Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

That's alright. Good morning. We'll call the meeting to order. Can I have roll call, please?

34.

Member Mascoop?

Here.

Member Rohena?

Here.

Member High?

Here.

Vice Chair Winter? Member Woodworth? And Chair Lewandowski?

Here. Alright. We have a quorum, it looks like. So guys wanna continue? Okay.

I'm good.

Alright. Continue. I pledge allegiance. I

pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America

I have a motion for approval for the agenda?

I'll make that motion.

Okay. Second.

I'll second it.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay. Approval of the minutes. Can I have a motion for the minutes from last meeting?

As motioned.

Okay. I second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Moving on. Old business. Marco Island Police Department.

Good morning. Josh Farris, Mark Vaughan Police Department. Nice to see you guys. I have a couple quick updates and one kind of program I wanna outline that I've been working with for the last few years. First off, we have a derelict vessel out in Goodland Bay.

And we've been working on that one for about a year. And I just wanted to let you all know that we just got a grant approval from the state, so that'll be removed within the next forty days or so. I think it's been about twenty since we got it. And we'll have that taken care of, wrapped up, and the state will be paying for that one. So that's always exciting because that derelict vessel process is is a long and meticulous one, and then it's one of the most rewarding ones to see through.

So that'll be currently the only DV that's in our jurisdiction and that'll be removed here, like I said, within the next forty days or so. Piggybacking on that, we have two VTIP boats that will also be removed that have been out for bid within our jurisdiction. Both of them are in Goodland as well. And what VTIP is is one of the updates I wanted to give you. We've been the state has had a vessel turn in program for the last couple years.

I'm not sure if you all are familiar with it. I know a lot of the public is not familiar with it. And it is an extremely beneficial program that the state has funding for. So, basically, if if I own a boat anywhere on the water, it could be in a slip. It's gotta be living on the water, not in the derelict condition. That's the qualifications. And I find that I can't handle it. I can't afford it. I can't physically maintain it, whatever it may be. I could submit an application to the state through the VTIP program, the vessel turning program, and the state take my boat, salvage it, and dispose of it for no cost to me.

So this is a huge help to the state, the county, and every municipality that has anchor boats in the area because it gives people a way out of something that they might not be able to to handle anymore. I've personally worked and and helped six of these V tip boats through the process. It's not something that you need law enforcement for, but sometimes it helps through the application process just to help these people understand the program. So if if anything, I just wanna put the word out for that program. I wanna say it was four years ago they started the funding for this.

It might have been three three or four. And there was 900 at risk or derelict vessels in the state of Florida, and right now there's 300. So it's it has worked. I can personally tell you that it's worked for our community, and it's it's a great program for people to see and and know about. And I'd be happy to talk about and share it with anyone that wants to reach out the police department in the marine unit as well.

So just keep that on the forefront and public can keep that on the forefront of their minds if they know anyone or they see a boat out there that maybe someone struggling to keep up with. One other thing we're we're implementing a code compliance vote very soon, and I've been training that officer with us. I think it's gonna help bridge gap between between us and code. It'll allow us to do some more of the municipal codes out there when we're on the water. It'll allow them to help us keep keep the waterways safe and clean and and, you know, free of debris and things like that.

We're also gonna be putting one of the sea keeper trackers on that vessel as soon as it gets here. Our vessel has been down for quite a while. We've had one down for about a month now. Soon as that one gets back, we'll be putting more more dots on the on the map with that. So those are my updates. If you have any questions for me, like I said, the derelict vessel ones are are big ones for us because they're just they're very nice to see see going.

Okay. Yeah. Just a question on trim program. Is that like a no fault? You just call and somebody takes it? Or is that process where it has to be declared vessel or

a danger? The VTIP or the the derelict vessel? Which one?

The derelict vessel. You said they were able to take it at no cost.

Oh, so so the vessel turn in program, they take it at no cost. Also, the derelict vessel that we've had in Goodland. So what happens is you have to we have to work the case. And initially starts as a criminal case because it's a crime to leave a derelict vessel on the waters of the state. So we see that process through at at the local level, and then we apply for a grant through the state. The city does. So we, as a city, applied for a grant for through the state. The state awarded us that grant, and we can move forward with the salvage. And we get reimbursed 100% for that. So those steps have to be taken.

I currently work for ninety eight point one FM, and we do a lot of PSAs. We'd love to get you or your department up there to put out this information to the public because it's extremely valuable. It's free.

It's

great. And we'd like to distribute it in every way we can. So I'd like to

Yeah. Think we can go through the right chain of command through the PD and make that happen. Sure.

That'd be great.

Absolutely. I'd happy to.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Josh.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a

great day. Okay. Moving on. Dredging alternatives.

Okay. Martin, you wanna put the first thing up? Hey. This has gotten brought up again. We discussed that I've had three different presentations on viable alternatives for addressing the muck in our canals. And it's come from different directions. There's some people that are like, don't want AWT. What's something else that we need to do? And this is one of them. I think somebody spoke to city council on dredging recently, and there's some bioremediation papers or presentations that are floating around that are discussing this.

So, Mr. Thortwell, maybe should bring it up again. I think, Rick had a white paper that we'll talk about later on in this meeting that refers to tier three, I think, in addressing a mark after AWT and landscaping, is put in place. So I thought I should bring this up again. As I've spoken about several times during the year, we need to be assessing or surveying our waterways so we know what the muck situation is.

Where is it? How much is it? And it should be on a canal by canal basis, much like the Florida Keys did. They have a huge spreadsheet of every canal, and they've been assessed and they're able to choose what, if anything, gets done with a canal, what's the most cost effective way to address it. And as far as I know, we haven't done that kind of survey, so we're kind of shooting the dark with our decisions a little bit more than, we really should be doing.

We went into the Seahawk proposal route really knowing where or how much the muck is and what should we do about it. And when you don't notice information of what you need to do or how much or what the service should be, you tend to get vapor locked in making decisions. So I think that's part of why we wanna bring this up before, see if there's some activity we wanna take with it. Hey, Martin, I don't know. Did everybody, I mean, it's on the agenda, read the presentation? I put the three of them on there. I can give the thirty seconds on each one, if you'd like. Okay. Mark, can you bring up the first one?

We've got time. We have time. Yeah.

You'll bring it up here. I'll flip through it real quick, because you'll probably remember them, I would imagine. Okay. The first one is the muck there we go. First one was the muck eating bacteria.

This was the, naturally occurring microbes that we have in our canals where there's an aeration unit that's anchored to the bottom, putting out these naturally occurring microbes that thrive and go out and eat away the muck. And what's very important is they were willing to pilot this for $25,000 in one canal or 68,000 for one large canal and one small canal. And I'll flip through it. This particular company has business all over most of the country, Florida. They've been through the permitting process.

I mean, the naturally occurring bacteria itself doesn't need a permit, but of course, every city event has something that they have to go through, and they've asked a question. And with the Corps of Engineers, there is no permit for naturally occurring bacteria. This Have

they done the saltwater? Have they done this in saltwater? I remember this

Right. Part of that pilot was to test them in saltwater? They've done This is all freshwater. This is all freshwater.

Where you don't have barnacle growth and Correct.

And they've done the research in saltwater. There was never they didn't think there was much of a market for it. Nobody has really done it in salt water. Contrary to one of those presentations on bio remediation is going around, which is not true. But they've done the research. They have the microbes and they were willing to prove it in our canals. But we declined to move forward with that. This will be just what their system shows. It's anchored an aeration unit on the bottom and it splurts out this natural bacteria right where the muck is so it can go out and eat away at it. And this is a before and after.

As was mentioned, this is all freshwater stuff, but it's done all over the country for many, many years. It's ubiquitous. So that's my thirty second routine on that. And just to show you, they did a bunch of engineering to show exactly where they would have put these units on the piloted canals. And the cost and everything else is there.

What for that canal, what was the cost for that that sample?

The two canal pilot cost was $68,000. Pilot

system. Is that what that image showed that with the the placement of of whatever that was, eight or so units? Oh, this is a that's a 15 unit. I gotcha.

Well, the the there's two canals there. This

is the

small one, and this is the larger one.

So both of

those for 70,000?

Correct. Hey, Mark. Can you put up the second one?

Our weight. My my on that one

Yeah.

Without being in saltwater and anything that's in saltwater, just barnacle growth. I just any component that is mechanical in any any of these solutions, that's my the big Achilles

And you're

on that.

You're right. The Florida Keys, when they pilot this and this is not just aeration only. The Keys, they piloted aeration only similar to what's being proposed in Hollyhock, that $200,000 pilot. One of the problems was exactly that. And I've had extended discussions with this group about that because that is an issue. There's some maintenance issue and whatnot. They Is this Marco Island,

the the screen the picture we're looking at?

This is yeah. This is one of the places on Marco Island. I can't tell you which one it is off the top of my head. I think Martin last time asked about this, but this is this is on Marco Island, but I got this picture from Rick. It may be his home. I'm not sure in his or in his canal. I'm not sure which one it is, but, yes. But this company has gone into the his system, and they've looked at all the pieces and make them saltwater resistant. They've committed to do that before the pilot if we committed to it. Just to see to learn from the Florida Keys situation, but they that's one thing that they will pilot on to make sure if it failed on that, well, they need it's a failure.

That's really a Marco Island Canal? Yep. That's that's that's pretty bad.

Yeah. Yeah. It gets bad in some places. But what's interesting is that we have some canals that are pristine almost. You know, that's the thing why I keep yelling to have survey or assessments.

I live on one of the more more innermost canals. Actually, in the tidal flushing, it's like a red waterway with very little flushing. And even with some of the culverts, the flushing would have gotten worse. But I've never seen anything like this picture on Nope. In any Marco Island. I don't know. The the Oh, it is on the TV.

Okay. You might see something at the very end, but not not not

like this. I I would question when and where this happened because that that right there is a case study, and that looks like Cape Coral to me. But I just don't see it to that degree, and we don't wanna let it get to that degree.

No. But if

we're saying that as Marco Island, I would like to know when and where that picture was taken.

Well, I can ask question. I just picked it up as a background picture. Okay. Yeah.

Moving on.

Rick sent a bunch around, so I think it's from that bunch. So maybe it's canal. I don't really know. If you're curious, I'll try to find out where it's from. One of the things about this, just trying to go a little quickly through it, is the Harper report, if you read the executive summary and the beginning part, it says that, well, muck is spewing out the most nutrients to our canals, but we'd have to hydraulically dredge the whole thing $189,000,000 So this kind of pushed aside, let's move on.

But I went into the data and the Harper teams report on that data and it seems to show that the sediment is not everywhere. That it's actually accumulated in very few canals at a high level and not so much on the other, so it may give an opportunity that's not a $189,000,000 dredging project. And this speaks a lot to about a small scale dredging project. And I get into this a little bit more. Florida's Indian River Lagoon, they had the same thing.

Hey, it's too much money to dredge this whole area here. And then when they did the survey, they found out three quarters of it, there's no reason to dredge it. There's other ways to do it or do nothing. So they save like 66%, 70% of the cost of dredging. So it becomes a viable alternative to think about dredging.

Mr. Chair? Yeah. We could continue, but I'd just like to the record to note that member Woodworth arrived and is now on the dais at this time.

Up the meeting time. Mean, I didn't notice. Switched it up. I thought it was 09:00.

Oh, no. 08:30. Sorry. It's okay.

We're gonna send out a search team. Okay, Ma'am. You could bring up the next one unless there's a question, but we can discuss all three in total. All right. This speaks to what the the go to method in the Florida Keys.

And, of course, this is exaggerated. What this speaks to is what they tested was dredging, similar to the way we it's been proposed that we do it, dredging the center of the canal and leaving the muck on the sides. What they found, the problem with that is that the muck is actually very, very low density. It's very close to water, actually. And when you dig out the middle and leave a trench there, the sides just flow back.

And unfortunately, it's not about the amount of muck that you're digging out. You might say, well, we got half of the muck out. It's more of the surface area that's impinging on the overlying water column that is the amount of nutrients spewing up. So what they do is they use a backfill or encapsulation method to go on top of the muck, seals it down, sequestered it is the right term, and you have like a bump in the middle. And so the muck that's left on the side doesn't backfill into the middle.

Now this is a gold method they do in Islamorada. It's been very successful. And what it gives you is it doesn't flow back, but also the backfill is high density material. And it allows seagrass to actually root into it. It won't root into low density material.

And they also use the backfill to bring the level up to approximately seven feet is what they try for. You'll get a much greater flushing action in those canals. Part of their problem was they had very deep canals and it's low flushing, gets stagnant with hypoxic water. And that's one of the reasons why they didn't even test for a bioremediation. Actually, of those presentations that's going around with bioremediation saying it works so well and it is laminarata.

They didn't even test for it there. So I don't know where that material is coming from. And the reason they didn't test for it is because the canals are hypoxic, the microbes cannot live in that, can't do their thing in that. And they have a problem at the time with seaweed coming in the canals and regenerating. So it wouldn't do them any good, so they didn't even test for it. So this is their go to method over there. So in general, those are the three viable alternatives. And I'll throw it out for discussion, because it seems like people want to get back into this again. And do we want to do something with one of these or move to the next step? So I'll just throw it out for a conversation.

I'm going to wait for some other people to comment. I'd like to go ask. So

my question is if you look like when you talked about the muck encapsulation, so if you remove the muck and then you encapsulate it, that would be like a way to stop from that point forward, but you're still going to get debris and stuff falling in to create new muck.

In So encapsulation, you're not removing the muck, right? You're just

putting stuff on there. You're removing some and I clarify that. Putting it on top of

In some places, they did because they need room to put the encapsulation and they do have some shallow places. So they do dredge, get rid of the muck in those situations and encapsulate that with a layer of dense material, sand or limestone, whatever it is. But most of the time, they're actually just putting the encapsulated backfill on top of the muck, sequestering it so it's not impinging on the water column. It basically holds it in and eventually decays anaerobically underneath it. And they also have the advantage of bringing it up to seven feet.

It will get sunlight and get oxygen from flushing and things will start to grow there. And actually, have a copy of the report from it's as an example if somebody wanted to go into it on Canal 116 in La Zammarata. And I talk about ecological outcomes, immediate eliminating dead zones, increase of dissolved oxygen levels, native seagrass recruitment, return to marine life, reports of mobile species, mullet snapper, manatees, very positive on that method.

So I guess my question is that most of the canals, they look like your little U shaped picture. The end of the canal up along the docks and the seawalls is very shallow. So at low tide, some of that you're seeing the muck there. The centers are deeper. So if we decide to do anything, we'd have to dredge like the center and let it all fall in or dredge off the ends too because we got to get that off the sides.

But then that's the canal. But say you're on the South end and you're over by Roberts Bay, you got a huge area there of land that's extremely shallow that's got muck in it. You come out Roberts Bay and you're right there before Kaxambas Island there and you go underneath that bridge, that area in the center there is extremely shallow too. So you're running in all these additional spots. So I just love to see how we could do something.

Yeah. And you're right. And that's why at the beginning when I said we need to do survey on what is the most appropriate area. Some of the canals might be appropriate, but some of the wider areas, you're not going to put tons and tons of encapsulation overall of Roberts Bay. So there might be something better or different. That may be for bioremediation or one of the other techniques or maybe nothing. I don't know what it does get very shallow like in places like Roberts Bay. I don't know of how shallow it gets. There are fish there. Is there not fish there?

What's growing there or not growing there? Ask the residents, no, I got a dead canal. No, I see manatees here all the time. And they're insisting how much muck. How shallow is it?

What canals that we have to dredge anyway because it's simply too shallow. Since you're mobilized to do that, we'll get the muck at the same time and maybe encapsulate it. But without a survey, without even assessment, the only real assessment we've got is the well, the Harper survey, there's 26 core samples, which gives you something, but 26 core samples with two fifty canals or whatever we have is not much. And my attempt was to add to that database so we could start getting an idea and see where we can narrow stuff down. Because right now, we're everywhere.

So if we don't have if the muck is transient or it's in different quantities in different locations, does a bathymetric survey give you the composition of the bottom? I mean, tells you depth. But does it tell you what the composition is? And I'd say maybe that's the first thing, getting a handle on where there's muck and where there's sand. And then you start to understand the problem.

I mean, we say that there's muck. That's the first time I've really, in this forum, heard that muck isn't everywhere, like in the canals. I just thought muck was everywhere in the canals. But if it's not, and you're like the lead on our committee on muck remediation, and you're saying it's only in certain places, well, then I'd say the thing we need to start with is identifying where it is and where it's not and how prevalent it is. And then make action plan on, all right, is it something we can target? Or is it a mass thing we have to do, like, something?

And you're right. And that's what the equipment I was asked for would do, is actually say how much muck is there. Because you can tell with that equipment where the actual hard bottom is, the silt, the sand, and where the actual muck is. That's how you can tell that.

Some sonar will tell you colors, and that that'll help identify the bottom. But I don't know if that's scientific or just, you know

And and you're exactly right because what I was that's why I said it was an assessment. It's a very basic way to tell about. But if you go back to the core samples that were done with the Harper report, you can go that far. That is scientific. And you can see in the court exactly what it is all the way up from top to bottom, mucked right down the hard limestone. So you can go that direction, which of course is more money. But what I was talking at the beginning was, let's get an idea of what we're trying to grab on to.

For next meeting, can you actually put together what you want to do last year and see if we can get a vote on it?

Yeah. If there's a flavor of this committee that want to do something with it, at the time when I broached it, it was five or two against us buying $350 worth of equipment. And I actually had my finger on the button to go buy it myself. And I said, well, I'm going to spend all these hours and hours getting by now, I could have had probably sixty, seventy canals done or whatever. But there's no flavor for me to waste my time doing it.

Is there a flavor?

Well, on the Harper report, they did samples in the Harper report. What were the how many samples were there? And what was the composition?

There's 26 core samples. I can go back to it, but you can read it yourself too. There were 26 core samples, and there were like three or four that were what you would call pebbly or muck. And that was 20% composition in the core sample for muck. And there were a number of those.

I think I grossed the two highest ones in the presentation. One was at Roberts Bay, one was at a confluence of a couple of canals on the South End. To say, if we want to do small scale dredging, those are two that we'll go after first because that's the most. And we talked about it being inconvenient of what to do with the muck, but we got into that a little bit. But, yeah, it's viable to look at five or six, seven or eight.

But again, without a survey, we don't really know whether those 26 core samples. And it's showing that the average MUC was 5.2% of the 26 core samples, which shows almost all of them were actually almost zero muck.

So of the 26 samples, say that again, almost zero

Yes. Were Almost the actual composition of muck in those 26 samples was 5.2%. There was about a half a dozen and again, you could say how many above 15%, they were like three above 20%, which is what is the level where you would say, hey, this is heavily mucked. We should this is what we should go after. But if we want to say, well, we want to go after ones that are above fifteen percent, out of those twenty six percent, maybe there were eight percent.

I if you're I would take the approach of identify where the muck is and come up with a solution for that specific area. Because every area might be different. Might be mechanical. Applications and solutions might be totally different in open water, like Landmark versus a typical canal. And is there a way to do like a sample of the island canals and find out where the muck is?

So let's go back to what you had proposed last year. You were looking to do a sample like actually like a core kind of go down there a little bit, right? Isn't that

what you're Well, it's not a core sample. You're not drilling down. But you can basically, what you do without getting too involved into it, you have a tube, there's a name for it. I think even the

PVC pipe.

Well, yes. Basically, is it's clear. They probably have a few of these units, and I asked for it with Mr. Poteet that normally these wastewater systems have them. We just don't have they do it electronically or whatever. So we have to buy it to do it. But basically, it's clear tube, and you can tell tells you where the muck is and how much is in there.

And how long is that?

Oh, it goes down well, how deep the water is. They just have extensions on them. But there are also other things you could do. You could do this oxygen meters, DO meters, can buy on Amazon for less than $100 You can do that while you're assessing if you want to there's a limit. But without any kind of survey, without even knowing, getting down to the basis, Okay, what do we want to know? What are we trying to find out? So at least on a broad basis, we could start making some decisions. Like you're mentioning, different places have different things going on with them. They have different types of remediation.

Now I feel comfortable making a comment or asking a few questions. That's what I was really waiting for. The first of the things I'm a little bit uncomfortable with is on the backfill and how it affects the navigation and with the tidal flow and the fact that we are not the keys here. But that's just that. When it comes to the MUC and I've attended a few symposiums on water quality in the past few months.

And I think one of my first questions I'd like to ask, how much does that muck influence the development of that blue green algae that we saw the picture of? I mean, how closely related are those? I think that's an important question that we need to ask. And a couple of other things I'd like to point out is the fact that we have an island configuration problem. If you go to the ends of canals at the very, very ends, you're going to find the worst of what we have to offer.

Offer. There's no flushing. I've heard people say I don't know who it was who told me this this past month that they put a coconut they marked a coconut at their canal end where they live. And the coconuts stayed there for a month. A month later, it was still sitting there.

Now, when you have a configuration problem like this, yes, we do need to do something about the muck where it is. And when you've got the configuration that we have, the ends of the canals, when you've got the grass growing right up to the seawalls, as we saw in your picture, and those clippings and the fertilizer and everything goes into those canals. We're just adding and adding and adding more and more and more to this. Yes, we do need to deal with what you're talking about. I totally agree with you.

But there's so many moving parts to this that while we spend time, money, and all of our efforts to work on this, we need to also, at the same time, stop making the problem worse. So that's just about what I want to say at the moment. I don't know if you had any comments about any of that, but I'd like to hear what our committee has to say.

I can comment on a couple of them. That's one of the reasons what you broached there was why I was screaming for a water quality workshop. So the experts who know this stuff can be in the same room with people on both sides of this issue so that we understand the pros and cons of situation that we have versus other places and differentials so we're all on the same page and that we can go from there and have a strategy. Instead of hitting missing, talk about AWT over here, talk about dredging over here. And I've been to city council many times.

I said, no. What you're hearing over here is distorted. It's not true. Here is why. And so you can't keep on. It's like whack a mole instead of bringing it all together. And the lack of a survey just exasperates that situation. When you when you mentioned, does the muck affect the actual algae?

To what degree?

To what degree? I know Rick has made many papers over many years that address what the nutrients and whatnot, including toxic, nutrients, talking about. I don't think there's any question that the muck and and that includes the Harper report, telling you all speaking all about the actual problem that we have, the biggest exporter of nutrients causing the allergy is actually the muck. But we decided that we can't hydraulically dredge everything. It's too much money.

One of my presentations, as we spoke about, was, well, maybe it's not that bad and it's concentrated in one of few locations and it's worth going after changes the dynamics a little bit. I don't know if that answers your question

or not. It does help to answer some questions. The only thing is I'd say you don't have to go that far and do that many tests to know that it's the ends of the canals where you see the problem and also where there is no flushing because of the way this island was constructed. And I say rather than to spend a lot of time and money, we can pretty well tell you could actually ask homeowners where the problems are. And they're going to tell us.

I mean, that's free. I would just really say that we can tell where there is a big problem and where we need to begin to address it. I'm all for testing. And I'm all for getting the answers in a scientific way. But I think we already know where to start to look. Well, that's one of the problems. For example,

what we say we know, what I say I know, what he says he knows are sometimes very, very different things.

That's

true. When you speak about the problem at the end of the canal, that is true. But we've had David Crane come in here with an alternative towards the Under Marco Flushing project, which is going to cost a lot of money. I questioned the viability of it almost two years ago. At least look at it.

I have some concerns about it. David Crane talked about alternative of deep well injection to pilot that for a very few thousand dollars. And because we're all over the place where we think we know what's better and whatever, nobody goes with any let's move it forward. And I think that's why people are asking for this conversation. Do we want to do we have a stomach to or do we want to move it forward to the next step?

I could say one last thing if if I may. I would be a lot more in favor of doing some of what you're suggesting if at the same time and I think we can do two things at once. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Stop adding to the problem. Because we can do what you're talking about and still wind up with what we've got unless we stop making it worse.

And I would be in favor of this if we do the two things at the same time. And I think we can do that. I think a lot of public education, some ordinances maybe, some changes in the way we encourage people to handle their landscapes and the landscapers. I think it all needs to be handled at the same time because we can do what you're suggesting and make some progress and then go right back to where we are. And that's my concern.

Yeah. And really, yeah, we can do many things at the same time. We haven't been able to do one. I mean, we've got a proposal on the table. Rick's written about it.

We've all spoken about it. AWT as the primary. And then while we're working now, it's going to take at least a couple of years before you get that in place. We have the low hanging fruit of the whole landscaping arena, the fertilizer ordinance, the turf ordinance, the what have we got here, all those things in landscaping enforcement that we've already mentioned, and that whole arena of low hanging fruit that has virtually no cause that we haven't touched on that should have been hammered years ago. So I'm in favor of doing one thing, and then we work.

And that's the reason why I think people have asked to talk about this muck thing as a tier three. What do we do while we're waiting around for assume we've done landscaping and we're waiting around for working on AWT? What is the next thing?

Frederic?

I just have a couple of comments. One, think earlier last year, I came in and showed pictures. I had my diver in the Esplanade Marina take a clear acrylic pipe down to the bottom. And the muck layer at the Esplanade was about three feet deep. And we had it up before he hit hard bottom.

So that was three feet. I had a couple other canals where I used the same method. And the muck was between six and eight inches deep. So I think you're going to find different depths of muck all over the island, as they were indicating. And my suggestion would be if we want to pursue that we have a $10,000 budget that I don't think has ever been used by this committee.

If we wanted to make a motion to get Ralph the equipment he wants for $350 and he'd agree to donate it back to the city when he was done doing his testing, or if we want to hire somebody to do some testing, we've got a budget that we could spend before this fiscal year is up. And we've got another budget coming up. So why don't we try to use some of that money for a productive purpose to begin to narrow the focus on what our alternatives might be for a demonstration program, if you will, like the city's already doing with the bubble program? So that would would be my suggestion on that topic.

Yeah. And and I think that's pretty much what I'm saying is number one right at the top is we need to do the survey, see what we're trying to corral. And any endeavor besides what we're talking about, knowing what's in our canals and getting an assessment, it follows in the path of what the Florida Keys is doing. I mean, it's the close it's not exact to what what our situation is, but it's as close as what we've got. They've gone that path.

If you've ever seen their spreadsheet, every single canal, what the assessment is, any information they gather about it, anything they do about it, and they track its success or non success, Should we be doing anything less? Well, we have an opportunity. I will go along with what Rick is saying myself is, let's get an assessment. And perhaps it will be better rather than me doing it and it gets the perception that there's a bias perhaps or non professional amateurs type thing. There's no difference whether I've done it before or not.

It gets that perception. Let's recommend getting a third party to do an initial assessment to give us the data we need to add to what we've already got, which is

nil. Justin, could Ralph go and try to contact some companies and get a proposal to do some testing within our $10,000 budget to see what kind of data we could get?

Yes. It would require a vote from this committee. And yeah, that is your discretion to vote for the expenditures of that budget that you have. And that would be an appropriate use of those funds. And certainly, the city would welcome any help as far as soliciting quotes for that. The city can then, once this committee reviews the quotes that have come in and agrees to something, the city staff can prepare a purchase order for that.

But I'd make a motion that we empower Ralph to solicit some proposals for under $10,000 to do a survey of the canal depths of muck and present it to the committee in the city.

And one more thing I'd like to mention. According to the city's purchasing ordinance, if it's less than $5,000 you need one quote. If it's between $5,000 and $24,999 you need three quotes.

If I may, I'm not trying to nitpick here. But the only area that I'm not entirely comfortable with is making comparisons by those agencies or those companies or whatever you have that have only dealt in freshwater. We have saltwater. And everything that's been presented relates to fresh water. Now, I've attended enough now to know that the blue green algae that give off the cyanotoxins and cyanobacteria and everything else that they give off happen in fresh water and in our water, too.

However, I'd feel more comfortable and I think this is a great idea I would want to see companies that have done work in the salt water that we have, our type of water, as opposed to that are only familiar with the freshwater issues. Because I think we are unique. And to do and I agree with committee member Hai when it comes to the barnacle growth and the buildup and everything else that occurs with our water, that we deal with knowledgeable people that deal with strictly saltwater. I just feel a whole lot better that way. I think we'd be doing a whole lot more valuable.

I'd be happy to add that on to my motion, which hasn't even been seconded yet, that whoever Ralph solicits that they've had saltwater interference. If you

do that, then you have an automatic second in me.

All right. Thank So my thought process is that you've wanted a workshop, and we can't get the resources in the city and so we try to do the one workshop to one meeting, but it wasn't enough time. So what if we plan a workshop during our meeting time towards the end of the year? So like late summer, early fall, something like that. And then what we need to do prior to that is get all the details that we need.

So whether you need your $300 thing and do some sampling first. So we kind of have some data to go into the workshop with and then we know which people to try to bring to the workshop. That's kind of a thought process. So I would say, let's not do a motion to have somebody like go out and analyze right now. Maybe we do that ourselves to get a bigger a better picture of what we need to do. And then at the workshop, we have some real data to go forward with.

I would say, get the data first and see whether what we want to see in a workshop or if we want to have a workshop. Basically, if we can't get this done, getting a survey we're talking about, we're not going to get anywhere at a workshop. I mean, this committee is going to have to show that we want to move something forward. So I would second a proposal. Let's get us see what we got with a survey and then go from there.

At the very least, we're going to give data to add to the data we have. Then we can start making some decisions on where we want to go on a broad basis. And now we're down from there, of which maybe having this all encompassing workshop might narrow it down. If it's not going to get us there, then it's not worth having. And that was part of the reason why having a muck only workshop, that doesn't get us to a strategic plan, doesn't get everybody in the same page at all the variables. You'll still get questions. Well, what about this? What about that? That's what we're trying to get away from. So I would say, let's see if we can get a survey first so I can bring something back.

And then we can decide what is it we want the survey to do. What does it want to give us? And I'll put my brain on it and get some detail. But we have to get a survey first.

We have a motion and a second.

Can you clarify your motion exactly what you're looking for?

That we authorize Ralph to obtain quotes to provide bathymetric or depth or muck surveys, I do not know what the exact term is, and that it be proposals by contractors that have experience in saltwater and that we use after we review his proposals and vote on it, that we use some of our $10,000 budget on that. But first step is let Ralph get the proposals. Okay.

I can do that.

All right.

Any more discussion? So

Did we get a second to the motion?

Yes, Ralph.

Well, I do. Well, either one. That's fine.

So I would like to have someone I mean, we've talked a lot about what's in the water. But in the reports we have, I have to look back at those and say, like, what's in the muck? We know that that produces more is a bigger offender or the biggest offender to water quality over reuse water or anything like that?

Algae, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Okay. So in in the

sediment, is there someone we can get a professor or someone that, you know, a scientist, a specialist that can tell us in Marco what what does the what is what are we dealing with? And, I mean, if you go sample, I'm I'm hearing, like, a bathymetric survey and and a muck survey. It's like you don't know what you just I don't know. You're gonna get a bathymetric survey? You're gonna get a muck sample survey?

I don't even know what the I think you need to I would ask for more clarification on on the motion because I I can't I don't know what your goal is of it. You're saying bathymetric. And then you're saying, like, a core sample of something. Core. I can And I'm like, what what are we dealing with? Can we get I'd like to have the workshop first with you've been asking for it with specialists sediment, sediment in coastal communities have

reach

out to the water school at FGCU, reach out to civil engineers in the region, and and say, can you come, and can we have a a we've all we all agreed in the previous meeting that we have a a muck or a sediment concern. And so let's let's be informed about this, and then and that let that guide us into the next step. I would ask that we we have a workshop first with, let's get I would go to a water school, at FGCU. I'd I'd tap some civil engineers, stormwater people, and find out, let's focus on what the sediment is, where it is, and then plot a path forward on remediation. That's my so I wouldn't support, like, going out and buying equipment right now and having someone go out there and break their back.

Even you're saying, first of all, the motion is confusing to me. So I would just say, can we get a workshop together first with professionals on sediment in coastal communities, urban coastal communities, with canals, to help us identify what we're dealing with?

I recently joined Calusa Waterkeepers up in Lea County. I attended one of their events. And we don't have it in Collier. I tried to find one in Collier, we don't have them here. So they're the closest.

But they do a lot of outreach with FGCU and the University of Miami. They're researchers and everything involving a lot of the problems they have in Cape Coral. And their problems, a lot of the time, in the Caloosahatchee are a whole lot worse than ours. I mean, ours are bad enough. But they may be a source that might be able to point us in some positive directions so we may be able to get some more information. I was pretty impressed with their presentation that I attended. And they're pretty knowledgeable. So I know they're not in our area, and we could be straying out of our lane. But it's an idea.

I would go for independent scientists, civil engineers, professionals, rather than an organization. That's my opinion.

Well, I'll give you my general thought. I've been screaming about an all encompassing water quality workshop to bring this all together for years. We're not going to get it done. We're starting now with a baby step to get more information, more data. Where is the muck?

How much the muck is? Is that a cost benefit of going after the muck? We'll just leave it there. But we can't even make that statement without some data. What we're looking for is where is the muck, how much is the muck, and if we can get some other information, such maybe a dissolved oxygen or an assessment of how much fish, how much algae is there when we go out, whatever we need to get some more information, that's all we're trying to do.

Having a waterway workshop without being able to get to where we're going to get is a waste of time. When it was proposed to have a muck workshop, well, you're going to get just what we're doing now. We need more data. We want to go here. We want to go there. And we don't get anywhere with it. If we're not gonna get all in the same plane and move forward, wasting your time. But at least we can take a baby step of getting some data. Say, yeah, well, let's have a water we work. So we have some data to work with, and it will get us some place. So I think the proposal is on the table. Let's get this data.

I got a motion. I've got two seconds. Two seconds. We call for a vote

and a So I have a question though. I'm I'm kinda more like with Dan here. I don't understand the motion. So are we just getting a depth survey or are we looking at what's there?

We're going to I'm being charged with going out and finding out the best way of how much muck and where is the muck. And what's in

it if they can tell us that?

Yeah. I mean, under have to Under spend $10,000

You can't even get a company to come out and drill a pile on for.

Well, them

know, but

I'm we're jumping ahead. We're trying to

block everything.

I'm not trying block it. I'm

not This

is the opportunity to come in with some proposals.

We're just trying to make sure we're all on the same page here.

I already addressed that before that an assessment may not be able to include water quality, a basic assessment of where the muck is, how much of the muck there is, and whatever else we might be able to do, such as dissolved oxygen, whatever, going and taking samples of labs and all that kind of stuff is going to be beyond the scope. But I'll see how much information we might be able to get. But basically, the proposal is where is the muck? How much is the muck? And if I can get something else, more data?

Maybe Ralph should make the motion, because he's the one who does the presentation. He knows what he thinks he should find. You made the motion, which is two of us are questioning the motion as far as

its effectiveness. Your motion was all encompassing. And what you're saying is, we'll see what the quotes come back is and what they can actually do. And that's kind of what I was looking at, because for the price, I don't know how much they can actually get done.

I have a question. How much more will this tell us than the Harper and Jacob reports already have told us? I know they're old. They're in the past. But how much more information will this provide for the effort and the money that you're going to spend?

Well, the Jacobs report doesn't get any new data.

So when

you're talking about the Harper report

Right, well aware.

There's 26 core samples. And that's where they get the data from of the whole report.

Mr. Ohana, can you speak into the mic?

Oh, I'm sorry. That was dumb, wasn't it? Yes. The Jacobs report doesn't give you any more data. So you go by the harbor report, and there's 26 core samples to cover two fifty canals. I mean, if you want to extrapolate it from that minimal amount,

that's part

of what my part of my presentation was this is what it gives you. And there's a I don't know, a counter assessment from the initial part of the Harper report, which is the muck is everywhere, dollars 189,000,000 throw it away versus getting into the data and other members of the Harper team seeing it differently.

So

yes, there's that and we're trying to add to that data so we feel more comfortable making the decisions.

GREGORY If I could just make one last point. This is not perfect. There's nothing about this that will be perfect. There's no silver bullet. There's no one answer. But I agree with Ralph. We need to do something to start somewhere. I mean, if we don't do that, we're never going to get anywhere. I know it's very simplistic, but I look at things like that. And the way I feel is we have a motion on the table.

We have two seconds. Think because we don't have anything else really before us, it's a good start. It may not be the answer of what we need to do. But it's not a bad idea to start somewhere. And this seems to be relatively reasonable place to do that.

So you're seeking bids. You're seeking what is the motion again?

Just to get quotes. Quotes?

The motion was to empower Ralph to go get some quotes or proposals to do muck and sediment testing at Alu or various locations in the canals. And if he can learn anything else from just that survey, that's fine. But let Ralph do some homework, get some proposals. And then when we have more facts to make a decision on, we'll do it after that.

Mr. Chair, if I might add just to give some clarity and some more comfort to some of the members that aren't quite sure about this. I would say limit the number of locations and discuss where you would want these locations. That would limit the scope, and so it's not just picked randomly. And the number of them, if the quotes come back at 15,000 and it was for 20 locations, then you know you have to scale it back a little bit.

But I would not say anything more than that. But if you would like to discuss the locations where these should be and limit it to a certain number of it, that would give it more clarity rather than leaving it open ended.

I do have a question on the financial side of it. What is considered the fiscal year of when the bill is created or the work is completed? So like when are we paying it?

When the work is completed. So if the work has to be completed by September 30, it can't be ongoing and then go over into October. So the invoice can come after that, but the work has to be completed by September 30.

Okay.

Can I add to that?

If you could if we took a

look at the canal map of Marco Island, and the farthest away dead ends from any flushing, and any and where the worst seems to be. Those are probably good clues as to where we should start.

I volunteered my canal, and I volunteered in front of my boat slip at the Esplanade, where we found three feet amuck and six inches amuck. So go test those two locations and see what they come up But

those aren't even far in.

Far just in. Surely through

the rim.

Yeah, did last year.

That'd be nice. Didn't you send it to a lab or something? Didn't you do core samples?

GREGORY We did core samples. We analyzed what most of the muck material was, but we didn't do a chemical analysis.

So you sent it to somebody to have it analyzed?

We did not send it to be analyzed. We tested it for what the principal material was, and it was mostly formerly organic material, which was crushed seashells and some inorganic sand and obviously dead algae. And there was leaf material. There is all kinds of stuff in the muck.

There are a number of variables and I will go through it if I am charged to go out here. For example, we would want to check out areas where if we were to dredge, it's convenient of some place to put our spoils, for example, that's a major cause. There are other places where that are trapped where you wouldn't maybe dredge, maybe bioremediation is better. We have to pick and choose. I'll have to go down and see what all those type variables are, including some that just by looking at them are worse than others.

I mean, there's no sense testing pristine looking canals, and there are some of those. And like Rick said, there's some we know that are pretty damn bad. And so there's a number of variables of what we'd be asking to actually go do beyond the 26 core samples at Harvard.

Just to follow-up, and my final comment is, I would ask for a workshop with professionals to identify things better, to make a road map, and then start spending money. I mean, I know that's just my opinion.

So why don't we vote on my motion, and then you make your motion for the workshop, which Ralph tried to do but couldn't get it organized to do it through no fault of Ralph's. So I'm not against having that workshop. City Council, or at least Councilor Champagne, has said we need to follow a multifaceted approach on water quality. City council's already dealing with AWT. I've got a whole presentation on code enforcement and fertilizer.

What Ralph's proposing is another part of that multifaceted approach. I say, let's take a vote, move on. If it fails, it fails. If it passes, it passes. Make your motion to have a workshop. I'll support it. And let's move on through our agenda.

So I think what you're trying to get at and what Terrell is trying to say is that the motion is for a quote to see what we can actually get accomplished and we can look at the quotes hopefully next meeting. Then we have to make a motion to go with something on that. So the motion isn't to accept one yet, we have to look at the quotes, correct? Right. Okay. So let's go ahead and do the motion. Could we do a roll call?

Member High? No. Member Woodworth?

Yes.

Chair Lewandowski?

Yes.

Member Rohanah?

Yes.

And Member Mascouk?

Yes.

Motion passes four one.

Okay. Any more discussion on the dredging alternatives?

I think we've got a path forward, a baby step to start with. And then we can use that and apply it Hopefully, to somebody's you'll

have something by our next meeting.

Well, I'd like to do a workshop like we did during the meeting. Let's do it towards the end of the year. But if you get some data out of this, then we'll maybe work with FGCU and some other places to see if we can get some more people to look at the data, maybe during the workshop or whatever. But I think we need to put together a better plan of what our tech is. Mr.

Chair, if I might ask, we're now an hour and ten minutes into the meeting, and I think there might be some people signed up for public comment. I know it's not following the agenda order, but since we took so long on the first item, I would suggest that.

Technically, all we have is staff, city and then public comment.

You're the chair.

Okay. I'm just saying. All right. No new business, correct? All right. Moving on. Staff communications.

Just want to bring to your attention that there's a high service pump station ribbon cutting ceremony at 11AM following this meeting at the South Water Treatment Plant. City Council has been invited to that. And following that, I'll be asking city council if they can tour the public works facility, which is on the same treatment plant location. That's one item. The second item is that, as you're aware, we are missing one well, we're missing two.

One's absent. But one member resigned. And that member was an appointee of former counselor Eric Brechnitz. And city council has since appointed a new or elected a new council member. And he's here with us today. So I would expect that he will be nominating a member Schaeffer, to fill that vacancy. And that's all I have for staff. Who

resigned?

Jim Schneider.

City Council communication? No? Okay. Moving on to public comment, do we have anybody?

Amber Crooks. Hi, I'm actually here to speak under 13B, but is this the proper time for me to speak now to you? Okay. Well, thank you for letting me speak with you this morning. I'm Amber Crooks.

I'm from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And I may not have a chance to meet many of you yet, but do know that we have a vested interest in the Marco Island Water Quality and Fertilizer Ordinance that spans years, starting in around 2010. We appreciate the discourse that this committee has engaged in exploring ways to improve Marco's water quality, including different white papers we've seen, like the one to promote low maintenance plants and Florida Friendly Landscaping. We recognize that even the best fertilizer or landscape ordinance is not a 100% silver bullet solving all water quality woes, but it is certainly something that we want to see be as strong as possible. And we do believe that your existing fertilizer ordinance is strong, and you do happen to be consistent with nearly every single Gulf Coast municipality, with the exception of Collier County, and we'll get to them, between Marco and Pinellas County.

Over 100 municipalities throughout the state have a fertilizer ordinance that's very similar to what you have today. The framework is good on your ordinance, but perhaps there are things that you can do to improve education, awareness, and compliance of the ordinance. And that's why I want to come and speak with seeing the white paper by committee member Woodworth about that. Your current fertilizer ordinance does thankfully include aspects that are over and above those baseline minimum standards that are in the state's model. Your ordinance was very well vetted at the time of adoption.

It went through three committees, a planning board, city council, and of course we had to have the sufficient scientific and technical information at the time as required by state statute. And so my message to you today is that we hope you will not seek a change to those strong aspects of your ordinance, which includes that summer rainy season ban. We want you to learn from the city of Naples, who recently did weaken but then fix. They had a strong ordinance that they adopted in 2008, actually. But in 2018, ten years later, they did try to weaken it.

Once they realized their mistake and went to fix it, they found themselves in a nearly three year long legal battle with the turf industry. The city did prevail and reestablished that summer rainy season ban again. The folks that were trying to ask them to change those long established blackout periods were primarily the green industry and lawn care folks who, of course, their focus is more turf quality as opposed to perhaps what is best for water quality. So we think it is unwise idea to promote fertilization with nitrogen or phosphorus in the summer. And some of the studies that promote the idea would perhaps be more applicable to areas where you do have a little more of a cold weather season, more up north, not here.

We are aware of studies in Lea County that show a statistically significant reduction with their strong ordinance, which includes the blackout period, as well as one study in Collier County that shows if you are using reuse water for irrigation that you may not need to fertilize at all, actually. So we look forward to working with you on these issues, and we hope that you'll be careful not to amend your existing good ordinance, but rather look to ways to improve implementation and other means to improve your local waters. And I've got my card here. I'll leave with Justin in case you want to follow-up with any questions. Thank you.

Can I just make one comment since I had the draft white paper of the amendment? The principal part of my amendment to the ordinance was just to remove the requirement for turf grass. I was not changing the season, the blackout, anything else. I just think that the city is better served by not mandating turf grass.

Yeah. I've heard some discussion amongst some of your other members too about that idea of maybe allowing some fertilization with nitrogen and phosphorus during the summer. So I was trying to get ahead and sort of let you know there's a cautionary tale here, what happened to City of Naples, and just be a resource to you as you are looking to do better compliance with your existing ordinance.

Thank you. Thank you. Anymore? Okay. All right. Next meeting. Everybody in attendance? Yes.

Have we shifted now back to 08:30 from formerly 09:00?

No. It's always been 08:30.

Always been 08:30.

That's okay.

Okay. You're in Eastern Standard Time.

But the July meeting has changed the week, right?

It's Is

that correct?

The fourth Thursday, if I remember correctly.

So that is a different week. Just wanna be sure.

Proposed agenda topics for the next meeting? We'll just take member winters September. So if we like we make it tentative for September meeting to be a workshop?

That's adjust Justin. Is that her?

That's up to this committee.

So it would be giving up our meeting and turning it into a workshop.

Do you think we can get enough time for some of your stuff?

I don't think we've agreed to have a workshop. We haven't discussed the information or data we're getting to make it worthwhile to do.

Well, I'm just saying tentatively, we'll push it out there. If we can do a workshop in September, that would go on dredging.

Okay. Well,

alright, tentatively. Okay, any other items for next meeting?

Just to draw a suggestion, you know, this committee voted down AWT five to two, just getting a price for AWT, if you recall, at the beginning of last year. And city council has chosen to reject that position and move forward with AWT to work on it. My thought is we should be discussing whether we should be, as I think we're charged, to be supportive of city council in their endeavors. Should we be discussing or talking what they need to support that? Or are we gonna stand back, on our five two against AWT as a committee?

Personally, I think it's our job to support what they want and what their needs are.

That issue has already been voted on. City council has taken it on. Just like if there's a, for instance, an SDP or a variance that gets voted down at planning board but city council nonetheless supports it, it doesn't have to go back to planning board. So I would suggest not revisiting that. It's already moved on and is moving on.

Okay. Well, my argument here is the expertise in some of these areas for the residents' part and the experts are on this committee, supposedly. Do we have something? Hear what you're saying. It's moved on. It's out of our hands to make decisions on it. But we can still support it with our expertise. Just a thought. Do you want to discuss that?

I would suggest that committee move forward with the items that they're looking at in their agendas rather than going backwards. That's already proceeding. You don't need to go back to rehash. You're just gonna be spending valuable time that you don't have on something that's already been advanced.

Okay. Anything other topics for next meeting? Does anybody I know someone somebody was looking into the sewer doing the sewer for Marco or for Goodland and Alice Capri. Did any was that you? Who? Me? Yeah.

Would love to see something go forward in relation to dealing with the fields of pollution under the septic tanks and surrounding them that could be leaching into the waters around both of those communities. I'd love to see something happen there.

Do you want to look at something for next week or next meeting? Like, for instance, where the county's at and everybody else is at on that project?

You'd have to be a little bit more specific as to what you'd want me to do.

I would say let's see where everybody else is at right now. What is Goodman planning on doing and what's the county enforcement to do? Okay.

Do you have any directive as to who you'd want me to contact the county or?

I would say start with Justin and see what where the city is at and what we know and then maybe contact somebody at the county to figure out if there's a plan already in place.

I think this committee needs to stick to its scope as an advisory committee to city council. And if you deliberate on the issue, vote on it and support it, then forward that to city council, that would be the appropriate path rather than trying to contact county. Both those communities, the Isles Of Capri and Goodland, are within the city's sewer district. So that is the city's purview to do that. And the logistics of coordinating with the county can come after the fact.

But I would suggest you guys deliberate on it here. If you support it, vote on it. And send that up to city council as as one of your items that you're advising them on.

I'd like to see that be on the agenda for us to discuss first.

Okay.

That'd be my my preference. And then I'll be more than happy to go with it wherever you want.

Chris, may I say something? Sure. Hi. Deb Henry, City Council. As for the sewer for Goodland and for the Isle Of Capri, our county commissioner, Rick Locastro, was handling that. It was in his last update. So I think that's something that this committee, unless you want to worry about water coming downstream or something like that, but being involved in the connections of sewer, septic to sewer, I think that's kind of out of your realm of things. Our County Commissioner is fully handling it, as well as our city manager and the head of Collier County. So that's all in the works on the processes happening. I don't think that's something you guys need to concern yourselves with.

You got some free time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Deb. Okay. So light agenda for next meeting. All right. Moving on. Any other committee communications?

So August 20 will be the canal settlement workshop.

No. We said September. Okay. September. But tentatively.

September 17? I think that sounds right.

All right. Member Winter is not here, so go ahead, Member Woodworth. Thank you.

As you know, at the last meeting, you authorized me to do some research on the issues of code enforcement, particularly stormwater and fertilizer. I'm pleased to say I had a great response from Chief Frisano, Dan Smith, Justin Martin, and Keith Richter. And we had a, I think, very productive meeting. All my notes are on the attachment. I'm not going to read them all to you, but I'll maybe just make a few highlight comments.

One, I thought it was interesting that landscapers who are licensed by either the county or the state don't have to be licensed by Marco Island. And that's in the code of ordinances. I'm not quite sure why that was put in there. I guess I could understand the logic of that. But if we have landscapers or fertilizers working on the island, why shouldn't they at least be registered with the city?

Just a point of information for everybody. The city has never tested fertilizer products sold or applied on Marco Island. There was a bit of discussion with the chief about whether or not they could do it. I presented another white paper near the end on where I thought they could do it and that many of the fertilizer applicators are actually supposed to notify the city before they apply fertilizer. And so code enforcement could go to one of those places where

they are

applying fertilizer and ask them nicely if they if the city tested the fertilizer. That met with a little bit of resistance because they've never done

it before.

But I think they could do it if the city was interested in doing it. We talked quite a bit about canal patrol and field enforcement of the canals. And I think it was good news. The chief said they do have a boat on order or it's already here. And there were some issues getting a place to dock the boat.

But it's moving along, and I don't know when the schedule is really going to start. But I was very happy to hear that it's going to happen. And so that's progress. And code enforcement will be in charge of it. We did talk a bit about staffing and the budget cost.

I thought originally that maybe there should be two people in the boat because if you're patrolling and you have got to stop and talk to a landscaper or write a citation or do research on the computer, maybe two people was better than one. But the chief indicated that the current plan was to have one person in the code enforcement vote. So I think that was really good news, and I'm glad the city is doing it. We talked about whether or not the city had issued any citations or notices for violations, and their data said they had issued approximately 116 notices or citations over the past three years, about 38 a year. And I guess we will find out whether that goes up or down after the vote.

One other thing that I thought was interesting is how they track that. And you can actually go to part of the city's website and put in the address for a home or a business or whatever, and you can look at the whole history of that piece of property for all kinds of things, building permits, code enforcement, violations. It is a little unwieldy in that they do not just track citations issued, but you got to go to a location in order to track it. And we talked about down the road, I think, the city is working on integrating some of their data systems so they talk better to each other, and coming down the road that may be easier to track violators. We talked about public education, and the city was certainly supportive of more public education.

And we didn't we kind of ran out of time at the end

of the

meeting. But they did note, and we noted, that the Beautification Committee is already obligated to have community outreach meetings twice per year. And nobody has really been enforcing that. And we talked about maybe Justin or somebody would talk to the beautification committee so that there was maybe more publicity when they have those outreach meetings. And I thought that would be great if beautification did it.

Maybe they are doing it, I don't know. But I think it's great. Just going quickly, I did a position paper on what I thought the responsibilities of the patrol program would be. I made some estimates of what the cost was. And based on the assumptions that are in the paper, using one person per boat to cover approximately 70 canal miles that would take about fourteen hours of on water patrol time.

But all the details of the analysis are in the white paper. And on that basis, I suggested that the direct cost doing two complete canal circuits per month was about $17,600 which I don't think has a huge impact on the city's budget. But I think the results would be incredible. And once the word got out that the city was patrolling the canals and that they were enforcing our ordinances that the word would get around to the landscapers, that we'd probably have more voluntary compliance and we wouldn't catch as many people throwing grass in the canals. I included for everybody's information a copy of the Florida state statutes and code enforcement and penalties.

I included a copy of the landscapers that are currently registered with the city. There's currently 72 that are registered right now. When they first started enforcing the ordinance, I think the number was about 115, then it dropped to 90, and now it's down to 72. I also attached in the meeting package a copy of the fertilizer ordinance for everybody's reference. And the last item I included was another memorandum on the authority of code enforcement to enter private property.

There have been cases that I think liberalize a bit the city's position on whether they can go on to private property to enforce code enforcement. But I think the simplest version is if they can see it from the street, they can see it from a sidewalk, they can see it from a boat, they can see it from a canal. Code enforcement has the ability to issue citations or give people warnings. So all of my research on that is included. And that's my presentation on code enforcement and the summary of the results of my meeting with the city, which I found very productive.

I appreciate everybody's help. Thank you very much.

In my meeting with code enforcement, the one thing that I figured out was that they're not trying to write citations, they're trying to educate. So, like, if we bring them stuff, they would be more than willing to work with them and say, hey, you know, can you not do this? Because some people don't know. They just have no clue. So that was that's probably why the citation numbers are lower than their actual visits.

Right. And I agree with you. Education is the first place to start.

Well, yeah, because a lot of people have no clue.

I'd like to just throw a few supporting words to what you've just presented. Education is free. And education works. And the more we can get people to care and to understand what the situations are around here, I think that's going to be just as valuable as anything else that we can do. A couple of things that just a preview to piggyback on what you've presented that I'll be presenting the next time, And to not go backwards, but the AWT does affect about onethree of the entire area of Marco Island.

That's going to make a big impact of improvement. But the other twothree are what we're talking about right now. A couple of just a few stray items here. When it comes to applying lawn fertilizers, the phosphorus should always be zero. One of the things that we need to think about is turf does not use it. It doesn't need it. I've mentioned this a few times before. And whatever we go forward with, doesn't matter in the summer, in the winter, at any time of year, turf doesn't use it. We should never be putting it out there. Another thing that I'll be bringing up, just a few piggybacks, poor turf does not take up pollutants.

Dead grass does not do us any good. It allows the water, the pollutants from the roads and everywhere else to flow into the canals. It's a fact we need to think about. I'd love to see our committee be able to converse somehow with the Beautification Committee. I think what they're working on and what we are concerned about are intertwined.

And I would love to see some connection between our committees. I think it would be extremely valuable. And I think one of the other issues that I would also bring up is that I'll be also making a presentation on one of the solutions to having to use fertilizer and water is the mowing height of St. Augustine grass. And if you go four inches or more or require landscapers to do that, you're going to need much less fertilizer and much less water all year.

So a lot of these things and I'm going to be bringing them up the next time. I want to piggyback on what you have presented. It's a real good beginning. And I think that I'd love to see more of this brought out, more of this put out there to the public, and to go into the future with more of what you've just worked on. So I think it's been extremely valuable.

Thank you.

I want to thank you.

And the education piece is the interesting part, because in one of my meetings with the police chief in that, we talked about the same thing. But the city does a lot of stuff online. And it doesn't matter what they put out there, when they put it out there, because the next person says, never heard it. They don't know anything. So we'd have to when we talk about education, we've to come up with some things. So like your committee. If they're doing two times a year, I think that we should maybe somehow get some of our information with them and then I'd absolutely and want to see if their stuff is actually making it anywhere. Agreed. Any other

comments on it? I think the paper is really good and valuable. It brings what should be in all of our minds and puts it down on paper. What I'd say is similar to what you said. There's a few areas where we can get drilled down to the detail. What is it? I think you went there with the education. Use the word education. He wants what we think will work here to recommend. And there's a few areas here, sprinkler activation systems.

You know, there's like a number of different ones. Some work, some don't work. And I'm looking at one that actually works on WiFi that actually reads your weather reports ahead. So if it's gonna rain in the afternoon, it stops your sprinkler from sprinkling in the morning kind of thing. What is it do? What is with what we would like to see in somebody's area is to bring it from 30,000 or 20,000? But this is a fine paper. I'm really glad he wrote it.

It really is. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Anything else?

Mr. Chair. Next?

We have public comment on this.

Oh, sure.

Crane.

Just to be brief, excellent job. Rick, good paper. One comment along those lines as far as education would be the illegal connections from the downspouts into the canals. Many of them appear to be done professionally. Coring four inch holes through a concrete seawall is not something a normal homeowner is going to do.

When I, know, probably brought it up before I'm old, I repeat things. But went through, I did an analysis with my boat about two thirds of the island and I found, I believe it was seven fifty some illegal connections, some multiple on one property. There'd be two drainages and maybe even a third with one being the overflow from the pool going direct in the canal. That's illegal too because it's chlorinated water unless it's a saltwater pool. So that's things that maybe you guys should bring up to code enforcement too that as far as education and as far as what to look to do.

I I did volunteer that when they have the boat that I'd be more than happy to go out and just kind of show the guys what to look for and do that too. Thanks, guys.

That'd be great, Dave. Thanks.

On that, I did talk to code enforcement exactly on the exact thing. The problem is is you have to have a video of it actually flowing out. I was also told that a lot of them are dead. So when they have gone back out to check on them, now not the new ones because I've actually submitted some new ones that literally are brand new. But they they said that they're not connected anymore. So just FYI.

Mr. Chair, could I also piggyback on that? One of the things I've done on my property is to install rain barrels and to get the people here on Marco Island to encourage them to put in rain barrels. And I checked if there was a permit required, and there wasn't. And the only requirement is that they're attached securely to the wall of the structure so that they don't become hurricane hazard or a problem.

But the rain barrels can make a huge amount of an impact on what doesn't go into the waterway. So if part of the public education, we suggest rain barrels where appropriate and provides water that we don't have to use. It comes from the rain. And it's just a win win. And it's been winning for me. So just an idea that we may want to encourage.

Thank you. Anything else?

Yeah, let me just finish up. Oh, sorry. The third item was it was requested at the last meeting that I rewrite my Marco Island Clean Water Initiative white paper in a generic version, which I did and attached it. It's part of on here. So if anybody wants to compare the generic version, it's here. Thank you. My name is the only thing on there, not the WAC. So

Thank you. Thank you, Rick.

Hope you're all happy with that.

Anything else?

One more. I did also attach this complete landscape ordinance reform, which includes a position paper and what was being suggested. There is work in here about what specific text should be amended. All of the proposed changes, there's some illustrations in the back, if any of you ever get to looking at it, about trying to keep fertilizer and runoff out of the canals. If there's going to be more comments about the changes that I've proposed in here at the next meeting, I'm happy to go along with it, but at some point, I'd like for the committee to make a recommendation to City Council that this go to the Beautification Committee and to the planning board if necessary.

But the simple thing that I mentioned before is basically it's getting rid of the requirement to have turf grass and to more actively encourage Florida Friendly Landscape. So that is my recommendation. If there is going to be further amendments or comments to what I proposed, we could talk about it next meeting. But then I'd like to make a motion that the committee vote on this to forward it along because it's just part of, I think, the multifaceted approach that city council and particularly Councillor Champagne has said we should take.

So So do you want to add that to the agenda item for next meeting? We're doing talking about fertilizer, do you want to put the ordinance on there?

Well, I'll piggyback on what's already going to be on the agenda. Okay, perfect. Is that okay with you, Ralph?

Yeah. Yeah. So between now and then, anything that we want to suggest, we should feed it to you before the next meeting then? Or

Well, I'll bring it to the Or just bring it up at the next meeting.

Okay. Anything else? Nope. That's it. Alright. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, guys.