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The spotted seatrout and redfish are seeking the shallow nearshore seagrass habitats at Oslo. There is healthy seagrass growing at Oslo. Various species of macroalgae also grow there and also form indigenous food and habitat needed by various seagrass fish and invertebrate species. The seagrass at Oslo is not being harmed by water running off shell/marl substrates of Oslo Road any more than it is at the thousands of marl, shell and carbonate shorelines throughout south Florida. A term for the white precipitate that forms ephemeral clouds in the water column coming from carbonate sediments is a "whiting", a phenomenon that has received considerable study in Florida and the Bahama Islands. It does not cause the death of seagrass as the County has maintained. All of south Florida is made of this shell and coral substrate and rain running off native Florida sediments is not killing seagrass or we would have no seagrass in south Florida. Why do these fish pick some sites and reject others? This is still under study, but chosen sites must certainly give the fish a survival advantage. Our research and that of others has effectively demonstrated homing in larval and juvenile fish to very specific special locations. The Chair of this Commission, Commissioner O'Bryan, participated in one of my research studies that effectively demonstrated nursery site imprinting in snook and tarpon to areas not even a half acre in size. These studies revealed that present State and Federal aquatic habitat mitigation practice is invalid in protecting regional fisheries. One of the most intensely studied sites was done at Round Island Park across the Lagoon from Oslo. One day we captured 600 juvenile snook at the south culvert, the only culvert in that impoundment at the time. I had a second culvert installed at the north end of the impoundment thinking snook would use it too. They did not. The same observation was made at Jack Island Park in St. Lucie County with up to 3,000 snook captured in and around the north culvert one day, while very few or none were captured at the many other culverts we installed in that impoundment. The snook had been homing in on the chemistry of a specific site long before we arrived. We could not create a snook settlement site. They settled at the same relatively small site year after year at roughly the same time year. There were often may be miles between these valuable nursery sites. Not every mangrove and not every seagrass bed is a nursery site for these important fishery species. However, every mangrove and every seagrass meadow saturates with the prey for these species, mosquitofish, shrimp and pinfish. INDIAN RIVER COUNTY COMMISSIONS AND THE LAGOON: I worked for the Indian River County Commission of Alma Lee Loy and Bill Wodke as the first biologist to survey the natural resources of every spoil island in Indian River County. I am not sure, but I believe some of you were likely in high school, possibly even grade school at that time, 30-40 years ago. I knew, or was personal friends of Commission chairs over the years, Pat Lyons, Maggie Bowman, Fran Adams, Ken Macht, Ruth Stanbridge, Gary Wheeler and others working with them to protect and enhance the aquatic habitats and fisheries of this County and the Lagoon at large. This is the first Commission I have encountered that has ignored some of the best scientific evidence on aquatic ecosystems and fishery needs, at a time when it is critical for the survival of all our regional fisheries. It is also interesting to note that three of the County I02-