At the City Commission meeting on November 18, 2020, the Mayor and City Commission referred the discussion regarding Biscayne Bay water quality and ideas for improving water quality to the Land Use and Sustainability Committee (LUSC). The item was sponsored by Commissioner Michael Gongora.

At the beginning of August, an unprecedented fish kill was reported in the northern basin of Biscayne Bay, concentrated by the Biscayne Canal and the Little River. Over the course of a week, thousands of fish died from lack of oxygen. Following this event, a devastating algae bloom flourished throughout the Bay and surrounding waterways. During the fish kill staff collected samples and monitored the dissolved oxygen levels. Since the events in August, Miami Beach has been coordinating with Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve, Miami-Dade Division of Environmental Resources Management (DERM), Miami Waterkeeper, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of Miami, and Florida International University to understand the environmental factors at play.

The declining health of Biscayne Bay is not a new issue, it has been building from decades of inaction. High nutrients are one of the major issues impacting the Biscayne Bay’s health. Nutrients enter the Bay from sources such as aging sewer infrastructure, leaking septic systems, fertilizers, and decaying organic matter.

In 2019, the Report on the Health of Biscayne Bay was issued by the Fall Term Miami-Dade County Grand Jury convened by State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. The report highlighted that the challenges facing Biscayne Bay require a regional approach to tackle the many factors that contribute to the water quality issues. Attached is LTC #446-2019 that includes a full overview and link to the report (Attachment A).

On December 10, 2020, Miami-Dade County released Report on Development and Implementation of an Annual Report Card Program on the Health of Biscayne Bay (Attachment B). The Report Card analyzed water quality and benthic habitat data, prioritized water quality and habitat characterizes. The Report noted that the health of the Bay is largely driven by water quality. The report card breaks down the Bay into 12 areas. Southern North Bay A and B are adjacent to Miami Beach. According to the 2019 Report Card, both areas were ranked poor for the parameters analyzed including: water clarity, phosphorus, nitrogen, chlorophyll-a, submerged aquatic vegetation, and sponges (Attachment C).   

According to the 2019 Community Satisfaction Survey, only 37.1% of residents are satisfied with the City’s efforts to reduce pollution from stormwater runoff.  

BISCAYNE BAY TASK FORCE

In 2019, Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners created the Biscayne Bay Task Force (BBTF) to study the causes of the degradation of the bay and develop recommendations on how to address these issues. In August 2020, BBTF released Report and Recommendations: A Unified Approach to Recovery for a Healthy & Resilient Biscayne Bay. The Biscayne Bay Recovery Plan and Summary of the BBTF Recommendations are included in Attachment D. On August 31, 2020, the Board of County Commissioners passed a resolution directing the County Mayor provide an implementation plan for immediate action, including feasibility, cost, and potential fund sources. The report focuses on three main areas: water quality, leadership, and education. It will take collaboration and long-term commitment from Municipal, County, State and Federal agencies as well as community organizations to restore the health of the Bay.

The BBTF recommendations are broken into seven categories for County action: Water Quality, Governance, Infrastructure, Natural Infrastructure, Marine Debris, Education & Outreach, and Funding. Each of the recommendations

Staff has completed an in-depth review of the 62 recommendations and has identified 44 recommendations that are applicable for Miami Beach. Of the 44 recommendations that apply to the City, the City already has programs in place for most of these actions. The following table provides a breakdown of the number of recommendations under each of the seven policy themes and those that are implementable in Miami Beach:  

A BBTF’s overarching recommendations call for a unified and collaborative approach to watershed restoration. To improve the water quality and health of Biscayne Bay, the BBTF recommends:

1.     Creation of a Biscayne Bay Watershed Management Board (WMB);

2.     Creation of a Chief Bay Officer (CBO) in the Office of the Mayor to support WMB and oversee the implementation of the BBTF 62 recommendations; and,

3.     WMB will be responsible to develop and implement the Biscayne Bay Watershed Restoration Plan (WRP).

When evaluating next steps for improving the health and water quality in Biscayne Bay, it is recommended that policies and programs be prioritized that maximize the environmental benefit in a cost-effective manner. The following are recommended for next steps:

1.     The City of Miami Beach should engage with the County’s new WMB once it is created and work collaboratively with the CBO to align new County policies and programs with the City’s efforts.

2.     Reduction of nutrients is an important component of the plan. A proposed Fertilizer Ordinance has been approved on First Reading in September and is being heard for second reading at the January 13, 2021 Commission Meeting. This is an important step in helping to reduce nutrient loading causing pollution.

3.     Establishing and enhancing our natural shorelines and incorporating green infrastructure into city projects are important steps in increasing the biodiversity and ecosystem benefits. Next steps could include prioritizing future city seawall projects that can support living shoreline elements, developing a mangrove nursery to support future projects, surveying city’s waterways to create seagrass restoration areas, and identifying priority areas/projects for the use of blue and green infrastructure.

4.     Reducing sediment loads that enter the stormwater system will help to reduce overall pollutant loads and reduce potential turbidity plumes. Strengthening the City Code to specifically address stormwater runoff from private properties and construction sites will help protect Biscayne Bay and will also provide additional activity points for the City’s Community Rating System Score.

MIAMI BEACH WATER QUALITY PROTECTION PROGRAM

Water quality protection is a major component to the BBTF’s recommendations. The City’s 2019 Strategic Plan Through the Lens of Resilience outlines water quality protection as the top objective in the Environment & Infrastructure area.  Biscayne Bay health is also an action of the 2019 Resilient305 Strategy developed with Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, and the City of Miami.  The City reduces potential pollution through a combination of education and outreach, good housekeeping, as well as the use of cutting-edge technology and industry-vetted operational practices.

As part of the 1972 Clean Water Act, the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program was created to regulate pollution from point discharges into U.S. waters. Miami Beach is one of 32 municipal NPDES co-permittees with Miami-Dade County to own and operate the municipal separate storm sewer system. As part of the NPDES program, the City completes an annual report that outlines the City’s activities related to stormwater management. As part of this report, the City provides an Annual Water Quality Report (Attachment E). Nutrient pollutants are the main pollutant of concern in Miami Beach, and policies and programs should continue to be refined to address these inputs.

However, it should be noted that nutrient loads from Miami Beach are considerably lower than inflows from the mainland. In 2020, the City retained Ardurra, an interdisciplinary engineering firm, to complete Biscayne Bay Nutrient Loading Estimates to better understand the extent of the City’s loading contributions to the Bay (Attachment F). The report outlines that Miami Beach’s drainage area represents 1.8% of the total contributing area to the north Bay and contributes 0.9% of all in flows. Of these inflows it is estimated that runoff from the City contributes 2.4% of phosphorus loads and 0.5% of nitrogen loads. These numbers were approximated using a conservative method. It is expected that the real loading from the City is lower than represented in the report.

The report demonstrates that the City’s impact on the nutrient loading to the Bay is minor. Unfortunately, the overall impact of the region’s nutrient loading to the Bay creates a significant problem. In recent studies, the County has identified septic tanks to be one of the major contributors of nutrients to the Bay. Without the conversion of the myriad properties relying on septic tanks to a centralized sewer system, there would be an unnecessary, significant, and continuous nutrient loading to the Bay from our local region. The City of Miami Beach is proud to say that the entire City is operated on a centralized sewer system and does not have any septic tanks within City limits.

The City’s stormwater management program focuses heavily on preventing pollution at its source. It is easier and less expensive for each person to do their part by picking up after their pets, tossing trash into designated bins, and properly applying landscape maintenance chemicals than to capture and remove pollutants in larger concentrations from within the stormwater system. Nevertheless, the city plays an important role in protecting water quality and has a well-rounded strategy to remove pollutants outside and inside the stormwater system before they reach Biscayne Bay.

Over the last five years the City has made great progress to improve water quality, including:

·       In science, such as the voluntary launch of a municipal water quality sampling program with over 60 stations;

·       In infrastructure design, such as the modification of pumped outfall designs to include dissipator boxes that reduce discharge velocities from those approved in the city’s first new generation pump stations;

·       In urban design, such as designing new parks and greenspaces to incorporate blue and green infrastructure like the Bayshore Golf Course;

·       In infrastructure upgrades, such as creating a plan and beginning a $133 million sanitary sewer upgrade program;

·       In operations, such as increasing stormwater system maintenance from once every three years to once every year;

·       In policy, such as the citywide bans on polystyrene and plastic straws and the MB Plastic Free program; and,

·       In compliance, such as the creation of the city’s environmental inspection programs to reduce sanitary sewer overflows and construction run-off.

One of our most recent achievements includes finalizing and adopting the Jacobs Engineering Blue-Green Infrastructure Plan. Knowing that nutrient loads were the primary concern relating to the health of the Bay, the City procured the expertise of Jacobs Engineering to identify complimentary strategies to sequester nutrients prior to stormwater runoff entering the City’s stormwater system. These strategies were compiled as part of the adopted report.

Lastly, our team continues to work on innovative approaches to optimize our own stormwater systems from a water quality perspective. Most recently the City has partnered with regulators to identify ways to improve existing infrastructure. Although the projects are still in the development stages, the City is working to retrofit existing water treatment systems with water quality wells to complement existing treatment technologies.

The following is presented to the members of the Land Use and Sustainability Committee for discussion and further direction.