Half a cent on every dollar you spend in Brevard. In return: a healthier lagoon, higher home values, better fishing, cleaner water, and 128,000 jobs across the region. Here's the math — for your home.
The Balmoral Group's 2025 economic study calculated exactly how much lagoon proximity adds to Brevard home values. Drag the slider to your home's value. We do the rest.
Home premium math from Balmoral Group hedonic analysis (2025). Tax math assumes half-cent sales tax on ~$55,000 in local household spending. Numbers are estimates for illustrative purposes — actual value depends on your home, location, and use.
The Indian River Lagoon supports one in eight Brevard jobs, protects your home's value, and keeps your water bills down. When the lagoon is healthy, Brevard is healthy. When it collapses, so does your paycheck, your property value, and your quality of life.
Lagoon-adjacent real estate contributes $23 billion in Brevard property value. A three-bedroom home within 100 meters of the water carries an $660,000 sales premium in Indian River County. Even a mile inland, the effect is measurable in every closing.
Balmoral hedonic studySeagrass — the food chain foundation — is up 72% since 2023. Snook, redfish, trout populations are following. Recreational fishing, boating, and shoreline activities generate $6.8 billion a year across the watershed. That's the strongest single ecosystem service the lagoon provides.
SJRWMD seagrass survey 2026128,400 jobs and $8.3 billion in wages across the seven-county watershed depend directly on the lagoon — hospitality, marine industries, aerospace, natural resource management, commercial fishing. One in eight Brevard jobs is downstream of lagoon health.
2025 Economic Valuation StudyEvery septic-to-sewer conversion the tax funds also removes nitrogen from your groundwater. Cleaner water = lower treatment costs at your utility = your water bill doesn't spike. So far the program has completed 2,400+ homeowner septic upgrades.
Brevard SOIRL project dashboardWetlands hold back over 100 billion gallons of storm water every year. Every stormwater basin, oyster reef, and living shoreline the tax funds is one more layer of protection between the next hurricane and your driveway. Flood mitigation alone is worth $500 million a year to the watershed.
Balmoral ecosystem servicesThe Space Coast's rapidly growing aerospace industry uses lagoon-front infrastructure and depends on the region's ability to attract and retain a talented workforce. A degraded lagoon costs Brevard both — the tax funds the maintenance of an economic engine most people don't associate with water quality.
Balmoral executive summary
$583.4 million allocated across the tax's 10-year life. Approved unanimously by the Citizen Oversight Committee, adopted by Brevard County Commission in February 2026.
Source: Brevard County Legistar File #8632 — 2026 SOIRL Plan Update. Live dashboard: brevardfl.gov/SaveOurLagoon.
These are the numbers from the SOIRL Citizen Oversight Committee's public progress reports. Verifiable on the county's live project dashboard.
Septic-to-sewer conversions, stormwater basins, baffle boxes, muck dredging operations across Brevard.
Quick-connect sewer conversions and advanced septic upgrades — cutting nitrogen at the source, one house at a time.
Every SOIRL dollar has attracted ~20¢ in state and federal grants. That's an extra $111M on top of the tax revenue.
Close to a million pounds of nitrogen — the fuel that killed the seagrass — kept out of the lagoon since 2016.
You're smart enough to know when you're being sold to. So let's just handle the three real critiques and where we come down on each.
Fair question. In February 2026 the Board voted 4–1 to place the tax on the ballot without ordering a state-level performance audit. Commissioner Katie Delaney was the dissent — she argued voters deserved third-party validation before renewing an ~$800M program.
The majority's case: SOIRL already has an annual independent financial audit, a public monthly Citizen Oversight Committee, and a transparent dashboard. Adding OPPAGA could have delayed the November ballot.
SOIRL has collected ~$504M through mid-2026. ~$430M is spent or in active projects. That leaves reserves plus commitments to multi-year capital projects still in design or construction.
Septic-to-sewer conversions take 18–36 months from design through construction. Money has to be committed to the project before it's spent. Reserves reflect the pipeline, not idle cash.
Florida Tech's pilot will pump ~0.5 cubic meters per second of ocean water into a small cove in the northern Banana River for one year. Cost: about $4.9M on top of $2.5M in prior research. From Florida Tech's own FAQ: "Enhanced seawater exchange would not, on its own, solve lagoon water quality issues."
To scale that to lagoon-wide impact would require pumps moving 500–1,000× the pilot rate, at 12–15 MW continuous — roughly $12–15M/year in electricity alone, on top of nine-figure capital. All to do what a passive tidal inlet does for free.
The lagoon question is on the same ballot as everything else in November. Here's exactly what to do.
30 seconds. Confirms you're on the rolls and shows your assigned precinct. Deadline to register: October 5, 2026.
Check now →Any early voting site in Brevard, any time during the window. Skips the Election Day lines completely.
Find a site →Election Day. Polls open 7 AM to 7 PM. Your specific precinct — no substitutions.
Find my precinct →The Indian River Lagoon has been kept alive by scientists, agencies, and volunteers who have been at this for decades. These are the front doors.
The lagoon-wide, federally-designated National Estuary Program. Led by Dr. Duane De Freese, whose team commissioned the 2025 Balmoral economic valuation and coordinates habitat restoration across all 156 miles.
onelagoon.org →Independent nonprofit that publishes the annual IRL Report Card grading each basin. For the honest, unvarnished lagoon-health story year over year, this is the source.
lovetheirl.org →The official Vote Yes campaign for the November 3 renewal. Volunteering, yard signs, canvassing, phone banking. If you want to actively help pass the renewal, plug in here.
helpthelagoon.org →Official county program. Every project, every dollar, monthly public COC meetings, annual audits. Every claim on this site can be verified here.
brevardfl.gov/SaveOurLagoon →25+ years of hydrodynamic and water-quality research. Home of the Restore Lagoon Inflow pump pilot at Port Canaveral. The published science.
research.fit.edu →Community-driven habitat restoration — oyster reefs, living shorelines, clam plantings. If you want to physically get in the water and help, sign up for volunteer days here.
restoreourshores.org →No. It's a renewal of the existing half-cent tax voters approved in 2016 with 62% support. Same tax, extended for another ten years. Nothing new, nothing bigger.
The existing tax expires in 2026. Without renewal, Brevard loses ~$67M/year in dedicated lagoon funding starting 2027. Committed projects still finish. New septic-to-sewer, muck removal, and stormwater projects effectively stop. The 72% seagrass recovery slows or reverses.
Roughly 26 cents of every tax dollar comes from visitors, not Brevard residents. It's a sales tax — anyone who buys anything in Brevard contributes. Tourists helping fund the lagoon they came to see.
Both. Two calm hurricane seasons helped. But recovery is happening even in basins with different exposure, and it correlates directly with reductions in nitrogen loading. NOAA and Harbor Branch scientists call the recovery "encouraging but fragile." Nitrogen source reduction is why there's a viable seed bank left to regrow from.
All sales taxes have regressive elements. Florida's exempts groceries and prescriptions, softening that. ~26% comes from tourists. And the benefits — flood protection, cleaner water, protected property values, restored fisheries — accrue broadly, including to lower-income neighborhoods that otherwise carry disproportionate environmental burden. An honest tradeoff; on balance the tax does more good than harm.
IRL Facts is an independent, volunteer-driven education project. Not a Political Action Committee. Not sponsored. Not affiliated with the Brevard IRL Coalition (though we agree with them on the ballot). Every claim links to a primary source. Find an error, tell us, we'll fix it.
Skeptical? Good. Verify anything on this page against the primary source. Nothing is second-hand.