The Indian River Lagoon hosts 4,300 species including many remaining Florida manatees that graze seagrass. Municipal wastewater discharges and leaking residential septic tanks have fueled algal blooms that destroyed seagrass, the manatees' primary food. In 2021, a record 1,100 manatees died largely from seagrass loss. A nonprofit sued the Florida Department of Environmental Protection under the Endangered Species Act's prohibition on harm to habitat; a federal appeals court blocked new septic tanks and ordered a supplemental feeding program. A recent federal reinterpretation narrowing harm to exclude habitat destruction risks accelerating extinctions, since roughly 90 percent of listed species face habitat loss.
It is home to 4,300 species, including many of the state's remaining manatees, whose large, paddle-tailed bodies graze slowly through the shallows. For decades, the lagoon has also been a destination for Florida's municipal sewage. State law long ago aimed to stop much of the flow from wastewater plants, but in practice continued to allow dumping during heavy rains. Residential septic tanks have kept leaching into the water, too. Over time, that pollution fed algae blooms that choked out the area's seagrass-manatees' main food source.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced a radical reinterpretation of the Endangered Species Act's regulations, which would limit the definition of the term harm and exclude habitat destruction. Environmental advocates have warned that this change would accelerate extinctions. Roughly 90 percent of listed species are now in danger at least partly because the places they've lived have disappeared or been altered because of threats such as climate change or development
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