Fort Pierce - Monday July 10, 2023: The Fort Pierce Utilities Authority, together with the Manatee Observation and Education Center, and the Treasure Coast Manatee Foundation (TCMF), have launched a grant-funded seagrass research initiative. The effort got underway last Friday July 7 at the Fort Pierce Yacht Club in Downtown Fort Pierce.
Under the guidance of Sea & Shoreline, experts in seagrass restoration, a group of volunteers began restoring a one and one-half acre area in the Lagoon with seagrass. They plan to expand the effort and plant more fields of seagrass once the current plot has been fully seeded.
Seagrass is vital to the area because it improves water quality by cycling out excess nutrients, provides food, protection and habitat for manatees, turtles, and other sea life, oxygenates the water column for plant and animal life, stabilizes the sediment, and sequesters carbon to help offset climate change.
The campaign is made possible by a $40,000 of grant funding from the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program (IRLNEP) and nearly $59,000 of seagrass donations from TCMF, this innovative project combines one acre of seagrass restoration in Moore’s Creek and one-half acre of meadows enhancement research on the shores of the IRL.
Research funded by the IRLNEP will help restoration experts identify the best species and blends of seagrass for effective restoration in the area. The research project features seven seagrass plots covering one-half acre. Each plot will be protected with dowel rods allowing the seedlings to take root, followed by regular monitoring by restoration experts.
The Treasure Coast Manatee Foundation funded an additional one acre of seagrass restoration, directed at restoring seagrass in Moore’s Creek in Downtown Fort Pierce. Hundreds of manatees visit Moore’s Creek, adjacent to the Manatee Center, each year, for warm water refuge during the winter and to drink freshwater.
Manatee Center “Roving Naturalist” volunteers are also contributing to this important research. Volunteers collect manatee count data of manatees spotted in Moore’s Creek, with over 26 years of manatee counts collected to date. This data is being submitted to the IRLNEP each month and will provide a valuable resource for researchers to consider the impact of restoration over time.
This project represents one of many environmental projects led by FPUA including: relocating the sewer treatment plant off the Indian River Lagoon; lining sewer pipes with PVC to protect against inflow and outflow from cracks in aging clay pipes; installing several more acres of seagrass grant funding from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resilient Florida program; and more.