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Fish, wildlife return to St. Sebastian River after 3 years of dredging - TC Palm Page 2 of 4 Sea grass beds increased from 2.24 acres in 2011 to 8.56. acres in 2013 in the area where the St. Sebastian River enters the Indian River Lagoon, according to mapping by the St. Johns River Water Management District. The survey didn't go farther south. NO BETTER NO WORSE During the dredging and for a year after it was completed, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute at Melbourne collected more than 1.2 million fish from 154 species and determined the project had little significant impact, positive or negative, on the river's fish population. The size of commercial species such as snook and drum remained the same as well, Richard Paperno, a marine biologist with the institute, said at a Friends of St. Sebastian River meeting in November 2011. Since then, monthly monitoring of fish populations have shown "good numbers" of commercial and recreational fish such as snook and snapper, "plenty of mullet" and "low but consistent numbers" of exotic species such as opossum pipefish and several types of gobies, Paperno said in October. With all that's happened to the lagoon in the past few years, including algal blooms and prolonged cold snaps, "you can't really pinpoint whether dredging has had a good or bad effect," said Derek Tremain, another researcher at the institute. THE BIG FREEZE Fishing guides who ply the St. Sebastian say prolonged cold weather in early 2010 took a serious toll on the river's fish population. The first two weeks of January 2010 was one of the coldest 12 -day periods on record in South Florida, according to the National Weather Service. Water temperatures in the lagoon and its tributaries, including the St. Sebastian, were well below 5o degrees. 22,,9 -� http://www.tcpalm.com/franchise/indian-river-lagoon/fish-wildlife-return-to-st-sebastian-... 11/13/2014