BY BOB BRUCE AND DEBORAH ECKER
The IRNA wishes to thank Commissioner Tim Zorc for taking the initiative to sponsor the Symposium on the health of the Indian River Lagoon held on March 26th.
As a signer of the Call to Action – Indian River Lagoon Coalition, our organization joins in placing a high priority on restoring and protecting the Lagoon’s water quality.
The IRNA has suggestions about steps that could be taken in a restoration campaign. We want to make it clear that while we ask our Board of County Commissioners to assume leadership; we recognize that the county’s five municipalities, the six Water Control and Improvement Districts, regional and state agencies, and private organizations also need to take parallel, responsible actions.
Most of our suggested and corrective steps would not require expenditures. Yet these actions, if taken by the BCC and repeated by the municipalities, could produce major restorative results.
IRNA’s Suggestions:
1. Create a committee that includes representatives from the BCC, five municipalities, the six Water Control and Improvement Districts, key environmental organizations, and marine scientists. Assign this committee the task of identifying the most probable causes for the Lagoon’s water quality deterioration and producing recommendations for corrective actions.
2. Assign the Traffic Engineering Division to design and install preventive measures for runoff from roadways; and to work with the Florida Department of Transportation to do the same.
3. Instruct those County and Municipal agencies whose properties have extensive grounds, to make sure clippings from mowing do not go into drainage systems and that harmful fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides are not applied.
4. Assign the Department of Community Development to draft amendments to IRC Land Development Regulations about proper management of littoral zones around water retention areas to existing as well as future developments and extend the regulations to all waterfront areas.
5. AdoptanaggressiveprogramtoeducateownersofpropertiesaboutcausesofpollutionandBest Management Practices for landscape maintenance. Revive the Conservation Lands Advisory Committee and assign them the task of overseeing all owners of agricultural land about Best Management Practices for citrus, sod, and grazing. Include advisories about catch basins for storm water runoff from all structures.6) Issue a Fact Sheet, naming names, of harmful fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides and where the environmentally-correct ones are available. Invite vendors of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to discuss with you ways to promote the sale of acceptable products.
7. Monitor operations of the relief canals’ clean-up facilities and the water treatment plant’s disposal area which you have participated in constructing, to make sure they are meeting their purposes.
8. Work with the Water Control Districts (in cooperation with the St. Johns River Water Management District, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection) to assure that Best Management Practices are followed to eliminate solid and solvent pollutants in all canals.
9. Assign the Division of Environmental Health to produce proposals for more comprehensive and improved permitting and monitoring of septic systems. There should be regulatory changes to require all septic systems to be brought up to current code in the event of failure found during the monitoring process. Require property owners with septic systems to connect to gravity-flow sewer systems, where available. This is urgent for those with septic systems installed before 1983. The county should provide financial aid for this purpose.
In addition to the above, we ask your Board to give serious consideration to Commissioner Robert Solari’s proposal for a long-term solution to the problem of tributary pollutants by reversing drainage-area flow to the west. The steps listed above could result in remedies that would go a long way toward protecting and restoring the Indian River Lagoon’s water quality.
Bob Bruce and Deborah Ecker Co-Chairpersons,
Water and Lagoon Committee
Indian River Neighborhood Association
Indian River Guardian 
All of these sound great, and I’m sure the Pelican Island Audubon Society members would be eager to assist in any way possible. I just ready an article in their April issue of Peligrams that addresses problems here. Written by Pres. Richard Baker, it, like the article above, sees the ecological problems as something we must work on NOW. As far as reversing the ‘drainage-area flow’ westward, I would hope great care will be taken not to merely create a problem in a different direction. It is the responsibility of all of us to do whatever we can in reducing all types of pollutions. This may be especially important now, since most government agencies have cut back their staff to near-barebones. It leaves little extra time for these employees to work on additional projects–no matter how urgent they are. Let’s DO IT!