Loxahatchee River District outlines monitoring results, calls for stronger stormwater controls in Tequesta

Bud Howard, director of information services at the Loxahatchee River Environmental Control District, told the Village of Tequesta Environmental Advisory Committee on Wednesday that decades of monitoring show the Loxahatchee River remains ecologically valuable but vulnerable to local stormwater inputs.

Howard said the district treats 6 to 7 million gallons of wastewater per day and operates a long-running monitoring program, Riverkeeper, with samples going back to 1991. He described weekly and monthly bacteria sampling, continuous salinity instrumentation at multiple stations and longer-term surveys of nutrients, seagrass and oysters.

"We do weekly bacteria testing," Howard said. "Salinity is an important factor" that helps managers understand how marine water moves into historically freshwater areas. He added the district posts data and visualizations online at lrecd.org.

Howard emphasized three takeaways: brown or tannin-stained water is not necessarily polluted; the Loxahatchee River is not connected to Lake Okeechobee; and much local bacteria and organic loading originates from runoff and storm drains…