Brevard County residents talked to leaders Friday about seeing sewage floating by their homes in the Indian River Lagoon.

It's a big issue that came up after Hurricane Irma.

  • Residents dealing with murky, smelly water
  • Hurricane Irma to blame for recent problems
  • County looking at possibly adding retention ponds, or storage tanks

The Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition's Oversight Committee is a board formed to help restore the lagoon after decades of pollution like storm water and fertilizer runoff.

Michael Dana has been dealing with the murky, smelly water for weeks.

"I mean, we've seen feces going by our house," Dana said.

He and dozens of others came to the meeting Friday hoping to offer some solutions, such as upgrading lift stations.

"This is the time to fix the problem," Dana said.

That problem? The county's 13-mile long beach-side sewage system centered around the Satellite Beach area is designed to handle 8 million gallons a day.

Irma's 10 inches of rain dumped 2 billion gallons of water, swelling that amount to 12-14 million gallons.

That forced officials to discharge storm water and raw sewage into the river to avoid waste backing up into peoples' homes.

"You just can't dump raw sewage," Dana said.

The coalition is in charge of the 1/2 cent lagoon tax expected to generate $300 million over the next decade. But could those funds be used to improve the sewage system.

A new wastewater treatment plant would run $50 million.

Options the county is looking into include overhauling aging, leaky pipes that run from homes, and possibly adding retention ponds, or storage tanks. But land space is limited.