Save the Indian River Lagoon Now has come up with five pilot projects the group hopes can be scaled up into powerful solutions for some of the estuary’s worst ecological woes. The projects include muck analysis and eventual removal, canal water purification, and an open-source website that will serve as an information clearinghouse for everyone involved in lagoon research and repair.
Founded last fall by District 3 Commissioner Tim Zorc, Vero Beach Utilities Commission member Scott Stradley and marine contractor Jeffrey Meade, STIRLEN is a privately funded 501(c)3 nonprofit. The three men launched their effort with a daylong workshop in January that brought together a panel of 20 scientists and other experts representing environmental organizations, educational and research institutions, and state and federal agencies. The goal was to share information and reach concensus about how to reverse the lagoon’s drastic ecological decline.
Meade says the muck-testing pilot project is well underway near an outfall that has transported 100,000 cubic feet of sediment laden with nitrogen, phosphorous and heavy metals into the lagoon over the past 15 years.
“We are doing an extensive study on legacy load that has built up over the years in that location. We want to document and verify that it came from manmade events. Mark von Canal of Swampfox Environmental Services is our consultant. He took the samples and we have had extensive laboratory testing done.”
A detailed report on the findings is due out in several months. The ultimate goal of the study is to establish a framework for removing ecologically harmful muck from the lagoon. Once the situation is clearly charted, Meade says STIRLEN hopes to tap muck-mitigation funds being dispensed by the legislature.
The planned water purification pilot project will utilize a mobile unit to draw water from the main relief canal and extract nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemicals. Zorc says the company STIRLEN is working with will be able to extrapolate from the limited extraction an estimate of how many pounds of chemicals could be removed if the entire canal flow was filtered before going into the lagoon.
“They have had a system up and operating at Lake Jessup for four years that can purify 100 million gallons a day,” Zorc says. At Jessup, a large, shallow lake in Seminole County with impaired water quality, St. John’s Water Management District pays the company a set fee for each pound of harmful chemicals removed from the lake’s water, and Zorc says the setup would be similar in Indian River County.
“It would be a pay-for-performance kind of deal. We have had preliminary conversations with Indian River Farms Water Control District about the pilot project but we haven’t discussed a specific location yet. That will be the next step.”
Meade says STIRLEN is closing in on completion of its website. “We have put a lot of time and effort into the website and it should be up and fully running within 30 days.”
The group will seek funding to staff the website to keep it updated. Some information may be self-posted by scientists and organizations; other material will be uploaded or linked to by a webmaster. The basic idea is to promote synergy and avoid duplication among researchers and keep the public informed.
“Currently there is much valuable data and research available about the Indian River Lagoon, but it is scattered amongst a large number of both public and private, educational and nonprofit sites. Our objective is to create an information hub [that aggregates] all this data at one friendly, easy-to-use website.”
STIRLEN plans to share lagoon news and information via social media as well, and to have website-based newsletter and special website guests.
Meade says the group has been funded so far by private donors.
“We have done a kind of soft launch and have sufficient funding to take us through this first stage. When the website is up and running and all the pilot projects are solid we will launch a larger fundraising effort. There are people Tim, Scott and I have spoken with who have indicated they will be there to support us at that time.”
John’s Island resident Edward Crutchfield was a notable early STIRLEN supporter. Known as “Fast Eddie” in Charlotte, NC, where he rapidly built one of the biggest banks in the U.S. in the 1980s and ’90s and helped transform the city into an international banking center, Crutchfield put up $50,000 to fund the group’s opening workshop.
