Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Alright. Call the meeting in order. Roll call, please.

He's okay. Member Mascoupe?

Here.

Member Rohena? Here. Member High?

Here.

Vice Chair Winter? Member Schneider? Member Woodworth?

Here.

Chair Lewandowski?

Here. Alright. Can we all stand for the pledge of allegiance? 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 All for

right. Can we have an approval for the agenda for today? Motion?

I'll make a motion.

Can I make one comment? Yeah. Since it's your first full meeting here, I just thought I'd make a reminder, the agenda is probably your biggest tool and leverage to get us focused on our priorities, supporting the agenda of city council, blah blah blah. And probably it's a good idea since not all the committee members have experience and knowledge of everything. Sometimes the attachments you make to this is very important so everybody can participate a little bit better.

So I just started bringing up how important it is to get the agenda, to get us to accomplish things. Saying that, I think the agenda is a little long for some of the subjects, so I'm not sure if we wanna see how it goes or do you wanna drop out one or two things or something now? Just throwing out there.

I think we're good on the length of it right now because I think we'll go pretty quick here. So we'll see.

I can tell you I don't have much for for my section. I wasn't going to go into a lot with that. So unless you guys want to.

I could get big, but it depends. Sure. Yes. Okay. So I'll second it. Okay.

Thank you. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Nobody opposed? Okay. Passes. Alright. Approval of the minutes from last meeting. I have a motion. So moved. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right, passes. All right. Moving on to Marco Island Police Department Marine Unit.

About ask

team. First the

I question.

Also wanted to share an update on our mapping project here. So here's one of the kind of examples of what we've been putting together. This has been a kind of team effort between the city and the company Seakeepers. One of the goals is to make it as user friendly as possible and this is what's been come up with so far. This is basically an interactive GIS map and all of these gray points here are is the former data and all of these black points is our our new data.

You might notice that there's very few black points and lines but that's what they're working on now. We have all of this all of this area done. They're just working on how to marry the data together. For some reason it's been it hasn't been as easy as on the IT side of things to do but as soon the product we plan on on giving you will consist of this being interactive to where you can click on a point here and it'll pull up for example that 10.7 feet and then go over next to it and pull up another data point which is current and that's showing 12.9. So this is where we're at on on that project.

Like I said, we have a lot more points from the current data on this map or that are available for this map. They're just working on how to successfully marry the two together. So that should be coming to you guys very, very soon. And once again the way this product works, the more data points that we provide throughout the year and that more people that sign up it will just be every time we do a data upload it will just go towards this and when you click on a point it'll give you the date it'll give you the depth and obviously you can see where it's at. Currently that's that's the update I have on that.

Yes.

Will they create a a chart or a map that has depths plotted on it or will it just be an interactive chart?

No. Yes. So, yes they will. And that's kind of what they've provided for us now. What we've had is, you know, I'll throw this down.

What we've had hasn't been very easy to read yet which is why we had them do this. So I just put something on the projector there and this will obviously once again, what you're looking at, that's not the easiest thing to look at and see. So we're trying to That's where we're at is trying to figure out. They had some issues with the satellite imagery and things like that and that that's kind of the hold up on getting this this project to you is because we obviously can't give you that because it doesn't tell us anything. So, yes, they can make, maps.

They will make various I've seen different charts that have like the bar. It's kinda like a bar graph where the heights go up and down and around the canals. Once again, it just showed the bars with minimal data. So we're working on just getting it to a more user friendly platform for you.

What is the data that is reduced to?

Say again?

The data mean lower low water.

That's already done. They've already zeroed it out. So the data that they're putting on these maps has already been zeroed out. Noah's doing

that. Microphone.

The information we're getting on these maps has already been zeroed out to the time and date because it gets that information. They send it away to NOAA. NOAA zeros it out to the mean low tide. So

Mean low water? Yep. Is that the same datum as the existing one from 2005?

Should have been. Yes.

It should be the same. Okay.

Yeah. I'm I'm not familiar with how they did the last one, but

Well, was find

that answer. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm concerned that it gets does get reduced, obviously. Right. Yeah. I won't go into it.

But, yeah, the issue they're having is NOAA's satellite map, the one we're showing, has large gaps in the blue topo map. So that's why they're creating the other one. Mhmm. And they've said they've never come across that before. They don't know why there's no topo map of large portions of the island.

I have a couple of questions, if I might. One is about how many people do you have involved working on this at this point? And the other question is, are you running into any real challenges that you didn't expect as you do this?

Yeah. The last I spoke with the team at Seakeepers, they had seven people, signed up for the program. Now, that also is contingent on how often those seven people boat and how often they upload their data. If they're one time a month boaters, it's it's it's not giving us a ton of information. Right?

If they're one time boaters that go from their house to Keywayton or to Hideaway Beach, every time they go out, it's only given us that. Right? So it's contingent on how much they boat, how much they upload. So the other thing is each chart plotter so we found that our chart plotter on on the contender that we have, it was slow to plot points. Right?

So we go large gaps, sometimes a 100 feet, 200 feet before it gave the sea keeper chip another point. So when early on we realized this was happening, it's like, well, we either need to go slower or we need to go through two passes of this this place. Right? So things like that. Know, in in my head, I thought, you know, hey, great. We're just gonna go over 200 foot

of water, it's going to give

us the whole seabed. So that's not the case. But it's still continual data, it's just not as much as I initially thought was going to be given at a rapid pace. So it's slower. It's a slower process than what I imagined in the beginning.

But once again we have about seven people she came over Rosie came over that I think she came here and presented this past month and presented to another group and prior to that she had seven people signed up and I think 23 people that were interested right so they submit a an interest form and then they get the the data and everything like that so did and you can correct me FWC I believe is going to be on board with this as well so which will give us a lot of data mostly outside of our region, but still it'll give us a lot of the passes, lot of river and things like that.

More public outreach.

Yeah, obviously we're continuing to find the groups that we can talk to and pitch it and they're also doing that on their own accord and coming over. So we'll join them when they do that.

Great to hear that.

Thank you.

Yep.

I think your mic's on.

Yes. If you could put up the map that you put up initially.

The one on the computer here?

Yeah, you mentioned that the gray are old points. Right. Which old meaning how old?

That's one I don't know. I'm not sure where that this is data that they found. So I'd imagine it's from the last time this project was completed. But this we got this about a week ago and this was from the company that the city contracts with and she didn't

The GIS company? Correct. Interdev?

And they didn't Do you

have an email who's?

It's Catherine. I'll forward you I'll you to the the email that I have with her.

Okay.

And she actually asked me and I I didn't I don't have the answer, so I'm not Yeah.

It so they would not have created this on their own, so it's probably information the city provided. So I suspect this is a 2005

Yeah.

Data, which is what, vice chair Winter was asking about overlay the new onto the old so that we can see what the differences are.

So she did mention like so for example when you click on one of these gray points right it comes up with question marks as to when it was she said if she has that information she can input into all those points with the know stroke of a mouse there so if we have that accurate information and supply it to her then that'd be great.

And then the last question I have, if you could zoom out just a little bit. See where all the and then zoom in on the gray points on the right on the east side of the island there. Yeah. See where all those points are, and the map doesn't show any canals there. We know the canals.

Yeah.

So did they provide this, background map also, InterDev?

I don't know. I don't know where it came from.

I believe that's the NOAA map because they sent me an email saying it's got a large gap in

it for some reason. No, no. This is definitely not the NOAA map. This was provided by The company that we contract with I just don't know where they sourced it from

out I'll reach out to Catherine yeah because the the as you can see there's no canals on there right there's data points

yeah of course but I'll respond to the email that I have with her and attach you and then make it a little easier.

Thank you. And we'll we'll get her some maps that shows the canals.

Yes. That'd be great.

One thing just on top of that since you're working. Mhmm. You mentioned the data must mean low water. I think somebody can correct me, but NOAA maps are mean lower low water. So put if you're putting stuff on top of one another, you just gotta make sure it's apples and apples.

Yeah. That's that's probably a question for the team at Seakeepers because once again, I'm not sure. I'm just giving them doing the legwork and giving them the data. They did we I remember we asked them those questions in the beginning and they said all of that is they calculate and automatically put in. So that's a question I'll have to ask them. Because once again, I'm very IT illiterate. So I just do the work and give them the product and let them do it.

We're all IT illiterate. From one day to the next.

Right. I mean at first glance, it looks familiar. Like the deep areas look what I would expect, the shallow areas. I think the committee in recent discussions is, among other things, looking at dead end canals where they might be extremely Well,

once again, we have a lot of that information. They just, for some reason weren't able to put it on here. From what I've been able to look at and compare in close proximity, we're actually in in in certain parts looking deeper than what it was. Now, this is in main thoroughfares, you know, that were that's big tides, strong currents, things like that. So it'll be interesting to see when we can zoom in on on some, like you said, some of the ends of the canals and and see where we're at.

But you've covered did I hear you correctly? You've covered the whole all the canals that They

just haven't uploaded it yet. Right. Well, they haven't I think there's an issue of figuring out how to Over the make it work together. Right? So Yeah. Yes. They have the information from once again, every every bay, every canal. Everything that you see here that has a gray dot, we've gone over. Some multiple times. And that's what we'll just continue to do that. Thank you. Yep.

Alright. Anything else? No. Thank you guys.

Appreciate Thank you.

Actually, they're here? What? While you guys are here.

Yeah.

The sailboat that, was destroyed in the past in the last month, was there a cause determined, on that?

It was Remind me of which one that was.

It's about a 40 foot green sailboat. It was pretty much ripped in half in the Big Marco Pass, shoaled up.

Is that, like, January?

It might have been January. It broke up really dramatically.

On Tiger Tail?

No. It was right in front of Isles Of Capri, right on the it kind of washed up on that side. Didn't know if you guys had any info on the cause of that.

Yeah. That that the specifics of of that are

I don't think you guys would investigate that. Just didn't know if you heard what the

Yeah. I'm having trouble even recalling that one.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'll get back to

you if I if

it's if I think about it, I don't remember that one being I'm sure.

I a picture.

Hold on.

Oh, Yeah. That that probably helps out. So not the one that was getting towed in? No. It it was on airbags. Had to be floated.

You ran aground right before the storms?

This one here.

What was the date on it, Dan?

January 30.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with that one at all surprisingly. Might happen quick on one of my days off or something, I'm not sure. If I get any information I'll pass it along. Okay. I know I've had multiple sailboats that have came in and ran aground in the past.

Here's a boat. So This one this one would jog your memory if you did see it. That's how it came out of water.

Is there a name for the boat?

Let me see. No. Not that the butt the back end of boat is ripped off.

Yeah. I'm not familiar with that one, strangely enough. Alright.

Okay. Thanks.

Anything else, guys? Guys? No. Thank you, guys. Alright. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate everything. Okay. Member high, moving on. San Marco Pass white paper. So I think we're redoing this because city council had an issue that we pushed the vote too quickly. So I think the idea on this was for us to go back over again and make sure all we don't have enough people, so we might have wait another week or another month. But let's just go back through and discuss it quickly.

Yes, I would certainly wait until we have a full committee just to keep everyone current. And in the meantime, I'm also getting a lot more information and data too. So I'm happy to push it to our next meeting and reevaluate, unless you guys want to talk about anything.

Well, there may be a lesson learned about it, the way it transpired at the end of the meeting. And obviously, the majority of the committee wanted to send it up. And there was no firstly, discussions. A lot of tentacles to it, a lot of pieces to it, and we heard about that at the city council meeting. But in in my view, I made the error as well.

I just I knew what I knew it would be sent back to us because there was no discussion, but I went along with it. And at the time, I didn't think in the conversation it would get brought up that it is just sent up seven nothing, alluding that we had discussed it, vetted it, and recommended it go to city council in a positive manner. But it did. And that wasn't right. That's our mistake. My mistake too. I should have been even with six to one. I should have voted against it. Fortunately, it my brain did click in a little bit. I did send a note to city council that it was not discussed.

It was not vetted. I voted to send it to allow him to make the presentation, and that was it. Not that this was supported by the committee. Now that's my opinion. I sent it up there. And luckily enough, it was sent back to us, as I suspected, six to one, and here we are now. So now it's virtually where it should have been at the end of that meeting. Should have been tabled for us to discuss right from the beginning. So it's a lesson learned. Don't rush to judgment just to send it up and have it misconstrued as something else. That's my comment.

What I'd like to add is I mentioned at the end of the last meeting that, I mean, I take complete responsibility for that. I realized right after that was over that that was the wrong thing to do. And if I could have rolled the clock back a moment or two, I would have tabled it. And, you know, I think that this particular topic could take the better part of one of our two hour meetings because I think there's after listening to the city council and all of their concerns and all of their issues and everything, all of the moving parts involved in this that this should really we should really take our time and investigate it to its full ends everywhere it leads. And I think, obviously, we don't have everybody here today.

And so we probably can't do that now. But this should occupy a major part of our agenda to do it slowly, thoughtfully and to get to where it should be. And we didn't do that and that's on me. That's my mistake of the year, okay? Anyway, that is just my opinion. Thanks.

Just wanted to say that I support both Elliott's and Ralph's comments that, you know, it was rushed at the end. In hindsight, I wish I had not voted yes. But I sort of thought the context of it was bouncing the concept up to counsel and then let them decide what to do with it, which is what happened. They bounced back to us. So anyway, I agree with both of what you guys said.

I did have one other comment and I do not know whether, Dan, you want to address it or not, but I hear there is a rumor about that you are going to make a presentation to the planning board meeting about an expansion of the marina at the April planning board meeting and I wonder how those plans may tie into the dredging project?

Well, we do have a hearing coming up for some work at the marina, but it's rather focused. I don't think it would tie into anything dredging two spots out in the past. I guess you have to make that decision for yourself. But I thought the committee at the time was looking at this like a safety issue and the fact that it was we managed to get a vote out when we did. I thought, in retrospect, a, everybody was on board with understanding all the discussion that went into it.

But b, I thought that, we there was a general interest in the safety aspect. So I think that's I'd like to put it in that context as to how it happened so quickly. And actually, it took a while to come out to get the white paper out, to discuss it. It took months and months and months. So when we got to that point, I thought the committee was within their the correct path to get it voted on.

And I thought it was a shining moment from the committee being nimble and addressing a safety issue. But I'm completely in agreement that the right thing is to do it thoroughly and correctly and get it done, not get it done fast. So I welcome discussing it more. I did write down everybody's comments that were at that City Council meeting, and we'll be responding to each council member individually with the comments they had. But I'm completely in agreement that let's discuss it further and with everybody present.

Okay. Well, obviously, you know there was an undercurrent about the whole cruise ship issue and whether the dredging wasn't directed or focused towards allowing larger cruise ships in.

That definitely is not the reason for it. And I thought it was clear at that meeting. And the effort this effort for these addressing these problem areas started in 2021. So this has been well before any of that activity came to the island. So and if we're dredging, I'm advocating to dredge to whatever the customary depth is there and what is done in our neighboring pass.

There's whether which vessels can use that is up to somebody who buys a boat that can get through that area. It's not aimed at any one individual boat or anything like that. So it was preexisting well before any of those. I mean, whether that came up as a little static, I can't help that from a timing standpoint. But I do hope that we discuss it further. Okay.

What I'm pointing out is that, that should be part of the background and discussion because there was a lot of comments at the council meeting about that, and there's an undercurrent of stuff if you read Nextdoor or any of the other.

I do not subscribe to Nextdoor. That is, like a cesspool of misinformation, and I think everyone knows that. I think there's

can

we take a vote that that is just a cesspool of misinformation? So I can't help rumor. The fact is the water depth. And the fact is groundings and injuries and that kind of thing. So look forward to future discussion, and hopefully, we can make the right decision for the island.

Well, if I could just jump on it a little bit. I was a little not disturbed, but I was a little surprised, and maybe it was the way the presentation was taken. It got a little out of balance. It got expanded to the much larger issue of more tourism, less tourism, more development, less development and actually jumped on to that. Hey, if we dredge, there's going to be giant 6,000 people cruise ships coming in. And I think most of us know it's not that. But as you said, there is that undertone that kind of, at the meeting, kind of overwhelmed the rest of it. And our discussion, hopefully, stays more in balance.

Thanks, Rob.

I think that being the guy that's actually on the water out there and living on the river there, I think the people don't understand how bad it actually is. So I mean, I've come in at night a while and just outside the channel and ran aground. So understood what he was trying to do was all we're trying to do is just move the permit from one spot to another spot, that was it. So I don't know where all this other stuff came out of, but I think that's why we need to spend the time when we have everybody here to actually re discuss this and make sure everybody is on the same page. To me, it's a safety issue. It's the only canal or channel that's not being managed right now.

But I do get what Rick says, that undertone, yes, mean, there's an argument there to be made to discuss it, but in balance with the rest of it and to see where we lie. And that's partially why I got kicked because city council knows the expertise for that should lie mostly with this committee. And hopefully, could think it through. I think it's good to push it back and let people think these things through a little bit more and do some research.

I guess I wanted to explain just at this moment in my own defense. I did what I did because of the public safety. However, public perception is equally as important. What whether it is what it is or whether it is what people think it is, we have to completely flush it out for that reason. Because after attending the city council meeting, it was obvious to me that the public has a lot issues with it and the way we handled it and just the actual concept in and of itself and what its ramifications can and cannot be or would not be.

So I think for that reason. But once again, I just saw it in one viewpoint of public safety. And again, it certainly was a whole lot more than that. And I think when we go and investigate this all the way to the end, we are going to find that out.

All right, so let's go ahead and table this to next month. Moving on, Member Ohina, dredging alternatives.

Okay. I thought it might be wise since this was actually a suite of presentations giving options about handling the muck, the organic sediment. This actually came out around the time of the Harper report. There was a water quality workshop. And everybody finally said, well, Harper report says the muck is the number one thing, but we have to hydraulically judge everything at a $189,000,000, and that kinda got pushed aside.

But councilor Brechnitz made the prudent observations as is there anything else out there that would handle this muck rather than just ignoring it? And that's what drove me into it. I knew that muck eating bacteria is ubiquitous across the country, including Florida in freshwater. But I've experienced up in for the Valdez Alaska oil spill where what saved the day in saltwater was organic eating bacteria naturally occurring and happens to eat oil. And I did more to save the day than anything people did.

And so I put two two together, saw a system that would deliver it, and they said, sure. It'll work in saltwater. And since then, that's what I tried to do is I, for $25,000, have a pilot. The upside of it was great, and naturally occurring bacteria is not something that's permitted by EPA, FDA, or anybody else in our country, and that we could have an opportunity to maybe garner the advantage of doing it. So that was the first part of it.

The second presentation I made was what? It was successful in the Florida Keys with the backfill encapsulation method. They tested or piloted every system or every opportunity to deal with the muck back in 2017 scientifically across a bunch of canals. And with their data, they started implementing it in 2018 and are continuing to work their canals to this day. And one of the items that they jumped on was the backfill encapsulation method, which has some advantages in that the remaining muck won't migrate to what was cut like dredging wood.

And also it's an opportunity to raise very deep canals up to a level that will help flushing and bring it to a level where it gets sunlight and heavy dense material where seagrass will grow into. And they found it very successful, and they do it to this day, changing hypoxic waters into something that actually is a decent ecosystem. So that's what they're doing. The third piece recently was the small scale dredging to see if maybe there was some mechanism there because I went into the, actually, data of the Harper report, and the Harper team actually analyzed that report, and they concluded something that seems contrary to what Harper says at the beginning, to dredge everything for $189,000,000 It seems like there's a very finite small number of canals that actually are mucked up, that there's a substantial number, the vast majority seem like there's very little or no muck. So there may be an opportunity there to go after some heavily mucked small number with less invasive, self contained, small scale dredging.

And there's some advantages to that, some disadvantages, obviously. One of the things I touched on, which is a money saving measure, would be latching on to what Seahawk said about moving them up to an area close by. And the trouble is making islands out of it doesn't make any sense. But we do have some deep areas, quite a number according to 2005 survey, bathymetric survey of 22 feet plus that if there was an area that we can take one of these bad canals and actually dredge out and put it into a nearby deep area and encapsulate it, and you're turning hypoxic muck generating area into a garden of seagrass, maybe there's something to it. There may be some win wins there.

Let me just add to this. I don't know. Can you put the I don't know. Where does it go on here? Hey, Martin.

Do you have my little picture? The one thing I'll add to the small dredging thing, and it's the last piece I'll add to it there we go. Let me just get this so I have the numbers right. If you look on this, these are the 26 core samples from the Harper report. And all the analysis of those core samples, more organic content to everything else they tested on it, the phosphorus and nitrogen content, all point that there's very little muck in most of them.

If you look over there at s 20 and s 11, those are two core samples with the highest amounts of organic content, just to give you a flavor, and they were around 20% organic content, which gets into really mucked areas. And and just to give you an idea, the overall mean of all 26 was only 5.2%. So you can see the vast majority, there's no muck in them according to this. Now this is only 26 core samples. Obviously, it doesn't cover that much to extrapolate very

well.

I still continue to harp on that we need to survey, assess our canals so we can make these kind of judgments beyond just 26 core samples. But we don't seem to want to do that or maybe we're going there that I don't know about, but I can only talk about these. The thought was if you took one of these two that were twenty percent, we might consider dredging those as a pilot and looking for a hole of 22 feet plus around them. Obviously, s 20, it's not invasive. It's easy to dredge if you wanted to do that, but it's probably a large extent.

It's not constrained by any canals. Plus, the deepest water is only 15 feet around the edges where we navigate through that area. In S 11, there is no deep water around there, but it is constrained to a small area that if we wanted to dredge, it would be very small. And there's an opportunity to take the spoils since there is no really deep pit in that area to take it out through the opening into open water, but then you start getting into waters that are beyond our control, which means permitting and whatnot into what's protected in undeveloped areas. So there's not a good answer, but it's something that could be considered if we wanted to consider small scale dredging and go after the heavy muck.

Obviously, I'm still in favor of AWT as the thing we should be going for to help Mother Nature cure itself over time. But if we were able to go after some of these heavily mucked areas where there's already in the canal, that certainly would help speed up the opportunity. Whether we do dredging or encapsulation, there may be some opportunities there to actually do that. And I'm not sure about the next step, if we wanna take baby steps on one of these or discuss it or but that's where it is. It'd be up to the chairman to see if we wanna do something with any of these or do take the next baby step or or whatever.

I did have a video, just so you know, just for information. And, Martin, you can play it. This is what the kind of dread you use. Again, Martin, or do I play it? There you go.

Why now it's cost effective to do dredging? This is a dredge that you might use to throw the material in.

This ship actually splits open right in the middle of the ocean. This isn't an accident. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. What you're looking at is a specialized engineering vessel used to transport dredged material known as a bottom dump barge. Its most unusual feature is right here. The hull can open down the center, allowing the entire load of sediment to drop straight into the water. There's very little complex machinery involved. It looks simple, but it's extremely efficient. In dredging projects, these barges usually work alongside dredgers. The dredger removes mud and sediment from shipping channels or harbors, while the barge handles loading, transport, and unloading.

Because they often operate in shallow water, barges are designed to be simple with shallow draft and large carrying capacity. Some don't even have their own engines and rely on tugboats for towing, which significantly reduces construction and maintenance costs. A common question is why the dredged material is dumped back into the sea instead of being hauled away. The key is that this material isn't waste, it's construction material. It's placed in designated areas for land reclamation, road foundations, port expansion, or reshaping the seabed. For large marine projects, this is the most direct and cost effective way to reuse sediment. As for why bottom dumping is used, the reason is straightforward. Wet, heavy sediment can easily clog conveyors or mechanical unloading systems. Opening the hull and letting gravity do the work is far more reliable. These barges can also transport timber.

By filling ballast tanks on one side, the vessel tilts, allowing logs to slide

Yeah. I just threw that in there, just indication, small scale dredging, everything gets contained in that barge. And with the navigation equipment they have, they can dump it right in the smallest hole. Wherever you want to do it is very quick and efficient these days. So there's a cost effective way of doing things. Just wanna throw it out out there. So I'll leave it up to you or anything else.

I think it looks like we're in a little discussion. Go ahead.

I had a couple of quick comments. I'd volunteer my canal.

They would like

dredging. You have all seen pictures of it, I am happy to give you more, but I would be happy to try. What concerns me on one side is that the dredging may not stop the sediment recycling issue until we stop putting reuse water all over the island because you might take away the material, but if you are still putting it back in again, you are just perpetuating the cycle. But my other comment on the positive side is instead of trying to make islands on Marco, why they couldn't take the muck out in the Gulf and dump it somewhere else. I know that Tampa does that, but you need a federal permit to dump in even if it is not federal waters, even if you are out past 12 or 15 miles, you still need a permit to do it.

So I mean, I would be supportive of exploring it, I am just going to guess that with the Black and Veatch report coming up, which is next on the list almost, the city is probably not going to look at an experimental dredging project before that first issue gets resolved.

I would concur

exactly. You just about said what I wanted to say. I would say yes on limited dredging, absolutely yes on targeted muck hotspots. But my concern again is where it goes and what kind of damage to the environment it would do. I would want to have experts from, agencies that know or that regulate this or from the University of Florida per se tell us exactly what we're doing when we deposit this wherever we put it.

I think that's my only concern. I'd say to do a pilot project or to explore particularly Rick's Canal, I would say I'd be very, very interested in that. It's just where it goes and what the effects are of what we do, wherever we put it. So that's really my only concern. I think it's a great idea though other than that. And once we find that out, I think it has a lot of potential.

Yes. And that's part of the baby steps you take. For example, if we say, yes, we think that there may be some legs on this. We think there may be some value in getting rid of the heavy muck to kind of support what AWT will provide and have a quick notice of improvement, considering it is a finite number. Certainly, the next baby step, I mean, they do this muck remediation up into Indian River.

So the Florida Institute of Technology is the science behind that. They've got thousands of pages. They've done it. Tampa, as Rick mentioned, has done it. Obviously, Seahawk tried to make islands to make it cheaper to entice us since the upper report discarded it for a 180,000,000. They got their foot in the door by saying, hey. We can do it on the cheap, and it was successful. Obviously, building islands was problematic from the start. Doing mechanical dredging was problematic from the start, but they did get their foot in the door. But, obviously, doing something to spoil is always problematic unless it's sand that you can put anywhere and get a permit.

Once it's smuck, well, it's a different animal. But that's part of our baby steps. If you say, hey, maybe it's worth a try, well, that's something we can discuss.

So I think we should have a little discussion on this as we keep going here. But I guess my first question is, what is the muck comprised of? You should have a good answer on that one, right?

Well, there is a lot of components to the muck. When we tested the muck that I took out of, actually it was the Esplanade, the muck was actually about three feet deep before they hit hard bottom and when we tested for what was in the muck, it was mostly deteriorated seashells and sand and organic matter. We didn't test it for nitrogen and phosphorus, but I mean it was pretty disgusting muck and we tried to do some in my canal and another canal and then the testing equipment broke because there is more muck there than you think there is. And one thing we did talk about, I mentioned to Justin, is that when we have these algal blooms, when the water begins to warm up, there is a machine that is available to scoop up the muck before it goes back down and settles into the bottom again and that you can actually scoop up the algal mat. And I think the cost of the machine, Justin, if I am right, was about $100,000 and I don't think it made it into the budget.

But it is also useful for removing seaweed and dead fish and other things and it's certainly something to consider going forward because everybody said the more of that algal mat you can get out of there, it's part of the whole sediment recycling problem. So it is a complicated issue, there is no doubt about it.

To answer your question directly on the content, Remember when I made the presentation, I had a slide on these core samples and what it included. And this is professionally done at every level. It tells you exactly what it is, and they did test besides what I mentioned here, organic percentage, talk about moisture content, wet densities, and chemically bound phosphorus versus other kinds of phosphorus. Some are available to the water column, some are not, they won't. And all that kind of stuff, it's all there in the Harper report as well as the Indian River reports.

I'll tell you what this muck really is.

So I guess my concern question is I'm in a lot of these canals and you'll see palm fronts floating down the canal, a lot of coconuts, trees. So if you guys go off the island and go down Collier, when you get towards over the bridge, look at the flotilla there. Every single day there's more trees falling into the water. Those have to go somewhere so they have to decompose. So I have no problem with dredging. It's just that doesn't stop the problem. That just gets us back to a certain point to go forward. And you guys talk about AWT and I don't understand how we'll talk about that at some point. But I understand how AWT fixes the tree falling into the water.

Well, doesn't. That's why everybody talks about it as a multipronged approach. And that's why we've talked about having a workshop so you can talk about all those things together, not in isolation. There are things where there are multiple approaches. I've talked about three on just a muck alone that we could talk about. But there are other areas like the canal flushing. There's other things like deep injection. And we need to bring them together. These four e programs, there's a number of them. Are they effective or not effective compared to other things that we might put money towards?

But nobody seems to wanna do a workshop where we can bring in or ask some of these project managers from the Florida Keys, tell us, hey, what works for them, what doesn't work, to help us double down on the good things and avoid the bad things. At Florida Institute of Technology, come here and talk to us about what they did. They developed apparatus for hydraulic judging to skim just the muck where it's controllable instead of dragging up the sand. All those kind of things talk about multipronged approach, but it needs to actually happen. We talk about it, we throw the word out, multi pronged approach, but we don't seem to make any progress towards that.

I'd like to see us do that, but so far no.

Well, and I think that your map that you had on there for the dredging like those spots, I think few of those are just sand for the most part, especially Collier Bay, Collier Creek, that whole area, there's lot of sand in that whole area in there. But there is a lot of canals that when you get towards the end, gets pretty shallow except for Landmark. But all the rest of them get pretty shallow when you get towards the end because all that debris is getting pushed into there. But it's also falling in from the houses too, so whatever debris is on the land, coconut, stuff like that. But if you dredge, if you look at the canals when the water is really shallow like today, when you'll see that, you'll actually get to see some of the canals, you'll see that the edges are, you'll have land at the edges but in the center you'll get like a little creek going through because that's the natural flow of the water going out.

So I still think that when we dredge we have to be very careful because we have a sea wall issue. How far can we go down before we lose you know the the pinning of that seawall holding it to the base.

You're right. And that's why it's a multipronged approach because if you wanted to dredge for the muck, do we already have areas, as you mentioned, that should be dredged anyway because they're just too shallow? You might combine these programs together. And it also coordinates with the seawall issue. We got concrete that's 50 years old and that's a maximum life, things like that.

How much should we be dredging? What is the risk? Or how can we support that? In some ways, the encapsulation backfill method can actually help that because you're putting a foot or two of heavy material, you could put it alongside the seawalls, which further support them and maybe they last another decade longer. These are the kind of little things that, hey, you know, we can think about should we actually do it and get some more information. But talking about it in isolation is not a smart thing to do since they're interrelated as you just talked about.

So I guess my question is do we stop the stuff going into the canal first, which I'm not sure how we could ever do, or do we dredge and then get to a deeper spot so that there's less issues. But we talked about dredging over the past and you guys talked about raising the seabed up so that you get light down to there. So I don't know, mean, because we have high and low tides today and tomorrow in the next few days. So there is canals that people can't get boats in and out of very easily. So if we dredge then they can get in and out, but if we encapsulate then they can't get in and out. What do we

Well, this is why you talk to the Keys. For example, when they encapsulate, the only dredging they do is to make room to encapsulate. That's how they handle that. But you're right. The immediate thing, and we talked about going there, the whole landscaping, fertilizer, saving water, that whole regime getting rid rid of the turf grass regulation for Florida friendly stuff.

That whole arena, we talked that we should be addressing, and we never got any traction on it. That's the media thing, the education piece, the inspection piece, that there are pieces of that that can be done immediately. These other things take a little time. The Florida Keys with their program that started implementing in 2018, they're doing it today. Right now, years later, as they get money to do it, and there's improvement year after year after year.

This is not do one today because it's gonna fix it today because that's not gonna happen. AWT is better because it cuts it off at the source, and it could be done relatively fast because of mucking, getting permitting to do that, getting it in place will take more time. But some of these things you talk about, landscaping, whatever, that's something we do fairly quickly.

I'd like to piggyback with Ralph. I think those are some excellent points that you just made. And over the past year, I brought up this on occasion. I have to say that when you take a look at these, the moving parts, AWT really affects the golf course, affects the condo lawns and the medians, all very important. But it doesn't affect necessarily homeowners' yards, which there are far more of them than there is median strip, golf course and condo lawns.

So I think that and it's very, very inexpensive to get the public education underway. And it also doesn't cost us anything to get the city council to change some ordinances. I think that they don't have to ban turf grass, they don't have to ban anything, they have to encourage better directions for the public to go willingly. And I would say Florida Friendly, of course, I know the beautification committee is working on all of that. It isn't really our lane, but it does impact water.

And I think if we were able to work together, I think we could really come up with some, at least direction because every yard that has less turf and more Florida friendly uses less water and less fertilizer, less of that goes into our waterways. So it's all I mean, you're absolutely correct, Ralph. I mean, that's exactly the direction that we should go and it doesn't have to cost Marco Island money. It's just getting the public going in the right direction because I've taken a look at the maps, and believe me, individual homeowners' yards are there's a whole lot more of them, square footage, square area than there is of what the AWT would affect. Yes, the AWT will help, but this also would make a big difference if we get Marco Island to go in that direction.

We'll talk about AWT at some point, but the question I still have on AWT is that you're looking at about 30% of the water that we produce from the waste treatment plant that gets reused ends up off the island anyways. And then the rest of it comes on, is two major golf courses that don't even touch the water. And the one that does touch the water, there's like a 10 foot or more barrier before it gets to the water, and then you got hotels and some condos. But if you go to Goodland, Goodland doesn't use reuse water, those canals are disgusting. So, I mean, there is a ton of muck in there and they don't dredge them, so there is nothing going on there.

So if you want to see some canals, just drive around just the edge of Goodland at this point in time right now and you can't get through a lot of those spots.

And whether they ever service the septic tanks is another question.

Yes, and we did that and we still have the muck, so what I'm saying is I think that, from my point of view, I think the dredging is still the only way to reduce what's there because I don't think we can stop it. The palm frond is still going to fall in the water, the trees are to fall down unless you are going to build seawalls everywhere, but if you drive along Collier you'll see it all and that all ends up somewhere. And I live on the river and I can tell you during the storms this muck ends up inside my place so I know what it looks like and I know what it feels like and smells like. That's not coming from the canal, it's coming out of The Gulf too. So I think we need to look at the dredging site, I guess my question would be is what do you guys want to do next?

Do we want to maybe try to pursue a pilot project on something to see what we can do of where we can do it and then what to do with the material because I think that's been your whole problem all along is are muck eating bacteria, encapsulating it, putting it into holes, Seahawks putting it into an island, taking it off the island itself, but that's the most expensive. But I mean, do we all agree that we need to dredge at some point and if that's the case maybe we should continue doing the research for City Council so that we know the best way to do it.

My opinion is if the committee says, let's say one of these three options is something we would like to see, then we can take as a committee, take that next step to see where we would do it, how we would do it, take another step, make the phone calls, let's say, FTP and say, listen, this is what we're thinking, which is the avenue, which permit you would like us to do, do a little research, does it conflict with the sovereign lands permits, if any? See but it's a baby step. If it's still viable, then you take the next step. And then you might have something to send the city council say, yes, we want to do some heavy lifting which is when they give it to staff to actually spend some money and actually an RFP or whatever it is. But if we want to do it as a committee, we're going to have to address it as a committee because it's too big to just send it to somebody to do all the parts because this is not easy stuff.

And we've seen how difficult it is even when we broach the landscaping arena. There's pieces to it. And it really didn't get anywhere because it's gonna take a committee to do it. Somebody is going to have to work on what is the issues, changing ordinances, which ordinance, education piece, these kind of pieces. We all have to dig in and do education from month to month to get traction and make it happen.

I'd just like to add, I'd say that we need to get some experts to weigh in on placement where muck would go. I think that's really important. And also to get some experts on the seawall effects and to protect them from damage that would occur during dredging. I think we would really have to go in that direction. And finally, would love to see us get the council going in a public education direction for not necessarily ordinances, but just a public education direction when it comes to reducing the damage we are doing to our waters.

I think these are some components that we could really zero in on. And I would love to see us start that from that point of view. And I think this is a great idea, I really do. But I think these issues have to be addressed too.

Well, the public education piece I think is what we can do, we can start that and we we have talked about that.

I just have a comment, maybe a suggestion, We are sort of beginning to engage in that freewheeling dialogue that is very useful and a lot of good ideas come out of, but if I might suggest we try to work our way through the agenda first and then if we have time left, then we open it up to the kind of freewheeling discussion that we are having now because otherwise we don't seem to get through the agenda. Well, I understand, but

vice chair Winter is not here and he has two of them. Well, shame on him. So we don't have much left to go here.

Well, I was gonna make a motion to kinda put it to bed anyway, but I hear you. I'm gonna say it sounds like one of these. Sounds like the small scale dredging. We might wanna take one more step and see if it's still viable.

Well, I think

the case, then we could say, do a, we wanna do b, we wanna do c, kind of like you said, you know, actually do something, take that little baby step.

I guess my first question was is, are we all in agreement that we need to dredge?

A pilot? I mean, a test? Something along that line?

Mean, knows he wants his canal.

I'd say that the sediment has been building up for sixty years. It's a real issue. But when you talk about a pilot, where do you stop? Because when you stop, then all that sediment that's just past it at the next storm or high tide even is just gonna flow. And even if we did all the canals, then you stop on the perimeter of Marco Island, Is there endless muck in the river that's gonna shift into the canals? So I mean, those are the I I love the idea of a pilot and selecting a canal. But and maybe we if we accept that the muck is going to resettle and then just see how it goes.

Well, that's why

I think it will hear you. That's why I'm an advocate of the backfill encapsulation technique because it gets away from flowing back of the muck, which is what they found in the Florida Keys versus dredging. But it seems like everybody does want to talk about that. They want to talk about dredging. How does it

if you're talking about encapsulating, you're talking about putting some heavy material over top of the muck, but how does that stop it from coming back in on a storm?

Because when you encapsulate it, the same as Seahawk presentation, when you encapsulate something, you're raising it above what you're leaving. What the problem with dredging is you've got to now cut where when you leave the part by the seawalls, for example, or at the end, it flows back in to the lowest point. And within a year or two, you're back where you started from. Encapsulation, you're putting a foot or two of heavy dense material. The light muck that's on the side is below that and it doesn't flow in very readily.

Eventually, if you have programs where you're not putting organic to back in like with the landscaping or the AWT, eventually that muck that's along the side will degrade and it will be gone. And it gives it enough time, encapsulation gives it enough time to get back to zero point. And that's part of the reason why I made that presentation.

I think what he is saying and what I've experienced in my personal self is that when the storm comes through, I don't know where it's grabbing it from, but it ain't grabbing it from the canals because I don't live on the canal. Okay. So it comes through and it's that muck all over the place. It's sitting on the Gulf and it's coming in and so when we get a storm or really high and low tides, we're going start to see the water rushing. I think what Dan was saying is that when if you stop at, say you stop at the canals where it hits the river or you do the river or whatever, right, which would be crazy.

But it's still going to come back in and what I'm my concern about the encapsulation piece is that, yes, you're holding that part down, but you're still going to have stuff coming from somewhere else that's going to come back in and make it taller again. So then I don't know if it's going be easier to dredge in forty years from now or not, because there's a bottom to that.

And certainly a consideration, the saying is when you're saying trees are always going to fall in, that's always going to be a piece of it. But is there a better way to address that versus another way is really what we're talking about. I mean, we can go all day and what if, but to tell you the truth, the tide movement in and out is going to move that muck a hell of a lot more than any periodic storms coming through, which is more surface oriented. The tide itself is gonna do that. And it's a consideration as well.

So I guess we're all in agreement that we have to dredge at some point here, right?

What are going to do?

I would say that the agreement is there's a lot of sediment in the canals. How to work with that is the $64,000 question because it's got all these caveats, all these little hidden things that if we could solve it today I think we could all Well I'm

just trying to figure out what the next step is because I think we've got to move forward on this but if we're agreement on the dredging that we have to do something, whether we do a pilot or not, I think we've to push down the path of trying to look into this.

I I would think we need to be driving for a workshop to bring some experts in. Had people come up here with good ideas and we never hear from them again because we never discuss it again. Actually, have one fellow that's been here talking about a few things. I mean, he talked about increasing flow with injection wells and whatever. But we haven't heard about that in conjunction with our proposal to spend a lot of money towards under San Marco Flushing. We haven't gotten to which is better, which is more cost effective. A workshop is a kind of place where you would do all that kind of stuff.

Alright. Justin.

From what I understand, we really can't do a workshop. Is that right?

Well, you can, but it would be in lieu of a regular meeting here. So if you want to say two months from now, designate that as a workshop instead of a regular agenda meeting and you're talking about just one one item, then that would be considered a workshop.

Alright. Would would you guys be in agreement for that then? Well We can't do outside of this?

Yeah. But No.

Meeting on settlement? Well, one

meeting on a workshop, which would mostly be settlement.

Converting one meeting to a workshop.

Yeah. But we need to we need to we need to define what we're gonna talk about the workshop. We're not gonna go all over the place.

Why don't we just have a meeting and have nothing else on the agenda but one item? Well, because that's trying

to get people to come in and have a free talk.

Well, I've I've got a very fundamental issue with that. Yeah. Why are we accepting that? I mean, city council has workshop.

Would assume

budget because

it's for stat.

That's part

of the argument, but why are we accepting that when doing nothing is not gonna be very good? We're going we're heading towards that point of no return of not doing nothing. We're not gonna the options are gonna fall off the table. We've already seen options fall off the table. The Harper report says that the dredging is a $189,000,000. That was 2,001. That's four years ago, five years ago now. That option fell off the table five years ago. I have a feeling the under San Marco flush is gonna fall off the table if somebody wanted to look at it really hard. I don't know.

But as we go forward, it gets more expensive. Options fall off the table. Not doing something, accepting that we can't have a workshop to actually really have a multipronged approach to do this is not acceptable and shouldn't be. And you should be hammering city council to say, no. What's keeping us from having a real workshop? Maybe bringing some of these other people in for the day or half a day or whatever it is and getting to grips with this rather in year after year kicking the can down the road. Maybe that's not possible. But if you don't try to get that and we spent the year and we haven't done anything with it, why why are we wasting our time for? I don't accept that that we can't have a workshop. And as a chairman, you should be hammering city councils.

Hey. Tell me why we can't and make it definitive.

Ralph, what does the workshop get us that a meeting doesn't? Just just to clear, I would just wanna Well,

it gets us the time. It gets us the ability to have other people participate than seven of us who may or may not have any expertise in any of these things and have people that are learned, residents that can weigh in with good expertise to come in here.

But I don't see the difference

And there's other people from, let's say, from the Florida Institute of Technology. You might ask them to come in and talk about it.

Can't they come to a regular meeting?

Well, they probably could, but not for two hours.

Four minutes.

You know, that's ridiculous. People are gonna

come somebody that you I mean, there's nothing stopping you from searching out qualified or interested people to give you the information to bring to us in a meeting.

But that's not the power of

the I was trying to work with the current reality.

Seven people here that can weigh in and we should be having a workshop so that other people than us, why rely on me to give you something when you're just gonna throw darts at it? We have to get experts. I'm saying you get a workshop where you can bring these experts in for half a day and talk get it from the horse's mouth. Because anytime I say something, I mean, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. And throwing darts at it and saying, well, we need to do this. We need to have experts. Okay. I get it. That's part of the process to do that. But a workshop

turning a a meeting into a workshop. Replacing a meeting with a workshop. Give that's just the constraints that I'm hearing from the way we're currently organized.

And what I'm saying, I don't accept that.

Okay. But what can we do about it

at this moment? I'm asking the the chairman to not accept that. To get in front of city council and say, we want a workshop. It's valuable. It's an investment. We need to do it. That's all I'm saying.

I'll look into the workshop. But do you want to tentatively plan to change meeting in two months from now? Because next month, we're gonna hopefully do the ones that we missed this month into a workshop tentatively?

Yeah. I mean, yeah, we can

So we

can at least plan

try doing that. But if it's gonna end up being, as Rick said, just an open end conversation, it gets us nowhere. And we're not gonna be able to have other people participate and weigh in.

If a workshop gets us there, let's get a workshop. But what is the is the proof that a workshop is gonna do anything more than more discussion? Workshop think what he's trying to

do with the workshop is that we can bring people in to actually talk for more than four minutes. So they can

There's a reason why city council has workshops on this matter, but they don't have the expertise to talk directly. I mean, they bring in consultants, but they can't sort out what the consultant is telling them. I mean, remember in 2022, we had Jacobs come in and talk to them about aeration is the greatest thing in the world using a place in Chesapeake Bay as an example of how great this is. And I think Rick wrote a white paper. I wrote one, and I spoke in front of city council.

He says, they're selling you something here that's not necessarily gonna be progressive to us. And I don't know why they're selling you today. When they knew full well, they have piloted aeration over in the Florida Keys, and they discontinued it because it was such a failure. And no and they never mentioned it, and that's right down the road from them.

So what what the what

what we have to do is say, hey. Wait a minute. That may not be the case, and get and sort things

out. I'd like to say I didn't mean to interrupt you. We are not the Florida Keys. We are not Chesapeake Bay, we are not Tampa Bay, we are unique, we are Marco Island. And I've done a lot of comparison even to Cape Coral and all their canals and everything. We are not them. We don't get the problems necessarily the way they do. But I would love to see our experts who know this field. We were talking about we can't control the tidal flow in and out of The Gulf. That's going to do its own thing.

We can't control every palm frond that's going to fall into a canal. I'd love to see some experts who this is their world. They know this stuff. They come, they talk to us, they get on record here as to what the answers might just be. We can talk all day and we can talk all year, but we need their input because we don't know.

I mean, I may happen to know a good bit about horticulture and fertilizer, and I did bring an expert in a few months ago and we talked about the fact that we are fertilizing at the wrong time of year, we are doing everything wrong, but that has not gone anywhere yet. The point I'd like to make is that we need people who know this stuff come talk to us on record, in the public sunshine and get this stuff known to the citizens and the council and our committee here in Marco Island so that we can take that material and move forward with it and do something with it. This is our chance.

It's I not going to get any think you were, most of you are saying is we want to do a workshop to bring people in to give us ideas, but it can't be the workshop on dredging because dredging might only be one part of it. So maybe we would do the workshop on, I don't want to use the word water quality because city council has done that a number of times, but we would need to do a workshop where we could bring in somebody that's like Jacobs or whatever and say, here's what you should do. And then some else will say, here is what you should do and then I think we have to then analyze that. Is that what we want to do, open a more open?

Let me just put it to bed here for a minute. We can do what's in our control. We can do as was mentioned, a dedicated meeting to try to get a framework to bring all this together. And this is all of it. Everything from doing it to 4E, AWT, MUC, whatever it is, so we can balance things out, make a recommendation of what is the best bang for the buck, whatever you want to do.

We can have a dedicated meeting for this, that's in our control. But in the meantime, we know we can gather that in one meeting and then go for we want an investment of a workshop where we can discuss these things. The town hall, the produced town hall is one side of it. There's a counter side to many of these things. And that's where that's the place where you might have some discussion on this.

I would like to see a place where you can bring in experts to do that. We're not gonna do it in a two hour meeting. I like to have a place where people where residents are comfortable coming to share their expertise and ideas with us. We're not doing that because they see us not doing anything. A workshop would drive these people to actually participate. But that's all I'm saying. What I'm saying is I would make a motion to go and have a dedicated workshop and then try to get us a larger with city council, find a mechanism to invest in a bigger workshop.

Mr.

Chair, if I might suggest, you're not limited to one. You could, like we said, two months from now, designate one of these meetings as a workshop, focus on one topic, whether it be dredging, whatever it is, invite whichever experts that you would like to discuss at that meeting, so long as they're not a consultant that has to be contracted and hired by a city, which would result in additional costs. And then, that would be your dredging workshop. And then, couple months later, have a workshop on something else. Designate one of these meetings for that.

That way you can do it, you don't have to do it all in one meeting, and you can have as much time as you want to designate to each topic, invite whoever you want to these and do it in that timeframe. Maybe

we still leave it at two meetings from now, not next month or the month after, We do a meeting on the dredging part or a workshop on the dredging part, but does that give you enough time to do the stuff. And what I'm thinking of is that maybe we find somebody who wants to talk about dredging. Maybe the whole idea actually let me go back, maybe the idea of the meeting is not dredging but reducing settlement, settlement in the canal.

I made a motion to for now to see what's in our control to have what you're talking about, send have a meeting dedicated to this arena and to work on having a full fledged workshop. The details will work of how we do it, what's included, and whatever as you're speaking of. We will do that over the next month or whenever you think it's the right timing to do this. But right now, I'm saying, okay, it's in our control. We can have a dedicated meeting towards water quality or don't know, muck or whatever you want to term it.

Okay. So let's come up with

you guys can send emails in to Justin and let him know like if there's certain topics you want to discuss on that. I think what let's look at settlement, know, because you've got encapsulation, you've got muck eating bacteria, you've got you know, dredging, you've got just moving stuff. So let's look at that part. Would that be okay?

I would suggest that you decide that here and then we can talk about the logistics of scheduling it for a meeting rather than having individual emails sent to me.

A would a would a the May meeting titled like just dedicated solely to canal sediment removal. I mean Not removal, but reduction. Issues. Well,

you can term it just water quality and go from there.

No, want it rather be more specific, so we don't have somebody coming in talking about.

Yeah. Okay. That's part of the logistics. But, yeah. Okay.

But, I mean, I don't mind something, settlement reduction or settlement issues or whatever you wanna call it. And then, so let's, do we agree on that for right now?

Yeah, call it a month.

Like the

May meeting? And then, I'm still not clear.

What is that, is the workshop's sole focus going to be on sediment removal or is the workshop's purpose to look at the whole range of alternatives that we should

be doing? Right now, would just be sediment. So not always removal because he well, you can call it removal, but his muck eating bacteria

I get it. Anything to do with sediment. So that's your motion limited to just that?

I'm trying to get us anything that would get us dedicated to talking about these issues and be able to bring in other people.

To Chris' point, if we have two hours, I would pick one of the hot items and do that.

Right, because I mean there's 10 items we could put on that list or more. True. Like you said, two hours, you're not going we're barely going to get through this one topic. Right, so muck we're good on, or sediment? Muck and sediment is the topic of two meeting from now agenda.

Yep. Okay. So then

That's what we're voting on?

We don't need to vote. We're just gonna do it.

I'm fine I'm fine with going with that. Again, I'm not sure where that brings us within a two hour scope, but we can see.

You the person that you want to find some people to bring in for talking twenty, thirty minutes on a couple of different topics in relation to this and then we can kinda maybe in that meeting or the next meeting figure out what

we're I'll see what I can do. Again, it's not the same as being half a day and bringing people to drive all this way over here to speak for four minutes.

Well, we can do video.

Oh, that's a challenge.

I mean, there's a workshop, so we can do video.

Well, I could tell you, you're not gonna get a half a day allocation from the city to have a far ranging wide flung workshop.

Right. But it's just We try

it, but it's not gonna happen, so I don't see much point in talking about it.

Well, that's why we have somebody to fight for it. So far, that's not been done.

I will ask, but I'm not sure what we're gonna get.

Well You

you have skills.

We'll see.

You have skills.

But I do like breaking it up into pieces because then you don't have a lot of hopefully we can stay on topic.

Well, we'll see how it goes.

Okay. So if you feel that two months from now is not enough time to get whoever we need in because I I think we can do video so they don't have to drive and then we can just push it out another month or

Okay, we will try that, that's fine. We can always adjust as we go along.

Alright, any more discussion on this?

Yes, I would be pro this particular motion as long as we have the experts weighing in that we need to have and also just that we keep that one portion involving the Marco Island Police Department, the Marine Unit, that they do come and give their update because I think that's a very important thing. And that's only a few minutes, but as long as we do not delete that, then I would be in favor of this.

Yes, no problem. All right, moving on, canal access, we don't have glacier winter, so we'll skip that.

Do we need to take a vote on that or something?

We can just skip it, right, Taylor?

No, no, I'm talking about

Over the meeting? No, we'll just put on the when we talk about the agenda, we'll do the agenda. The black and beach, you asked me last week to talk or last month to talk to Jeff about the report, and he said that he will send out the report to the city and us when they get it as soon as they get it. So that's the only information we have right now on that.

I've got another little quick So update on the final report will be presented to city council at the April 6 meeting coming up and it will be posted online on the website prior to that. So by March 31, should be able to find that on the website and be able to download a copy of that report. Sir, we are about twelve days away.

Are you going to post the initial version or one that has been debated and possibly sanitized by the city before it gets published?

I am just relaying information, is that is water and sewer department, that is not me.

Well, it would be nice if we could get the initial version or first draft report that comes in, not one that's already been reviewed, redacted, modified, changed, whatever.

I would suggest sending an email to Jeff and asking that.

Okay. I'd be happy to.

I mean, I'm assuming when this report comes in, somebody and staff or a group and staff are going to bring that together to report to the counselors. So whether we call it sanitize or whatever, but it will be more succinct, obviously. My comment on that is there are actually two ways to look at that report when it comes in to staff. One is make a report kind of a yes or no, progress, not progress. The other is look at it as what's the most cost of way to use this material to have an efficient, most efficient project.

In other words, commitment to it. Obviously, my gut feeling is that the counselors know the case has been made or the majority has the case has been made, maybe I'm wrong. I think most of the councilors agree that the people want this and demand it. They were waiting for if they would get enough votes, kind of putting it off a little bit, and they have the votes. I think maybe some council are thinking, let's not we don't need to make a decision.

We can wait for November, let the people decide. To me, that's a little bit of kicking the can down the road a little bit. I think they know we need to go there and eventually we're going to have to. When you talk about things like plastics in the water and chemicals in the water and all that getting traction eventually, they're going to make us go there anyway. And I think we should commit to it and make when this report comes in, as the report says, how do we best implement this, use this as a core to make an efficient project? There are two ways to look at it. Just my opinion.

Well, can we talk about this or I think counsel and counselors could tell me if I'm mistaken. Counsel has two choices. They can either vote to take action on the report. Let's just say, hypothetically, the number is $20,000,000 and they say, okay, how do we fund it? They will come up with a financing mechanism and then counsel will vote yes or no to proceed down that road or counsel can decide to take no action and it will appear on a referendum in November for voters.

That is not the process? August. It'll be on the August referendum.

Correct. It is.

Okay. Thank you. So they can either take the bull by the horns and move quickly or they can put it back to the voters in August. And I am assuming that is what is going to happen. I mean, we have been told that six out of seven counselors supported the referendum.

Maybe it is a mistake to assume that they will vote in favor of implementing it, but I would hope that at some number, counsel will vote to approve it. If it is some number that nobody is expecting, then counsel may vote, hey, no, and then it is going to go to the voters to say yes or no.

I hear you. Alright, moving on, new business seawall regulations, Vice Chair Winter is not here, so I'll skip on that. Any staff communications? No. Thank you. Any City Council communication? No? Okay, public comment?

You've been

on vacation or something you haven't been around for a while. Dave

Crane.

Dave Crane, Marco Island. A couple of things, one we keep talking about it and talk about and talk about it, but one thing I don't think anybody's looked at is Landmark Basin as everybody knows is backwards. It's deeper at the far end, at the north end, which is just the opposite of what the army corps and and the city designed originally that everything was supposed to be shallower at the far end so you get better flushing. Doctor Harper said, I think it's like thirteen months to get any turnover in the Landmark Basin at all. So from approximately the Marriott North, that whole section is 25 feet deep or deeper all the way up to San Marco Road.

That's a huge area. Okay? And what Ralph is talking about in the Keys where they're going in, you could you can that's a lot of mass that can handle a lot of sludge being put there and then put the clay over it to do that. You would I mean, you could do I don't know. I mean, that's a lot.

You know? I mean, what the Keys have done is they've brought their canals from 40, some of them are forty, forty five feet deep to seven and a half. They're filling it up to only seven and a half because that's all the vessels need to do that. You know, if you're putting you know, if you've got 20 feet and you're gonna bring it down to let's say you bring it down to 10, that's 10 feet of depth for that whole area, which is acres and acres and acres. That's a lot of sludge that can be put in that area and covered and would clean up a lot of the dead end canals.

I mean, that we don't even know what the water quality is other than your canal where you've had it tested itself, but that's probably every single dead end canal in the island. We don't test anywhere near dead end canals. You know? So those are the worst. I live on a dead dead end canal. My depth is about three feet at low tide, and and it's terrible. And it's I mean, yours is terrible because you've got no there's no water movement at all. I mean, that's the whole key is water movement. So that, maybe talk to the Keys about that. I would I would love to have a follow-up on what I did and going down to the Keys and seeing the deep wells at the end of the canals.

They had one installed at that time. That's now a year and a half to two years ago. They had great success with that one. They had water turnover in, like, under a week on on the the canal that they had done. You know, what's going on with the other ones? Talk to Monroe County. They've got a whole task force that does all the what all the keys of the dredging and cleanup and all the different aspects that they're doing. Somebody's gotta jump on that, you know, and do that. Just saying that that's areas that there's definite room. We we have places to put it.

We don't have to build an island up above. It can still be below. Nobody's gonna see it. You guys are worried about, well, you know, as soon as we have a storm, it's gonna come in and they're gonna be mucked up again. It took fifty years to get the water quality to where it is now. I'd be more than happy to have it now. Let's get them let's get something done and worry about it fifty years right again. I mean, we're kicking down the road. So let's start looking at stuff and doing the research yourselves and find out, okay. And if you need context down there or something, let me know because I've got it still all in my files.

Thank you.

All right. Thanks,

Thanks, Dave. No more public comment.

Confirm Question.

Who is leading the sea wall regulation? Winter. Oh, okay.

Next meeting, everybody available of the five that are here? Yes. Okay. The agenda topic for next meeting, I would say we're just gonna go back to the white paper for the San Marco Pass, we're going to do the canal access for paddle boats and kayaks, maybe we touch on black and beach, I'm not sure, we'll know at that point. And then do you want to just do a quick synopsis of whatever you're gonna do for the next meeting?

I've I've had her about as much as I can.

But I mean, we need to put an agenda item just so we can talk about it for the next for the workshop? If you want, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We can do that.

I think if we got it a little bit more focused, it

would Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, we have

a few minutes right now too.

Well, I've got one more topic.

Sure.

Is appropriate now. I would like to go back to the whole turf grass issue that we actually started on at the beginning of last year and make a more formal recommendation to city council to amend the ordinance requiring turfgrass. Okay. I think it think even more important now that we seem to be in sort of a drought condition in Southwest Florida. And I just want to point out there are other cities and counties that are actually offering programs or rebates to put in alternatives to turf grass.

In Orlando, they are giving rebates of up to $200 for people that replace turf grass with native or drought tolerant plants. City of Tampa has a water rise program to help the transition from turf grass to other plants. I just think this might be a low hanging fruit that we talked about that wouldn't cost the city any money to implement but ease the restriction on mandating turf grass and let's get more water efficient for the whole environment since, you know, people use 60 to 80% of their water in single family homes goes on the ground to water the grass. Let's do something that is environmentally smart that also reduces fertilizer because it doesn't need fertilizer and it reduces the runoff and percolation of fertilizer and the nitrogen and phosphorus that's in our potable water that does eventually end up in the canal. So I'd like to do something on moving forward with a recommendation to counsel for getting rid of the turf grass requirement.

Can I add something on top of that? Because I've looked a little bit, forget the number, but there's another ordinance regarding the public right of ways. It specifies they are Florida friendly and actually it goes down to actual species of ground covers that are acceptable. So it's kind of related. They need to talk together because apparently, right now, as you said, mandates turf grass, you can't put alternative ground cover there, but you can on a public right of ways. So you can put it in the swales and down between the homes, but not the rest of it. So they need to coordinate.

Well, I mean, Justin, aren't you doing the new swale technology as a demonstration program on parts of Barfield where there's actually gravel in the swales, not grass?

You're referring to the exfiltration swales?

Right.

It's not a demonstration program. It's actually there's actually some city capital projects for it, but it's not the entire swale. The only it's just the the very bottom of it, which is two foot wide. And so, essentially, there's like a French train at the bottom of the swale. And the only thing you see of the gravel is just a two foot wide for the length of it.

But But to mention the other point, the right of way construction standards manual does have some alternative ground covers in there such as peanut grass, I can't remember the name of the other, but it is in there as an alternative.

So maybe next meeting you won't have a lot of time probably, but five to ten minutes maybe we have time to talk about starting on that. If you have a couple of things we can discuss and then we get pushed up the next meeting.

I'll see you how far I get, but if you can put it on the agenda, I will try to present something and Yeah, at least get

us thinking and moving in that direction. Perfect.

I have one more potential topic. Go ahead.

Well, piggyback on this, kind of like my field, I would say that Marco Island would have to want to have the look changed of the island. First of all, you don't want to have counsel necessarily mandate anything, but remove the mandate. I I don't think we really have a mandate for turf grass anymore. I think people can get a variance or they can I'm I'm not sure how it works, but they're able to put in other kinds of plantings now without the council actually acting. Am not sure that is what I have

been told. They have to get a variance. Right, right, they have

to get a variance.

I am saying take away the roadblock and the mandate. And I agree with you that people on Marco have to agree to have a different look on the island. They would have to want it. Don't think it is the right direction for the island to take, Nobody has to agree with me on that, but I think there is another committee that is working on that and, you know, maybe that is something we work together with them and go in conjunction with them to counsel.

Because it is not, I mean, it is not really our primary area that we work in, but I would love to see us work with the beautification committee, think. The other thing about that is that it I mean, cover is one thing, but if you get into plantings, one of the issues if you don't do ground cover and you do mulch or stone, stone is not a great idea. Mulch has problems that come with it. Mulch can bring you termites. Mulch can bring you something called slingshot fungus.

Nobody's heard of it, but it's also a nasty thing that can really cause trouble in a landscape. What I am trying to say is that there are consequences to making the change. Yes, Florida Friendly is great and I am in favor of it. There is a lot if you plant, you can plant a lot of Florida Friendly plants, but you are to be doing a lot more trimming. You are going to have a lot more work. Grass is easy. So, make a transition toward more Florida friendly landscape ground covers, it's a great idea. But be careful of where we go.

I'm sorry, isn't this proposed agenda items versus Yes. Pressing Okay.

Yep.

Twenty minutes. So I I I just wanted to point that out. Right.

One proposed, not for next time, but I I kinda mentioned over a year ago when we talked about the flushing on the San Marco Road or a year or more. Was down when they made a presentation around the time where they lost the two vacant lots to do and it became more expensive and all that. And I looked at it and I says, you know, it made sense a little bit of differential in the timing. But then when it got more expensive, I started took a quick look at the hydrodynamic survey that apparently drove it. And I says, this doesn't look right.

And I'm kinda concerned that we're going forward. I mean, I know there's grants because at the time they said it's a done deal. We have grants and all that stuff and I start looking. But we it is a lot of money even with the grants. And I'm wondering if we shouldn't be discussing take another look at it. But perhaps somebody already has a lot more, but it's just something to think about.

All right. Any other?

Before you leave the topic, there is an attachment to the agenda packet which has the dates of the meetings on it. So you had discussions today about designating one of those meetings as a workshop. And what was mentioned was the May meeting. So are we talking about making the May 21 meeting a workshop to discuss one item?

As of right now, yes.

Mark.

Right, Ralph? Yes.

So if you just get consensus on that, so that can be designated as a workshop.

We're call it muck May.

Muck May. Alright, we're good, right? We said that, yeah, we got a consensus. Alright, any other committee communications? All good? Okay. All right. Meeting adjourned.