User:Admin
Indian River Lagoon Project User Page for Admin
Administrator of the Indian River Lagoon Project website.
Born and raised in West Melbourne, I grew up fishing and swimming in the Indian River lagoon from Wabasso to Titusville. In those days a young scout could paddle over to Grange Island's campsite for the weekend and easily harvest enough shellfish, shrimp, crab and fish to feed a hungry troop. Today, I can't see my toes in ankle deep water and I don't swim or harvest in the IRL due to high coliform levels and toxic chemicals in the food chain. Some estuary lagoons are on the cusp of turning into algae based ecosystems because 95% of the seagrass, the estuary's keystone species, has been lost due to human impact.
The 1960's Space Boom put Brevard County on the world map. As people flooded to the Space Coast to take advantage of the economic prosperity that came with NASA's Kennedy Space Center, huge housing developments sprang up from Titusville to Palm Bay. Crucial wetlands were drained for development by canal systems that continue to dump nutrient-laden stormwater runoff into the IRL today. Residential canals were dug to create lots for thousands of waterfront homes, each with it's own septic system and over-fertilized lawn, that continue to leech millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorous into the estuary's lagoons.
Roads and causeways were built to accommodate the new space center, barrier island residents, and the many tourists that flocked here to view frequent Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launches. The access provided by the new roads and bridges brought unbridled development to Brevard's beaches and Indian River Lagoon shorelines. In a rush to accommodate the flurry of new hotels, condominiums, and office buildings they approved, underfunded municipalities installed "cost effective" utility systems that were not designed for longevity or future population growth.
In the 1950s NASA used eminent domain to take Brevard's natural resources in the name of "National Security". The safety buffer they provided around the Kennedy Space Center became the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore, and KSC's three brackish water lagoons became the foundation for the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary. If NASA had not acquired and preserved these nature areas the largest tract of undeveloped primitive beach remaining on Florida's East Coast would be urban sprawl today.
I began earnestly researching the demise of the IRL estuary in order to educate myself. When my research archive grew difficult to manage, it was organized using content management software on a local network server. The need to access the files remotely, and share the archive with others, eventually prompted me to publish the information on the internet.
Indian River Lagoon News began as an online project documenting the IRL estuary for educational purposes and has now grown to include a virtual library, resource directory, document archive, local news and community events. Since it's 2019 inception IndianRiverLagoonNews.org has indexed over 850 web pages and welcomed over 89,000 internet visitors searching for Indian River Lagoon information.
