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Peter O'Bryan: Make no mistake — Indian River County is working to protect lagoon Page 1 of 3 JOURNAL INTERACTIVE GUEST COLUif :€ PRINTTHIS Peter O'Bryan: Make no mistake — .Indian River County is working to protect lagoon t' Jan. 14, 2016 Lately there have been several news articles regarding Indian River County's lack of participation in the Indian River Lagoon Council, and how this somehow implies that the county is not taking action to improve the lagoon or that the county's efforts are ineffective. These articles neglect to inform the readers about the nutrient -removal projects the county already has built and that have been actively removing nutrients and debris from canal water before it reaches the lagoon. Indian River County began designing the first of these projects back in 2005, making the county a leader in taking concrete steps to reduce nutrients heading into the lagoon, with documented results. Since 2005, the county has spent over $29 million on four major, state-of-the-art regional projects to help the lagoon, using a mixture of local -option sales tax, utilities funds and grant funding. These four projects — Spoonbill Marsh, Egret Marsh, PC Main Skimmer and Osprey Marsh — have collectively removed more than 128,000 pounds of nitrogen and more than 29,000 pounds of phosphorous, preventing these damaging excess nutrients from reaching the lagoon. These numbers could hardly be called ineffective. County staff has received several awards from the Pelican Island Audubon Society as results of our efforts to reduce pollution to the lagoon. Among them are two Maggie Bowman Conservationist of the Year Awards and a Special Recognition Award. Our PC Main Skimmer project on the Main Relief Canal, in addition to removing nutrients, also has removed more than 2,800 wet tons of floating trash and debris http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=Peter+0%3 FBryan%3 A+Make... 1/25/2016