Indian River Lagoon Health Update

Dr. Leesa Souto, Executive Director of the Marine Resources Council, will present on the key indicators and targets of lagoon health and how the water conditions have negatively changed over time. Each attendee will be given a copy of the report to use for education and advocacy for the well-being of the lagoon. Together we can bring the IRL back to health!

General IRL Health Update Info:
Local non-profit organization, the Marine Resources Council of East Florida (MRC) in collaboration with the U.S. EPA’s National Estuary Program & Applied Ecology Inc. to produce the first-ever comprehensive health analysis of the entire Indian River Lagoon (IRL) system.

It is common knowledge that the health of the lagoon is in peril. For the first time, we now have a baseline of health, backed by 20 years of available science provided by the governing water management districts, to guide future restoration efforts and policy moving forward to improve the water quality of the failing IRL system. This report is the first step in a comprehensive IRL restoration effort. How do you manage and restore a 156-mile lagoon that spans 42 cities and 5 counties, if you don’t have all the data in one location and easily accessible? Finally, the public can easily see the available information on the state of the lagoon portrayed in info-graphics and charts. The report divides the lagoon into 10 distinct regions from New Smyrna to Jupiter. Each lagoon region is graded based on 5 indicators of health on a scale from 0 to 100, 100 being the best score and 0 the worst. The development of this report has cultivated a communications coalition of lagoon community partners, working together to build consensus on the restoration of the estuary.