“Welcome to Florida” billboard features bears, toxic water and dead manatees

TITUSVILLE, Florida. — A few simplistic billboards hidden among the pine trees along Interstate 95 near Titusville greet motorists in Florida: “House of the Bears. Toxic water. Dead manatees.

Signs show a toilet overlooking the lagoon with a dead manatee, a sea turtle and several fish, News 6 partner. Florida today reported.

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“R.I.P. 1874 Manatee in 2021-2022,” the billboards read.

They are paid for by Bear Warriors United, the same non-profit group that sued the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, accusing the agency of failing to comply with clean water regulations due to too many septic tanks and sewage spills that pollute and kill the sea cow’s primary seagrass. . diet.

Recent studies show that septic tanks are one of the main sources of excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the lagoon. Too much of these two nutrients promotes algal blooms, which block sunlight for algae, killing the manatee’s most important food source.

Bear Warriors, who usually act on behalf of black bears fighting to stop hunting, have taken on the manatee cause after 800 manatee deaths last year and a record 1,101 manatee deaths in 2021.

As of January 20 of this year, 56 manatee deaths have been reported, including eight deaths in Brevard. During the same time period, there were 97 manatee deaths in 2021 and 68 in 2018. According to statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the five-year average for the same period is 54 deaths.

Environmental lawsuits more than two decades ago led Florida to create arrays of slowdown zones across the state in the hope that it would save sea cows from being killed by boat strikes.

But the pollution that fuels the excess algae still continued to kill the manatees.

Now environmentalists are once again suing the state, this time to stop pollution that boat groups have long warned is a far greater long-term threat to the species than boats moving too fast.

The death toll of manatees became so high that by March 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the death of a manatee an unusual fatal event.

Then, in a first-of-its-kind pilot project designed to prevent further starvation, state and federal biologists fed manatees at Florida Power & Light last winter through the end of March 2022.

The Bear Warrior lawsuit originally sought an injunction requiring DEP to:

• “Permanently cease issuing permits and permits for the discharge of nitrogen from septic tanks and sewage treatment plants” into the northern Indian River Lagoon;

• An order requiring DEP to “provide medical supervision and veterinary care, along with adequate nutritious food, for all manatees in the northern lagoon until sufficient seaweed can support manatees there;

• Orders preventing DEP from issuing permits to install septic tanks or sewer facilities for new construction in the northern lagoon watershed;

• Claim that DEP “accidentally caught” manatees in the northern lagoon under the Endangered Species Act. The federal government defines accidental capture as unintentional, but not unexpected, actions that result in killing, stalking, or otherwise being endangered.

“DEP has full control over wastewater,” Leslie Blackner, the attorney leading the case, said in an email. “Whether it ends up in septic tanks or sewage treatment plants that are dumped directly into the IRL (Indian River Lagoon) during the rains, or seeps into the groundwater because the system is overloaded and the pipes break and rust. The use of the IRL as a toilet has killed the lagoon and all the creatures that call it home, including manatees, Florida’s most iconic marine species.”

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