pSpitting from the land, two biologists peered into the slate blue waters. Beneath it, the manatee floated like a cloud, lifting her terrible nose and exhaling a long, loud breath.
The Indian River Lagoon looked like the ideal symbol of Florida. But by that afternoon in late January 2021, scientists knew they were on the edge of a catastrophe.
For decades, beloved animals survived the winter retreat into this pocket of a lagoon near Cocoa. They graze the swaying sea grass in a gentle current.
But quietly, their sanctuary changed. The sea grass has disappeared. A valley of sand stretches for miles, like an underwater desert.
Dozens of dead manatees were washed away in Brevard County, and state scientists were rushing to understand why. Biologists scanned the rippling water. It didn’t take long to find another body.
This was a mother about nine feet long and rolled onto her back. Her body looked thin. Her belly is bent inward. Her head sank and collapsed like a peanut.
When researchers cut her body, they discovered that much of her fat had been wasted. Her intestines were watery, as if she had broken up from within. She had to weigh at least 1,000 pounds, but only 650 pounds.
She was hungry.
Over the next two years, hundreds of manatees will experience the same brutal, but avoidable fate. Their main food source disappeared after decades of contamination flooded the lagoon. And the most important home on the East Coast has been transformed into a cemetery.
For nearly half a century, Tallahassee lawmakers and environmental regulators know that ramp-stretched nitrogen and phosphorus contamination will wreaking havoc in valuable Florida waters.
However, they were unable to control the spill from major industries, allowing lagoons and hundreds of waterways to be dangerously contaminated, a Tampa Bay Times investigation found.
To trace Manatee’s death to its roots, Times reporters identified a surprising level of chemicals in one nearby waterway in four waterways, and conducted the first statewide analysis.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is spending millions of dollars to reduce pollution.
However, efforts have not been working, and times have been discovered.
More than half of the contaminated waterways analyzed by reporters have either shown worsening levels of contamination or have not improved in the past 20 years.
Florida regulators have not created targets to control pollution on most of them. And even if officials strengthen their efforts, more waterways are dirty rather than cleaner.
This trend should encourage state leaders to take prompt action, said Elizabeth Southland, a retired U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official who has finished a 33-year career leading the office responsible for water quality standards.
“They should be wary,” she said.
The Environmental Protection Agency refused to make secretaries or staff available for interviews. Agency spokesman Alexandra Kuchta provided multiple statements and responses to written questions.
The statement acknowledged that increasing pollution is a concern statewide. However, the department said both the waterways have reached a disastrous turning point and it will take time to show improvement. The agency praised the restoration efforts and environmental laws supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the move set regulators for success.
“For decades, stakeholders have had the need for funding and policies dedicated to protecting Florida’s environment,” the department said. “We have that right now. We have a strong presence in DEP and its partners with the tools we need to advance Florida.”
However, cleanup measures are not comprehensive. Agriculture and development – Florida’s biggest source of water pollution – is not bound by strict restrictions on nitrogen and phosphorus that flow from vast farms and city streets. Chemicals spit out of fertilizer and waste, eventually reaching vulnerable water.
The Times discovered that an estimated 100 million pounds of nitrogen and 4.5 million pounds of phosphorus can damage already contaminated water from the Panhandle to Miami.
This includes over 3 million pounds of nitrogen and 400,000 pounds of phosphorus around the lagoon. Much of this comes from leaks. Over the past 40 years, developers and farmers have transformed tens of thousands of acres into parcels, ranches and shopping plazas.
Such contamination is not the type that elicits rapid reproach, such as oil or wastewater spills. It imposes a more insidious sacrifice.
At a reasonable level, nitrogen and phosphorus are building blocks in a healthy environment and are fuels for both plants and animals. But in excess, they poison fish, kill sea grass, and inflict eruptions of algae that destroy the habitat of manatees, turtles and dolphins.
More than 89,000 acres of sea grass have disappeared statewide, including Waters, which has been plagued by recent flowers such as Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor. In the lagoon, almost all sea grass manatees may have died eating. Meanwhile, the extent of lost sea grasses throughout the state has not been previously tallied by news organizations.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of sea grass to Florida. Beds help protect the coastline from erosion from tropical storms. Even just a few acres can make the water more distinct and grow countless seeds, from small crabs to giant tarpons.
Sea grass and ecosystems are removed.
Reducing pollution is supposed to reduce the risk that algae will overturn the environment. This is similar to lowering cholesterol and reducing the chances of developing heart disease.
Under federal cleanwater laws, states are responsible for limiting many of the water-poiling spills. But despite receiving federal funding, governments across the country are struggling to make improvements from Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes to San Francisco Bay.
“If it happens in the Indian River lagoon, it can happen everywhere,” said Duane de Fries, executive director of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, a government protection group.
When the debilitated manatees began to die, scientists at Florida’s Wildlife Agency quickly suspected rapid water quality as the perpetrator. They called the lagoon the “Estuary of Crisis.”
During the two winters they tossed lettuce into the water to stop more deaths. Researchers never know exactly how many animals starved at the peak of the die-off. This simply means that the generation of the threatened species was ultimately estimated to be less than 12,000.
Over the course of months, so many bodies were washed away that the researchers were able to barely keep pace. They rushed to examine dozens of manatees into the ground, and the stacked rest remained in a long, rusty trash can as the vultures circled over their heads. Others were left to rot in the quiet stretches of the lagoon. One sandy beach on Merritt Island was strewn with bones.
The hungry manatee showed signs of drooping skin, ribs, deformed heads and round belly flat.
Biologists found their mother who died in January 2021, but they saw an increasingly familiar and disastrous marker. But they also discovered something else. This is an opinion on how long a disaster can last.
Scientists stared at the water and realized that their mother was not alone. The baby is swimming around her and munching.
They find themselves encountering a hungry, confused orphan, trying to get milk from the corpse.
There was not much sunlight left. They had to act fast, or the calves could die too. The first step to saving her was clear.
Let her out of the lagoon.
