Highway to be closed in Kissimmee for sewer repair
The city of Kissimmee Public Works & Engineering Department announces that U.S. Highway 192 between Ross Avenue and Bay Street will be closed for five days.
Contractor Reynolds Inliner is scheduled to make repairs to storm sewers. Crews will begin working at 8 a.m. Monday and work around the clock until Friday, Oct. 15. A cured-in-place method of repair will be used.
Electronic message boards will be in place to alert drivers of the road closure.
For more information, call the Public Works Department at 407-518-2170.

Drug take-back tally: tons
Drug Enforcement Administration, Miami Field Division, Special Agent in Charge Mark R. Trouville recently announced the results of the administration's Prescription Drug Take-Back Sept. 25.
In just four hours, 4.5 tons of prescription drugs were collected from more than 140 sites across Florida.  The collected drugs were safely disposed at the following four sites in Florida: Miami-Fort Lauderdale area – 1.5 tons; Orlando – 1.5 tons; Tampa – half-ton; and Tallahassee –
1 ton.
“The proper destruction of tons of unwanted, unused drugs results in a safer medicine cabinet and a cleaner environment,” Trouville said. “When these drugs are disposed of properly, they cannot end up in the hands of abusers or our youth.”
Nationwide, 121 tons were collected and destroy-ed. More than 4,000 collection sites were set up throughout the United States and its territories.
Following the success of this national program, Congress cleared legislation for President Barack Obama that will allow the administration to create a framework for a permanent solution for prescription drug disposal. Currently, there are no legal means to transfer possession of certain prescription drugs for disposal. Until permanent regulations are in place, DEA will continue to hold one-day take-back programs.

Hydrilla project funded
The University of Florida/ IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department has announced it has obtained a grant for a new project designed to tackle one of the country’s most troublesome invasive aquatic plants, hydrilla.
The grant will fund the Hydrilla Integrated Pest Management Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Project.
Hydrilla is an invasive freshwater plant common in Florida and in Osceola County lakes. It was likely brought to the Tampa and Miami areas as an aquarium plant in the late 1950s. By the 1970s, it was established throughout Florida. Hydrilla is capable of choking out native plants, clogging flood control and impeding waterway navigation and recreational usage.
In addition, hydrilla is showing resistance to fluridone, a systemic herbicide used to manage it for the past 20 years.
According to the University of Florida/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, millions of dollars are spent each year on herbicides and mechanical harvesters in Florida in an effort to place hydrilla under “maintenance control.”
Hydrilla and other invasive aquatic weeds are a direct threat to Osceola County’s economy and the environment, university officials stated in a press release.
Osceola County lakes contained nearly 50 percent of the total hydrilla standing crop reported in Florida public waters in 2009.
Almost 30 percent of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s total aquatic plant management budget – about $5 million – was spent in Osceola County in 2009; the majority of the funds were spent to suppress hydrilla.
The four-year, $500,000 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture will fund work by University of Florida/IFAS research and extension faculty, FAMU Faculty and an Army Corps Engineer to tackle the hydrilla problem. This funding will enable the team to study new chemical and biological control methods as part of an overall hydrilla integrated pest management plan.
As part of this project, the partnership of researchers will be studying the impacts of the integrated use of a new herbicide, a naturalized hydrilla mining midge and a native fungal pathogen.
For more information, contact Stacia Hetrick, Osceola County Extension, at 321-697-3000.