A simple street cleaning practice in one Brevard County city is helping to heal the Indian River Lagoon.
- Street sweeping helps improve Indian River Lagoon
- Keeps debris from washing into the lagoon
- Melbourne has removed 1.3 million pounds of debris
The City of Melbourne is taking active steps to try to improve the health of the lagoon.
One of its lesser known efforts is street sweeping.
“Our street sweeping effort helps us remove nitrogen and phosphorus which has been found to be what’s causing most of the harm to the Indian River Lagoon,” city engineer Jenny Lamb said.
Nitrogen and phosphorus can enter the lagoon through dirt leaves and debris.
So far this year, the city says it has removed more than 1.3 million pounds of debris that could have washed into the lagoon.
The city says practices like these are not only cost-effective but will help the life of the lagoon in the future.
“It eliminates the sediment which is the cause of muck and leaf debris and the break down of that leaf debris causes a lot of the muck you see in the lagoon," Lamb said. "So we are essentially preventing future muck.”
The city says a total of 780 pounds of nitrogen and 500 pounds of phosphorus were removed.
Melbourne isn’t the only city in the area that does this. In fact, officials say that all other cities in the county implement practices like these to help the lagoon.