IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Brandon Moody

Charlotte water quality expert

Charlotte County has made a major commitment to water quality in the hiring of Brandon Moody, who carries the simple title of the county’s water quality manager. Two weeks ago on May 2, he came for two hours to talk to Cape Haze residents about what he does, and what he sees. The remarks were part of a general introductory talk about his work and how he shares his information with both the public and the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners. He has even added a monitor at the Causeway to get accurate tide information.

We gathered some of the excerpts as they were appropriate to readers.

On adding additional water monitoring across the county and in Coral Creek:

Moody: There used to be a dam or weir south of Rotonda on West Coral Creek. It’s right at the spot we collect on the upstream side. It is very heavily tidally influenced, so that the water can come in and out at will. So that’s not a barrier anymore, but we do sample right there once a month for a whole battery of nutrients and bacteria. And the idea was that this will also coincide with other monitoring that’s already going in the area. The State Department of Environmental Protection has a volunteer monitoring program. That’s the one where folks go out on the first Monday of every month, at about dawn, and they collect a water quality sample. There’s a lot of those points up and down here where creeks discharge out into Lemon Bay. I didn’t want to duplicate their effort, so I picked areas where they’re not doing that kind of work already.

On the overall condition of Charlotte Harbor:

Moody: In the case of this part of Charlotte Harbor, the chlorophyll levels are no longer exceeding the limits established by the state, the phosphorus limits are no longer exceeding and the nitrogen limits are no longer exceeding, but doesn’t mean everything is hunky-dory. We still have issues, and you and me and everybody else with eyeballs can still see we’ve got algae.

The effect of Hurricane Ian as a ‘vegetation’ event:

Moody: Ian, beyond the runoff, was a huge wind event. And those of you that were here might recall that, and I remember this clearly, that I went out the days after Ian, and it almost looked like the dead of winter because those winds that were going so fast and for so long, in such a long period of time, removed leaves wholesale from a lot of the trees and bushes, and all of that went straight into our canals, into our creeks and into the harbor. In fact, we were able to measure a huge spike in biological bacterial digestion of material in the harbor in the weeks following Hurricane Ian because of the amount of stuff that it pushed into the water that lasted for about three weeks. The dissolved oxygen crashed for about three weeks, and then we had a cold snap, and everything just kind of reset, and stuff rebounded. But I think you have this longer-term effect over the course of months, with this combination of not just runoff, but vegetation. 

On using history to find answers:

Moody: Sometimes things that happened 50 or 60 years ago can impact how things are going today. One of the issues related to the ammonia levels over on the east part of Charlotte Harbor has to do with an old feature that was called Caliente Springs, which apparently was a real “hot spot” for the locals. It was a warm spring, so people would frolic. And it turns out, apparently, what actually happened is somebody was trying to bore a hole and create a well, and they drove a little too far, and it kind of created this little “gusher.” And they’re like, I guess it just became a feature! So it’s not a natural thing, but folks embraced it, and it dramatically altered the landscape around there.

On the old Florida landscape:

Moody: If you just look at a map now, you’d have no idea what was there and what had impacts on what we’re seeing today. So, if there were relic farming practices, people did crazy stuff for their garbage, you know, 80 or 90 years ago when there was no central solid waste management. Those can create leaching issues if they bury them down deep enough. So there are all kinds of things that could also be involved. For that reason, I tend to grab our historians and start poking at them. What’s the back story of this area? Who lived here, who lived in these regions? What was going on? Is there something that maybe is not obvious now? What was there before that could have an influence today? I work with them to sort of kind of get the stories and use that to sort of focus on where we need to maybe do our investigations.