BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Brevard County might ask voters to pay for cleaning the Indian River Lagoon for another 10 years.
Tuesday, county commissioners will pick up the debate over renewing the 2016 half-cent sales tax when it expires next Election Day.
Supporters like Craig Wallace, the chairman of the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition, argue that restoring the polluted waters of the lagoon could take multiple decades.
The tax sunsetting next year passed on Election Day in 2016 after pollution was blamed for killing thousands of fish.
[WATCH: Progress in fish kill cleanup efforts (from 2019)]
“The experience from restoration efforts in multiple places around the country have been that it takes 20 to 40 years to actually, fully restore an estuary that was impaired as much as this one is,” Wallace said.
Like in 2016, putting a voter referendum on the ballot next Election Day is up to the commission.
Brevard County Community Correspondent James Sparvero heard favorable opinions toward another tax at Manatee Sanctuary Park in Cape Canaveral.
“Just damage that we’re doing, overall, to the environment and to all the species here, I think we’ve gotta do a lot better job,” Sean Hendrickson said.
Ash Dunne backed up Hendrickson’s thoughts, saying the water should be clean.
“Especially in Florida, the water’s kind of our thing,” he said.
[WATCH: ‘Restore our Shores’ works to restore oyster reefs in Indian River Lagoon]
Wallace said the primary result sought from cleanup efforts is restoring seagrass, the food source for manatees.
“Once we get to the point where the water has cleared up enough so the seagrass can regrow again, that’s really gonna be where we say we’re over the hump,” he said.
According to a new lagoon report card from the Marine Resources Council, conditions are gradually improving.
[WATCH: Brevard Zoo team celebrates seagrass milestone crucial to Indian River Lagoon]
When the MRC presented its first report card in 2018, the group said the lagoon’s health was bad.
Now, though, thanks to about $100 million in completed projects, most of the lagoon scored an ‘OK’ grade.