Over the last decade, LCI staff and volunteers have worked to protect water quality in Port Royal Sound, and we are pleased to announce that this hard work has come to fruition.  On October 26, 2009, Beaufort County Council passed a new and radically different stormwater ordinance that will serve as a model for communities around the country. The stormwater ordinance, which controls the volume of water leaving a property, as well as water quality, is essential to preserving this unique and nationally important coastal estuary.  Restricting the amount of runoff from the land to pre-development levels will prevent large fluctuations in salinity and turbidity in our tidal creeks that harm the developing crustacean larvae that are essential to our recreational fisheries.

Stay tuned for the release of a new TV series entitled Coastal Kingdom, featuring LCI's very own Tony Mills, on the Beaufort County Channel.  The pilot episode for the series (Reptiles and Amphibians) has already been filmed and was very well received by Beaufort County Council.  We also continue to work with teachers and students at our pilot schools - click here to read the news release about a project to enhance native bird habitat recently undertaken by Kristen and Tony at Whale Branch Middle School and here to read the article about the project published in the Beaufort Gazette.  Many thanks to all of those individuals who participated in the citizen science alligator survey who were not mentioned in the previous update - Paul Kinsey, Mike Logan, Alex Althausen, Chuck Ford, Mike Cooper, Larry Outlaw, Sally Papineau, Tom Burke, and Warren Williamson.

The LowCountry Institute is 100% funded by tax-deductible gifts.  Your 2009 donation will allow the LCI to help meet the many challenges confronting the Low Country in 2010.  There is still much work to be done.  We hope you will give as generously as you can.