Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

It's 08:30, and this meeting of the WAC is now called to order. I'd like to have a roll call, please.

Member Lee Landowski.

Here.

Member Rohina.

Here.

Member Winter.

Here.

Vice chair High.

Here.

Member Schneider. Member Woodward.

Here.

Chair Mascot. Here. Thank

you. Let's rise for the pledge. 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 liberty and justice for all. I'd like to call for an approval of the agenda.

We need a motion and a second.

Right. Motion to Do

have a motion? Do we have a second? Second. Chris, we have a second. Is there any discussion?

All in favor?

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Nope. We have approval of the agenda. We now turn to approval of the minutes.

I have a couple of comments when you get to it.

Okay. Do we have a, you know, since we don't have a motion yet to approve the minutes, if there's any comments, then I'd like to call for those comments.

Yeah. One part, the K and K fertilizer, forty five thirty seven. I don't think it reflects what we discussed fully. This was presented to city council at the waterways committee workshop, I should say, as a great opportunity, game changer. And so since, myself and maybe Jim Snyder as well looked at it as perhaps it was a scam, we had to do our research, we presented it here as such. And it's that's not reflected in those minutes. And I I just made a clause here that may speak to it. After investigation, found the material available commercially and in natural

compost, And

I think that says it all.

Okay. If you would add that to the minutes.

We will make the amendment accordingly if committee approves the amend you know, the amended minutes.

Do I have an a motion on on that amended, on that amendment for the amended minutes?

Yes. Well, I'll make the Okay. I'll make the motion.

Okay. And a second?

Second. Second by Rick.

Second. Okay, Rick. Any other any any other comments or discussion?

One other thing on 4538 on the depth survey, I don't think that fully reflects what we spoke about as well. I was purposefully over the top saying that we needed to go beyond just a depth survey. We needed a canal condition survey considering we're getting into discussion and decisions of things of tens of millions of dollars with scanty information. So I think it needs to reflect that we had that conversation that I believe that the we need a canal condition survey.

Okay.

Okay.

We will make that change as well.

Okay. Very good. Any other comments or material that you would like to add to the minutes or change? Anything that you see is wrong or needs updating? Nope. Okay. Can we take a vote? Do I have a motion to, approve the minutes? He did he made it. Right. But I mean, with that Yeah. Would that also add a

motion? I'll second it.

And we have a second? Can we take a vote? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The minutes are approved as amended. Thank you. Okay. Old business. I do not have anything here. Anybody want to bring up any old business? Nope?

I that just have a question. Sure. Didn't we discuss the potential algae eating bacteria thing at the last meeting or was that just at the council meeting you made the presentation on?

I made discussion with at the council meeting, and I was gonna bring it up here today as one of those new items

Okay.

Or council comments. Okay. One or two, if that helps.

Thank you. Okay. With there not being any other old business to discuss, we go to new business. Let me preface this just really briefly before we get into it. What I've asked everybody to do first of all, question. Has everybody turned in their three bullet points? All members that are present have turned them in.

I I have no doubt.

You have not? I have a comment. A comment first?

Okay. I I declined to submit any new topics. I already did four white papers earlier this year. Those white papers did not really go anywhere and I also submitted 20 some odd topics when we had our first committee meeting, so I think I have submitted enough topics for this year and I think the other six members of the committee should have the opportunity to discuss their topics before I throw any new ones out there. I think, in my own personal opinion, it would have been helpful if everybody had submitted their topics to Justin or whoever before the meeting so we would have had a chance to consider them before we would go through whatever process this is and be able to have a more intelligent reaction to the topics.

So I just think we have a communication process available to us. It would have been nice to have the topics before the meeting, but that is your decision.

Well, it is not entirely my decision. The law states that we can't have that kind of communication between us, and I'm not about to try to circumvent the Sunshine Law.

We're not circumventing it if we sent our comments to Justin and Justin distributes them as part of the agenda,

if Justin sends them out.

It it could be done that way. I appreciate your response.

It's just my position. That's fine.

Begin with, I wanted to say why we're doing why I decided to do what we're planning to do. We have been talking about five topics a lot, and it's been a lot of talk. We have submitted our advice. We are an advisory council. We have submitted our advice to the council.

We're a committee to advise the council. AWT, dredging, culverts, bubblers, and the depth survey are all in the hands of council. Any further talk we do involving those five items are talk. And this committee has talked a lot for the last ten to twenty years. My plan is here is to introduce areas of discussion, ideas.

We are a council of extremely bright, intelligent people that each bring our own abilities to the table. And I think that it's really important that we have the opportunity to show Marco Island, the council, and everybody watching that we have the the wherewithal to come up with with ideas that may come up with some very valuable solutions. Before I begin, I did want to compliment Rick on what you presented last time. It was very informative. I went over it quite a few times.

And it I learned a lot. And I just wanted to tell you that I personally appreciated what you did. Thank you. So just for the record. So without further ado, I don't want to be the one to begin. It's not my place as chair to start. I'd like to get a volunteer, Chris, to start with your your three points that you'd like to make. And I I appreciate your volunteering. Thank you.

All right, I'm gonna make mine short and sweet. I was looking at this as priorities for what we do here. So the first one of the priorities I think is we need a better eight ton procedure so when they're missing, they're damaged or whatever, if they're in the city limits, we know exactly who to go to and we don't have to wait for a meeting and talk to Justin and wait months to get them fixed. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. If it's non city, like if it's Dallas Capri, Collier County, Coast Guard, let's figure that out and get maybe create a map.

I know we've kind of talked about this before, but let's create a map of some sort that we know exactly who's responsible because when they go down some of them are kind of dangerous especially in the past. The next one, I think that one of the big things that we need to work on is public education and that goes back to like the fertilizers, the lawn debris, all the stuff that falls into the canals or ends up there one way or another. I think a lot of this is education, You've talked about a lot of items on there that really we just got to come up with a better way, pamphlets, whatever that we can put out there. Again, even pamphlets in for fertilizer at like ACE and stuff like that to let people know the city what we're trying to do. And then I'm on the canals a lot, there is a lot of discharge into the canals.

This has been talked about a number of times and I think that maybe that's an option we can look at too. I mean, from people's downspouts, their pools, everything. Was a house that not that long ago was three pipes coming out right in the canal, and it was a newer house, it's been there for a little bit. So I think those are some of the items we can talk about. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Now, though, that's a brief introduction and he will get a chance to expand upon that after we each make our three bullet points. Rick will not be doing that. Of our other three

I'll throw it out. Members.

Ralph, you're

next. You just wanna just present the top one?

Just present

the three bullet points, and then we'll discuss them. We have timed this meeting to do that. That's why I designed it the way I did.

You can handle that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. I did have notes there. I wasn't sure what the intent was, but alright. As Rick pointed out, muck eating bacteria is an issue. This was presented to city council as an issue. It's a great opportunity to test something that actually might work in a waterways. I'll expand about it later.

Right.

The second thing is we need to prep for the next advisory committee. I think it's quarterly or mid period presentation to city council. I personally didn't like the last one. It didn't get into the things we need to be talking with them about, in my opinion. And the third thing was canal condition survey, which may have been something we've been discussing, So maybe it's not a good third dot point if we want something new. But that's the third.

No problem. Well received. Thank you, Ralph. Of our two remaining members, would you like to go next?

Martin? Yes, don't have a problem. I don't actually have anything prepared, but I can certainly talk to it. My belief is that quite frankly, of this stuff we already covered in prior meetings prior to you obviously taking the chair position. And when I actually look at the whole Waterways Advisory Committee, it breaks down into about five, possibly six buckets.

It breaks into water quality, navigation, marine construction, education, conservation and possibly interfacing to things like coastal advisory and the council. So those would be my six very broad buckets. To the point that you raised, I think the issue is that every meeting we get wrapped around the axle about water quality. We have the numbers, there can be debate about how much oxygenation and how much nitrogen and how much phosphorus and we've had experts come in and measure all these things. I believe that we're at the point now where these are very big ticket items and they fall outside the scope of what we can do from a budgeting perspective.

I think what we should do as a committee is on the water quality, we should write a summary to the city council and say, these are the things that have been looked at. We have looked at dredging. We have looked at Seahawk. We have looked at bubblers. We have looked at culverts.

Now some of these things are in play like the bubblers to my understanding, I don't know whether that's been ripped out the budget yet, but there was an amount of money assigned to do a pilot bubbler program. So a lot of these things, I just think they've been discussed ad nauseam, quite frankly. I think we need to, as a committee, we need to clean it up, write a report, send it to City Council because at the end of the day, this is like if you're in a corporation and you come up with a strategic plan, you submit it to the CEO and you say, this is our plan. What can we fund? What can we not fund?

And move it there. Now water quality is obviously the big ticket item. My belief is that we need to do a depth survey because everyone I've talked to and this is not from empirical data, this is just from people that have lived on the island a long time, The depths in the canals are changing. They're silting. That is part of the problem. Navigation and Etonnes, we've kind of talked to that. Some of it we control, some of it we don't. But I think the leverage that the City Council need to help us with is going to Collier County. Some can be done through coastal advisory. Unfortunately, we have someone on that now.

But just to put some pressure on Coast Guard and those kind of things. I mean, this island is getting to the point from a navigation point of view, people can't get around. Places are being restricted and it's like you hear these, well, cruise ships and this and that and these things are a vital ingredient to the economics of making this island work. Marine wall construction, there's obviously a whole lot of conversation about elevations and depths and where the height of the marine wall should be. We've had expertise on this committee that could absolutely help us address that.

Role has been involved in that. But the other thing with marine construction is we have nowhere for contractors to load and unload. That's been raised many, many times. We have got, I can't remember what the numbers were, but many, many miles of seawalls that are eventually going to need replacement. So if these contractors can't actually get product on their barges to go do the work, whether it's Doctor.

Seawools, that's a problem. Yes, it is. We haven't really addressed it. Education, I think that a vast number of people on this island read social media, don't research properly and go off on some kind of crazy tangent as to what they think should or shouldn't happen without really any data points. So I think education is key.

Conservation is another area and some of these things do actually weave together. And then the other one would be the interfacing to external bodies and the City Council. So in a very broad scope, those would be the six things that we need to address. Now do we need to hone down into each of those buckets? Yes, that was one of things that got suggested through Rick Blonder's efforts and my effort when I was Chair, because I think some of these things are a little bit easier for us to tackle.

But the water quality issue is such a big one and such an expensive one, I think we need to do a summary report, send it to City Council and say, these are the things that we think would improve it. Maybe we can or cannot give some kind of budget figure on those. Clearly, once City Council decide what they want to do, then we can drill into it more. The only thing that I would pull out is sort of near and dear to my heart is we haven't surveyed the depths of the canals on this island for twenty five years. In twenty five years, it's clearly changed, in my view, significantly.

So that is the first step. As to surveys of condition of canals and all that stuff, again, my concern with that is we know the condition of the canals isn't great, certainly not where people want it to be. Is that going to be a lot of money that gets spent to justify something that perhaps we already know? But anyway, that's a very broad swap and it doesn't perhaps nail it down to the three things, but that's

my Okay. Just one question to you. Who would write this report? How who would you want to see do that?

That's a good question. Think that

Haven't these already been written?

A lot of the information is, I mean, some of it has already been

We're It's your three topics. Yes. Right.

But I mean, I did ask that question.

So I mean, just trying to organize.

Sure. No, I understand. I think the biggest thing from the reporting there would be the water quality, and it's really quite conflicted. I mean, we've got the Harper report, we know those details. We've got the Jacobs report, we know those details. And we clearly survey the water very, very regularly.

Isn't that where you're trying to go with 7B that encompassing

the future planning Get to that.

To bring it together.

Yeah. Okay, Ralph. Yep. Martin, I appreciate what you had to say. Dan, the floor is yours.

So these the

issue with our committee is that really we're, you know, we're focused on City Of Marco jurisdiction. And I mean, that's very little, you know, but there's so much around us that affects us. So, you know, the Eton's, there's just a handful that are City Of Marco specific. And how do we control the water quality in the canals without looking outside the canal? So I mean we have to take a bigger view although this is these items on my list are not specific to City Of Marco jurisdiction.

For example, the Big Marco Pass Inlet Management Plan, nonexistent, never has been. It's just it's a complete oversight from everybody, you know, all all levels of jurisdiction. Collier Creek, we it's a huge project going on in our backyard. And it's it's a cluster. It's been going on for several years and doesn't seem to be making any progress, but it is gonna change the the landscape that we all enjoy. So I don't think people really know what that involves.

Sorry. Can I just on that Collier Creek thing, Dan,

this is the plan to open up the entrance to Collier Creek? It's putting in a jetty that sticks out into the Marco River. It's putting in a very it looks like a thermometer, if you will, the last drawing I saw. Where from the shoreline where there's currently that rock jetty Mhmm. Right by that sandy beach on on high the end of hideaway.

Yep.

It's my understanding it'd be a a peninsula that sticks out with a a round tip on the end and then it controls the sand flow into Collier Creek. Mhmm. So and then I guess it involves Collier Creek dredging in the process, but it's a huge structure that's going into the river. And it's just awareness of that. We don't know anything about it.

And then the last one is, again, these are new topics. I'm trying to kinda discuss new things that we haven't really spent much time on. I mentioned this because every time I go over the bridge, I see three vessels that are concerning. They're anchored just on the south side of the Jolly Bridge. I don't see them moving.

And what are they doing with their waste? You know? So we're we're working on water quality, and we have to understand what vessels can do, where they can anchor and how we can, as a community, can protect ourselves from these vessels being endangering our waterways. That's my list.

Thank you, Dan.

I think that just the point on the Derelict vessel anchoring, I've seen those same boats. But I think that is a I'm not sure who administers it, but basically, you can go and inspect those vessels. I don't know whether it's I think it's most probably Collier and Fisheries and Wildlife as to what they are doing with their waste and they can get fined if they don't have the appropriate plan in place. As to the notification, my understanding is that they have to prove that that vessel can be powered and it can have steerage to effectively be on the water. If it doesn't meet that criteria, then it moves into the next level of problem or certification or whatever.

It's a very long process.

It seems to change since my time here. It seems to change. So I'm just saying like let's get the latest understanding. As a committee, we should be very in tune with the latest on that. That's fair.

I mean as to the anchoring piece, if those vessels are not proven to be derelict, very little you can do about it.

What's the modern definition of derelict? Just keep you up to date on all these.

I think that my understanding, and it may have changed, but my understanding of derelict is no propulsion and no steerage are the first things. So I mean, it can look like a bucket of crap, but if it can steer and it has propulsion, then it's not deemed derelict.

Can we invite what do think? Oh, well, we can talk later. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll talk all about this because I have some questions about that. I'm gonna go and present mine, then I'll be right back, and we will continue. See, how does this work? Right here. I You still have I'll bring yours back.

You can take it. You can take credit for mine.

Okay. Thank you. Way better than mine.

Okay. I've I've actually got three since I I determined there'd only be three, but I actually have a fourth one, which I I may briefly mention. But these are the three that I want to pull out put out there. And I think it also jives with what we've also been talking about. I would say that I would wanna make a motion to mandate that all agencies and entities, Collier County, Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, State of Florida, etcetera, are maintaining safe and secure boating and navigation channels in all surrounding Marco Island waters just as the city of Marco Island also does.

I think because of the safety to the public, if you have atons that are missing, if you have channels that are not dredged, properly, you can have severe boating accidents, injuries, and fatalities can occur. I think one of the things that we have not been talking about while we have been, of course, focusing on how water quality is so very important, this to me is a number one item of importance. And I think, we're doing, from what I hear, a good job on Marco. But there's a lot of water out there that is not under the jurisdiction of Marco Island, but under these other, entities. And I think that a real a real connection needs to be created to make this actually happen and to be maintained so that there is safe boating and navigation in our waters.

Number two, I would like to advise council and receive regular feedback from appropriate city departments on a quarterly basis at least that all seawalls meet code and that all applicable boat docks are inspected, violations are noted and lead to appropriate and required maintenance. I think this is extraordinarily important too. And third, I would go all the way at this point to advising counsel to begin a process that requires the aisle and I'm going to stress requires, not asks. They're two different questions. Requires the Isle Of Capri and Goodland to convert to sewer.

And I think, from everything I've heard that the waters, particularly around Goodland, are not waters that you'd wanna swim in, you'd wanna eat a fish from. It's there's so much leaching of from those tanks, septic tanks. I think it's very, very important that this begins a process. I really do. And I'm not saying that that's contributing to all the problems that we have with our water quality, but I think that that needs to happen.

It's gotta happen, and it needs to start happening. And the last thing, I know it's not on there, but if I had a fourth opportunity, would say, I'd love the council to investigate whether they wanna continue to require, all yards on Marco to have to be grass lawns. I like grass lawns. That's my background turf grass management. But as far as I'm concerned perhaps we can think outside the box and come up with some other possible areas that we can talk about when it comes to vegetation that may not require the amount of fertilization and maintenance that lawns do require. But that's something else and could bring that up at another time. I just wanted to throw it out there. I appreciate your

time. Thanks.

Okay. We have now introduced our topics. What I'd like to do, whiteboard topics and strategic planning, I think this kind of blends right into where we have been and now where we want to go. I'd like to get everybody, as you wish, to expand on your ideas. This is the time to actually get into the nitty gritty.

We have the time. I developed this agenda so that we would have the time to appropriately and with enough time to express what we know, what we think, what we might propose. Who would like to go first?

What about Absolutely.

Sorry. Can I make a recommendation? Please do. I mean, we've got a lot of topics, and there will be a lot of good conversation, some agreement, some not so much. I would propose that at a very high level, we should break these into maybe navigation and then try and work through those.

I honestly do not think that we will get through more than a couple of these in this one session. So I think we need a high level, let's say, what do we see as Waterways Advisory is the scope. Is this the complete scope? I don't know. But let's pick a couple of those that are maybe a little easier to digest.

I mean, I love the idea of the inlet management because I think that's remiss, haven't been done properly for years. Directly vessels, that should be a pretty easy one to get update on. And maybe, you know, put some try and put some, I don't know, facts or stuff around how do we better interface to coastal advisory city council. I mean, I've taken many swings at letters to the coast guard of, can we do this and do that? And it it feels like as an advisory committee or individual boater on the island, you don't really have that much sway with Coast Guard.

So it's really going to take a big push from the city council to say we've kind of had enough, but I just feel like this is a lot. Even though we've got a a relatively light agenda, this is gonna

be a lot.

I kept it that way for this purpose, and we can always continue this in the next meeting. Yeah. That's fine.

I think this is a a few meetings worth,

to be honest. I think it's important that we do this.

I I think we had some of this mapped out previously. Right. Exactly.

We could take number one from each person to spread it around if you want.

We could that's a suggestion. Ralph, would you like to go first?

Sure.

You're number one?

Sure.

Unless Mike Mike had his hand raised.

Who'd like to go first?

That's that's Chris. I know it's Mike.

Yeah. I'll I'll do it. Okay, Ralph. My number one was the muck eating bacteria. I had made a discussion with city council and actually been working on it

for a little while.

A lot of what I spoke about city council was all the barriers that are in place, I call them laser beams, in order to hear the presentation from the owner of the company, the patent holder. And what this is, is beneficial bacteria that eats organic muck in salt water. It's ubiquitous in use in fresh water using this bacteria to eat organic muck to get rid of the muck. And also, have experience I used to work with Exxon, so I was a big part of the Alaskan oil spill. A lot of people saw pictures of all this kind of stuff of high pressure hoses and dragging oil soaked mud out when in fact it was beneficial bacteria that lives in salt water that these hydrocarbons is what cleaned it up at a fantastic rate.

You also see this beneficial bacteria in lactose intolerance people. What they take to eat, it's bacteria that lives in acid in your stomach that eats lactose. So it's a simple question of finding the right bacteria that thrives in all kind of water, salt water or brackish water that eats organic muck. And this particular company has a plan for the delivery system to do exactly that. They have the bacteria to do exactly that.

And what it has the chance to do was, actually, the chairman of the city council asked the water waste committee meeting, is there anything else besides this to get rid of this muck? There's a lot of money. There's a lot of invasiveness. There's a lot of risk, and this was an answer to that. And I think for $25,000 to pilot this in a canal and to listen to the presentation is imperative as one of the only options besides trying to drag this mark out with the proposal that we've got that's extremely flawed.

And so, really, what I was asking as council is to go ahead and recommend that city council see the full presentation from the fellow so they get an idea of how this how this works. And it does address the Harper report, which says 70%, I believe, of the nutrients going into sorry, the canals is from what's already there from this muck. So there's a lot of good things for $25,000 And remember that we're spending $200,000 to pilot aeration in one canal. This is $25,000 to find out which could be a real game changer not only for us, but others who have this muck problem. So I guess that is about it in summary.

I would like to get some discussion on this. Rick?

I had a comment. I was at the city council meeting and if I understood what the direction from council was, is that we could have them make a presentation first to the WACC and then WACC could make a recommendation to city council. So I would make a motion if I need to make a motion to get Ralph to get them to make a presentation to us as soon as possible. I think it is a fantastic idea if it works.

We have a motion on the floor.

I second it.

Okay. Some more discussion, please.

Wasn't there also discussion about the unsolicited proposals. And I don't recall the details if you guys at at one of the in previous meetings here and elsewhere. So I agree. Let's hear it. You know, it sounds intriguing.

Yeah. I can tell you where that came from. Part of my discussion was not specific to technical pieces, but the barriers that are in place for making movement and some of these things, hearing presentations and all the barriers that are in place to keep from just hearing things.

I thought counsel cleared us to to have a presentation here.

So I Yeah. That is what I believe too.

Well, then I think

that barrier is down.

Then Okay. That was just a clarification. So ask them to come in. Let's let's make a motion to have them come in.

Sign from city council members when this has been done previously is they don't necessarily at city council and advisory don't want a litany of salespeople coming in, pitch their products, but I think it's got merit to discuss. Think my biggest concern with this thing is we're holding this thing out there. It's like this is a great thing. We don't even know the Department of the Environment and some of those other agencies are very resistive to anyone putting anything in

the

water. So before we kind of go down the path, I mean, we've just done it with another topic that we come up with this idea and float it as a way to solve a problem and then we find out that it's not even legal.

True. Yeah. But let's get the facts first.

Well, yeah. No. I I don't have a problem with them coming in and pitching. But what I'm saying is part of that, before we go down this path, why doesn't somebody reach out to the Department of Environment or whoever it would be and say, is there going to be any legal issues or concerns of dumping bacteria into the water before we go down that path?

I would

presume who's going to make the presentation already knows the answer to some of those.

Well, they've only done it in freshwater is my understanding.

This particular issue with the sediment and the muck is in freshwater. Other bacteria works in the Myrave, as I mentioned, in other areas, simply finding the right bacteria. But the part of the presentation, they would run all the traps. I mean, they've done this all over the country in freshwater already.

I understand that, but the regulation around freshwater and saltwater is very different. So before we cut I don't have a problem in coming in and doing an exploratory, hey, this is what we got guys. No issue with that at all. But what I'm saying is, we need to find out if we're gonna hit an environmental issue with this. We go down and the company say, oh, yes, this is great. We got this bacteria, eat this algae, it will do this, it will do that.

And that's part of it.

And we get to the point of saying, right, can we release 40,000 gallons of whatever into this canal to do this job? And the Department of Environment said, hell no, you can't put anything in the water.

I hear you. That's

That's part of the just my big concern with it.

We need to know that we can do it legally, environmentally. I mean, yes.

That's part of the presentation Exactly. To speak to that specifically. And it's nonchemical. It's But that he would speak to that on a technical basis to answer those kind of questions.

For them to come in and present a large plan, it seems premature, given what Martin was saying, which I would agree with, is that dumping or even administering, dosing, whatever, they're gonna have to do so much research and studies to get that approved. It's to have them come in, take up, present this plan. The reality is the DEP, state feds, national marine fisheries, they're not going to allow someone to dump bacteria into the canals. So do we ask them? I would suggest since you've contacted. Have you been in touch with them or you just know of them?

No. I've been in contact all along.

So I mean, that's the I'd say that's the first hurdle, say. The the push the concern is that it might be getting the cart before the horse. Dumping all this into the canal seems to be completely against decades of of environmental policy in our area. What is your response to that? And then could you bring that back to us? And then if they're if it sounds like they have their ducks in a row and maybe there's a new program, then we say, hey. Wow. They really did get all this dialed in. Let's have them come in at that point.

We need to know that this

is I think this is part of what I'm talking about about putting barriers from moving ahead. I mean, they're making a presentation that will address some of this where we would have questions on here's the presentation first, and then we find the next steps to go. Going back and saying, well, we don't want to hear anything about this until we do months and months of

homework. I could just interject

Doesn't make sense to me.

I'd like to be sure that it's even possible that these barriers are not ones that we're putting out there, that they're there, and they won't allow us to do. We need to find out exactly what those are. And if we can even hear the presentation rather than to waste time hearing a presentation for something we can't do. So I think that's important that that that cart is, you know, you can put first.

And that's their business. They've done this around the country.

Okay.

And they'll speak to that. And if there's some gaps that we need or whatever it is, and then you got to go to the next step. But we're putting barriers of conjecture of which we haven't even nobody really knows even technically what this is all about.

Have they

You know?

I mean, you say they've done this all around the country, but I've never heard a comment they've done this around the country and they've done this in saltwater. Exactly.

Not saltwater. That's what the pilot is all about.

Right. So they haven't done it really anywhere in saltwater, and yet we want them to come in and pitch something that they can say this is the perfect algae for doing it. And then when we get to the point of putting it in the water, the department or the state or someone says, no, you can't do it. I'm not trying to create barriers here. I'm just trying to I don't want to get into a situation where we go through this same thing and then we get to the point of like, yes, well, actually legally we can't do it. So it doesn't matter whether they got the perfect algae or whatever. If the states say you can't do it or the feds say you can't do it, you can't do it.

Ralph, I agree. I said it's a fascinating concept.

I think it's a great concept and I admire you for doing the

research It's a huge But Like Martin said, there's a huge component that is just a no go. Like, if they can cross that, give us some I mean, Why first

don't we get the facts first? I think you guys are throwing up barriers. Yeah. Yeah. Got a motion in a second.

Okay.

We're having discussion.

Hit you would have heard the presentation, and half the time, we've been discussing putting up barriers, for Christ's sake.

Point.

You know, it's kind of absurd putting up barriers when there's something that we're thinking innovatively, creatively, trying to solve a solution rather than finding ways not to solve a solution. It makes no sense to me, but maybe I'm wrong.

But here's what I don't wanna happen. I don't want us to or the council to get down a path of, like, holding this thing out there as, hey. Look. This is the holy bullet. It's gonna fix everything.

Nobody's holding it out. We're just trying to get the information.

Well, I if that's the case, I think before they come and present then, it they should make a clear statement to us that they know what the regulations is with Florida State, with DEP, and all these people as to what can be actually put in the water. Because if if they don't know that, then I don't think there's merit moving it forward. Chris?

All right. So I think this is where I asked that we do the whiteboard thing in the first place because we just took one topic and now we made a motion on the topic and we're going to force down the topic. I think we have to go back to what my original goal was, is we need a strategic plan. So I think he's got a great idea. But again, I don't think making a motion and actually having a presentation on it is the right thing to do. I think what it needs to do then is go on in the agenda for another meeting and he comes up with some facts and we talk about it for that meeting and then we make the motion if we want to go forward. I think that's what we're trying to do here. The idea is that what is our topics here that we want to look at going forward, not just grab one and start running down that path again. Because I think the whole time we've been here, we run down one path and we spend all day on that.

Remember the motion is to just see a presentation. It's not to go ahead and convince us to actually dump chemicals in the water and things like that. Is to see the presentation, understand the scope of it, the surroundings about it and then the questions we have, which may be others besides what you thought about. Since I have a little well, go ahead.

Just want to know

Sorry, I have to interrupt you. This, was part of the agenda in staff communication. Justin have an update, regarding the, this topic. If we can defer this conversation for the next because I think he has some information to share in

Great.

That would

be great.

Have, something

more At the at the next meeting, you're saying?

Yes.

Okay.

Maybe by then, if you

can And if you notice on, it was it was, the agenda item eight, eight.

Well, we I I know what his is about. It touches on it. It's an RFP surrounding all of water quality. What this motion is about is for us to see a presentation on this one particular topic.

Okay. I I agree

with Chris' point quite honestly. We're going we seem to do this a lot. We'll put something on debt. We'll go down the rabbit hole for thirty, forty minutes and maybe we should lift this thing up and get it more to a strategic level. Because what I would like to see is us give at the City Council a strategic plan that says, here's the things that we looked at. We have lots of new council members that don't have the four, five, six years of history that some people on the committee have. So I think we should elevate it back up a level here. I'm not saying that what you're doing isn't great. I think the research is great. And ultimately, I don't have a problem with someone coming in and pitching it.

But I wanna make sure that when they pitch it, that it's not gonna, you know, soak up counsel time, our time to something that eventually leads to you can't do it.

Chair Mascoupe, aside here, just procedurally. So you have a motion and a second on an invitation to bring a company forward to address the waterways committee. There are two approaches. Either a, the motion maker and the person who made the second can withdraw their motion at this time. Or b, we can conduct a vote and the the committee can decide whether or not it wishes to bring this company forward to address the waterways committee. Those are your two opportunities at this particular moment.

I I appreciate that clarification. If I could just say how I feel about this at this moment, I think it's a great idea. But until I know that it can be done when it comes to the regulations that may be blocking it from the state or the feds or whoever it might be, I would not be in favor of it until I know that we're not just going down that rabbit hole for nothing. So that's I'd wanna know that first. So that's just my position. Do we want to withdraw the motion? Oh, I'm

sorry. Let's take a vote.

Do you wanna take I say was Would you wanna withdraw I'm the not gonna withdraw it. I wanna vote. I want it on the record that this committee voted down seeing a presentation.

That's fine.

Okay. I'll vote for it.

That's fine. So before we do that, I am okay with the motion and I'm okay with supporting the motion. But I think part of that it should be that they come in armed with information specifically about putting this into saltwater.

If I may ask that again, if

I would agree with that as an amended motion that they be prepared to answer those questions or submit material when they make their presentation. Let's get them in here and hear what they got to say.

So are you willing to amend the motion to include that requirement

Ralph, will you

member member Woodworth? And then are you willing to second that member Ohina?

Yeah. I'm perfectly fine because I know that's what a main thing of what they're gonna be talking about. Excellent.

So now we have a motion to bring the company forward with instructions that they investigate their ability to do such a thing in saltwater environment here in the state of Florida, essentially. And now the committee can express its either desire to pursue that or not pursue it with your individual votes. Okay. Do you wish to proceed?

Alright. Let's proceed. Are we all Let's

I will do this individually. I will

call each person individual vote. Okay? Not a a voice vote. Okay.

Alright. And and the method for this, just as a reminder, is the first the person who made the motion is called upon first. The person who seconded the motion is called upon second, then I will get the vote from the rest of the committee.

Okay.

So member Woodworth.

Yes.

Yes. Member Rohina.

Yes.

Yes. Member Lewandowski? No. Member Winter?

Yes. With the amended conditions.

Well, amendment is in the in the proposal. Vice chair, Hai?

Yes.

Chair Mascoop. No. So the vote passes four to two. So at this moment, the committee has decided to invite this company forward with the proviso that they do their investigation as you've requested in advance. And I assume at this particular point that member Rohina will be the individual to extend that invitation on behalf of the committee.

Yes, sir. Okay.

Alright. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your help with that. And, I just wanna go on record that if I knew that all blockades from other, from other entities above us that could block it were cleared, then I would have been a yes. But because we don't know, that's why I'm a no, for the record.

Mister chair, can I make a comment? Yes. So I I agree with, that was a little struggle. But with Chris's point, you know, we we have the first topic up, and we we we put it on deck. We beat it up. We got a motion to vote versus the the objective here was to come up with kind of regroup. You know, every so many months, we do this where we refocus or and that's I thought what this whiteboard was. Yes. And here we go into just one specific thing like, you know, what which was a distraction from the the the idea here.

So Okay.

That's all. I mean, I'd if we if we're gonna regroup and put our stuff up on a whiteboard, let's do that. And then, I guess, then the process would be, alright, let's pick each one, make some motions. But so I I agree with Chris' comment there.

Okay. Alright.

Who would like one follow-up just Rick? Yes. A comment on the motion or anything, but I found a lab that does algae testing and they sent me a testing kit and I am going to get the algae and the muck in my canal tested, and as soon as I get the results of that testing as to what the algae is, it may be useful to whoever Ralph brings in as a presenter.

That could be helpful.

I just thought I would let you know that. Okay.

Thank you, Rick. Who would like to go next with their number one most important item that they would like to speak on? Chris,

foragers. I think it's navigation in the Eton. So we talked about, you know, the vessels, the big Marco Pass, all that stuff, that it's all based on navigation. So I think we need to put a priority that we spend some time talking about navigation.

Okay. And as you saw, that's my number one also. So we can probably, you know, combine our efforts right here and right now.

I I think we need to come up with a list of top five, ten items or whatever we want to look at and then we prioritize it. And then next meeting, one of those items goes to like what we just did now where we figure it out.

I I don't mean to disagree with you, but I think that the safety to the public is so paramount that I wouldn't just kick this down to meeting after meeting. I would really want to act because this is the kind of thing in which there can be accidents, there can be incidents, there can be fatalities and casualties. If the atons are not in place and if the dredging is not the channels are not dredged properly, I think this is this is the kind of thing that you don't just say, okay, we'll talk about it later, later, later. I think it's this is the kind of thing that that the public really depends on us to make sure that the waterways

are safe.

So what I what I what I was hoping we would do on this is that we would go through and is this a priority for everybody that's one of your top priorities, we rank it high. And then we in the next meeting, that becomes your main Okay.

Do we have any discussion on this topic?

Can I make a recommendation?

Please do.

Because I'm just concerned that we're going to why don't we if people are in agreement, why don't we put these things at a very high level onto a whiteboard and straw poll it across the committee so we can see what the committee thinks on the top priorities. I agree. I don't know whether that's useful or not.

I think it is. Absolutely. I mean, it's my top. I think it's very, very important. The committee may or may not agree. So how would you like to proceed with that?

Well, you could list all three topics on the whiteboard and just do it straight away. That's what are talking about, right?

Can I get a volunteer to do that?

Why don't you just go back to the rest of the people, get their number one, and then we put those all up there.

Okay. Okay. Who would like to go ahead and Well,

I mean, typically, when I've done this in a corporate situation, you do it as like a KJ map. Okay. So, you get everyone's three top points and you go right, water quality top point for everyone. And then we decide if that comes up as the top thing, do we want to continue down that path of something that we can't fully control? Because it's outside of the scope, it's outside of our budget. Fair enough.

Do I have one?

I mean, if I look to me from the list I have, water quality, navigation, construction, education, conservation and interfacing, communicating out to other agencies would be like the six things.

Well, you want to go write them on the whiteboard?

Do I have a volunteer? I will do it. I

have a volunteer.

We need

to move.

Thank you, Martin.

I mean, that's Well, we it's our mission. Like, these are all documented.

Are you talking about you were talking about specific things for us to work on, not broad topics. Right? Or am I got that wrong?

Specific things that we feel are important that need to be addressed and advised to city council for action.

Yes. Well, these are gonna be pretty broad.

Pretty broad. I agree. Yeah. But then we drill in.

Okay. Wow.

Oh, your approach was everyone take your number one and we put those on the list and then drill into that, which would speed things up a lot. Okay.

We will give him a moment to put those up there and then we can, we can see if we all agree what the number one, two, three most important ones are.

I would just make a comment while he is

Absolutely, Rick. Please do.

When I was on the WACC before, we had a problem with derelict vessels in the various waterways, and we actually got somebody from, I, Art, maybe you remember where he was from, but he came in here and gave us a whole presentation on the procedures for getting rid of derelict vessels and it was interesting, informative, complicated, but the state was very willing to send somebody down here and explain the whole process and that is one small aspect of the waterways but you could ask the coast guard to come in and say this is what we can do, this is what we cannot do, get the coast guard auxiliary in here, what can you do, what you cannot do, get the state of Florida in here. I mean, there are, there is a lot of touch points that you got to get if you are going to address this issue globally.

That's a given if we are going to find out facts. Have to get the decision makers.

They will do it. They will come and tell you.

We have to get the FWC legal team to come in here and if they have a community outreach or something.

Bill 164 changed that on July 1. The FWC has more power now and they also have more power for at risk vessels, which they had trouble before. So I think we need to address this.

Okay. Here would be my suggestion on this. If we agreed that those are the six buckets, everyone gets to go up, you get three ticks in whatever bucket you want to put it into and that should raise the ones to the top that we think as a committee are a higher priority.

Okay. Who would like to go first?

And bear in mind that when you put your vote up here, it's got to be one things that you think is a priority and secondly things that you think is perhaps addressable by the WAC.

And we'll do as one, two and three, not just

a check mark. One, two, three.

Yep. Yep. You get three votes.

What's number five?

I still fall through in there.

Education. I think they're all important.

Well, of course.

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Rick. Who'd like to go next? Ralph?

So we're to like total these up and numerically have a score. Is that kind of like the

Got to be constant.

Well, I think it will give us an idea. Thinking about it, you've got to be careful with that because you would think if it gets one, it gets one point and the lowest number wins, but those that get zero points. So we've got to be careful how we decipher it from a

Yes. I mean From that perspective. Since they all are valid and very important,

we definitely can't add them up

because that doesn't make Exactly. I would agree.

How does this work?

Low point total or Well, the highest number would be the lowest if you had it

Lowest priority. Can I put all three

of my ticks in one category?

Not a tick, it's a number.

But we're not calculating.

Put 123 in it.

Thank you, Ralph. Who's next?

Chair Mascoupe, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna move this into more of the view of the camera so that people who are viewing this from home can see this.

I'd like for them to see that. I was just gonna ask you if we could make sure that it's the most visible for the viewers. Right.

That's pretty old school. Right?

The chair goes last. I think appropriately so.

Looks like navigation.

Yes, sure. Just on the top there would be fine. Oh. No, I'm sorry. Top of the dash.

Right here. Right here.

Okay. Right here. Anybody wants to add anything? Okay.

Looks like navigation then water quality Yep. Then marine construction, then education and communication. Mhmm.

That's where I would rank it.

So maybe next meeting we spend one of the first agenda items is navigation and the second one is water quality. And water quality might get pushed if we have spent more time on navigation.

It's very interesting. I just want to want to indicate the fact that navigation is basically equally or in the minds of us, as important or more important than water quality. And all we have done is talk about water quality the entire time I've been here.

But I think the caveat there, Elliot, is you have to remember how I framed that question. I framed that question as vote for this as the things that are the highest priority that you believe the Waterways Committee can affect. Exactly. Because I'm at the point now where the water quality thing is I think we aside from this and maybe the drilling technique, those are the two things I think we don't know enough about. Most of the other things, the bubblers and all those other things we've discussed and that needs to just go to City Council and let City

Council They have. That

would be why I never put as much emphasis on the water quality piece because I think it's got to the point where we've advised, which is what we are supposed to do. We have spent money on reports and testing and all those things. And now the City Council unfortunately have got the challenge of what do we do with AWT, what do we do with dredging, what do we do with culverts. And some of those things are in play. Mean, it's already culverts is going to be the number one priority for us to get state funding. So to me, it's like, yes, we can we should continue to talk about water quality, but let's talk about things that we can be with. Exactly. Just my personal view.

Okay. At this point, I'm calling for comments, discussion. Chris?

So let's since we have the agenda for next meeting, why don't we break down navigation for two or three items that we can talk about next and then we can at least start to get the ball rolling.

Is this committee now at this point considering navigation to be the next number one item that we want to discuss and breakdown? Is that relatively how we are?

That we can affect that we can likely affect results.

Right.

Based on that, I would

say it is.

I am in agreement.

Personally, a lot of that quandary is a little bit on what we know as individuals. I think as a committee, the members here can put their arms around the navigation issues much more than the technicality of the waterway quality issues. We have seen how deep a scope of his basis is white papers, which in my opinion, we kind of minimize a little bit. He did a hell of a lot of work and we didn't do much with that. But we're not the only ones.

I think city council didn't do much with that either. But we can affect it because I think we have more technical ability, not only us, but other resident subject matter experts in water quality in knowing this stuff as we move forward with it than city council does on their own other than the higher consultants, which I don't think they know any more than the resident subject matter experts when they come down to it. I think we fawn over them more too much. So I think that's where that quandary is. Personally, I think we can affect water quality more than navigation because navigation, we've got to rely on all these other entities, the coast guard.

And it's more like a relationship thing. And we discussed it once before to develop rents that we talked about having an outing and inviting all those stakeholders in, that sort of thing. But it all relies on them. We can't do anything. But anyway, that's just my differentiation.

Just because it relies on them doesn't mean that we just turn our backs and go, oh, well, we haven't gotten anywhere or we've put it out there and that's nice and they've talked about it and it's what it is. No. I mean, the health and the the safety of the of the boating public relies on they're looking to us. We I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry, Rick. Nope. Go go right ahead.

We have a couple of guys here who prioritize this as the number one item. Why don't they do a white paper on it as you asked me to do on my topics and identify all the agencies that need to be contacted about the specifics parts of the waterway. But again, for us just to sit here and talk without the facts in front of us, right, is a waste of time.

Absolutely. I don't have a problem with that.

So one of you guys do a white paper.

Thank you, Rick. Would anybody like to volunteer to do one?

Well, thought that was your volunteering there, Rick. I thought your volunteering was you were gonna look at the agencies. Hey.

That wasn't

my number one priority. I already did four white papers that went nowhere. It's your turn to do a goddamn white paper.

Mister chair, the decorum has

I think that I apologize for that comment. I think I appreciate the apology and I'd like

to move forward without I I would be happy to work on a on a white paper for navigation specific to what I listed, which was the inlet man inlet management plan for Big Marco Pass. It ticked it checks the box on on several concerns. As far as, boating incidents with injuries, I don't know of any other, Aton that has or Aton missing Aton that has led to injuries other than the Big Marco Pass. So lead letting that guide, like, the first navigation, there's a lot of issues. Right.

You know, Kaxamus Pass is definitely another one and a major concern, but Big Marco Pass has documented cases of of injuries, traumatic helicopter flyouts and all that. So Exactly. If we that should be, I think, the committee's, I mean, number one as far as from a safety standpoint. It is shoaling in. There is constant movement. And Kaxamba from what I understand, Kaxamba's Pass has an inlet management plan, but it's old. So, you know, that is just such a a lower generally, you know, lower use, I guess, that it hasn't been touched as much. But Big Marco Pass.

Mhmm.

I mean, Gordon Pass has one. Doctors Pass. All all these, you know. So I would be happy to write a a white paper on the inlet management plan. It would it would take some time. Just I don't know when I can, you know, I don't know what's involved in in, I mean, a one page white paper advocating that this committee, pursue or recommend actually, that's that this committee recommend inlet management plan for Big Marco Pass is really that's it. Because then the engineers take it, and they know what to do. You know? They they know where the the pilings have to be. They know what the water depth has to be.

And then it might touch into the the coastal resiliency in that area too, you know.

Could you find a copy of the inlet management plan? For for where? For for Big Marco Pass?

There isn't one.

There's none.

There isn't one. That's the problem.

Axambus Pass. From what? That's what I heard anecdotally. But Can we find that? I mean, it'd be nice to have a document. Well, there's yes. So right, I'll do my best to get the best information to One the the Board

and pass, and let's look at what they did up in Naples.

I think that's the point, to be honest, Rick, is look at let's look at Doctors Pass and the stuff that has got a robust plan and let's take that information and say how do we how do we get this

even to qualify. So I will, I will work on that. Not that you know, I think you brought your white papers forward without being necessarily asked to bring them forward. You and then that's what white papers are supposed. If you have an issue, you're you're you're advocating. You just

bring forward a white paper.

Well, I I mean, I'll I'll do the same.

I think I was asked to bring, in particular, the one on the You

definitely weren't asked to bring four.

We didn't ask for four.

Alright. I didn't know you asked for one. We asked for one. So I volunteered the other three.

I appreciate that too, Rick.

I will I will work on the white paper.

Dan, I do appreciate that. So if, for the record yes?

Jim, is there any way I can work with him on it?

I don't

think so. Not directly. No, sir. Any issues with regard to cooperation, between members here on an issue that comes before the body cannot be done outside of the meeting itself that's been agendized and noticed and publicly

If you could take one aspect of it and

If you yeah. Well, how about this? I'm gonna I'm gonna work on this.

If you type it up, send it to Justin and then he send Sure. It to

Well, would just it would go to everybody. Yeah.

Member Levandowski, yes, you can certainly send information to the staff liaison that she can pass along to members of the committee.

I'd send it to typically send it to Joan who I've you know, may maybe Justin.

I'm sorry?

When I develop this white paper Yes. Typically Joan or Justin? Well, I'll send it to both of them.

Well, again, the the staff liaison is Justin's department. Right? So that's that's the person you should be sending the information to directly.

To Justin.

And then he will distribute it appropriately to the members of the committee.

Sounds good.

Okay. I think, we have a plan here. There is no motion that needs to be made. Is that correct?

There's no motion needed at this point. No.

Okay. So we have, a direction now involving the navigational waters around Marco Island that are not necessarily under the jurisdiction of Marco Island, but under other agencies involving including, but not only Collier County, the Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, and Florida. And I think that this is really an important direction that we begin to go in. I, as important as water quality is, I don't think there is anything more important than this. I think this really is huge and I am glad we doing it.

I will work with Justin on ATOM procedures and then that will kind of combine the two together I am guessing at some point at the end.

This is really great. Excellent. Okay, let's take a look at the next item that we would want to discuss, in order of importance that we are agree. Could we put that up on the screen?

Is there any more about navigation?

Well, is there any any other comments, discussion people want to make about navigation at this point?

I think to me, the navigation thing is we should really reach out to power squadron because there's a lot of expertise there. I mean that's more about general navigation markers, what ones are in place and what ones are out place. And maybe to your point, the first thing is we find out what the procedure is and then maybe we leverage the expertise that they have there. I mean they've been tracking these things for a long time.

Would you like to would either one of you like to contact the power squadron?

Well, I'll let me I'll work on the 08:10 procedure. So what and I'll we'll figure out where we gotta go on.

Okay. Okay.

I'll make

I suggested my I see.

Clarification on on the my white paper or the white paper. Is it fair to say that the the Waterways Advisory Committee is, you know, asking one of us to create a white paper on this? You know, rather than me say, hey. I'll do one. I would prefer that the Waterways Advisory Committee say, hey, mister vice chair, would you do a white paper on the inlet management plan for us to discuss?

Yes. Rick did that.

I'll make a motion or Rick did a motion. I motion You each do white papers on aspects of navigation.

House, Peter?

Think one white paper is White

paper would just be the overlap, Rick.

Yeah, that's I

mean, I think what we've got here is a pretty good breakdown of the past and the start on the Eton thing again. I mean, if you're looking for white papers and it seems you want to throw that bone out there to everyone, I'm quite happy to do a white paper on marine construction. I'll bring that back to committee and maybe not the next committee, but certainly the one following that on the challenges that we've got around Mica Docks and marine construction and staging and all those things.

I agree because that's going to be a bigger and bigger problem on Marco.

Yes. But City Council and MICA need to decide who actually rules here because MICA have got a four foot dock limitation there isn't that many four foot docks. So if we want to go down that path, let's go down that path. Let's pull down all the docks on the island because they're all illegal according to Micah.

Then doubt that's going to happen.

I doubt it's going happen either, but I think there's clarification. Mike can need to make a clear statement to say, yes, we have got this in our recommendations, but the city overrides anything here. But I do the reconstruction white paper. I think you got

to pose the issue and then I am sure Michael would be happy to come in and address it.

Third part on navigation, I would say is the derelict vessels. So I'm not sure it's a white paper, but

I think we could

think we adjust it.

I'm happy to do either. I'm happy to either take a stab at derelict vessels and clarifying exactly what the process and procedure is and maybe invite someone in from

Perfect, let's do that.

And I'm happy to do the marine construction, I'll do either one. Got it. So what is people's preference here? What do you think is more important?

Well, marine construction is number three, so I would start with

The derelict vessels? Yes. Okay. I'll take a swing at derelict vessels. Don't have a problem with that.

Okay. Will construction mean the seawalls? Yes. Or just the docks, the seawall?

Every every every piece of construction that goes in a canal.

And I hope it addresses the loading, Eric, the the the loading point which has been echoed in city council meetings, and is a

quiet problem. I don't wanna just to be clear, I don't wanna do two white papers because, you know, Rick is the full white paper person. Don't know. We have doing his We have dueling white papers. But I'm I'm happy to do derelict vessels because it sounds like that's more plays into what you guys are doing.

Are we going to want to present both your white paper and your white paper at the next meeting?

We'll

try. I'd say whenever they're available. Whenever they're presented.

We can try, but it's a timing thing. Dan's got

navigation, and then we'll go down there.

Okay. Could

could I could Go

right ahead, Dan.

Just to memorialize this, what I'm about to get into with this white paper thing, could I ask the committee to support a motion to direct me to write a white paper on the BMP Inlet Management Plan recommendation?

I will propose that as a motion if that's what you want. I would. Absolutely. I propose the motion that Dan works on a white paper to clearly define an inlet management plan for the big market class. Second.

We have a motion and we have a second.

I'm sorry, who made the second? Didn't catch that.

Chris.

Chris, thank you.

Could you repeat the motion?

The motion would be to what was your motion?

You made it. My motion was that I recommend that someone from the committee, Dan, put forth a white paper on a procedure for investigating an inlet management plan for the Big Marco Pass. If you want me to redefine that a little further, I will say and compare that to what happens at Doctors Pass and Wiggins Pass. Who

does the plan? Physically writes the plan?

Engineers. There's several on retainer with the the county that do a lot of their major stuff.

Who says, yes. Let's do it. Or I mean

I I I think there has to be like a well, I will investigate that and report it in the white paper.

Yeah. Okay.

The answer is no. That's gonna be the white paper.

Was just Don't know. Don't know yet.

So we so we have a motion.

We have a motion. We might we

have accept second. You can do it either by acclamation or if you'd like me to read it, ask for everybody's individual votes I can do

a vote.

Do a vote.

I'm I'm with you. Let's do a vote.

Are you prepared? Okay. Here we go. Member Winter. Yes. Member Lee Landowski. Yes. Member I'm sorry. Member Woodworth.

Yes.

Member Rohina?

Yes.

Vice chair, high?

Yes.

You get to vote on your own on this one. Chair Moskou?

Yes.

Beautiful. You're unanimously endorsed by the committee to write the white paper.

You've got the job.

That way I can't procrastinate. I feel I feel more pressure.

Yes, sir. Okay.

Yeah. The time is beginning to slip away. I I know this is we've got a lot of topics here, and I don't want to lose track. I don't want for, you know, this hour. Plus, we do need to have time for other communication, staff communication, and we we have quite a few counselors here, and they may wanna communicate with us too. So I wanna leave time at the end and for public comment. So I'd like to go on to the next topic of most importance that we feel justifies our intense focus at this time?

Well, it would be water quality. Water quality, Well, let's has break that down a little bit.

Okay. Throw it open to the committee.

I think your muck eating bacteria is part of your water quality. So I mean, sorry,

I didn't mean to take away. Please finish your comment, Chris.

No, I was saying water quality, let's break it down and he's got his muck eating bacteria that we can talk about next meeting.

Yes. So to me, water quality appears to be second and not from necessarily from an importance, but from a point of view of things that we can impact. I agree that there is definitely work to be done, let's call it, on the muck eating idea

as to

how we do it. I think water quality is such a big topic. I don't I think we move that into the next meeting would be my preference

because it is so big. There is the one

area quality that I think would be very, very crystal clear that should it's going to happen someday. Isla Capri and Goodland are going to have to convert someday to stop leaching waste into our waters.

You wanna do a white paper on it?

Would I like to do a white paper on it?

Let me remind the white paper should be one page.

Right? Yes.

Yeah. One page.

Just a one page.

No. This isn't city council.

Well, for our purposes

One page what page?

My attention span No.

I was kidding. Here's here's where it's at though. Before we turn to white papers, the council has asked in the past multiple times, would you like Isle Of Capri, Goodland, would you like to start the conversion away from your septic tanks to city sewer? And, of course, they've said they've talked about it and they said, no, not right now. No, I don't think so.

I have a different take on this. My take is I would just want to advise counsel. I would love to see this committee advise counsel unanimously, probably won't happen, to instruct counsel to start a mandatory requirement that those two municipalities start the process to convert to sewer. They need to stop polluting the waters around their areas. You wouldn't want to fish and you wouldn't want to swim in those waters. I can tell you that. There's too much there that is not good, it's fresh, and it's constant. And we can do a white paper if you want. I don't see the need for a white paper. I could do one.

But I would would think that that would be a slam dunk. But perhaps people watching would say, no, no, no, no, no. He's totally wrong.

It's been a talking point.

If we're gonna

clean up our canals, we gotta address what's around us. That's right. And it's also it hasn't been said that some may people made the claim that the water quality post STRP has not improved. That's true. That's been a comment. But has it prevented it from getting worse is the other the flip side of that coin, which I would say

is I would say we have to do some research into it to see if we can prove that they are leaching into the canals. So that would be topic Yes. We would work

Just the fact that I have talked to a lot of members in the public, particularly in the direction of, Goodland, excuse me, that they've never seen a septic tank come and clean out a tank. I mean, I don't know if that's true. I don't know that there's any camera seeing whether it ever happens or not. But that the reports are from out there,

it just

isn't happening. And if that's not happening, then we can automatically assume what's going on. But once again, we can do some more research.

Maybe the city council that are here in there, if they are going to speak, can address that. I know that has come up from at least one city council woman here. So, hopefully

They've never seen a truck go to Goodland. I know I'm not saying that your truck has never gone there to clean out a septic tank. I'm not saying that. I'm saying they've never seen it.

If it doesn't clean it out, there's gonna be a backup at some point. So they they do have to clean it out.

Right. Well,

we we've opined on several other issues that it's already at city council Mhmm. Why we're delving into it. This would seem one of those things, especially when it deals with maybe some legal stuff. And you're right. City council probably will speak to it today. Okay.

When we talk water quality at this point, you know, if navigation is has gotten the the the primary vote from this committee today, water quality is so generic of a term. What are the items that in water quality that like, the action items in water quality. Maybe that as we go forward to say, because there's specific things that all have different solutions. Maybe we, in a future meeting, the next meeting, dive into the word quality and say, what is what is it we are trying to eliminate? Benthic mat, certain levels that, you know, dissolved oxygen or whatever.

So but that that's my only comment on That's fine. I for next meeting or I I think it's a

great idea because we take that and then whiteboard some ideas and you guys here can help us on what we can come up with. And then one of the things that we can affect, find something we can do something about.

Okay. Sir, on the issue that I'm bringing up right now about those two municipalities that surround Marco Island, do we have any kind of anybody wanna make a motion or do we wanna just I do

I think all you could do is make a motion to support council's efforts on that. I we can't direct council to do anything.

We can advise. We are advisors.

All I am saying is we could All we can do. Say we support their efforts because

To do what support their efforts to do what?

To contact the communities and to see what steps can be taken to I don't know if force is

the right word, but Mandate.

Initiate action to get that accomplished. And I I thought council gave it to the city manager as as something for him to follow-up on with the two communities.

But this is something we after they They have asked

Can I make a recommendation? We running to the 10:00 thing here,

and

I do think that the water quality is important. I do think Rouse stuff is important. I think some of these topics are already at City Council level. I know we've had conversations with Rick LaCastro and the developers and all those kind of things. So I know that Deb has Deb Henry, Councillor Deb Henry, sorry, has led the charge on that. That. So maybe we should go to so so maybe we should do We move on to the next Communications from city staff. If there is any, move to council communications, and then most probably try and put a wrap on

what we wanna put on next.