The Florida Oceanographic Society is changing how it evaluates water quality across the St. Lucie River, St. Lucie Estuary and Indian River Lagoon, moving away from a one-size-fits-all grading system toward standards tailored to each basin.
The nonprofit has relied on volunteer monitoring since 1998 to track long-term trends across the watershed.
“We have members around the community who are trained by staff to go out on a weekly basis to collect various water quality parameters,” said Nate Winn, research associate with the Florida Oceanographic Society. “The purpose of this program, when it was established in 1998, was to capture spatial changes in the water chemistry over time and for us to be able to see how different stressors are affecting the water.”…