Samantha, UR- Garbage of Canal Street

Busy street coming off local business thruway leading to man made canal

Canal Street, a very imperative historical thruway for the locals as well as tourists for many reasons, my reason being the water quality that lies beneath.  As most of us are aware that the south end of this street cuts off into a subterranean man made canal and in recent posts, my classmates and I have discussed this canal as one of our major sample sites for our research. 

View from south of the Canal
towards the lagoon

A huge concern found about this body of water is that in September my classmates and Dr. Woodall, as well as I read that this canal oxygen concentrations measured at 1.23 mg/L.  This meant that the canal was depleted of oxygen and very or little no life was probably able to survive in that body of water during that time.  In Angela’s recent post, “Oregon Observations applied to Volusia County,” she stated her concern for the lack of knowledge of runoff and wastes (especially plastics) being distributed into the surrounding storm drainage systems, which then lead into our lagoons.  I found this information very interesting and thought I would do some research myself about one specific Canal that I have been studying and just happens to be located right next to a storm drainage system as well as a busy commercialized road. As a child growing up in New Jersey I too remember being aware that storm drains are dumping into the river constantly with signs on each drain stating so.  I never realized the lack of this in my local area especially being located in Volusia County, which due to location, is highly susceptible to flooding.

Storm drain just West
of Canal with no indication
of leading into river

“The canal has an array of interconnected open swales, ditches as well as directs piping connections that feed into the canal, which is referred to in the storm water master plan,” says Kyle Fegley, a city Engineer of New Smyrna Beach. I do not have the full information on The Storm Water master plan and the Canal street design yet but I plan on attaining them and studying further.  I believe that the water quality in this specific body of water is significant to the Indian River Lagoon and the concern of land runoff. To begin my research, this morning I walked down Canal Street, which is the street, leading right to the Canal to look for anything I could find that may help my research. 

Storm drain with no indication of dumping into river
notice all of the butts and plastics right near

I noticed a lot of garbage around the streets and businesses, things such a cigarette butts, plastic bottles, caps, receipts and even a pacifier!  The amount of garbage I found was unbelievable I even found some plastics in the water noting the tide was outgoing and it had rained in the last 24 hours. 

Seabird in Canal next to piece of floating plastic