August Water News Digest 2026

Technology and water quality make regular bedfellows in the Zone, and this story keeps up the tradition - though the solution here is about as low-tech as it gets. Orlando is replacing the walkways on Strathmore Drive and Dover Street, near a badly polluted Lake Arnold, with pervious concrete pavement as part of a $1.3 million pilot project, trialling several types through the fall.

The idea is straightforward: instead of shedding rainwater across the surface and into the lake, pervious pavement lets stormwater pass through it and into the ground below, catching nitrogen, phosphorus and bacteria on the way rather than letting them wash straight into Lake Arnold. Water quality will be monitored once the pavements are in, and if it works, the approach could spread to other lakes across the state.

Solar power and electric vehicles usually get discussed separately, but the SunChase Solar Go-Kart Challenge at Florida Gulf Coast University puts them together - literally. The competition, which dates back to 2013, sees teams of high school students from across Southwest Florida design, build and race go-karts powered entirely by solar panels.

It's harder than it sounds. Teams spend months wrestling with limited battery power while trying to balance speed, efficiency and engineering, before racing on FGCU Boulevard in two sprints and two 30-minute endurance runs, judged by a panel as well as the clock. Somewhere among this year's 8 to 15 competing teams could be the engineers who design tomorrow's energy-efficient solutions - solar-powered cars very much included.

We've covered sargassum's many afterlives in the Zone before - fertilizer, building materials, even an ice-cream thickener - and this year's early, long-lasting blooms give us another reason to keep looking. Researchers at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School are investigating whether black soldier fly larvae can turn the rust-colored seaweed into a usable resource for sustainable aquaculture feed or fertilizer.

The process is refreshingly simple in concept: the larvae eat the sargassum, and then become a protein source further down the food chain. It's still experimental, but paired with the other uses we've written about, it adds one more reason to believe sargassum's reputation as a nuisance might not last forever.

Our lead story this month showed what happens when a community gets ahead of polluted stormwater before it reaches a lake. Hoover's latest Hoover Hub article looks at the flip side: what happens when an irrigation lake is left to fend for itself. Florida has more polluted lakes than anywhere else in the US, and the area unsuitable for swimming or aquatic life has more than doubled in two years - runoff carrying nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment is a major reason why.

The fix isn't complicated, but it does need attention: healthy shorelines and buffer zones of native grass that absorb runoff before it reaches the water, regular aeration to keep oxygen levels up, and sediment control before it builds into a bigger problem. Get it right, and it's not just the lake that benefits - it's the pump system drawing from it, and the water and repair bills that come with keeping it running.

Manatees hold a special place in Florida's affections, and not just for their gentle appeal to visitors keen for a glimpse (or, under strict conditions, a swim). They also act as something like a natural alarm system - when manatees struggle, it's usually a sign the wider waterway is struggling too, and healthy manatees tend to mean healthy water.

This story covers the release of more than 20 manatees, nursed back to health and fighting weight by the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership. It's taken years of coordinated work across organizations including SeaWorld Orlando, Zoo Miami, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium and Brevard Zoo to get them fit enough for release back into Florida's waters.

We've written often about the pressures facing Florida's coral reefs, rising sea temperatures chief among them. This story offers a rare piece of proactive good news: scientists in the Florida Keys are using a technique nicknamed 'coral IVF' to restore damaged reef systems around Key West.

The method involves collecting floating bundles of coral egg and sperm, fertilizing them, and growing the resulting 'baby corals' until they're large enough to be attached to existing reefs. In the meantime, they're kept in caged areas to stop hungry fish getting to them first, and monitored closely to make sure they're growing as they should.