot a lot more ladder to climb.

But I just think with that positivity that they have, their efforts, their initiatives and the fact that they are not going to stop and that influences other people to get involved too, because it takes a village to solve a problem.

And I think this town is growing pretty good.

So I think there's a with with everything that they say that they're doing and attempting to do, but also convincing the public it's worth doing, then I think we're going to be in good shape.

Long road ahead, but still.

>>It is.

Amy, final word to you.

>>Well, one thing that a lot of people are hopeful about is a large effort the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been engaged in for four or five years to redo the rules for managing Lake Okeechobee.

And the hope is that these new rules will give the Army Corps more flexibility in managing the lake, and it'll give the Army Corps more opportunity to send that water south rather than east and west in a very unnatural flow.

So it's an exciting time when it comes to these restoration projects to see a lot of money flowing that way.

>>It is an exciting time and a really fascinating conversation, but that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to the panel for joining us this evening for this important discussion.

Be sure to check out much more of this discussion and my full length interview with Jessy Wayles from the Indian River Lagoon Council on our website wucf.org/newsnight.

Meantime, we'll be back next Friday evening at 8:30 with part two of our NewsNight Conversations series looking at coastal resiliency efforts in Florida.

Until then, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.