Eau Gallie River and Elbow Creek Muck Dredging — Melbourne, Florida

The Eau Gallie River runs 3.9 miles through north Melbourne before it meets the Indian River Lagoon at the old Eau Gallie waterfront. For decades its bottom filled with muck, and between 2017 and 2019 it became the site of the first project ever to pump that muck out. According to the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD), a hydraulic dredge began work on Jan. 25, 2017, and the job was completed on March 31, 2019, after more than 600,000 cubic yards had been removed from the main stem of the river and from Elbow Creek, its southern branch.

The dredged material did not go out to sea. It was piped to a containment area a few miles away on land owned by Brevard County. SJRWMD managed the work with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND), Brevard County and the City of Melbourne as partners, and the agency titled its project page EGRET after the Melbourne residents' group that pushed for the cleanup.

SJRWMD defines the material as a blend of fine sediment, sand, clay and rotting leaves, grass and other plant matter, carried by untreated stormwater into the canals and storm drains that empty into the Eau Gallie River. Once on the bottom it releases nutrients that feed algal blooms, keeps the water cloudy, clogs navigation channels, damages boat engines and gives lagoon plants and animals poor habitat. The agency adds that many species living in the Indian River Lagoon avoid muck sediments altogether, so a mucky river bottom like the one off Eau Gallie supports less life and makes paddling, fishing and swimming there unpleasant.

In the Eau Gallie the deposit had grown thick. When dredging began, WKMG ClickOrlando (Feb. 2, 2017) described the river's bottom as a black mayonnaise more than 12 feet deep in some spots, made largely of soil from sod farms, construction sites, farming and erosion plus decayed algae. Brevard County's boating and waterways program coordinator told the station that an outboard motor would simply churn through thick sludge. The same report noted that wind, boat wakes and storms stirred the sediment back into the water column, clouding the river and shading out seagrass.

Researchers at Florida Institute of Technology, a few miles south along the lagoon in Melbourne, were raising the same alarm. A Florida Tech media advisory dated Dec. 10, 2013 announced that John Trefry, professor of marine and environmental systems, would present on sediment accumulation and removal in the Indian River Lagoon to the Florida Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation, and would bring three large bags of muck to the hearing. The advisory also noted that Florida Tech had established its Indian River Lagoon Research Institute in November 2013.

ClickOrlando reported in February 2017 that the dredge would work from the river's confluence with the Indian River Lagoon west to the Eau Gallie River's Control Dam, and in Elbow Creek from its junction with the river up to the Magnolia Avenue Bridge and the Laurie Street Bridge. The contract went to Blue Goose Construction, based in Fort Pierce, with a target of at least 632,000 cubic yards, about 42,000 dump truck loads, by the end of 2018.

A hydraulic dredge moves sediment as slurry through a pipe. In this case the slurry went to Brevard County property next to the Sarno Road landfill, where the water drained out of the material before it was hauled across county land to the landfill for permanent disposal, according to the 2017 report. SJRWMD records that FIND paid for construction of that Dredge Material Management Area and that Brevard County supplied both the drying site and the final placement site.

Wildlife rules shaped the schedule. The permit required dedicated manatee observers on site with authority to stop the dredge whenever a manatee swam within 50 feet of in-water work. No dredging was allowed in the Eau Gallie River or Elbow Creek from March 1 through April 30, and restricted parts of the lagoon where manatees could become trapped were closed to dredging from Nov. 1 to May 31.

The money came mostly from Tallahassee. SJRWMD lists DEP as the main funder, providing $20 million approved by the Florida Legislature in 2014 and 2015. FIND contributed $3.9 million toward design, permitting and the dredge material site, and the City of Melbourne contributed $50,000 for the initial feasibility study. Brevard County's share was land rather than cash.

Those figures explain why the project was described as costing $24 million when it began in 2017 and as a $20 million state project when it ended. Spectrum News 13 reported on May 13, 2019 that the $20 million Eau Gallie River muck dredging project had been approved by the state legislature and led by DEP and the Florida Inland Navigation District, with SJRWMD overseeing the dredge.

The push to get that appropriation came from the riverbank. SJRWMD describes the Eau Gallie River Environment is Threatened group, known as EGRET, as a coalition of concerned Melbourne residents who pursued local, state and federal support for the river, and ClickOrlando reported that residents had lobbied the Florida Legislature for decades to fund the work.

At a ceremony on the morning of May 13, 2019, SJRWMD Executive Director Ann Shortelle called the finished work truly a success story, Spectrum News 13 reported. The station put the result at some 630,000 cubic yards of muck, or 40,000 dump truck loads, removed across a 2.6-mile project area of the Eau Gallie River and Elbow Creek. In 2017 SJRWMD had projected that removing that volume would take 1,200 tons of nitrogen and 260 tons of phosphorus out of the river system.

Shortelle also framed what came next: keeping new nutrients from the Melbourne watershed from rebuilding the deposit. That job falls largely to stormwater and septic programs. In 2016 Brevard County voters approved a half-cent sales tax for a countywide lagoon program, which Brevard County describes as addressing excess nitrogen and phosphorus by reducing pollution inputs, removing legacy loads of pollution and restoring natural filtration. Officials quoted by Spectrum News 13 in 2019 estimated the annual economic impact of the Indian River Lagoon at nearly $4 billion, a figure that framed the Eau Gallie River cleanup as part of a lagoon-wide effort in Brevard rather than a one-river fix.