Published on April 02, 2025
Governor Ron DeSantis has announced more than $389 million in grants to improve water quality and quantity across Florida.
The funding includes more than $9 million from the Indian River Lagoon Protection Program for two City of Melbourne projects that will help advance the City’s goals for preventing harmful nutrients and debris from polluting the Indian River Lagoon.
The City’s Grant Street Water Reclamation Facility, Phase 2 project will receive $8.6 million to implement advanced waste treatment biological nutrient removal processes. These new processes target and eliminate excess nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater effluent before it is released in the City’s reclaimed water distribution system that is used mainly for outdoor landscape irrigation. The project is projected to remove over 9,500 pounds of both total nitrogen and phosphorus per year.
$691,909 has been designated for the City’s Riverview Park Baffle Box project. Once constructed and operational, this third generation baffle box will remove approximately 864 pounds per year of total nitrogen and 160 pounds per year of total phosphorus that is currently draining directly into the Indian River Lagoon. This project is part of a larger effort to construct baffle boxes in older parts of the City of Melbourne that were developed before modern stormwater treatment infrastructure was available.
Grants from the Brevard County Save Our Indian River Lagoon half-cent sales tax program will also be put toward the funding of these projects.
For more information, please see the Governor’s press release or view a video of the Governor's press conference.