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Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance reports mostly compliant Destin water-quality readings, expands education and restoration work
Summary
The Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance updated the City of Destin on its NPDES monitoring, reporting that City stations largely met FDEP numeric nutrient criteria for 2024 and describing outreach, volunteer monitoring and pollution-prevention programs.
Kayla Wingard, monitoring program manager for the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance, told the City of Destin City Council that the alliance’s monthly monitoring at six stations in the Destin area showed that, on average for 2024, total phosphorus, nitrogen and chlorophyll did not exceed Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) numeric nutrient criteria at the City of Destin stations.
Wingard said the alliance carries out monitoring, education, restoration and research across the watershed and partners with Northwest Florida State College, thousands of volunteers and local groups to run the NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System)–related program in Destin.
The presentation outlined the alliance’s public-education work in Destin schools – about 200 fifth-grade students participated in a salt-marsh grass growth curriculum at Destin Middle School – plus community presentations, coastal cleanups and biodiversity contributions via iNaturalist. Wingard described five monofilament-recycling bins in the area (four in Destin Harbor, one at Joe’s Bayou boat ramp) and said volunteers collect and process fishing line for recycling.
On water-quality tools and results, Wingard demonstrated a newly upgraded online dashboard that shows station- and parameter-level results and noted the group sends nutrient samples to a laboratory and compares yearly chunks of data against FDEP numeric nutrient criteria, which are intended not to be exceeded more than once in a three-year period.
A council member asked about an elevated chlorophyll reading in Indian Bayou. Wingard said the alliance has noted elevated levels at nearby water bodies and that last year two stations in the area surpassed the chlorophyll criteria; for the most recent year she said one station exceeded the criteria in the Indian Bayou area. She declined to assign causes in the presentation, noting that FDEP maintains a blue-green algae tracker and that the alliance reports the measured exceedances but does not in this report diagnose causes.
Looking ahead, Wingard said the alliance plans to expand oyster-shell gardening and vertical oyster gardens in the harbor, pursue a “million-oyster” restoration aspiration with partners, and extend restoration and education programming into Destin High School. She provided contact information for follow-up questions and said the alliance receives mixed funding from grants and project-specific sources, including DEP, EPA and county partners.
The council did not take any formal action on the presentation; it was received as informational.
