Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

No other communications. No other comments. We are adjourned. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Member Winter?

Here.

Vice chair High?

Here.

Member Snyder?

Here. Member Woodworth? Here.

Chair Mascouk?

Here. We're all here, we can now proceed with the pledge of allegiance. Let's stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. As we move along, before we get to election of chair and vice chair, we need the approval of the agenda. So I'd like to throw that open. Any comments? Any changes?

Yes, I have one. I think the presentation for the Big Marco Pass, it might be good to discuss that while it's all

fresh. Okay.

It's not on our agenda, and I think we should find a place for it. The other thing is 26, 51, 59, the black and vest report that we just got. Just a reminder, this committee voted down five to two to get a price for AWT. So I would certainly like to have it discussed. But if it's going to be twenty minutes of five people just throwing dots at it that we don't really want AWT since we voted it down, is not productive to helping help city council proceed on it.

So I just throw it out there for us to know. I'm happy to leave it there, but if it's going to be twenty minutes of negativity, I'm not sure that's worthwhile.

Okay. Chris?

I agree with Ralph. I think we need to bring up both of those topics if we're allowed to do that. But on the AWT, I think you can just cap it at a certain time. So if it wants to start running on, just look on it.

Okay. I know that we did send it to counsel and we did vote on it. But because of this report, I do think there is there would be merit for it to be discussed in this fashion. That would be my opinion. Is everybody okay with that?

So where motion to put it back? So I don't know how you do that.

Yeah. I don't know exactly where you'd want it on on the agenda. What is your thinking?

Just put it right after the black and veg report.

Okay. Is that okay? Can we do that?

You're the chairman. I'm sure you can.

I'd like to do it. Anybody

Can you do what? Were there two you mentioned two things.

Yeah. Well, there are two. To put, the, what we were talking about, the AWT, right after the Black and Veatch report, even though we had voted on it and it had gone to counsel, we there is a request to go ahead and to revisit. So

Do we have to put if we're adding things, do we have to put this on a future as a future agenda item?

No. We're good on the

We were is it on there?

Yeah. No. No. It is not on here. The Black and Veatch report is, but the addition that Ralph was mentioning is not. So I'd like to add that on to tag that on to the end of the black and beach report, and we can discuss it.

That's alright.

Yeah. That has not been noticed. So if it's what you can do is discuss it during the

I can

other committee communications.

Okay. Under 14. If that's okay.

And discuss putting it on a future agenda. But if it's not on this agenda, it's not really a a agenda item that should be deliberated on today. Okay.

Will defer to our liaison, and, we'll we'll bring it up under 14. Okay? And and the other item was on the white paper that

Should that go under 14 as well?

While it's fresh and while it's a hot topic, I think it should come up. A lot of people have questions. Okay. So we can also add that. So let's try to make time to get to fourteen so that we can adequately discuss both of those issues. Okay.

I would like to add a general item for feedback generally from the city council meeting on Tuesday as it pertains to waterways topics.

Okay. So that would be another okay. 14 is going to be heavy. That's all.

That's all that's all in the same

Yeah.

Deal with margins.

It is. Okay. Do we need to vote on anything? No? Okay. Duly noted. So as we move along now, it is time for the election of chair and vice chair. And as it has been told to me, the current chair will call for nominations, which do not require a second. And a nominee may decline the nomination. I may exercise a prerogative to nominate. Nominations should continue until there are no further nominations, and discussions may follow each of the nominations

Excuse me, sir.

Entirety of nominations. Nominations.

Did you guys make a motion and a second for the approval of the agenda?

Thank you. So moved. Okay. All in favor of the approval of the agenda?

Aye.

Aye. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. So now we will go to nominations. I'd like to throw this open to nominations for chair of the Waterways Advisory Committee.

Elliot, I'll say you've done a wonderful job. I think there's value in rotating a little bit, and, I think, Chris Lewandowski is is another excellent choice. So I would nominate Chris. Okay. Nomination for Chris? Second.

Second. K. These do not require that, but that's just wanted to make that. Okay. Do we have any other nominations for chair?

I would nominate Dan High.

Okay. We have a nomination for Dan High for chair. Dan?

I'm allowed to decline. I respectfully decline. Okay. Nomination declined.

Do I hear do I hear any further nominations?

I may nominate Martin Winter.

Martin Winter, you have been nominated for chair.

I would accept the nomination.

So we have two nominations. Any more nominations? We have a nomination for Chris Lewandowski. We have a nomination for Martin Winter. Okay. The first nominee is Chris Lewandowski. Do we have a vote? Any discussion?

Just call for the vote.

Just call for the vote. Okay. Let's have a vote. Okay? Let's have a roll call. The vote call. Alright. For the

nomination of Lewandowski, I've got member Woodworth.

Yes.

Member Lewandowski?

Yes.

Member Rohanna?

Yes.

Member Winter?

Yes.

Vice chair High?

Yes.

Member Schneider?

Yes.

And chair Mascoupe?

Yes. Okay. I think we have a new chair.

Do you have new chair? Now it's time for You're musical very welcome.

I think we need to switch our seats, Chris.

That's correct. And then the first order of business would be elect the vice chair.

Congratulations.

Alright. Do we have any nominations for vice chair?

I'd nominate Martin Winter.

I'll accept the nomination. Anyone else?

All in favor of Martin Winter? I guess you gotta call the roll.

Roll call, yes.

For the nomination of Martin Winter as vice chair, I've got member Schneider.

Yes.

Member Woodworth. No. Member Lewandowski.

Yes.

Member Rohana. No. Member Winter?

Yes.

Member Vice Chair High?

Yes.

And member Mascot?

Yes.

Okay. That passes.

Motion carries five two.

Alright. Sorry, I haven't done this before here. Okay, next is approval of the minutes from last meeting. Any discussion? Let's do a motion first.

Motion to approve.

I second the motion. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Passes. I don't see Marco Police here today, so we'll skip over that. If they show up, we'll come back to that.

Mister chair, I have an update on that. I had a call from them. They're responding to an emergency sinking barge. And if they're done in time, then we will accommodate them as they come. But if not, then they won't be able to.

Okay. Not a problem. Thank you. We will move on to old business B, the black and beach report.

Mr. Chair, if I may, I will put this up on the overhead because it wasn't included in the agenda packet. We didn't receive it in time for the noticing. So we will put this up on the overhead. And I believe the committee has copies. If you don't, please let me know.

And I as I understand, this is from Jeff Boteet.

That's correct. Essentially, the the majority of the document deals with a a they're reaching out to a company called Nuquatic, which was formerly phosphorus free water solutions. You could read it for yourself. It's on the on the board there. But, essentially, what they're saying is they didn't get responses from them. That company has since relocated to Michigan, and they're focusing on other areas. And then, in the last paragraph, the important thing to note there is that the final report is expended expected at the March, and the findings will be presented to the, city council at the April 13, city council workshop.

Okay. Any discussion on this?

I have a quick question. Will we get a copy of the report before it is presented to counsel?

I this is not this is the water and sewer department leading this effort. I cannot answer any questions other than what you see on here. I I don't know.

Could we ask if we could have a copy before the city council meeting?

Might I suggest selecting one committee member to reach out to the water and sewer general manager with any questions you may have that can then be disseminated via the liaison back to

the company. I will ask Jeff. I will email him and ask him if we can have the report ahead of time.

Thank you.

Because I am assuming he will know about it.

Okay. Any other discussion on the report? No? I do have not specifically a discussion on the report, and we may want to table it until we get to AWT. But I do feel that there has been a lot of miscommunication around AWT.

I think there is a view that if you don't like put your hand up and jump up in the air about AWT, then you're completely opposed to it. And I would say this is just my personal position. And I've stated this many times, I am not opposed to AWT. What I want clarity on is I want clarity on what the cost is and what the benefits are. Because we have had instances where we've had people come in from Tampa Bay and present and basically say, well, AWT is going to solve all our problems in three to five years.

But their AWA situation is completely different to ours. They had to go down the path of AWT because of the bay and discharge into the bay. So for them, it was not a would we like to have it, it was a case of this is compulsory, you have to adhere to these guidelines. For us, it would be a nice to have. And I'm not opposed to nice to have.

What I want to know is, if this goes to referendum, if it gets fully supported by City Council, how much money is it going to cost, both capital expenditure and reoccurring cost, because there are always costs for filters and chemicals and all those things that will be involved. And I also want a statement from somebody, be it an expert or whoever, stating that if we go down this path of AWT, we are going to see significant improvement in the water with a timeline. And I'm not sure that anyone can do that. What we have seen from Jacobs Engineering and what we have seen from other purported experts is that the timeline is way longer than three to five years. So I am stating

a

personal position that I am

Point of order, Chairman. This is not on the agenda, Martin.

This ties into Black and Veatch because they are processing

a w

You're making a position statement.

We we can table it until AWT at the end of the meeting. Alright.

I have

to do that. Okay.

Mister chair, also, need to have the vice chair switch seats with the former vice chair.

Okay. What's that one? It's nice to meet

you. Thirty seconds. All right. Thank you guys for switching.

You need that too.

Oh, I could be Martin. Okay. Any final discussion on the Black and Beech or Black and Beech Resort report? Nope. Okay. Moving on. Ralph, number c is you, dredging alternatives. Okay.

Martin, I think he's gonna put up that paper. Thank. Okay. If you recall last meeting, I had a presentation on dredging alternatives. Just to be succinct, the major part of it was calling into question the area of the assumption that everything on the island, every canal needed to be dredged, and that's not necessarily the case.

The back end of the harbor port contradicts itself, And there are other locations that are dealing with this other issue that called instead of everything being muck and assuming that, that less than a third of it was actually mucked up to the degree that you have to address it. So I spoke about the less invasive self contained small scale dredging, if you want to call it that. And one of the aspects I touched on was potentially saving costs of what to do with the spoils by putting it in some of the deeper areas, many of which from the 2,005 bathymetry are 22 plus feet deep. And there are some issues about how many, how much area there. There was a thing brought up consideration that you need deep water to protect our fish.

And I was asked to present some examples of utilizing our deep waters for putting some of our spoils, And that's what this is. So the reason why you put some of the spoils into the deeper areas, and I want to reread this whole thing, but eliminates hypoxia, attach the contaminants because you can put the spoils deep into the water and then put a foot or two of clean dense material like sand over on top and capture it or encapsulate it so it's no longer emitting nutrients to the overlying water column. And you can bring it up to the level where it gets sunlight and things can actually grow with the dense material, the roots can actually root in it. So where you had a deep pit of hypoxic areas spewing out nutrients, you can create a garden of seagrass. That's what some of the intents are.

And I picked a few examples. I could have filled up 50 pages of examples where this sort of thing is done. Over in Tampa Bay, I picked that one out because they had a choice of completely filling these deep areas or partially filling. That is always an option. And if you can pick and choose which holes you have available to actually fulfill your concern with fish or maybe partially fill it, I don't know, 22 feet to 17 feet or something, still substantial area to put your muck, especially for small scale dredging if you go that direction.

But that's why I picked it out because it's not necessarily totally filling these deep areas. And then there's quite a number of examples outside of Florida. I put a bunch of those on. And that was just an exact a bunch of examples where this is done quite successfully. And that was the intent of what I was asked to do as a follow-up to the dredging presentation. So if there are any questions, I don't want to spend all our time. We have a lot to talk about today. Any questions?

I have quick questions. Part of the muck issue is that it contributes to the nutrient recycling process. And I agree with you that you need to cap the muck. Otherwise, you are just moving the muck somewhere else. So the the cap, I think, is important if you consider it.

But the other question I have, which I did mention once, was whether you could not get a permit to take the dredge material out in The Gulf 20 miles or so, which I know Tampa has already done and you get a permit to dump that out in The Gulf and whether that is not a less expensive alternative than trucking it to a waste site on land?

Yes. In the first question, encapsulating it is really what part of the Seahawk presentation was, except they were making islands out of it. They were putting the muck in one place to another place and encapsulating it and putting plants, you recall that. This does the way takes the advantage of doing the same thing, but below the data of even Corps of Engineers overseeing it. So it takes a good part of that, encapsulating it just like Seahawk was presenting.

And they did that because that's the way it's done. The other part of it, this proposal of putting into the holes is also a similar reason why Seahawk did it that way because it saves money off of sending it offshore. It's very, very expensive. And this wasn't about trucking it onshore, it's like putting it holes as a beneficial use of it to create areas of seagrass. But you can certainly put it to spoil areas offshore. But virtually every project tries to have a beneficial use of it. That's why most of the time, they'll put it on the beach or fill in holes. But does that answer your question?

Thank you, Rob. Elliot? Yes.

I'm not trying to poke holes in these holes, but I have a couple of concerns. The holes that are there, the topography under the water, obviously that's part of the ecology and part of what was there. I mean, I would love to hear from an expert as to what the damage or the downside would be to altering the topography in these locations under these that you want to put this material in. The other question I would have is how do we know that encapsulating or controlling that ability of that material to come back up and to cause problems with the nutrients and the pollution that it contains, how do we know that with hurricanes and tides and currents that that's not going to come back up to bite us? These are just some, I mean, questions that I would have.

And I think that was the nexus of the request where they're doing this other places, and they've done this, j, since I've been around. It's simply been done. Of course, those questions you have come to fruition. If you look at this as, hey, we want to do some let's do some engineering, let's do some exploration, and those things come bubble up to the surface. And of course, we can come up with thousands of questions. What about this? What about this? What about this? And you have to look at it in its totality. Is this something that, hey, it looks like that might be a positive thing? Take the next step, answer questions like that. Get an expert to look at it, engineers to look at it, that kind of a thing.

That's what I would want to know before I'd be on board. It sounds good, but these are some questions that would I want answers to before being totally in favor of this proposal. Thank you.

Pardon? Yes. So I think that I think this proposal has merit. And I certainly don't want to shoot it down. I think it's it plays in nicely to some of the work that was done by Seahawk, albeit slightly different result at the end.

I think the challenge that we've got is really we don't know what we don't know. We have been pushing for a bathymetric survey of the depths of canals and areas in the island. My understanding is that the police have surveyed very thoroughly now with an outside free to us organization. And I think we need to push hard to have that information collated, overlaid to what the depths were in these canals back in 2005. So we're talking twenty one years ago.

At that point in time, we'll be able to say, yes, these canals have definitely changed. There is two foot of sediment, three foot of sediment. Landmark Basin has changed. We know that the gradient on Landmark Basin is most probably not appropriate because it is deeper at the catch end and very shallow at the entrance end. So therefore you have issues with water flow.

Mean it's basically going over a semi tidal sill and getting trapped in the basin. So I think this has got merit, but I think the first thing that we need to do and we have been pushing for is to get this data so that we can say this is what the underground water levels were across the island in this state, this is what they look like now. And until we have that, I think it's difficult to push forward on any of this. I think dredging is going to be a part of the solution. I think AWT are part of the solution, the culverts are part of the solution. This is a very complicated puzzle. And until we get that data and we get support from City Council pushing hard to get that data collated, I think some of these things are difficult to move forward.

Let me just piggyback on that. I mean, I've been ranting on getting survey for quite some time, not just the bathymetrics, but the amount of muck where the muck is because whether it's five canals or 150 canals that need to be addressed. My presentation showed that it may be a fairly minor amount compared to what we thought about before plus also areas that need to be dredged, as you mentioned, whether or not there is mucking them anyway. And it ties in together how much of each type of thing to address it and to make decisions, you need to have that data sooner, better, and later. And that data also goes into we've agreed it's a multipronged approach in making decisions on all these other things.

And delaying getting this information is what keeps us constantly on the fence. And it's been part of the reason why we've kicked the can down the road, not all of it, for seven years. Everybody some to some of it is looking for the smoke single smoking gun, single silver bullet, which doesn't exist.

So I can you guys switch over to the overhead? I agree. I think we need to look at some kind of dredging because if you can see on the overhead, that's a picture I took about a month ago or so. But if you go down Collier and as you're leaving Collier, look at the float towers along the way, the waves keep killing the trees. The trees fall into the water and then the trees have to decompose. So all you're doing is creating more stuff on the bottom of the of the water.

Where is this again?

That's on the flotilla going up towards the nine fifty one ramp. So but if you drive all around the island, there are spots on the island have trees that fall into the water. I had a meeting with the code enforcement and Marco PD trying to look at other alternatives to, you know, like how we talked about water runoff in the yards and stuff like that. And the police chief actually said something that made a lot of sense when I didn't think about it. She goes, do you have a pool? And I live in a condo, so we have a pool. And we have a pool guy and we have to net the pool out every day. And she goes, isn't that the same as the canal? Said, I never thought about it, but all the leaves fall into the canal. If you guys ever, I mean I am on the water a lot, but if you ever go by the mangrove trees, they constantly drop leaves in the water.

So I think that as you look at what's going on, we are going to continually have a problem of building more muck on the bottom and to me it's these trees, palm leaves, I mean one palm fronds a lot of decomposing has to happen for it to decompose. So I agree, we need to look at something, but again I think dredging is a spot we got to look at. Now my question is on the holes, I don't know how many holes are really are in the Marco City limits because the ones that I would know that are just outside of those limits are where charter guys fish because the holes are where fish are stored a lot of times too. So I would love to see that, but it goes back to your bathymetric survey. We have talked to Markle PD a number of times on this and they are saying they are going to try to get an overlay.

Is that good enough for you right now?

Quite I mean, we've been talking about this whole surveying thing most probably for a year or more. And it's great that originally it was put forward as an expenditure item for City Council and it was going to cost, I think remind me if I'm out of whack here, but it was $120,000 to 200,000

100,100

thousand So it was $100,000 worth of expenditure that we have saved because we've had an independent third party charity organization that are interested in doing this come forth and we've collected the data. What I want to see happen is I want to see that data that we have now overlaid. And I don't want to see it in six months, twelve months. I want to see it in like three months because all of these things we can't move forward until we have got some of this data. Once we realize to Ralph's point, once we realize where these are, we can then start to investigate, well, is this purely just silted up, but it's silted up with good stuff or is it silted up with bad stuff?

And then you can start figuring out what actions need to be taken. The thing that concerns me with this is, this is another big ticket item that has been looming for years, most probably since the Harper report. Nothing really has I mean, we've done some fixes, we've done some fill goods, we've done fertilizer ordinance, we've done street sweepers, we've done those things. But we haven't addressed the big chestnut. And when you get into a situation that we're in at the moment with capital expenditure and raising money and bonds and all that kind of stuff, It's a little alarming to me that this is the big topic of the island, water quality and boaters paradise and people come to Marco to do this.

And it's getting pushed back to not even being put on the table for the city management. So, do we go, okay, let's do this and then start working on it for the budget for 2027, because this is going to be a big ticket item. This is no different to bridges or road infrastructure. Nothing has been spent for years. And here we are again, kind of it just feels like kick the can down the road a bit, send it back to waterways, get more data, more data.

And every time we do that, the situation is getting worse. So I mean, I'm fine with we've got the data, the police and some independent people have done a good job. If what they're telling us is correct, we should be able to overlay that over to the old survey and then we can get some data that people are going to have to take action on. So in answer to your question, I'm kind of happy, providing the time line is three months, not twelve months. Okay.

I'll actually ask that question.

Yes. Just a comment on the overlay, because I thought about the same thing, see what the trends are. We'll see what that tells you. The 2,005 bathymetry, I couldn't find anywhere where it says what data they're using. Mean, assume mean lower, low water, but that's not necessarily the case. And I did ask a question about this new bathymetry gathering. It says, well, where are they what are they using? What datum are they using? What baseline? Are you actually doing that? Or is it just because they're getting readings from all these boats. I don't know exactly how they're coordinating it.

The data is they're pulling it off of the NEMA 2,000 connectors on the GPS. So they're getting date and time stamp. So then they're going to go back, supposedly is what I understood. Go back to the GPS time on that and see what the mean tide was at that point in tide. So if you're at high tide, the number is gonna be different than if you're at low tide when you went out in that past.

We asked that question of Josh, and he's he confirmed that Josh with the marine police, confirmed that they adjust depending on when you took your reading, they adjust it for and report a

Timestamp. I

thought they adjusted it for to report a low tide.

Yes. I think it's going be a or a mean tide.

Put that into consideration. When

the timestamp stamps that they know where you are at with the GPS, so then they know based on tide and they are calculating that into it.

Right. But the problem was that I couldn't get an answer from is you're bringing it back to the reference station, whether it's whether it's Texombes or one of Big Marco Pass. And everybody knows that when you go to internal canals, considerably different in timing and heights. Are you adjusting because normally, if you want to know exactly what it is by your canal, you've got to do some homework yourself and have a differential. And I said, well, how are you getting that differential? Because what it says in one canal, it doesn't sound like you're bringing it to the baseline. You're bringing it back to, say, the reference point, and it is different by a lot.

Let me ask that one too again. But I understood that they were based on the GPS because you have a GPS coordinate and a timestamp that they would know what the tide was at the time and then calculate it.

Right. And bring it back to the reference station. But again, I couldn't find where the 2005 baseline data point was either. So we'd have to go back so they can have the proper overlay.

I mean, one would hope that they've any water or chart item.

Well, you would assume, but I've seen it different.

So this goes back to your other agenda at a moment back on dredging. Are you saying is this what you're talking about here, all you're trying to look into is just dredging certain areas that we know that are like some of these ends of these canals and stuff like that and dropping them into a hole? Or are you looking to do the whole island?

No. As part of the survey, you would have an idea what needs to be dredged, whether it's mark or not, and some areas where you want to go for the muck. That's why you're there. Combine it together and instead of the expense of bringing, let's say, onshore, trucking onshore or bringing it offshore, barging it offshore to put it in these holes that are close by because it's hydraulic dredging, which is appropriate. And you can do it on a barge or a split barge with geotextile bags, fill it up write in a small area, bring it to the hole, open up, drops down, that kind of a concept, which is just the cheapest way to go.

Of course, there's work to be done. I mean, obviously, if it's going to be near some development, probably the people around there would have to check that box as well. A lot of work would have to be obviously done, but you got to go step by step. That's not to say I ignore the fact that I would prefer what they've done in the Keys encapsulation of the muck, which is a one and done type thing. Whenever you dredge, the issue is that if you do partial, like in the middle section of any canal, is the risk that the stuff that's left on the sides flows in. That doesn't go away. But, of course, we haven't gotten to that judgment yet.

So what do you want as the next step for yours?

Well, I think what we need to do is say, yes, this looks good, like Martin was saying and we take up these pieces to it. If questions there, we want to take the next step. And I think it should the work should could be done. So when we say, yes, we want to do something instead of yacking on it, you know, we may have pieces of it that different members dig into it and come back with something and say, yeah, okay, we've answered somebody's questions enough to recommend we want to do some real engineering, professional engineering on this and recommend that to city council if that's what they wanna do.

Okay. So is there anybody against what he's talking about? No? Not against, but

I'd like to know if we know that the authorities and agencies and whatever that would permit this, would they permit it? Because we did talk about a similar type of a proposal a few months back and we found out that the FDP wouldn't allow what we were talking about and the council also said no. So I know that's been a point of contention that that is not accurate, but from what I've been told that is accurate. But what I am really asking, I mean, to do all this, it sounds good, but we don't want to run up against a brick wall and you know, down the road find out after a lot of work be told, well, you can't do it. So I'd like to know that if we do decide to move on this, that the powers that be would permit it to go forward.

That is just my agree,

but Ralph, the question I got is, I guess, we don't know where the holes are at, so we're trying to we'd have to do some kind of a survey to get the holes. So what you're really asking for is initially, let's look into this as a possibility to find a hole to put the muck into.

Well, there's if you look at the 2,005, there's an enormous number of holes, depending. It's 22 plus feet. There is a lot of those. But there is an enormous number of 17 plus mean low water assuming. So we have 2,005 at the very least and we have another one coming up.

But as far as finding out whether authorities would give you a go ahead, we've had this discussion before. You're not nobody, anybody is going to go and spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours at FDP and all the data gathering just to come and say, Okay, now what do you think? Should we do business? I mean, for RFP for any kind of business. He said, well, it's probable or possible, get approved.

It's subject to getting these approvals. That's part of the things you go through. To say, well, we got to have FDA approval guarantee before you can have this discussion, we don't waste our time, it's actually absurd.

Well, I'm not I understand what he's asking for, but I also think that maybe what we could do is just talk to somebody because I think DEP would be the first spot that tells us no, right? And just see can is there any issues if we found a hole and put stuff into the hole? You know, do they have an issue with that? And then maybe go further.

Well, that was probably what was asked and what I presented here today. I could get 50 pages where they fill the holes, pure and simple. So that should be enough to say, okay, that sounds like we might be able to get this approved. If we like what the result says and we'd start talking about the potential impacts and the works around it, Okay, it's pretty good. We take the next step and then another step after that.

But to say that we're not going to do anything because we need to go out and get somebody to get FDA approval and use the resources to get that before, we're never going to do anything, which has been a contention for the past year. We are trying to get things done in an active manner. And well, I've had my say on that.

I just like to say that I would like to hear from an environmental expert to come and tell us or let us know the value of these holes when it comes to the ecology, the fisheries, everything involved. And I would like to hear from an expert at this level to tell us, there is no problem with doing what you want to do with these hulls. And I feel a lot better.

Just want to

say that. Okay. Want to take that? Well, I'm not the Chairman.

Hold on, hold on. Martin?

So I understand the concerns. I understand the point. The reality of it is from an ecology point of view, let's move the whole island because you shouldn't be here. I mean that's the brutal truth of it. We as humans have created an island in the ecology and now we're trying to protect it.

So it's a very fine line between protecting the economy the ecology rather and actually having Mark Island. I would say that if you go to an environmentalist, there's a high probability that they say, all these holes are great because there's a hole that's efficient. If you go to a barging contractor, you'll say, yes, these holes are great because I can put some spoils in there. So it's going to be conflicted. But I think the first thing we need to do is find out where they are, what issues we're dealing with, where the muck is, where it isn't and then figure out how we go forward.

If it turns out that these holes are not a good option, then we have to look at most probably another option that's more expensive. But the last time a dredging program was put forward for potentially using a station on Collier and pumping spoils to land that we own that got shot down by city management. It was a $5,000,000 project and they said we don't even want it in the budget. We're not even going to listen to it. So until we get city management and council approval to back these things at a high level, we're going to be fundamentally challenged.

I agree. That's when we're talking about the next step. We all engage. If we say this is what we want to do, instead of surface talking about it and say, well, we should do this, we should do that, it's a project. The whole committee should be engaged in it. There's pieces to it. There's moving parts as everybody I say the same thing. There's moving parts to it. We bring those parts together. And so, yeah, this is something that we can recommend that we get some serious professional engineering on. And you go from there. You don't normally get professional engineers at the beginning stage when we ourselves have enough knowledge to say, yes, maybe yes, maybe no and know what the questions are going to

be. Great.

Just to have a couple of quick comments. Think it is worth pursuing and I think there is two points that we should probably defer to a future meeting till we get the bathymetric data because without that, you do know what you are doing. And I think Ralph, there are examples that you have cited here where people must have gotten FDEP permits. So if you could get copies of those permits and if those permits were in a situation similar to Marcos, it might be useful for us to know that FDP is inclined to approve permits to do this. Then third, after that, then we go to his point of environmentally, is it a sound thing to do after you know what the depths are, whether FTP will prove it, then you bring in an ecologist and say, well, you got good fishing, bad fishing, we got other issues that need to be explored.

I think we don't have enough information yet to talk about it much further at this meeting.

Yes, I agree with you. Obviously, if all these projects have been done, many of them ongoing, they all have FTP approval. I mean, yeah, when you get a copy, I mean, you know what they read like. And does it tell you exactly the first thing that will come up is, well, that's not really Marco. I mean, maybe Tampa doesn't have snook and needs deep things and we do. I think it is a valid concern to think about.

So unless somebody disagrees here, I think, Ralph, if you would like, could you maybe look at the old survey that we have got and see if there is any viable holes maybe and maybe talk to somebody to see if the depth is okay and then come back and then we can just put actually an agenda item again to discuss it so we just keep pushing this so that we actually get to some point on this. Because I think that the only way to clean the water here is, well, one of the major ways to clean the water is to dredge it.

Yes. And I agree with you. Mean, AWT, I think, is the best thing right now. But there's an opportunity to jump start it. If now that we know or have a pretty good idea that the market is concentrated in a smaller number of places, comes up with a cost number, and especially if we do it in conjunction with places we have to dredge anyway because it's just simply too shallow. And it starts to get us to a place where we're getting the best bang for the buck multi pronged options to try to address it. We're getting closer to do it. And I think that's a good path forward.

Well, in the future, I'd like to actually see the city be able to have a dredging contract with somebody. So if neighbors on one canal are tired of it and the city is not going do anything with it, then they could go and dredge.

Pretty expensive for a canal for

You know, you got people, you got water direct canals that only have a couple feet of water in them sometimes. So, you know, I think somebody needs some options on that. Alright, you are good? Any other discussion?

I just like to say one last thing. I think it is a great idea and I have mentioned the way, you know, my opinion about it, but I would be more inclined to stop the polluting first. I would probably go stronger with even AWT. I would go much more into stop putting the landscaping materials, the grass, the fertilizer into these canals and then really focus on getting the stuff out. Because until we stop making it worse, we've to start cleaning it up.

I know we've got to clean it up. I'm not saying we don't. But until we start stopping the damage, the damage is going to keep occurring. And if we don't stop it, this could be a moot point because if we clean it up and we are still polluting, we're kind of, you know, shooting ourselves in the foot and spending a lot of money before, you know, I mean, you have to put in the cart before the horse. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'd be I'm not against it, but I I agree. I've got mixed feelings. Thanks.

But I'd I you know, like the picture I showed you guys, you you got massive amounts of debris that end up in the canals. One way or another, I think that we need to do better enforcement and that's why I talked to co enforcement on the people that are intentionally putting stuff in the canals, but maybe they are not, they don't know better, that's kind of what we are trying to do is educate at this point.

Like education.

And, but you know you have trees that are in these canals and I mean I see them all the time and we have to dodge them. So, not just trees when a hurricane happens or like you guys can see on Facebook and that people's Adirondack chairs end up in the canals and blown down the way and they think someone stole them, but all that debris ends up in the canal. We have to, it's a lot of education, but I think that it's not gonna go down. It's just gonna keep the depth is gonna keep coming up.

Well, I'll say we discussed that area many times. It's really a no brainer. Yes. You gotta keep this stuff from getting in the canals and adding organic matter to it. The issue for me is we talk about it. We never pursue anything. We never come to a consensus of what it is we want to do. Step one, we're going to do this. It's always we leave it, discuss it, and go away on to something else. If that's a project we want to do, we think that's our priority to do that.

There's a lot of moving parts. Now we've got turf grass ordinances that conflict with some of the ordinance in regards to Florida friendly landscaping. We've got enforcement landscape. We've got fertilizer things. There's a lot of moving pieces. We know those pieces exist. We know we have to address that area. We don't get anywhere with it. For me, I would say all these pieces are important. We can divvy up the work and stay on it and come up with a proposal. This is the plan, the strategic plan. This is what we need to do. This is where we should put our money and then come up with a recommendation. Otherwise,

it's

a little bit of talk that takes up some of our time.

I agree. And I think that is what I'm asking you for is for the next meeting, do a little more research into this because I think that we're just going keep this as an agenda item for right now, the dredging or an alternative to dredging or whatever you want to call it. But you keep going down this month after month, you keep coming up with options. So I think let's start with look at what's there, what you presented this time, let's come up with maybe a couple of holes or whatever and then let's get everybody to agree to move forward to the next step, would be maybe we got to talk to an engineer.

Well, I'm not getting quite that general. I was speaking strictly because he brought it out and I think it's valid. Some of these things we said, it's a multipronged approach. This is one part of the approach. What should have on the agenda, maybe that's a new one, is make a strategic plan of all these pieces.

And we'd start listing the pieces that we have to address to keep the organic matter from going in the canal, call that the big one. And there are all these pieces. And maybe each piece one of us takes, we dig in, we become as much expert as we can, bring it together instead of just surface like we're having a discussion with a neighbor at a happy hour. We've got to dig in.

I would just say one comment to Elliot's thing and I get the whole we've got to stop the pollution getting in. But I look at this, and I'm not sure I completely like this analogy. But to me, I look at it and it's like, if you've got cancer, what do you want to do? You want to stop getting more cancer or you want to cut the stuff out? To me, I want to cut the stuff out first and then I want to take some treatment so it doesn't come back. So I'm not sure that I fully agree with like cut this off because I think this is the fundamental issue that we've got of fifty years of not doing anything, not maintaining these things and it's getting away from us by the month.

Okay. Anything left on dredging? Okay. Moving on to new business.

Mr. Chair?

Yes. Yes. I see that we have MIPD Marine here now. If we could go back to Item 7A.

Or you can do it from there.

How you guys doing? Sergeant Montgomery, Marco Island Police Department. Waterway has been pretty good. We lost a buoy in Capri Pass. We we found it in the river. We notified the the Coast Guard. We gotta do some follow-up on it but it's a green four, I believe, knocked loose. Today, we had a crane fall into Collier So we're actively working on that now with the Coast Guard and DEP and Marco Fire. It's where I came from. So social media, there should be a social media put out notification for that it's hard to get by.

You're not gonna fit two boats by. I'm gonna go to Rosemarina and let them know. So people renting boats trying to get the CJs. You gotta you can only get one boat through at a time because it's the crane fell sideways into into Collier Creek right where it gets narrowed by Hyacinth Court. So we have it marked, but you do have to use caution going through it. They're attempting to raise it today. So we'll see how they do with that. Other than that, we haven't had really any issues with the water. Oh, we had one more waterway obstruction by the ABC Islands. It appears someone was trying to make their own artificial reef.

Public works was able to get half of it out. The other half we're still working on. There's a very large picnic table sunk into the mud. So, trying to get it. Any other questions that you guys sorry, missed it. I was stuck on that barge.

Just on the barge issue, do we put out like a notice to mariners on that?

Yes. So Coast Guard's been notified. So they'll be putting that out. There'll be a notification probably going out. Main concern is the bigger boats, the Princess and stuff like that. They need to know. So I'm going to try to see if I can get a hold of anybody at Rosemarina after the meeting. But that's that's my main concern is the rental boats and the larger boats that sometimes go back there on the on the nightly cruises. So they need to be well aware of it. But even now at low tide, it's eight eight feet in that at that location.

So you got to think a barge laying on its side, sticking long ways out into not a barge, sorry, the crane sticking out. A large fishing boat, a 30 plus foot fishing boat could probably take off a lower unit on it. So it's a major concern right now. We're working actively working on it.

Sergeant Montgomery, do you know what caused it?

Yeah. The it appears the barge was taken on water through the night. And once it listed so far, crane just rolled off the side of it. But unfortunately, it rolled off into the creek side of it. So instead of falling onto land, it fell into the water sideways.

Oh, shit. Thank you.

Yep. Excuse me, sergeant. Yeah. There was discussion earlier about the bathymetry. Do you have any updates on the Seakeepers' bathymetry and

We are having a IT is working on it now to to change not change the data, but to, I guess, visually be able to see it better. So they're actively working on it. We have yeah. Miss Moore came here and talked to you guys. When I when I talked to you guys,

to data to the And

should start getting their data whenever they stick get their their chip in. So we got 20 other boaters citizens doing it. FWC called me this week. They're on board, so they're gonna put it on their boats. So the more boats we get, the more data we get. I only muted one thing. Sorry. The the more boaters we we do, the more data we're gonna get. Every time someone goes by, it's just more data that gets collected to make the map more defined. Right now, we've mapped the entire island, but that's one way in, one way out. So every time you go in and out, you collect more and more data. So we really are pushing to try to get our citizens and our boating community to jump on board so we can get a really, really detailed map.

Do you have any idea on the timeline?

I don't. Like I said, I think it's with our IT right now, but I'll do some follow-up and I'll get back to you on that. Everyone seemed like it was going smooth. So I don't know what the hang up is. I'll check on it and get back to you on it.

Yes. Could request that for the next meeting we get an update?

Absolutely.

Potentially a timeline of when this will be

Yes.

I'll call them and their data analysis people and get with our IT and try to see what we're looking at it. I've seen one where it's just the lines and the depths, but I don't know how to access the data.

I'm just curious, how many more people in the public would you would you want to have volunteer to make this really come to fruition quickly and more completely? I mean, how how much more public input would you like?

I mean, it's a free thing. So I the more the merrier because it it's not necessarily Marco Island when like, I'm an active voter on my off time. Mhmm. You know, I go way south sometimes, you know, the more data we get we're getting no data on this coast from it. The other coast, a lot of people are involved in it, but I think it's because they're from that coast. This coast and the 10,000 islands just isn't getting mapped. So the more people like me that like the backwater, the better map we're going have of the backwater, where a lot of it, like I said, just says local use local knowledge.

Don't You

can never have too many.

Yes. Yes.

As many as we can get, the better.

Good job. Thank you. Thank you, Sergeant Montgomery. Yes. Okay. Moving on to new business, number eight, Canal Access Points. Martin?

Yes. So I've done some work on this several years ago. The update is I've gone out and I've rekind of looked at these. We potentially have got three access points. One would be at Veterans Park. One would be at the Assisted Living Park over here. They would be most probably my two preferred. The other one is a possible potential for doing it in Old Marco because we do actually have a park there. The challenge there would be parking. If people wanted to actually park and launch or do anything from there, that would be challenging because it's very small.

So I would say those are the two areas that seem to be the most logical. I'm trying to get hold of some kind of costing information as to what it would cost. What I have I think is most probably dated. So that's sort of the very preliminary kind of view on this. I mean a lot of work was done on it before and it didn't really get support from city council from a budgeting perspective.

So just so everybody knows what you're talking about, you're talking about access for residents and guests that have kayaks and paddleboards?

Yes. So basically, people that are resident on the island that perhaps don't live on a canal, but want to access the waterways, it came up through committee that there would be people with paddleboards, kayaks would be the primary one, it would be restricted and non motorized obviously, and it would be providing a some kind of launch site, be that a ramp and a pontoon that they could actually launch in parts of the island where they could go off and explore canals or get quicker access to a factory bay or those kind of things.

Okay. So are you going to bring us back something next I

will bring it back to the next meeting.

Okay. Any discussion? No? Okay.

I do just have a general comment. I mean, what's the general feeling from the committee? Do we feel that this is a good thing to give these people access to the canals or are people opposed to it for any reasons?

I think parking is the first thing that I think of.

The

and zoning, as long as it generally checks those two boxes, it sounds like a great concept.

I would agree with you that parking is probably the biggest issue and controlling access point once you create one. I would think this would be at the bottom of our priority list of our mandates. There is enough other places for people to kayak and battle board whatever they want. I would think

Where would that be, Rick, in your opinion?

10000 islands, go up to Rookery Bay, I know, but there is plenty of other places around.

People use the Jolly Bridge now. A of the serious fishermen use Jolly Bridge pull up on either side of it and portage in it out of there.

Well, you have the Capri Paddle Park, which is

At the entrance there.

Specifically designed for it and then you have

Tiger tail.

Well, yeah, go into Tiger Tail, you're to carry it. And then you go into Kaxambas. Those are the only ones that Kaxambas is the only one really in Tiger Tail on the island.

Yeah. And that's what I think this was aimed at. This was not necessarily aimed at kayaking and paddle boarding in the region. This was specifically aimed at people that live on the island that wanna go, hey, I've got three hours. I wanna launch my paddle board and kayak and punt around for a couple and then come back. So that was the driving force. I agree from a priorities point of view, most probably not top.

Don't hear a huge public outcry for this.

Well, there are people that want it. If But I think

Kaxambas does they have I think there's a small fee to launch. A lot of people do it from there because you can get right across the Dicklin Point in there. I do know that and there are a lot of people use the Jolly Bridge for that.

Yes.

I don't know one are you thinking of one interior?

Yes, was thinking of access I mean Kaxambas is great, but only gives you access to the South end of the island really. Unless you want to launch there and paddle to Factory Bay, I don't think many people want to do that.

Right. Like I said, a lot of people use the Goodland Bridge and the Jolly Bridge. You'll see boats stacked up on there and they at the Jolly Bridge, there's actually a little beach that they Mhmm.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know exactly.

And you got the ABC Islands and stuff there.

Yep.

One thing. I've been surprised at how much conversation there is out there among the people on this particular item myself. I mean, certainly, there's development versus nondevelopment, tourism versus we don't want tourists, that kind of conversation. But it's kind of ironic really when we're talking about spending money as a priority potentially to gain more access to the water while we bulk at spending money to clean up said water. And one of the other things that was talked a lot about that pitted the non waterway people from the people who live on the waterway.

A lot of it was who pays just like every other issue, who's paying for this. And I get it. You know, I see both sides of it. Some people who live on the canals paid extra money to be there and not all of them are rich people born with a silver spoon in their mouth or put their big giant homes in company LLCs. Some of them stretch, have big mortgages to be on that water.

And they are saying, we paid to be on the water already. And then they point out that we also paid off their share for the existing put in areas like Kaxomas that we had no use for. And what they're saying is, well, now you want us to pay our fair share to put in these other kayak and paddleboard put ins as well. So there's a feeling that we're now we're triple dipping. And I don't like the idea of two pieces of the island pitting against each other. And but that's kind of a conversation that's going on out there quite a bit.

Yeah. But this, I'll give you the same answer I gave you on it last time. So unfortunately, we live in a community. Our community tax base sometimes will do things that you don't particularly agree with, don't think you should pay for. Schools would be one of them. There's a $1,900,000,000 budget for schools. We all pay taxes on it. A lot of us don't have kids there. It's called living in a community. And so for those people that take that view, I feel a little sorry for them because this is not about it's mine and I'm the only one that should have access.

This is an island, whether you're on the water or not on the water, you should have the ability to use the water. And whether that is, oh, you have to just use the existing of what you've got or whether we want to fund a relatively small project. I agree the point, low priority. If you look at it from a budgeting perspective, we're talking about maybe 50,060 thousand dollars It's absolutely small. It's less it's onethree of what we just signed off on for Black and Veatch to do a survey. This was $182,000 Obviously, this is much bigger money, but these are minor things that we do that will help enhance the life for some people on the island that don't live on a canal. So why should they not have access? That would be my counterargument.

I agree with Ralph on part of this because we don't want to get everybody mad at everybody. But what I think that I'd like to you do is let's do the next step on it again because again we can always vote it down or vote it forward in the future. I think go ahead and work on it. I think that Veterans Park could be the first spot, I'd say talk to City Council or talk to the City and see if that's they have any objections or any issues with that. Okay. Any other discussion on that?

Well, I did real quickly. You know, the the the people in the area, the residents, I mean, how would we handle their opposition? Because I have a feeling that there will be some. I'm in favor of it, but I don't know that they all would be. The other question is that I can also compare canal access to, I would say, beach access. I mean, here in Florida, nobody owns the beach. You may spend, I mean, millions and millions of dollars to live right on the beach, but you don't own that. That's for the public. So, you know, that's another consideration. I think the canal access should be viewed pretty much the way beach access is, I mean, for the public.

And that's Florida law. So that's kind of where I'd be with that.

Just playing off of I'm sorry.

I was just going say, I agree with the point with Chair. I will go take this away. I'll check with City Council. Parking is clearly going to be the issue, come back with a proposal with some numbers around it and then we can move forward from there.

I like the Veterans Park idea because I think it's we already own it and we've got some parking, not perfect, but we got some parking.

Just one comment playing off what Elliot said, I agree with him. I mean, we look at it as residents paddleboard here or kayak here. But I do know that not everybody, as you said, who are around these access areas, the residents will like it. Probably would help if maybe ask them to check the box. But there is also a point is that outfitters which have masses of paddle boards and kayaks or whatever it is would be going to these places.

You just ban commercial like we have done at Kaxambas? Well,

you could.

That's simple.

Yes, you probably could do that.

I want commercial there. Just No.

Of course, the commercial people are going to weigh in and say, okay, what are you doing here? So it pits people against one another again, but yes.

Okay. Moving on, number nine, staff communications.

The only thing I have is to inform you that the stormwater engineer position is vacant and we will be publishing a job opening today.

Okay. Anything else? That was formally held by?

Zeremolov. Zeremolov.

Okay.

Thank you. Did sorry, I do have a question. This is kind of a follow-up question from City Council meeting. I would like to get some clarity on the measurement issue as it pertains to surveys and taking samples and whether the testing equipment that they have can actually monitor down below a threshold of what is needed for the DEP because it sounded to me like they give a reading that's below if the threshold is four as you explained at City Council and they're giving a read

And I've since been corrected, it's actually 0.3 milligrams per liter.

Okay. So just where are we with that because if they are giving us results and putting into print of equipment that the DEP say they can't possibly measure down to that level, then I'm pretty concerned about that organization.

Yes. So the threshold as was mentioned is 0.3 milligrams per liter. They're able their equipment is able to detect from there higher. They can't detect lower. So they in past reports, they had some results that were showing 0.2 or 0.28. So what DEP has said is they're not using those results. But they're still able to measure down to the level where the threshold is of of the state standards.

Right. So that was one And

we're still in conversations with them. We're we're waiting for a response from them regarding this issue. And as soon as we have an update, I can send that out to you. But right now, we're waiting right now.

Because my issue with it, it sounds like we've got a report from a company that says we've measured this, we've reported back to you at 2.8, but our equipment can only measure to 0.3.

No, but it's

only measured at 0.4.

0.3, three

is the standard, 0.4 is what they said they can measure to. Did you just

say Two different

numbers. And

and as mentioned, we're waiting for their official clarification on that. I think, member Woodworth's also been in contact with the president of that company. And so we're evaluating that. But in the meantime, we've contracted with another, lab to do samples in the same canal, same points to compare it to the results that we're getting from the current contracted lab.

Here's the point I was driving to. If their equipment can only measure the four or three or whatever that arbitrary number is, and they are giving us results below that, that the DEP says their equipment cannot measure to, are they making numbers up?

The way I understood it is that they were using a dilution factor, which is a approved method to be able to extrapolate some information. But when DEP dug into that, they decided they're not going to use any of those results that are below that, what their equipment is capable of doing. So this is something I don't have any additional information on until we get the response from them. One possible outcome is that they subcontract that to another lab that has that capability. Another possible on, option is that the city terminates the contract, advertises, and, hires a a different lab that has that equipment.

And as part of that process, we would verify that that they do have the capabilities for that.

Mean, part of my concern, if this was my own money being spent in this way, I will be phoning that lab and saying, I'm not really happy about this. I want a refund.

And we have done that.

Good. Any update on the Isles de Prix and Goodland sampling?

That was discussed at the city council meeting and city council voted, they as consensus to proceed with that. So that would be one of the months out of the quarter would be tested at those locations instead of at the Mark Wylen locations.

Okay. So we are on board. Good. Okay. Good. Any other staff communications? I have one question.

One of it happens to be one of my partners at Clean Marco Water sent a memo to counsel after the council meeting that there are already testing locations in Goodland and by Isle Of Capri and that that testing data is available on one of two of the websites, the Southwest Florida Management District?

Yeah. My understanding is it's not in in the canals and there's only one in the vicinity in each of those locations. So it is not anything in-depth.

It is not useful data what they are testing for?

I I don't think it is close enough to the low the point source locations of of those drain fields to be able to draw any conclusions from that. And it is only one location around the general area for each of those general areas on a quarterly basis.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Moving on. I see some city council. Go ahead, guys.

Hi. Deb Henry, Marco, city council. I have to apologize to Martin. I did not read the agenda before coming today. On the floating the access for kayaks and such, I have been working on that. I've talked to members of the community. I'm waiting on people to get back to me. Right now, I'm at two people have requested it. But I do have pricing and five or six different designs of requirements of floating docks that would be accessible. I need to, once I get more interest of it, if it has to be ADA and stuff like that.

So we can get together. I can give you all the data I have. I'm just waiting on a larger group of people to let me know if it's even something worth pursuing. So I apologize. I would have called you ahead of time. But No problem. Just so you know, I'm I'm on it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Morning. Bonita Schwann, Marco Island, city councilor. I just wanted to follow-up about the canal access also, and I didn't know what councilor Henry was gonna be testifying about. But I wanted to provide you the information that last October, the Florida EPA Greenways and Trail Council designated Marco Island as a Florida trail town. We were the only twenty second city in the over 400 cities of Florida to receive this designation.

And this is made up of a city's commitment to biking, walking, and kayaking. So this is something they see us as making positive motions and directions in what we've already committed in these areas. But this certainly would be something that, if this is added to our kayak trail system, would be very useful for our residents and visitors who come here too. So I know that I've been working on this issue on the on the council level, and I plan to continue to do that. So I appreciate the committees looking at this issue also. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more city council? Okay. Moving on. Oh, sorry.

Missed you.

Greetings, Steven Ray. AWT. Just to try and clear up a little clear, confusion here. The city council was it was put before him for a conversation to decide to vote on a resolution to put it on or to put a resolution out there, and the council voted that down. A majority of the council said, let's let the residents roll up their sleeves. Let's let the residents go get the signatures. Let's let the residents incur the cost. The city council did not incur that outcome. So please respect the process that a majority of the residents have rolled. I don't even think they've got enough signatures yet.

I'm not sure where that process is. I can't speak to the specifics. But I don't think we should cloud the debate. I think it's coming up from the residents and just be aware of that. So it will either come forth with the right resolution to be presented or it won't, but the city council voted it down. And so that that was just a point of interest. The other one and this forgive me. I'm just going to torment you. I get so frustrated with the fact that we need a learning lab to try and sort out how to drive the better conclusions. I would love to see a couple of targeted canals that we could use to try and get some better learning out of.

I don't know how to breakthrough and get that insight so we can move forward. And just to take a cheap shot or concern, you're going get the kayaks and the canals and I can't wait to find out when we have our first peeping time in somebody's backyard. I do believe we need to try and address all aspects of the community as well as we can, but we're challenged with these decisions. Somehow we have to get a breakout strategy and get the right guidance so we can start driving to conclusions. And I would love to find our worst canals and try and target a couple of those to do some serious experimental work on what our choices are. But thank you all for the work you're doing.

Thank you. Any more city council? Okay. Open to public comment. Do we have any?

Yes, ma'am.

We have, Doral Thomas.

Duane.

Oh, Duane Sorry.

No worries. Good morning. Good morning. The reason I'm here today is I received a letter. You can put that on the overhead.

This is from, the city, basically enforcing or wanting to enforce a elevation rule on seawall caps. When the island was originally built under Collier County rules, There was a difference between elevations between the canals and what we had on the open bays and the rivers. It was a one foot difference. Whether you be NAVD or NGVD, it was still a one foot difference. The rule that they're putting in place now, quite honestly, the ordinance was passed years and years ago, but it was never enforced on the riverside as far as when I put a new seawall on the river, I made it one foot higher.

I put a new seawall on the canal, I made it one foot higher. The new if I put a new seawall on the river now and make it one foot higher, I'm not gonna be compliant. The way so, again, we've been doing it that way for the last fifteen years. We've always all the contracts have been raising them one foot on the riverside, but, technically, we're not supposed to be. So the ordinance needs to get revamped, reordered, reorganized, whatever, to reflect that you can raise your elevation on your river lot and not leave it at the same elevation.

And I brought some other data with me. And even at the elevation that the city is proposing that we are now, we're still a half a foot below Naples, a foot below Miami, a foot and a half below Miami Shores. So I really think we need to be looking at seawall elevations too. You know, we're gonna be spending the times and the monies to replace seawalls on the island, and they need to be they really need to be higher. I mean, it's it's it's a true situation.

The the other thing that we're having with this is when you raise the elevation of the house, of course, you got raise the elevation of the fill too. Well, you raise the elevation of the house. On the front side, you got a 25 foot setback to the street. Not bad of it that bad of a grade. On the backside, you're only doing 15 feet in most applications.

So now you got a nine foot grade trying to get down to a four foot grade. You only got four feet 15 feet to do it in. So it makes the backyards almost unusable. So I I started with this here because this is gonna be coming in enforced on us, on all the contractors the first of the month. And not only not only is it incorrect, but it's gonna add another $500 burdensome to the people that are gonna get the seawalls put in because now we're gonna have to hire a surveyor to come out and put a seal on an elevation of a seawall cap, which is gonna cost money.

And so I don't have a lot of time to deal with to this, so I don't know what you guys can offer us. In hearing this discussion is a different topic altogether, but you guys were talking earlier about canal water quality and solutions and dredging and and preventative maintenance. Well, part of the preventative thing that you all can enact now and it doesn't take a lot to do, the way that mythology of putting in seawalls, you can kill a canal in an afternoon with the wrong guy on the end of a lawn jetting a jet with a jet pump. Same thing with putting in pilings. Florida building code doesn't allow you to jet in pilings.

However, we got all kinds of contractors running around with pontoon boats jetting in pilings. It's not allowed. City don't enforce it. Collier County don't enforce it. But it's reality. The other thing that we got going on, anytime you do a concrete seawall and you take the old seawall out, you lose thirty, forty, 50 yards of fill into the canal that never gets reclaimed. The seawall contractor's not pulling that dirt back out and putting it behind the house. It's too much work. They're buying new dirt and just backfilling. So the canals are filling in.

Same thing. We gotta dredge this stuff out because they're not being in they're not being put in properly. The the way to get around that altogether is the method that I've been using for the last four or five years is I'm not taking the old seawalls out. I'm leaving the seawalls in place, putting a new seawall right in front of it. Some of the other contractors have caught on to do that too, but I think that should be mandated that you do it that way. It's gonna eliminate all that extra fill going into the canal that that you're gonna wanna try to reclaim with dredging. Thank you. Appreciate your help.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Duane.

Are his papers part of the minutes? Does that go in there?

On the recording, for sure.

No. They're part of the video record, but they're not minutes.

Is it possible? Because I I wasn't able to read what he was presenting.

What do you mean?

Well, I was just wondering because we didn't I didn't get a chance to read it. Does that go into minutes or anything?

I can give it to you, Ralph.

Okay. I think it would be

useful to put it into

Rather than doing that, please, provide it to the, clerk.

Okay.

And then she can make copies and

Thank you.

I do do have a question, a Citi question on this. Is this I mean, I I understand fundamentally what's going on here, but is this something that is now enacted and is in place?

Depends on what this is. He spoke about a lot of

things there.

Okay. So the level height as it pertains to rivers?

That is something that is in the code. And I would refer you to the growth management department about that code. Also, I saw that he put up there was a requirement or I guess it is a new requirement, I don't know because that is not by department, Of getting a survey, as built survey of the new seawall elevation, which is similar to if you put in a slab for a house, you have to have a as built survey of the elevation of that slab. So that doesn't surprise me. But as far as the open bays versus the canals, again, that's a a growth management.

There's a lot of planning and zoning things that he mentioned there and that's really where that should be is the planning board. Those are issues for the planning board now.

This is a Jason and Dan question.

Exactly.

Okay. Thank you.

And also what was mentioned about jet ting in piles and and putting seawalls in front of other seawalls, those are all planning and zoning questions. Building department deals with seawall permits, as built survey elevations, and how piles are put in. So that falls under the growth management department and would more appropriate venue for that would be the planning board, not this committee.

But would you like to do the

research to do it? I'm happy to reach out

to I Dan and mean, I watch them and they do all the fill does fall into the canal. So we are talking about dredging.

And that is a seawall permit, which is administered by the building services department under growth management.

Yes. I will go and talk with Dan and Jason.

Thank you.

I think,

I mean historically that has been within the purview of this committee. We used to have a member on the committee who put together a whole booklet on seawall design and construction and was sort of our committee expert on that part of our mandate. I mean, personally, I can't see why the city would not want higher seawalls because anybody that lives on the canal that lived through the last couple of hurricanes knows would benefit by higher seawalls.

I could tell you generally if you raise seawall elevations, you have older homes and you have got roads, roads that are at four and a half, five feet. So if you're raising seawalls above that and you have all the seawalls raised, what you're doing is is you're creating a bowl and, keeping the water on the island, for storm surge rather than allowing it to run off. So I think that's one of the reasons for the seawall height code elevation, but anything further than that, I would refer you to the growth management department.

Alright. I would like to see this committee deal with this on a regular basis and have a regular addressing this on a regular basis. I do have a person of mine who used to be on this very committee who would be willing. He did he does own a company on Marco. I don't know if I'm allowed to mention the name, but he would be willing to come and to be a regular contributor with these issues and to take questions and answers if the committee was interested.

I just wanted to throw that out that had I remained chair, would have, you know, pursued that. But, mister chair, if you would be, you know, amenable to that, just like we did with the Marco the Marine Police. I'd really like to see this committee deal with this issue on a regular monthly basis because it's very important, and there's a lot of moving parts to this one too. So if I can be of any use on that, I'd like to help out.

Thank you.

Mister chair, this discussion has expanded further. We're in public comments right now and the discussions we're having now really should be part of other committee communications. And as I noted at the beginning of the meeting, you have two other things to discuss under that item. So I would suggest do it then.

Okay. Any other public comment? Hey, Elliot. Are you are you registered?

You guys need to swap name tags.

Fill out a form.

I can do that if I need to.

Your name tag?

Just go fill the form out. Okay.

It says Chris. You could just step up to the podium, state your name.

Okay. For the record, my name is Nick Pearson. I am an environmental consultant. I specialize in marine construction and permitting. I just kind of wanted to speak about a couple of the things relating to the dredging conversation. So first thing is I I just think you need to get a survey done to to look at that bathymetric. You don't know how much spoil is gonna be moved, where. The volume is gonna dictate the means and methods that you use. Mhmm. You know, if you come to find out that there's only a small volume in some of these locations, then having a huge hopper dredge put spoil offshore isn't gonna make sense.

You know, if it's only a little bit of spoil here and there, you're gonna be much better off using some sort of a vacuum dredge or or an excavator, something like that. And I think that was mostly what my comments were. You know, as far as permitting goes and and feasibility, again, that's gonna kinda depend on the the depth that you're trying to dredge to. Without having the bathymetric data, there's no way you could decide that. Usually, the DEP is gonna allow you to maintenance dredge to minus five at mean low water.

So five feet below the average low tide. If you wanna go below that, then you might be able to do that through some some permits. And I I would say that's probably possible. You know, once you get into some of the open bay areas where where the water is less restrictive, then it it could become a little more questionable. But otherwise, know, I in my mind, there's not a whole lot of question there.

I I think you you you'd be able to do it. It's just a question of how and where you're gonna dredge. And there's no way, again, that you can decide that without the survey. And I think that's pretty much it.

Thank you.

Thank

you. Any other public comment? All right. Moving on. Next meeting is March 19 at 08:30. Any conflicts? Everybody will be here?

I will not be in attendance. Okay.

Can I ask a question? Why was the meeting moved from 09:00 to 08:30? It seems to me most of the other committees meet at nine a. M. Instead of 08:30.

Well, I can answer that question because it was me when I was chair proposed that. And it was proposed purely on the premise of that quite often we were running into a situation where meetings were overrunning. And by starting it thirty minutes early, it made it advantageous for some members to be able to extend the meeting and still continue a working life.

We do have a two hour time limit though.

Correct.

Okay. I'll go to the meeting, just one. Okay. Proposed agenda items for the next meeting. I think we talked about bringing Dan, you were going to bring the coastal the Big Marco Pass

kind of thing?

Right. So at the February 17 City Council meeting, former chair, Mascouk, gave a quarterly update, Waterways Committee update to the council. One of the items was discussion of the white paper on managing Big Marco Pass, Capri Pass. There were several questions brought up from council, and they would prefer it come back to, committee to be discussed, more thoroughly. They did not like the rushed motion, the rushed nature of that that vote, which, totally agree with.

So, I'd like to put this on the agenda as a future item, and we can discuss. And if in that discussion, there's a motion to be made, you know, have proper and lengthy discussion. And then, you know, consider a vote if if that's where it goes.

What what I'd like to see on that is if you don't, you need to go through the whole presentation again, but go through because I think what got missed in the city council meeting was all you were really doing was saying move the Drudge area from here to here. I think everybody got confused on that. Correct. So

Right. There is some clarity that needs to be brought forward and I agree with that. Okay.

And then other agenda items I have is dredging alternatives. You wanna do yours again?

Yeah. We can We

can And then canal access points. Is there anything else anybody wants to bring up for next week?

Yeah. Well, I I like the idea of and maybe it's already on the agenda, about the seawalls and their condition. I happen to live a block away from one seawall collapse, the one on Sand Hill east of the Winterberry Bridge. I know there was an issue at that time. You have ninety I believe you have ninety days for the homeowner to clear it.

So considering normal work on the seawall is fourteen months, there's probably an issue there. But also when I did mine, I went to six other projects that were and all the tiebacks were gone. They weren't doing anything. So I think lot of these seawalls are headed, what fifty years as the concrete at the time was their life, might not be bad to discuss that a little bit more and see what we want to do with it, if anything.

You are good with that?

Yes, I mean, I think it's a valid point. I think the issue we've got is we've got some different levels of construction being taking place on the island as it pertains to seawalls. So I don't think it's a bad idea to refresh that.

Rick? I think we should invite somebody from growth management here to explain their position and explain why they are now enforcing an ordinance that apparently they didn't enforce for a long time and just give us a broader perspective on what is going on in that department in addition to bringing the person that Elliot mentioned in to give us a presentation. So I agree it's worth a lot more research.

Working on that?

Can help with that. I mean, I think that cuts the, you know, my thing of liaising with Dan and planning to get them to come in and present.

That would great.

I would like to see seawalls be a regular agenda item. Okay. I think it's worth it. Perfect.

All right. That will probably be a pretty full meeting. Anything else? We are good? Okay. Other committee communications?

I'm sorry, I have one. Go ahead.

That's okay. I'll defer.

I have one. I was quite disappointed by the City Council meeting and the pushback. I would agree the comment that this particular item as it pertains to dredging and access was most probably put through hard at the end of a meeting. But the reason and the reality for doing that was to actually get it in front of City Council because we only actually present quarterly. So if we hadn't have done that, that would have sat and had to wait another three to four months before it gets the attention of City Council.

So whilst I agree the point that pushed hard to get it through and get it on the agenda for City Council, I think that was a good thing because it's now out in the public. As it pertains to the pushback and people public comment, people stating, well, you can drive a boat and if you can't drive a boat, then you shouldn't be here. Quite honestly, that's surprising as a mariner myself and as someone that has clocked about 5,500 nautical miles, I have a sailboat, that sailboat draft is six foot. If these entrances to this island are not maintained to a 10 foot level, you are taking away a safe harbor for people to come and access. And this is maritime law that steeps back centuries.

And so I get the pushback from the who is going to fund it and how is this going to happen. But fundamentally, this is a safety issue. And it's a safety issue for sailing vessels, perhaps more than motor vessels, but it is an issue.

Yes. I mean, they showed the picture of the sailboat that you guys hauled out the other day. I mean, that he ran aground and ripped half his boat apart over there. And so we talk about cleaning the waterway, but we just left a good portion of his boat out in the water somewhere. So and that happens constantly. I mean, that passes.

And I think the other issue with the pass is that we all know moving the markers is good. It clearly helps navigation. But what's happening is that channel or access is getting pushed further and further south. So eventually, you get to the point where basically the channel is on Tiger Tel Peach. And so what are you going to do? So again, was disappointing to see some comments that seem to be kind of ill informed. And unfortunately, what happens with that narrative is that then becomes talked about and it gets traction on the island with people that perhaps are not as informed on those issues as they need to be?

Well, come in from The Gulf at night with no moon and tell me how you make it through.

Because I wouldn't

it's very difficult because you look and you see the condos at Hideaway, so you think you want to head towards that way and you're going to run aground immediately. Because there's only a couple markers out there that have any lights on them now, thank God finally. But it's very difficult to bring that pass in at night.

I've got one item. This committee asked me to craft a letter of support to the Beach and Coastal Advisory Committee about the rodent boxes with the poison, and so I do have it printed out and I would like to submit that. I don't know if if we can put that on the screen or Sure. If you wanted me to read it

either way.

Just go ahead and read it.

Just go ahead and read it? Okay.

We got a minute.

Now, we did hear at the city council meeting that the city council cannot ban rodent boxes filled with poison, even though they cause the problems that they cause. That's a Florida law. So this is just support of our committee. So what I wrote was support by the Waterways Advisory Committee to the Beach and Coastal Advisory Committee of Marco Island in its efforts to eradicate poisonous rodent boxes on all City Of Marco Island and applicable properties. The Waterways Advisory Committee of Marco Island wants to show its support in the efforts that the Beach and Coastal Advisory Committee has made in the attempt of the eradication of all poisonous rodent boxes on Marco Island city controlled properties.

In addition, the Waterways Advisory Committee wants to help eradicate all rodent boxes that contain poison on all properties, including all commercial and private properties located within the confines of Marco Island and to encourage non poisonous alternatives to the current practice. Our goal is to ensure that no poisonous rodent boxes enter our Marco Island canals and surrounding area waters. The Waterway Advisory Committee appreciates all that the Beach and Coastal Advisory Committee has done in this effort. And we thank you sincerely, the Waterways Advisory Committee Chair, Elliot Mascu, the former chair now. So I would like to submit this for public record.

And if this committee is amenable to this, to present this to the Beach and Coastal Advisory Committee.

Do we have any concerns? No. Sounds good to me.

I do other have final comment as it pertains, and I would open this up to Rick. I'm a little confused, to be honest, how you resigned, I believe, from committee and then got reappointed. And rather than rely on like social media or gossip, I'll give you the opportunity to perhaps state what happened so I can fully understand why you were here and gone and now back.

I'd be happy to explain. Several months ago, Clean Marco Waters LLC filed a petition with the SDEP challenging Marco's wastewater permit that it's basically got the wrong kind of permit for the conditions that exist on our island.

In your opinion?

In our opinion and based on evidence that we provided. The petition was first denied on some technical points and came back to us and we resubmitted an amended petition which was accepted by the FDEP. And as part of that process,

they

scheduled what they call an administrative hearing. I do not think it is exactly like a court hearing, but it is an administrative hearing with an administrative law judge that would hear our presentation. So in our view, somebody must have felt that our case had enough merits to be heard by a judge. After reviewing all the requirements and the timeframe, we had done this all ourselves without the benefit of an attorney, but it was clear that the process going forward was going to be more complicated. And we contacted a number of attorneys and there aren't a lot that specialize in this particular kind of case.

It became clear to us that this was going to be a much bigger case than we had originally anticipated other than just having it heard before an administrative law judge. So based on the fact that counsel had hired Black and Veatch and that most of the city councilors had signed the petition advancing wastewater to be on the referendum. We decided that it was probably in the best interest of the city and FDEP and us to avoid the cost, expense, and time of having this hearing. So we filed an amended part of our petition to withdraw from that administrative law process. Before that happened, I contacted my counsel sponsor and suggested that she check with the city attorney to see if it was a problem being on the waterways committee and having filed this complaint, was primarily directed to FDEP, but it obviously involved Marco because they had the permit.

So the complaint was to sue the city?

No. We weren't suing anybody. We were asking FDEP to change the permit. But because the city has the permit, they were drawn into the case.

So why would the city not do that?

Pardon?

If that was an issue, why would the city not actually push to change the permit?

Well, you have to ask the city why they have had this permit for twenty years and did not change it. So counselor talked to the city attorney and the city attorney suggested would be appropriate for me to resign from the committee while this case was pending. So I took her and the city attorney's advice and I resigned from the committee. And after we then submitted our withdrawal of our petition, we talked again and talked to the city attorney whether or not she could reappoint me to the committee. And the city, after looking at the rules of participation in committees, determined that there was not anything that would prohibit me from coming back on the committee and Councillor Boehler asked me to come back on and I accepted.

Okay. Because was again, I was surprised by that because the initial research that I did on it, it said you couldn't be elected onto a committee three times, which is For what? You couldn't be elected to a committee three times. But I appreciate you explaining the position and obviously city council have done whatever city council do.

Any other communications? I mean, I

am happy to give anybody copies of the petition, copies of any part of this whole process. It wasn't done in secret. It's all public. We were not suing for any monetary compensation. We had nothing personally to gain by it. It was just challenging the city's wastewater permit.

So it was basically it was for because it was Clean Waters, wasn't it?

Marco Waters.

Clean Marco Waters. So basically the conclusion for Clean Marco Waters was this is going to cost us too much money to really back what our view is?

No. It also saves the city and FDP time and money to go through an administrative process that our feeling was that counsel was moving strongly enough in the way to properly evaluate it after the Black and Veatch report or it would go through the referendum process, that it is going to be decided one way or the other this year anyway and we have decided that we would save everybody The

Black and

Veatch thing is purely tied to AWT, it is not tied to permitting, is my understanding?

Well, you have to get a different kind of permit to implement AWT.

Okay. So as a process of AWT, this would change the permitting? Absolutely. Appreciate the explanation.

Thank you. Nothing else?

I have just one comment. So relating to our discussion in November 20 meeting about the white paper. I think a contributing factor of that rushed or perceived rushed discussion was the meeting, I felt, could have been managed a little better. And as far as I hope for the Chair, Vice Chair that and all members that we just try to manage the material that we're presenting so that when so that nobody is rushed. So and I think it's just meeting management.

And I'm guilty of it, too. Maybe I should have said, hey, this is too big of a thing to have right now. Let's move it. But to Martin's point, it was I mean, we approached it in the navigation safety section of our area of interest. So we felt we needed to keep going. And but I just hope that going forward, the Chair really has a big role in managing or helping us all present timely.

Mr. Chair.

Go ahead.

I just want to make one clarification for you, Jern. The comment was made that if the city pursues the process changes that would equate to AWT, that would change the permit. That's not necessarily the case. The city can opt to do, those treatment changes meeting AWT standards, but that doesn't necessarily change the permit. Just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you. Thank you. Ralph Ralph, and I know you.

Yeah. Just one quick comment. I know we'll talk about Dan High's proposal next time, but I was confused too at the end of the day. I thought I was voting on to just send this to city council. That's what I thought. But somewhere, maybe I misheard or misinterpreted what I heard, it kind of alluded that we had approved or made a recommendation that it go up to city council as a process, that there was some sort of approval here going on. When I was simply saying, kick it to city council, my own thought was they were just gonna kick it back. So I I was a little bit confused.

Yeah. Next meeting, we'll go back over that.

Yeah. Elliot? Okay. Just a couple of quick things. I would like to apologize for my role in the rushed passage of that material. That was should have been tabled, and so I take responsibility on that. I just wanted that for public record that, yes, you are right, that should have not been pushed through as quickly as it was. We need a discussion. We didn't have it. We didn't have the time, and I was remiss in not tabling it for the next meeting.

So I just wanna go on record for that. I do have another question. I hear a lot from the public that whether no matter what in the next few years, Florida will mandate us to have the switch over to AWT. Is that a rumor or is that true? That we're gonna have to do it one way or another whether we do it now or whether we wait a few years and have to do it later.

I don't have that I don't have that information, but I do know that, DEP does have, or does organize events where they discuss upcoming rule changes. However, I'm not privy to that since I'm not in that department, but, Jeff from the water and sewer department would be the best person to answer that question.

And I think the last last item that I have, I would like for the committee to officially welcome Rick Woodward back to our committee. Welcome back. Thank you.

Go ahead, Rick. You're

next. I just wanted to make a quick comment on Justin's comment. I think there is already a statute in place that is mandating almost all wastewater treatment plants go to AWT standards by 2033. And I'd be happy to circulate a copy of that statute for the next agenda if you guys want me to submit it.

Right. Yeah. I would think that's probably a rule, not a statute. But, yeah, it would be a a DEP rule.

Well, I'll send you a copy of it, maybe we could all look at it. Thank

you. Mhmm. Anything else? Alright. With five minutes to spare, that's meeting adjourned at 10:25.