Visitors to Samson’s Island, a park in Satellite Beach, are fortunate. The island is fairly clean, say officials, because parkgoers can toss their trash in a can that gets emptied by city crews.
And they can relieve themselves in a portable toilet that also gets serviced by the city. It’s only one, but the other 136 spoil islands in the state’s Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserves, don’t have any.
And that has led to a recent discovery of human waste on some other spoil islands in the lagoon, prompting the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to seek to remedy the situation.
And the Marine Resources Council is working on an $18,000 contract seeking answers for the DEP and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“In 1990, the state surveyed the (preserves’) 137 spoil islands, but that survey badly needs an update,” Caity Savoia, the council’s lead scientist, recently told a group of prospective volunteers. “And to do that, we need boots on the ground. We need people. And we need boats.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the islands in the 1940s and ’50s as “spoil” for vast amounts of lagoon bottom it was dredging up as it created the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.
Currently, the various aquatic preserves, as agencies of the DEP, maintain the islands in several zones as passive recreation. Visitors can camp and fish there, but there are no trash cans, restrooms or other facilities.
“There are no trash cans because there’s no waste-management crews going to the islands to empty the trash cans,” Savoia said.
DEP spokeswoman Sarah Shellabarger said the department has formed a partnership since 2016 with the national group Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics after reports of increasing recreational impacts on the spoil islands.
“On many of the spoil islands, litter such as cigarette butts, food scraps, beverage cans or bottles, plastic items, fishing line and abandoned camping gear are often found,” she said. “Additionally, there is an issue with improper disposal of human waste.”
The islands, she added, are made of sand and limestone. So they don’t break down human waste effectively, as upland soils can do. And that’s a problem, she said, as rains wash the waste into the already-ailing lagoon.
“Subsequently, much of this trash not only creates dirty and undesirable conditions on the islands, but also winds up in waterways and can potentially be unsafe for wildlife,” she said.
The Leave No Trace group seeks to educate parkgoers nationwide to take out everything they brought into a park, including any spent fishing gear, food containers, other trash – and their waste. In 2017 and 2018 the group declared the local spoil islands a sanitary “hot spot.”
Savoia said the Marine Resources Council now wants to talk to island visitors to find out just how they are using the islands – and how best they think human waste should be addressed.
Throughout the coming 18 months, she said, council volunteers will be boating to the spoil islands in southern Brevard, Indian River and St. Lucie counties with survey forms and interviewing groups of users.
Groups will set out mostly on sunny holidays and weekends, when there’s no storms in the forecast and the islands are expected to have the most users, she said.
The DEP has placed WAG bags, for “waste-alleviating and gelling,” on some of the islands. These bags keep human waste in a non-odorous state and are safe for disposing in regular trash.
But Savoia’s interviewers will be finding out how many users are aware of them. And this will give an idea of whether they should be provided on additional islands, she said.
Volunteers should expect to spend about 7 hours among the islands on each survey trip, Savoia said. They need to wear sunscreen, hats and shoes they can get wet.
They should bring their own lunch and water – and take the containers back to the dock.
Prospective volunteer interviewers and boat skippers can find out further details, such as the days of survey trips, the dock locations, when to show up – and if weather has called off a trip – by contacting Savoia at 321-725-7775 or Caity@mrcirl.org.
