Banana River Lagoon

Capt. Jim Ross

It hard to say what will happen in this portion of the lagoon this month. At the time of my editorial deadline, the Banana River was on life support. A severe algae bloom had once again taken hold, and the river looked like used radiator water. Too much nitrogen is still entering this body of water and it is killing it at a rapid rate. The causes for this bloom are easy to identify, but hard to stop. Residential and commercial lawn fertilizers are one source. Approximately one (1) pound of lawn fertilizer can contaminate 50,000 gallons of water. You purchase it in 40 to 50-pound sacks. That equates to between 2 and 2.5 MILLION GALLONS of lagoon water that is potentially “poisoned” for every single bag that is applied. So, look around, if your lawn (or your neighbors) looks like Augusta National Golf Course-YOU are part of the problem. The second and even more concerning as of late, is the amount of raw sewage that is being dumped into this lagoon by the city of Satellite Beach. They have dumped over 20 MILLION GALLONS of raw or untreated sewer water into the Banana River since last September. This is an unprecedented amount of wildlife and habitat degradation, and our own municipalities are the ones doing it. Hearsay is that they are “working” on the problem, but in my opinion, they’re not working fast enough. So, I’d like to tell you all where to go to find a living, breathing, fish in this “fishing 4-cast”, but I won’t even put my boat in the Banana River waters at this time.

Capt. Jim Ross
W-321-636-3728
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