• Boating — A Traditional Use of the IRL
• Boating Safety
• Blood Alcohol Content Chart
• Finding a Boating Course
• If You Need a Tow
• Hypothermia: The Danger of Freezing to Death
• The IRL Has Fragile Natural Resources
• Boating Demand Will Continue to Rise
• What About Dumping Waste From Boats?

 

Stretching from Ponce de Leon Inlet (just south of Daytona) to Jupiter Inlet, the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) spans more than a third of Florida’s east coast. It encompasses three major bodies of water (Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River and the Banana River) and two of the nation’s fastest-growing cities — Palm Bay and Port St. Lucie.

Almost as long as the Chesapeake Bay (155 vs. 180 miles), the IRL is quite shallow; the average depth is just three feet. It varies in width from less than a half-mile at the Narrows in Vero Beach to six miles at the northern end near Mosquito Lagoon.

The IRL, a bar-built estuary, has been called “the most diverse estuary in North America.” Indeed, the amount of animal and plant life along the IRL is truly staggering. There are more than 4,300 different species found in the region, including 1,350 plant species, 2,956 animal species (including 700 salt and freshwater fish species), and 310 bird species. Thirty-six of these species are classified rare or endangered.

An estimated one-third of Florida’s endangered manatees live in the IRL.

Commercially, the IRL is one of the most important waterways in Florida. It is a productive nursery ground for an estimated $300 million in annual commercial fish revenue, including $100 million from inshore varieties.

The IRL accounts for 50 percent of Florida’s total east coast fisheries catch and 90 percent of the state’s clam harvest (15 percent nationwide).

The IRL is so bountiful because it is geographically located in a transitional area between the temperate zone and the tropical zone and contains five different ocean inlets (Ponce, Sebastian, Ft. Pierce, St. Lucie and Jupiter). Having numerous inlets allows tropical species to enter the southern inlets from the nearby Gulf Stream, while more temperate species swim in from the north.

Early settlers thought the waterway was a river and ignored its original Indian name, “Great lagoon of the Ais,” named after the Indians who once fished, hunted and shellfished for oysters here. Old Ais villages are marked today by huge mounds of discarded shells. Modern chroniclers changed the name to the Ais River, then to the Indian River. Some maps identified the Indian River as a lake, stream, river or channel. Not until the 1980s did it regain its proper status as a lagoon.

What the Indian River is called may seem like pointless scientific quibbling, but it is not. How a waterway is perceived has a lot to do with how well people treat it.

People expect a river to have a certain amount of flushing action, so they sometimes tend to be careless about what they dump into it, expecting their trash to float far, far away. Not so in the IRL.

Only between 2 and 15 percent of the lagoon’s water actually flushes in and out of the inlets. Most of the estuary is a wind-driven system, the water flowing whichever way the wind blows.

Whatever gets dumped in the IRL usually stays there. Dumping anything — whether it’s garbage or freshwater runoff — degrades water quality, and good water quality is essential for good fishing.

So keep in mind, anything thrown in the water will remain there for a long, long time.

Boating — A Traditional Use of the IRL

Boats have sailed the IRL for perhaps thousands of years. Both Indians and early settlers relied on the waterway as the easiest and most efficient way for journeying along Florida’s east coast.

Although America’s first permanent settlement was established at St. Augustine in 1513, roads were not cut along the river banks or through the thick semitropical jungle for two more centuries.

Furthermore, early Florida colonists were much more spread out than those in the North where people lived close together, crowded into densely settled towns. By contrast, early Florida settlers had been granted 160 acres each, many of which fronted the Indian River. The waterway automatically became indispensable for moving people, mail and goods to and from the rest of the world.

Sailboats and multidecked paddlewheelers were the main forms of transport until the 1890s, when the coming of the railroad finally ended Florida’s isolation.

Today, the shore below the mean high water line is held in trust to allow public access for sunning, boating, fishing and other recreational activities.

Boating Safety

Falling overboard and drowning accounts for at least one in four boating fatalities.

Incredibly, many of these victims were simply reaching out to grab their hat, which had been blown in the water.

Most of them probably never considered for an instant they were in any danger.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, more than half of all boating fatalities involve alcohol. Not only does too much drinking lead to impaired vision and judgment, it also affects a person’s balance. Losing your balance on land probably won’t cause you any harm. Stumble on a boat, particularly a small one, and you could easily fall overboard.

To get out of the water safely, you’ll need to react quickly and decisively. Partying too much — even drinking at all — could fatally impair not only your own responses but hinder those on board trying to rescue you.

Blood Alcohol Content Chart

Finding A Boating Course

The best way to be prepared for any situation you might encounter on the water is to be knowledgeable. And the best way to gain boating knowledge is from the experts who know it best — the qualified instructors who teach on behalf of the following organizations:

If You Need A Tow

If you break down anywhere in the IRL, you’re not far from a tow as long as you have a VHF radio and a credit card. All tow services monitor Channel 16, 24 hours a day. Check the individual county chapters for your nearest tow service.

Hypothermia: The Danger of Freezing to Death

Boaters “freezing” to death in Florida? Yes, it does happen all too often.

Hypothermia — the loss of body heat — is probably your greatest survival threat if you capsize, especially in winter. Cold water robs the body of heat 25 to 30 times faster than air. Just 15 minutes in cold water not only will numb your skin but will also significantly lower your core body temperature, which in turn affects your brain, spinal cord, lungs and heart.

The first step to save yourself: get back in or on the boat and keep your body out of the water as much as possible. Wrap yourself with clothing, life jackets or anything that will help reduce body heat loss. Pay particular attention to covering your head — between 50 and 80 percent of your body heat is lost through your head.

Experts advise that in cold water you should not attempt to swim for shore unless it is quite close. They advise it’s better to stay as still as possible. Swimming will cause blood to be pumped to your extremities where it will cool quickly, and this could help reduce your survival time by as much as 50 percent.

If you have a companion aboard, huddle together for shared warmth. If you’re alone, hold your knees against your chest and place your arms to your sides to retain all the body heat you can.

The IRL Has Fragile Natural Resources

Estuaries like the IRL provide vital habitat for more than 70 percent of Florida’s fish, crustaceans and shellfish. Without healthy estuaries, Florida’s recreational and commercial fishing activities would collapse. The fragile ecology of the IRL is under tremendous pressure from ever-increasing population growth.

Although they may appear hearty and robust, many of the estuary’s resident species are actually quite delicate. The conditions that existed in the IRL for perhaps thousands of years allowed many species to evolve into highly specialized niches. Perhaps the best example of such specialization is the manatee, which has no natural enemies in the wild and is the only marine mammal to become a vegetarian.

Sea Grasses: Sea-grass beds are the underwater version of the vast grasslands of the Great Plains. Without them, the IRL would become almost a barren desert.

Sea grasses provide an integral step in the food chain, essential food factories that, by using sunlight, convert nutrients into food that’s consumed by other animals.

Juvenile grouper and snapper require sea-grass beds for their nurseries. Important baitfish such as pinfish and pigfish rely on sea grasses to provide food and shelter. In the IRL, almost all species of gamefish depend on sea grasses at some stage of their lives for food or protection from predators. Sea grasses are also of particular importance to manatees, who graze on the sea-grass blades.

Types of Sea Grasses in Florida

As flowering plants that live underwater, sea grasses are also important sources of oxygen. Furthermore, their root system helps stabilize the bottom. Most important, sea grasses keep the water clear by trapping fine sediment.

In the past, dredge and fill operations for developing channels, marinas and homes and businesses accounted for the drastic decline in sea grasses. However, today water quality accounts for the greatest decline.

Boating Demand Will Continue To Rise

Florida is one of the fastest-growing states in the country. An estimated 600 people move into the state each day. Because they move here to take advantage of the warm climate, beaches, waterways and year-round fishing, most newcomers take up residence not far from the water. And one of the more common first purchases is a boat.

The average number of registered boats in the IRL region is nearly double that of the state’s average, making this one of Florida’s fastest-growing boating populations.

However, the number of boat registrations in the five counties on the IRL reflects only a portion of the number of people who actually navigate and fish the waterway. In fact, economists estimate that 2.5 people are typically aboard each boat. A sizable number of boats are trailered in every weekend from Orlando and other inland regions as well as from other states.

Boat registrations for the five counties represented 11 percent of all boats registered in Florida in 1992-93. For the IRL, that’s 486 boats per mile of waterway.

What About Dumping Waste From Boats?

Dumping raw, untreated sewage into the IRL is one of the surest ways to destroy it. The raw waste from a single overnight sailor produces as much bacterial pollution as the treated waste of 100,000 people.

In other words, to meet acceptable health standards, the bacterial pollution generated by just one flush requires 5 million gallons of water to dilute. That’s equivalent to 619 orange juice tankers or 333 swimming pools (containing 16,000 gallons per pool).

Because this is a lagoon lacking significant flushing action, what gets dropped in the IRL usually stays in — not a pleasant prospect for swimmers, water-skiers or anglers.

Discharging raw sewage not only introduces disease-carrying microorganisms, the decaying waste can also reduce oxygen levels in the water, causing marine species to suffer. Of course, eating shellfish from polluted water is always risky, and sometimes fatal.

However, boat owners have been hampered by a lack of pump-out stations not only in Florida but throughout the entire United States. A 1994 BOAT/U.S. survey of members showed that 67 percent felt there were not enough pump-out stations in their area. The respondents also complained that the existing pump-out stations were too often out of service.

Matters should improve. Under the federal Clean Vessel Act, Florida will receive funds to place at least 20 new pumping stations along the IRL’s heavily traveled waters. The fee for using a federally funded pump-out station is capped at $5.

The federal government is paying for 75 percent of the construction cost, with funds derived from the 1990 five-cent increase in the federal fuel tax.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the FMP are the agencies that enforce no-discharge regulations. Violations may result in fines up to $2,000. An illegal discharge is defined as one that takes place within the 3-mile limit of the coast.

In addition, all boats with heads are subject to Marine Sanitation Device (MSD) regulations. There are three types of MSDs:

• MSD Type I: Chops or macerates sewage and may add disinfectant chemicals. It disintegrates solids before dicharging.
• MSD Type II: Treats sewage by biological means before discharging; separates solids for incineration or pump out. It is recommended that you use this device or MSD Type III if your boat is 65 feet or longer.
• MSD Type III: Stores untreated sewage on board in a holding tank for pump-out at a station or outside the three-mile territorial seas boundary.

Designated no-discharge zones (NDZ) have been rare in Florida. In 1990, the only existing NDZ in the entire Southeast was designated in Destin, Fla. It’s different in other parts of the country: for example, the entire Great Lakes has been an NDZ for years.

With increased public awareness and greater availability of MSDs, the threat from untreated or minimally treated waste will be greatly reduced.