Editor’s note: Below is a story published by TCPalm.com reporting on some $200,000 in needed repairs to the County’s troubled Spoonbill Marsh project. However, even before Hurricane Irma’s heavy winds and rains swept through much of Florida, Spoonbill Marsh had and continues to be a problem for the County.

Designed to filter salty brine water discharged by the North County Reverse-Osmosis Water Plant on County Road 510, Spoonbill Marsh has long been a headache for the County, for the marsh’s neighbors, including the Indian River Land Trust, and for state regulators, who have continued to make exceptions to the County’s conditional operating permit for Spoonbill March. That permit is now up for renewal, and the County is proposing to lower the bar for environmental compliance. (Anyone can claim to be a marksman, if the first shoot and then draw the target.)

Last year, when concerned Indian River County resident Barry Shapiro asked the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate problems at Spoonbill Marsh, he was savagely criticized by County Commissioner Bob Solari. Solari, long a proponent of the County taking over Vero Beach’s water and sewer utility, has an interest in minimizing the problems at Spoonbill Marsh. 

See: What is really going on at Spoonbill Marsh

COLLEEN WIXON/TCPalm.com

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY —  It will cost the county almost $200,000 to repair Spoonbill Marsh, where Hurricane Irma’s heavy rain and winds created several dams and clogged water flow. Continue reading…