Background
Activities such as urban development, agriculture, industry and regional water management have all impacted the waters of the IRL and SLE. In the past several projects have been initiated to address the environmental impacts of the IRL and SLE. Numerous efforts and activities have been initiated and are currently underway to improve surface water discharges into the IRL and SLE.
These incremental approaches and activities cover all land uses from agriculture to urban, and include a variety of efforts such as educational outreach, water conservation programs, mobile irrigation labs, surface water permit design criteria, regional reservoirs, urban stormwater retrofit projects, and the BMPs.
All growers who participate in the BMP program are expected to perform an environmental assessment of their crop production operations. This assessment is a tool used to identify which BMPs are currently in place and other BMPs that should be considered to achieve the greatest economic and environmental impact. Monitoring programs are needed to show that BMPs are effective in protecting water quality and quantity and to provide data for BMP revisions. In cases where the economic cost of implementing certain BMPs puts an excessive financial burden on the grower, such practices can only be considered if external funds are available. Not all BMPs are applicable to any particular operation therefore the “big picture” of each citrus operation should be considered prior to adoption of any BMP to ensure that each one adopted achieves its objective.
BMP Implementation Impacts
BMP grove evaluations began in May of 2002 and are still being conducted. To date 500 different groves have been assessed in 7 counties with the majority of the evaluations taking place in Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, and Okeechobee Counties. The se assessments often open the door to these operations for us to find other ways to increase production safety. Employee training programs are almost always scheduled after an evaluation. Producers are constantly looking for a way to continue to keep their employees trained and adhere to laws like Worker Protection Standard. These on-site training sessions are done in coordination with Jack Hebb the multi-county citrus extension agent and are extremely effective because we can train using the equipment the workers use day to day. Instead of using films that offer generic safety ideas we can point out specific safety and environmental concerns and offers solutions to problems the workers encounter as they work.
Summary
All types of land uses within the watershed contribute to surface water runoff and pollutant loads to the estuary. Since citrus is the largest land use type in the SLE/IRL watershed, the activities associated with citrus production are an important consideration in the overall health of the estuary. All activities on grove lands can potentially affect the water resources of the watershed. Wherever feasible growers should consider implementing best management practices to protect our natural resources in the Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie Estuary. There is no single project or effort that will eliminate all human impacts to the estuary and lagoon. Improvements will come through the use of all of these projects together and the efforts that reduce the volume of water and the loadings of constituents that degrade water quality.
