Volusia OKs water quality cleanup plan for Mosquito Lagoon

Now that local officials have put together a plan to try to begin improving water quality in Mosquito Lagoon, the next steps are up to state and federal officials.

If the plan is approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Volusia County officials say it will put local governments in the "driver's seat" for improvements to Mosquito Lagoon rather than in "the passenger seat" with state and federal officials calling the shots.

The county collaborated with three cities, Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach and Oak Hill, to hire a consultant to draft the Mosquito Lagoon Reasonable Assurance Plan. All three cities have reviewed the plan in recent weeks and the County Council gave its nod last week. The plan recommends a half-dozen projects to remove nitrogen from the lagoon over the next 5 to 10 years.

“We’re taking a proactive stance,” Deputy County Manager George Recktenwald told the council. “The state will recognize that, and other agencies, and that will help in our efforts to get money for those projects.”

When the county applies for grants for projects, Recktenwald said state and federal agencies will ask whether the county assurance plan is part of its water quality plan.

Mosquito Lagoon, part of the Indian River Lagoon system, has been plagued for years by a series of algae blooms that killed seagrass and contributed to massive fish kills and the deaths of hundreds of marine mammals, including dolphins and manatees.

Action is needed in the lagoon, said County Councilwoman Deb Denys.

“Things are getting worse,” said Denys. “There is a fix. It’s going to cost some money but there’s a way collaboratively with all of our partners.”

“We’ll find the funding and do the right thing,” she said.

The reasonable assurance plan includes a list of potential projects that would help remove nitrogen pollution from the lagoon. It recommends at least six projects, totaling about $10.4 million over the next 10 years, that put the focus on direct sources of polluted water, such as storm water runoff.

The plan was hashed out in a series of 15 public meetings with the participating government agencies, as well as interested residents and non-profits, over the past two years.

Not everyone is happy with the final outcome. Several environmental advocates who followed the process were surprised and disappointed they weren’t notified the plan wasn’t being presented to the council on Tuesday.

“A number of people have a number of concerns with the report,” said Clay Henderson, executive director of the Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience at Stetson University. “It falls short of being a restoration plan, and it places too much emphasis on lowering water quality standards.”

Advocates also were disappointed the final plan didn’t focus more on septic tanks and thought the plan should have reported greater loss of sea grass.

Katie Tripp, a marine biologist for the Save the Manatee Club and a member of the Volusia County Soil and Water Conservation district board, is among those with concerns.

“The whole process has been very frustrating,” Tripp said. She’s particularly concerned about the decision to change the water quality targets to make them “less protective.”

“The important thing is it’s a step in the right direction,” said Tripp. “But is it an endpoint? No.”

The plan recommends several projects to divert and treat stormwater, which county officials said could generate the most cost-effective reduction of nitrogen in the waterways.

Environmental advocates had hoped to see more projects to replace aging and leaky septic tanks along the lagoon. However, the county’s consultant, Brett Cunningham of Jones, Edmunds and Associates, said calculations indicate septic tanks comprise only 4 percent of the nitrogen in the lagoon.

“Even if we get rid of all septic, you’re only removing 4 percent,” he said.

To meet the targets for removing nitrogen, it's likely the plan will have to target septic tanks at some point, Cunningham said, but first the county proposes to go after the projects that reduce the most nitrogen for the least cost.

County Chair Ed Kelley liked the strategy.

“We have to take an effort where we can and make the biggest bang for our buck,” Kelley said. However, he added he would like to see the county make “a real good effort” in areas where septic tanks are close to the water. “Those are the ones we should target and go after those specifically.”

Cunningham said a project to replace septic tanks at Indian Harbor would probably be the highest ranked of the possible septic projects, but would only achieve about 15 to 25 pounds of nitrogen removal and would cost far more per pound than the storm water projects.

Cunningham also noted the lagoon will benefit from the millions of dollars Brevard County is spending to clean up the Indian River.