LAST CHANCE: Luncheon on Water Shortages, What did the Legislature get up to, and more news!
- IRNA
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
March 21, 2026 Weekly Newsletter
Last chance to sign up — this is happening Wednesday.
Where does Florida's water come from, and will there be enough? That question hits different right now, and we're bringing in one of the state's top experts to break it down.
On March 25, IRNA's Lunch & Learn features Clay Coarsey, Director of Water Supply Planning and Assessment with the St. Johns River Water Management District — the agency that just declared a Modified Phase II Severe Water Shortage for portions of northeast and central Florida, with authority to expand it if things get worse.
Indian River County isn't in the declaration yet. But here's where we stand: 74% of our county is in Extreme Drought. Our 12-month rainfall is nearly 7 inches below average. Groundwater is dropping. A burn ban has been in place since February 20th. And La Niña is pointing to a drier-than-normal spring and summer.
Clay will walk us through the state of Florida's water supply, the long-term strategies being developed to protect it, and what all of this means for private well users, farmers, and the Indian River Lagoon.
Wednesday, March 25 | Noon | Vero Beach Country Club, 800 30th St Lunch is $30/person — Beef Bourguignon, Chicken Marsala, or Vegetarian.
Bring your questions. Register now.
Free PFAS Well Water Testing
IRNA is offering free, certified lab testing for PFAS ("forever chemicals") in private drinking water wells. Sign up, submit your water sample, and get your results, plus learn what they mean for your health.
Join an upcoming informational webinar to get started:
Open to Indian River County home and business owners on private wells only (not connected to municipal water). Questions? Contact Missy@IndianRiverNA.com
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Join the IRNA in building a stronger voice for our community. Your support empowers us to safeguard our natural resources, demand transparency from elected officials, and champion the changes we need to see—together, we can create lasting impact.
Tallahassee 2026: A Session to Forget
(And one that won't end...)
The Florida Legislature wrapped up its 2026 regular session on March 13th, and if you're hoping for good news on the environmental front, you're going to have to squint pretty hard to find it.
The big picture? Lawmakers spent 60 days in Tallahassee and couldn't even accomplish the one thing the Florida Constitution actually requires them to do, pass a budget. They'll be heading back for a special session in April to try again. Meanwhile, property tax reform (the other big-ticket item this session) collapsed entirely, with the House and Senate unable to agree on even a basic framework. So the Legislature managed to both fail at its job and fail at its agenda simultaneously. Impressive, in a depressing sort of way. (They may be heading back for two more special sessions besides the budget one, one on the property taxes issue and one on potential redistricting. So it ain't over yet...)
For those of us who care about Florida's environment, the session followed a now-familiar pattern: make it easier for polluters, harder for local governments to protect their communities, and quietly defund the programs that actually work.
The session's most dangerous theme was the continued erosion of home rule. The Legislature passed HB 399, a sprawling land-use bill that strips local governments of key tools to manage development, including provisions that directly threaten Urban Development Boundaries like the one protecting our county's remaining open lands from sprawl. A bipartisan coalition of South Florida legislators is urging Governor DeSantis to veto it, but that outcome is far from certain. The bill is now on his desk. Lend your voice to this call! Click here to ask Governor DeSantis to veto the bill, using our new advocacy tool.
The "Farm Bill" (SB 290) was another blow. Under this legislation, conservation lands acquired by the state after January 2024 can now be reviewed for potential sale for agricultural use. The Florida Wildlife Federation put it plainly: no recently protected property is truly secure anymore. Combined with last year's near-elimination of Florida Forever funding (cut from $229 million to just $18 million), the state's conservation legacy is getting quietly dismantled while most Floridians aren't looking.
There was some genuinely good news. The Blue Ribbon Projects bills (HB 299/SB 354) (which would have created a fast-track approval process for massive hedge-fund-backed mega-developments) died without a floor vote. The SB 718 wetlands preemption bill, which would have stripped local governments of any authority over water quality and wetland protection, died for the third time. These were serious threats, and they didn't make it. That matters.
On water quality specifically, a couple of incremental improvements did pass. Most notably, the legislature approved a suite of protections (including the biosolids bill (SB 1474) and the PFAS tracking bill (SB 1230)) which together tighten rules around septage application and, for the first time, force the state to start tracking 'forever chemicals' like PFAS more systematically. They are better than nothing, but they build around logistics rules (proximity to treatment facilities) rather than the kind of science-based biological standards that would actually address nutrient loading and chemical persistence in our waterways. It's an administrative improvement, not a solution.
Meanwhile, conservation funding for the coming year remains a total unknown since the budget didn't pass. The House proposed $25 million for Indian River Lagoon water quality improvements — the Senate's version had nothing. What actually gets funded depends entirely on what happens in April's special session, and given how this session went, optimism feels unwarranted.
The broader vibe of this session, if you want to call it that, is one of dysfunction and indifference. The Legislature couldn't agree, couldn't deliver, and largely couldn't be bothered to prioritize the environmental challenges that are going to define Florida's future. The bills that passed to make life easier for polluters and developers sailed through on near-unanimous votes. The bills that might have actually helped our waterways either died or came out the other end as pale shadows of what was needed.
We'll be watching the special sessions closely. Maybe some good things will come out of them, but we would advise against holding your breath.
Vero to lease all airport parking lots (Hometown News TC) - Vero Beach city officials approved a plan to lease all airport parking lots to a private developer in a move to rapidly expand capacity and generate revenue while shifting $5 million in construction costs and operational liabilities away from the municipality.
Property tax proposal sparks strong discussion in Vero Beach (Hometown News TC) - Vero Beach and Indian River County officials warn that a state proposal to eliminate non-school property taxes on homesteaded homes would force significant service cuts or shift a massive tax burden onto businesses and renters while further eroding local home rule.
County celebrates grand opening of Jones’ Pier Interpretive Center (Indian River Guardian) - The Indian River County Board of County Commissioners is hosting a grand opening on March 21 to celebrate the restoration of the 1923 Jones family home into an interpretive center featuring historical exhibits, a native species aquarium, and educational resources along the historic Jungle Trail.
City feels urgency to remove water’s forever chemicals (Vero News) - Vero Beach has initiated a $250,000 study to evaluate granular activated carbon, ion exchange, and reverse osmosis filtration methods to remove toxic "forever chemicals" from city drinking water by the 2031 federal deadline.
If you made it this far, you're our kind of people.
You clearly care about what's happening in this community — so come out and be part of the conversation. IRNA's Lunch & Learn is this Wednesday, March 25, and seats are going fast. Register now before tickets... dry up...
'Mr. GYAC' - Longtime Gifford leader, community servant dies at 74 (Vero News) - A big loss for our community. Freddie Woolfork, the beloved community leader known as "Mr. GYAC," died at 74 after spending decades transforming Gifford through his dedicated service as the first employee of the Gifford Youth Achievement Center and a prominent advocate for education and civil rights.
Fontainebleau water park slides past local opposition — through Tallahassee (Political Cortadito) - In an assault on Home Rule, Florida legislators passed a bill allowing the Fontainebleau Miami Beach to bypass local zoning boards and resident opposition to construct a controversial rooftop water park by mandating administrative approval from the state level.
The Florida Legislature made a mess. The Florida House refused to clean it up. (Jason Garcia Substack) - The 2026 Florida legislative session concluded with House Republican leadership blocking efforts to fix a controversial 2025 growth-management law (SB 180) while passing a series of measures that favor large developers, rename infrastructure after Donald Trump, and restrict local government authority over everything from climate policy to diversity programs.
Want to avoid planting invasives in your yard? Check this UF/IFAS website first (Indian River Guardian) - University of Florida researchers are urging the public to utilize the UF/IFAS Assessment of Non-native Plants website to identify and avoid high-risk species that threaten the state's ecosystems and agriculture.
Where toxic industrial air pollution in Florida is released (TCPalm) - Several industrial facilities on the Treasure Coast, including Turbocombustor Technology and various boat manufacturers, have self-reported thousands of pounds of toxic metallic and styrene emissions while receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded incentives and property tax abatements.
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