Septic tanks suspected in Indian River Lagoon’s algae woes

JIM WAYMER/FLORIDA TODAY

COCOA BEACH — Brian LaPointe leaps into the Banana River Lagoon — and controversial topics — without hesitation.

In a spot called Shortys Pocket, just south of Minutemen Causeway, LaPointe and research assistant Laura Herren pull up thick globs of stringy seaweed from the lagoon bottom, some of it covered in tiny bud-like stingray eggs.

The two researchers with FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce seek seaweed here because 111 or more manatees have died in the region in the past year eating the stringy stuff, called Gracilaria, or red drift algae. State wildlife biologists say that as the sea cow’s usual seagrass diet has been clouded out by algae blooms, manatees had to eat more of the thick Gracilaria, instead, possibly taking in some yet-to-be-discovered toxin.