Brevard County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday, May 19, to put renewal of the half-cent Save Our Indian River Lagoon sales tax on the Nov. 3 ballot. Advocates of doing so say the plan is working and each of your dollars spent restoring the lagoon returns $24 to the regional economy.
If renewed, the tax would generate $800 million over 10 years for lagoon cleanups, county officials said.
“It provides transparency,” said Mitchell Roffer, a marine scientist who lives in south beaches. He pointed to the lagoon’s strong economic impact and importance to wildlife and human health. “It seems 10 years has gone by so fast, and we’re barely touching the surface.”
More than a dozen speakers weighed in Tuesday, some wearing T-shirts that said “Help our lagoon,” or “Save the lagoon.”
“I think it’s taken three generations to make this lagoon dirty,” said Commissioner Rob Feltner. “I think it’s going to take this one to clean it up. This is sort of the end of a chapter for us, and the voters will right the next chapter.”
The average Brevard family contributes $40 per year to the county’s Save Our Lagoon trust fund, according to the Indian River Lagoon Coalition, with visitors contributing about 40% of the money raised. Many items, such as groceries and medications are exempt from the tax.
Laurilee Thompson, owner of Dixie Crossroads Restaurant and longtime lagoon advocate, in Titusville, pointed to seagrass increases in recent years as evidence that the taxpayer dollars are helping to cure the lagoon. “I watched it start out in southern Mosquito Lagoon,” Thompson told commissioners Tuesday. “The seagrass growth is slowly working its way south. You guys that don’t have seagrass down here, yet. It’s coming. It’s coming.”
Money from the lagoon tax pays for dredging decades of rotted organic muck from the lagoon bottom, converting homes from septic tanks to sewer systems, and a litany of other lagoon cures.
Why the county says it matters
According to a recent economic analysis for the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program (NEP), the lagoon supports:
Lagoon sales-tax revenues have been used as local match to secure more than $127 million in federal and state grants, county officials said. Brevard also finished 133 lagoon cleanup projects and helped to leverage grants to help more than 2,500 homeowners and businesses to connect to sewer, repair sewer leaks or upgrade their septic systems to advanced, nitrogen-reducing systems, county officials said.
On May 12, the St. Johns River Water Management District announced 2025 data that shows lagoon seagrass has more than doubled in acreage in just four years.
Meanwhile, conservationists and resource managers hope the recent cold snap won’t undo the past decade of progress restoring the estuary’s seagrass and other marine life.
Decades of pollution set the stage, but it was extreme cold that created the tipping-point conditions that made the original lagoon recovery plan necessary.
A severe cold spell in 2010 triggered a ‘superbloom’ of seagrass-smothering plankton that blanketed the 156-mile-long estuary in 2011.
What does the new plan include?
A citizen oversight committee that includes representatives from the science and business communities recommends a lagoon cleanup plan yearly.
On Feb. 10, commissioners approved the final yearly plan of the 10-year Save Our Indian River Lagoon program, hinting at what the program might look like going forward.
The update includes 11 new projects and three project revisions. It funded 403 projects over the 10-year life of the plan (which ends this year, unless renewed by voters), plus 942 individual quick connections to sewer and 2,671 septic upgrades.
Plan highlights sewage
The plan includes $233 million (42% of the Trust Fund) to projects that improve sewage treatment and convert neighborhoods on septic tanks to sewer service.
Recommended changes align with the Commission’s 2019 shift in emphasis that reduced muck dredging from 66% of the original allocation and increased sewage-related projects up from 24%.
The plan includes:
Plan focuses on seagrass recovery
Seagrass is the linchpin of the lagoon’s ecology. Fish, shrimp, sea turtles and crabs are among the thousands of species that rely upon the bottom habitat to hide, feed and breed.
But resource managers say it will take another $5 billion and 20 years to save the stressed ecosystem.
Proposed lagoon tax ballot language for Nov. 3 ballot
To restore the Indian River Lagoon through infrastructure, capital improvements, capital maintenance projects and programs designed to improve water quality and fish and wildlife habitat, remove muck, and reduce pollution, shall Brevard County renew the existing Save Our Indian River Lagoon half-cent sales tax for ten years, and require deposit of all revenue to a trust fund solely for such purposes, with continued citizen committee oversight and annual independent audits?
___ YES for the half cent sales tax
___ NO against the half cent sales tax
Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JWayEnviro.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard County voters to decide on Indian River Lagoon tax renewal
Reporting by Jim Waymer, Florida Today / Florida Today
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