Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. The Waterways Advisory Committee of Marco Island is now called to order. Could I have a roll call, please?

Member Lewandowski?

Here.

Member Rowena?

Here.

Member Winter?

Here.

Vice chair High?

Here.

Member Snyder? Here. Member Woodworth?

Here.

Chair Mascoupe?

Here. Thank you. We're all here, and let's have our 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.

Thank you.

Okay. Let's move to the approval of the agenda. Does anybody have any anything that they would like to mention?

I have a comment.

Yes, sir. Ralph?

The last meeting last month, talked about, I don't half hour on the flipboard

Yes.

On the whiteboard topics and strategic planning. And we were supposed to continue it, break it down or whatever where it was left. But I don't see it on the agenda. So I'm There's a reason for that. Okay.

And the reason is, at the end of this meeting, we have some topics that are going to take up a lot of time. And with Justin and with the the I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, bathymetry of canals. And those two topics would they have to be today, and we have to have the time for them. So that will be for next meeting in October. I'll make sure that we have that. Okay. I apologize for that. It's not an oversight. It's because we need to make everything fit today.

Can I make one more comment while

you're it? You're ready.

I wasn't quite sure what the goal or value of that going of that maybe between now and then, we can somehow get a better understanding of where that was going

Okay. A little bit. I I'd like to get chance today. If we do, then I'd like to cover that. Okay, Ralph. I appreciate it. We can

we just make sure in the minutes that it's noted that we're doing that? Because I do think that that was an important Yes. Inflection point for the priorities of the committee. Agree. And that's clearly something the council are focused on.

Absolutely. I completely agree. I like that in the, you know

One more comment. Yes. I just want for the record that I suggested four agenda items for this meeting that I thought are very contemporary important that the public knows and blah blah blah, and none of them are on the agenda.

Again, same reason.

It's very frustrating. So but these items Just so we know.

These items came up and they have to be covered today, and we will I will definitely make sure that we work on those, hopefully, October unless anything else pops up that we're unaware of at this time. I I appreciate that, Ralph. Is there anybody else?

Yeah. Sorry. I do have a comment on that to Ralph's point. Sure. I I'm a bit confused, I guess, that we put forth agenda items.

Mhmm.

And they appear to be struck down. No, it's delayed. By was not the impression I got from City Council meeting, but I got the impression that some of Ralph's staff that was put forth for people coming in to present to us got actually struck down by City management. Right. And I would like clarification on that as to what is when we put four things because this whole thing happened with Seahawk. And I put that on the agenda when I was chair and it got struck down on the Friday before holiday weekend when there was little could be done about it and there was never an explanation given. So I'd just like that noted as to what happens when people interfere with the agenda that we're trying to drive. Okay.

Very fair. Fair question. Anything else? Nope. Okay. As long as all that will be in the minutes, you know, you know, it'll be, you know, on the record. I'm sorry. I'd like to move on now to the approval of the minutes.

We do need an approval of

So moved.

Okay. Have motion to approve the minutes with those With those points to be noted. Yes. Someone just needs to second that. I'll second, Jim.

Okay. We can just have a voice call. All all in favor of approval of the minutes?

Aye. Aye.

Any anybody post?

Wait a minute. I do have a comment on the minutes.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry.

Sure, Ralph.

I got We're on the agenda.

What's that? Oh.

We're on the agenda.

Oh, you said minutes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought I missed something.

No. No.

The approval of the minutes.

No. No. Agenda.

Oh, I'm I'm sorry. Okay. You're right. Of the approval of the agenda. Did you have a comment?

No. No. I'm done with the agenda. I just heard the word minutes, and I thought I was sleeping.

From what I heard no problem. From what I heard, we approve the agenda. Okay. Now let's move on to approval of the minutes, if you will.

Okay. I have a comment on the minutes.

Ralph, go ahead. I don't

think one piece of it in regards to getting the motion to hear that seven minute presentation on the muck eating bacteria is reflected in the minutes properly. We spent about fifteen minutes discussing mostly how not to see it for a seven minute presentation. But some of the discussion is reflected here in regards to didn't want to waste seven minutes, but going back to the federal, state, and local regulatory agencies to get a determination. And part of that discussion was maybe not everybody's experience in getting that sort of determination from them. We're talking about two hundred man hours to gather data, make the submittals, have the meetings, the presentations of those organizations plus considerable cost, the end result being a seven minute educational presentation.

So we know what we're talking about. Everybody is on the same page. And I think we left it, far as I know, was to agree to see it with a caveat that it would cover the use of it or how we're gonna make sure that it says that it works in saltwater. That was the caveat, I believe

I think I remember.

Which makes sense. And I think we agree to see it with that caveat. This reflected that we won't see it until we do all this with federal, state, and local agencies, which besides what I talked about is about ten months down the line. So that's not what we said. We said we'd see it without the snow.

We may not have said that.

Go So clarification, my point on that agenda item was that I'm happy to see it. It will be educational. I think there's value in it, But I don't want to waste committee time or council time with something that ultimately would fail the hurdle when it goes to state or Department of Environment.

Exactly my position. Exactly.

Which is slightly different to what you said, I think.

Why don't

we start time on something that might not be possible?

But you're not looking at it from the other way. You have to know here and get educated on what it is. Nothing about it other than what I've led on before for seven minutes on something that's you're asking just to get educated on something for seven minutes to go through a ten month, maybe a 6 figure effort gathering data and making submittals and presentations and meetings with these federal agencies. Might as well just say, no. We're not interested and vote it down because that's not the intent. And to say we don't wanna waste seven minutes, it kinda makes my eyes roll a little bit.

Well, we've just used about seven minutes right now talking about this.

Exactly. My point.

My point is, with Martin, that we make sure that whatever we're talking about is useful and can happen before we get into a lot of education and a lot of talk. Because what this what this committee has done for decades has done a lot of talking and not enough accomplishment. And I think that's really important that we kind of change our position and go for what can be done as opposed to just talking about what might be able to be done.

But that's the point. What you're saying is we don't wanna be educated. Wanna we wanna force you to do something that's obnoxiously to just say seven minute presentation. So what I'm what I'm saying is that do we need to remotion, revolt this to say, well, yes, we wanna see it with the caveat of saltwater as I'm saying? Or do we want to say, no, we want to force

but I think to to me, Ram, the intent of these people coming in is to show us something that they've done, which ultimately could lead to something that they're going to sell to us.

No, actually not quite. I'm the one based my experience with this bacteria working both in freshwater ponds, bacteria, as well as Alaska. What this bacteria does there, it's enormous. And it is something that we should be educated about to put it in the mix of the discussion. And for some reason, they'll go do one of these and not do it and try to do do it backwards does not make sense to me.

Okay. I appreciate that. Does the committee have any other discussion on this?

Well, I support Ralph's point. Let us have a seven minute educational meeting or part of the meeting and see if we learn anything. I mean, this stuff worked on Exxon Valdez oil spill or some variation of it up in Alaska, why don't we just learn what we can learn?

Learning is great, education is great, I would like, but if at the end of the line we are told no, because there are forces above us that prevent it, It's all for nothing, and it's just a waste. But if the committee wants to go in that direction

But the avenue is the first, do we have any interest at all? And then if we do and say, yeah, we wanna get some proof it works, and I think Justin will talk about it with the RFP a little bit.

At the end

Then you say, yeah, we wanna pilot it, then the person that I picked out that has the patent for this

I'm the last will

go through those

things. What what was the what was the concern with the minutes, though? What the when this is coming back to the conversation about your

What it says here is we're only gonna see those seven minutes if they go through this evolution of getting federal, state, and local regulatory approval.

Does it give us the seven minute presentation? Is that Yeah. I'm I'm minute presentation. We've just done it. I know. Right.

We basically just

used our time.

We did it basically like public comment, but you're giving him three more minutes.

We did it we did it last time. Like I said, in the opening, we spent fifteen minutes talking about a seven minute, and the audience out here is rolling their eyes, like

I guess it's, like, so noted, your your comment about the minutes, but it's something that I would be open to hearing it. But it's in the minutes that way. You've made your objection may or to how it's recorded, and we've all heard it. I'm I'm okay hearing a sub minute presentation about it. That's fine.

I won't stand in the way.

Or if they have a a a video link they wanna send to the committee and we all watch it independently, that's fine too. It's just whatever is efficient for everybody digesting that information.

The other alternative, that's what we were talking about today since I mean, this issue is right in our face. I think the city manager is gonna make a presentation Monday at city council about it a little bit, So it reflects on that. I can talk about it for a few minutes, at least it keeps it in the discussion. So at least you kind of know what it is here today at some point.

If the city manager does that, then it's really out of our hands already and it just becomes a lot of talk.

So Now he's gonna be talking about Seahawk Right. Not about the alternatives that everybody should know that there are some alternatives to into the mix.

That's fine.

And if it says, no, we don't want that, hey, that's fine. That's

Does the committee have any any other comments on this? I'm okay with whatever anybody wants to do. Wouldn't pursue it this way until we know that we can. But if everybody wants to go the other way, that's fine too.

My whole point, to be honest on that, was, yeah, there's clearly going to be a lot of hours that get vested in making sure that it can be used, approved or whatever. But the onus of that shouldn't really be on us as a committee or us as an island. It should be on the people that are developing it and wanting to use it or promote it. And so if they're not prepared to put their two hundred hours into it to get it to that point,

it Well, it is on their own as to do this. But if there's no winters here in hearing a seven minute presentation, so you know what it is, there's no impetus for anybody to do anything. In other words, none of that's off the table. Why would they spend

We're about to use fourteen minutes on this. So I'm gonna like to move along.

If it will move the committee forward so we can get to today's meeting, can we please put the seven minutes on the next agenda so we can finish this and we can move forward to the Thank next topic, you.

Thank you.

Can we do that? Sure. Alright. Do we need a vote on that? Or or can we just put it on the agenda?

Yep. You're the chairman.

Oh, well, okay. Why don't we take a vote? All in favor of putting Ralph's suggestion on the agenda for next meeting, say aye. Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed?

I opposed because we already discussed it, and we made an amendment to that to say that they put it on the agenda, I'm fine with hearing it, but they need to be sure that this can move forward past the hurdles of state. And that's what we all discussed and approved last time and now we're sort of taking a backward step on it.

So So this committee But I

agree the point. We need to move on. Yes. We're already fifteen minutes in. So On that. If if I have to take the sword on it, I'll take the sword on it.

I just gonna get voted Two swords. It passed by a five to two vote.

Okay. Let's move along. We need to do approval of the minutes.

That's right. Approval of the minutes.

Motion to approve. Second.

Any discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving of the minutes? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The minutes are approved. Okay. Is there any old business that we wanna discuss before we move on to our new business? Anybody have anything? I think we just did. I think we just did.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Thankfully. Yes. My my feelings exactly. There are two items I'd like to bring up, now that we can get into our meeting. Discussion of potential alternatives to the lawn code mandate. This is my one of my items, ID 254694. One of the problems and I'm gonna be very brief about this. One of the problems that I see on this island is that we have to have I think the code has gone back and forth. I'm not sure where it is right now because I hear a lot of different answers.

That when you build a new home or whatever goes in your yard should be a lawn. Basically, a certain percentage is supposed to be grass. I like it. Personally, it looks good to me. However, it doesn't look good to our water quality.

And one of the big problems that I see is all the lawn care, the grass clippings, fertilizer. We can go down the list. Causes a lot of the problems with the runoff that contribute to the problems that we have in our canals and our adjacent Marco waterways. My question is, could could we get a motion to have counsel look into alternatives to what is required when there is a yard put in or the yards that people have around their homes. Does it have to be grass that needs fertilizer?

Does it have to be grass that needs weed killers? Does it have to be grass that needs to be mowed? Is this going to be an absolute requirement on Marco Island forever? Or can we look into Florida xeriscapes? Can we look into other types of surroundings on our properties that might not contribute so much detriment to our coastal and adjacent waters of Marco Island and our canals? That's my question I'd like to pose to counsel a committee and a counsel. And I appreciate the fact we have some counselors here. Any discussion? Chris is first.

Thank you.

All right. So I guess my question is, is it the grass that you think is the bigger issue or palm fronds or tree leaves and stuff like that? Because you if you got rid of the grass, you're still going to have trees and bushes that are still going to drop into the canals.

Right. But you're not using a lot of fertilizer for those, typically. And yes, you can have problems from those, but you're not going get rid of all the trees on Marco Island. I don't think anybody is in favor of that. And I also think that if you take a look at the amount of care and the amount of chemicals that go into main maintenance, the grass is the main thing. Trees, not so much. You know, yeah, but you're right. There is that

There's a lot of palm fronds that fall into the A lot

of palm fronds. And the wind can just blow them in and it's nobody's fault. But, yeah, that's part of living here. But I'd say what we're doing, we could make a difference if we did even change the code as to what other possibilities might be acceptable. That's just my question. Ralph?

Yeah. I don't know if this is prophetic or not. I I had sent a letter, a note outlining some thoughts in that arena of city council previously. I fully support it. I mean, there are opportunities starting with backyards would be the most accessible or acceptable in changing to drip irrigation, pervious things other than grass. And in front yard, we talk about zurk staking. I've seen it's beautiful.

Can be.

There are several places in the swales in the Estates area where they've done that. They've got wildflowers and they avoid the invasive part of certain species because it's bordered by sidewalk and driveway and street. They don't worry about it, but it's quite lovely. And some of these wildflowers take zero water, no fertilization, which speaks a lot because a lot of this saves potable water. And I think mister Poteet talked about what we're running up against for potable water, talking about investment to ensure that.

Some of this may deal with that enough where you don't need that investment for potable water. And if we want green, there's other options like clovers, which do the same thing. You barely

Peanuts is another

Yes. If you want green, clovers, you don't mow it, you don't get the noise of that leaf blowers, all those negative things. This is an arena that I think should be pursued active programs. Martin?

So for me, I mean, this has been discussed before. Historically, two point five years ago, I believe. The real crux of this, again, is this is outside really of the purview of us because it comes into a planning issue as to what is or isn't allowable. I think the first thing we need to do is get the data as to what is or isn't because there was a whole load of debate around if you have zero escaping and white rock on your yard that no longer I believe is not permissible in planning, yet it was permissible and some of those things were supposed to be grandfathered. And then when you talk to the powers that be in planning, no one really knows whether that's true or not.

So I think the first step if we go down this path is what can people do now, what is allowable and what isn't allowable. I'm all in favor of native natural landscaping that requires less irrigation, but the reality of that is that's got to be done at an enforceable planning level. Because if you're spending $3,000,000 4,000,005 million dollars on a house and you want green grass, you're going to push for green grass.

You should be able to have it. But you should have an alternative too if you want it.

That's my position. Agree, alternative are good.

And that would help our water.

Well, in the reality of the only way that you're going to really get a take on that is to start giving people maybe a break on impact fees if they do certain native landscaping or all those things. An incentive to drive the behavior and that fell way, way short the last time it was discussed. So I'm in favor of exploring it, but I think we need the data points of what can people do now and whether or not planning committee and council would be interested in pursuing that and incenting builders, developers, whatever to do the right thing. I mean, the same is true with the size of homes and lots. We've gone from a small 3.2 home to a mega mansion with bedrooms and bathrooms and much more of that lot is covered with roof space or hardscape.

So clearly that changes the whole So runoff that's another planning issue. And quite honestly, we've gone down the path with planning in my opinion that people have just said, I want to build a 7,000 square foot house with 18 bathrooms and whatever. And we've kind of done that, okay, that's fine, give us the impact fees. And we put no control around it since we came out septic. But that horse is well and truly out and stable.

I completely agree. Rick? Well, I fully support exploring it further. I don't know what the right path is, but I do know and I think Jeff Potit would verify it, 50% to 70% of the single family home water bill is spent on watering grass, which after his presentation at the last council meeting, is something we all ought to be concerned about, conservation. And frankly, I would rather pay double the rate and use less water if I had the choice for Florida friendly landscape or rock or whatever.

So I support doing it. Don't know, maybe Justin could give us some direction on how the best way to pursue that.

Okay. Any other any other comments or discussion? One

quick comment. It is not that this hasn't been done in other places, as you well know, around the country.

Of course.

So it is possible to do very successfully saving water and all those things he mentioned. So it's not as if we're doing something, breaking new ground or anything.

No. I think it should be explored. Basically, my position is that we give homeowners, new homeowners and established homeowners, a choice that the council allows with code changes or adjustments, a choice as to what they can do that could help our water quality issues. That's my position. And I'd like to see, anybody wanna take a vote? Any do

you want me to make

a motion? Anybody wanna make Any

public comment.

Any public comment before we go before we go forward?

Dave Crane. I'll be brief. Marco Island resident. Check the codes now. Peanut is allowed in the soils. There are several different options already there. Zero escaping, if you're referring to just the gravel and stuff that has never been allowed here, but there are certainly other options to grasp that are already allowed in the code. Right. So before you go too far down the road, you might educate yourself on that.

Right. Well, I would just like to I am not gonna enter into an argument, but there were rockscapes approved prior to the code change because you can drive around the island and see them and they were grandfathered.

It was it was I brought that up when I was on the committee to city council and I was told, that there was no such thing as grandfathering. It was just ignored.

Okay. Well, it

has been ignored.

I'm sorry,

is there really a vote to be taken or is I this just a discussion

think it's just a show of hands as to whether or not we think it's valid to move it forward. I think

I'm still struggling with to move what forward?

The idea of of giving people an alternative that is low impact from a water and fertilizer usage.

Versus grass.

Yeah. I I that's the way I would would if I had the motion, that's why I'd

it's not clear to me that that that is the case that even the public knows. I mean, they I mean, I'd like to see counsel deal with this as an official code adjustment that would, you

know If a homeowner wants to put something there other than what's required, they could ask for

A variance.

They could come by themselves to the city.

It shouldn't have to. It should be In order to really make this make a difference, I mean, it should be island wide and it should be well known. This should be a published code that, you know, that people can be aware of.

I what we're voting on is simply agreement to pursue the replacement of turf grass to our advantage, and it's up to us to formulate what we think is a plan, whether it's education or city subsidy, something solid, and that's what we present to city council. But

are we but are we staying in our lane? I mean, that's the one thing I would ask is that does this have I I don't disagree with anything that we've talked about. I think all of it's a good solution. But is this part of the purview of the waterways committee? Or does this have to do more Justin, I would look to you on this one. Is does this fall underneath planning or who does this fall underneath?

Yes. If we're talking about single family homes and those lawns that would fall underneath the growth management department because they're the ones that review building permits and all that. But there is nothing saying that this committee cannot come up with some recommendations, which can then be looked at by either another committee or this. But we

wouldn't take I don't think we would take this to counsel. I think we would make a recommendation and take it to the planning committee to say that we think that by cutting back on the amount of water that is used, it would be a positive thing and we would like to move it forward to that committee because they are the ones that are going have to go to counsel it.

I would agree.

But, of course, water quality is a major component of it as well. Exactly.

And we are not we aren't the committee that does a beautification or we don't we don't select plants. We don't get into that. All we're doing is to look into alternative ways to help keep our waterways cleaner and and do less damage to them. And I think this is this is not out of our lane. This is in our lane.

Mean, guess the mechanism could be in the existing code a, you know, subtext that says alternatives may low, you know, low watering alternatives could be applied for via a variance process. And just to to You have it. Rather than try to come up with every possible No. We can't. Let the ar let the landscape architect read that and say, oh, hey, if you want a lower water bill, you can put in. Exactly.

I think the reality is we're getting out of our lane, quite honestly, with that. I think it's important for us to say, we as a waterways committee recommend that someone look at this. I think what we need do is give them the data as to what the ordinances are now, what is allowable, what isn't allowable, but then it has to go to planning or growth management because the only way that you're going to convince a builder or a landscaper to do it is to give some mechanism that says either you can't do grass or there's an incentive for doing this alternative. Because at the end of the day, it's a financial decision that's made by the homeowner or the developer as to what they do. For us it's going to be by far the cheapest alternative.

And so I think we're down a rat hole, quite honestly.

I would support Elliot going to the planning board meeting behalf on of the the waterways committee saying Absolutely.

I would be in favor of might wanna look

at alternative allowing an alternative to Yeah. To near canal landscaping to minimize, you know, watering and vegetation in the canals. And just leave it at that.

Would you like to make that motion?

I make a motion to we support the chair going to the planning board to suggest allowing alternatives to plantings that would require less watering or allow less vegetation in the canals.

Essentialization. Well

Potentially reduce vegetation where it shouldn't be going. Second.

Thank you. Would we like to take a vote or any other discussion first?

Well, just one comment. I'm always gonna be in favor of take the bull by the horns and come up with what do we want to see to make this happen rather than going someplace else asking them, do you have interest in this? So I am not against doing that. But

we wrong.

Yeah. That's their

We have confidence here to do something with it. Why don't we grab it and do something? But I'm certainly okay with that.

Anybody else? Should we take a voice vote or on the motion? Or should we go individually?

Voice vote.

Voice vote. All in favor of the motion? Aye. Any opposed? It passes seven to zero, and your chair will go to the planning board. Thank Thank you, Dan. My next item will probably be pretty interesting for everybody, too. I think one of the things is we constantly, and for good reason, focus on water quality. We do not focus enough on boating safety in our waterways. I really feel that we do and before anybody well, I'm gonna make a a few points here, and then we'll get a lot of discussion.

I know that Marco Island is doing a good job when it comes to the Etones and keeping our canals open. Not perfect, but good from what I hear from boaters and people out on the waterways. I think that there is another very important and I know we've talked about it to a degree, but I think there's something else really important here that adjacent waters, not in our control, but adjacent waters that are handled by whether it be the Corps of Engineers, the state, the coast guard, the county. I know there's a lot there, and I don't know exactly, and don't know who does know exactly who handles what. But if you're in the waterways on a boat, and even if Marco Island has every aton and every canal I'm I'm sorry, every channel dredged correctly and perfectly, Waters only go out so far from Marco Island.

There's always other agencies that are out there that that handle adjacent waters that are that people boating are greatly affected by when they go there. And I think what's really important is that when particularly the channel markers or atons, whatever you want to call them are not in place or they're damaged or they're broken off, dangerous boating accidents can happen. And boating accidents are every bit as serious and deadly as car accidents. I think we Marco Island needs to take it very, very seriously. I know we do.

But if you look around at the adjacent waters when things are not dredged correctly, and even if they were if the channels are dredged now, you get a storm, you get some wind, you get some some tidal changes, you get hurricane. It's not what it was. I think what we need to have and I don't know if it's out of our lane. It could be. It could be out of our jurisdiction.

I know the waters are not controlled all by Marco Island. But I think what's really important for the safety of the boating community, and I think it's something it's one of the things I I I always check our mandate here for this committee to see what we are charged with handling. And one of the most important things we are charged with is the safety of the boating community. And I think with all the focus on water quality, which is very, very correct, we're not focusing enough on the adjacent Marco Island waters from people I talk to when channels are not passable, when an aton is broken. A boat could go over a broken aton and be impaled.

It could flip over. You can have accidents. You can have deadly accidents out there. And I think what's really important, I think my bottom line and I'm going to throw it open to discussion it's extremely important that we develop some kind of a connection, maybe a hotline, some that the city of Marco gets in touch with all the surrounding applicable entities so that when first of all, it's one thing for a boater that's in trouble to contact the coast guard and to get rescued or, you know, to get but when there's a problem out there that caused it, that it's not being corrected by adjacent entities that control those waters. And I think what should happen I don't know if it's going to but what I'd like to see happen is for Marco Island to have direct connections to all applicable agencies and entities surrounding the Marco Island waterways so that whenever there is a channel marker that's gone, broken, moved, There are channels that are not dredged properly and the boaters are having trouble, particularly at low tide, getting through, that these things are handled in a very timely fashion.

And it's for the safety of the boating public and so that accidents are prevented. Because these accidents, as I said, are just as deadly and just as horrific as car accidents. And I think it's very important for the Marco Island community because you don't just boat in Marco Island waters. Nobody does that. They go, well, some do, but most people do venture further. And I think it's extremely important that we address this. This is the point I wanna make.

Isn't anything was it, Justin, more than 10 feet from our seawalls no longer our water?

No. Actually follows the city limit boundaries. You have canals that are interior to City Of Marco Island, which you know, 10 feet Yep. From the seawall, it's still City Of Marco Island jurisdiction.

Right.

Right. But, essentially, anything, in the, the Big Marco River, Kaxambas Pass, that's that's outside of the city limits is is Collier County and Coast Guard jurisdiction.

Yeah. Thank you. Chris?

This is the one thing that I was working on.

Okay.

Last meeting, so. Okay. So we'll have more in the future.

Okay. Anybody else with any comment, any public comment?

Hi, Sergeant Montgomery. I'm the supervisor of the Marine Unit. We usually usually, probably 99% of the time, someone will call us on a nonemergency line. We'll send a marine officer out, whether it's our ATON or not. We know who to contact, and we contact them immediately. If one is down, we'll put a buoy out. You'll see the big red buoys or green. That's us that put them out there. And if it's one of our internal canals, our public works will plan on they'll fix it. Right. The external ones is a coast guard. It's a little trickier to get them to because we have a lot of external Right. Atons and stuff. But they when they go out, especially in the river, sometimes it takes some time to get them put back in. They gotta organize a plan to do it.

But you can call us, we will remark them and notify the proper people.

Problem solved.

Is this well known by the public?

I think so because we get a lot of phone calls.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

It is. Is. Okay.

Do you feel that there is anything else that we're able to do to make things to improve the adjacent water and waterways?

We've tried to I don't even wanna say petition, but Kaxambas Pass. When they did the dredging, we're like, hey. Can you dredge the pass out? And that's not in our hands. They pick and choose where they pick the sand and and move it to. But I thought it would be a great idea to redo Kaxamba Pass, and instead they took the sand out from another sandbar just about 300 yards out. So I don't know how or who decides that.

So that's the question I'm asking. These things need to be done. They're And we we don't know who and how and what. Maybe we need to find out.

That was, I believe, through a grant when they did the beach renourishment last time.

Kaxambas Pass or Capri Pass?

It was Caxambas Pass when they redred when they renourished South Beach. They pulled the sand from the the sandbar, which made that really deep cut in. Now where you can come from the outside of that sandbar and get through to Lake Dickman's Point. But I assume that they were gonna clear out Kaxamba's Pass because over the last thirteen years that I've been here, that's really filled in where, you know, anything below probably a two on the tide chart, you can't get across it in a regular sized boat.

And that's not good.

It's not, but it also says on all of our maps local knowledge needed. So there's a reason why they put that. So

In your estimation, how safe are the adjacent waters for boating? I mean

With local knowledge, very safe.

With local knowledge.

I wouldn't wanna own a boat rental company and say, hey. Go have fun. But it's So There's lot of shallow water. Do that.

Well, that's my point. I mean, we have a lot of people who come down in the winter without local knowledge.

Right.

And they're out there on boats, and they rent boats, and they're out there. So this is an issue that

It it's the 10,000 islands. These islands move and change. Yep. Every storm, we go out and we we clear our maps out

Mhmm.

And make new ones. Right. Because, you know, islands will just be gone and there'll be a new one a 100 yards away.

How up to date is that usually kept?

Art oh, I'm talking about, like, the little bread crumbs you leave on your GPSs. Yeah. Yeah. We I mean, we're we're out there every day. So we got a pretty good idea. But we also know when we can go certain places when you can't. That's, again, the local knowledge part.

Right. And, of course, the visitors and all the people who come here.

Yeah. And they get stuck and we go out and get them.

Well, love it.

Is there anything that we can do to make it better in your in your opinion? You're the expert.

I would I would we we keep in touch with the coast guard. Officer Ferris is phenomenal with keeping in touch with them. He does the derelict vessels, and he does

Right.

All that extra, you know, stuff. And he stays in constant connection with them. He calls them immediately when we have an issue. He's out there. You guys all probably know him. He's he's out in the water all the time.

So Okay.

We try to do our best, but there's a lot of water.

So Yeah. I have a question for sergeant Montgomery. Yeah. Kaxambas Pass currently in the Mark Channel. Is there is that where you're talking about the

the shoal?

South of that shoal, the sandbar that sticks right outside there. If you're trying to cut across the Dickman's Point

I'm just talking about in the in the

In the channel. Channel's great. Okay. Channel's four TTT. Is where everybody wants to go to Dickman's Point back through Snookall Channel. That pass has gotten really shallow.

Is that a marked waterway, or is it just a cut that

people just a cut. It's not our marked waterway getting out is is is deep. And you can go out and come back in that's not marked, but you can see the deep water. And it's it's again 13 feet deep coming back in that way. It's just shallow going across that bay.

Gotcha. That's only about a 150 yard. It is. It's what you're talking about.

People look at it and like, oh, I want to go, you know, from here to there, to get there, you got to go all the way out and come back around. And so people do try to cut across and get stuck. It's not marked.

Are there things that we can do better?

No. Because that's a natural. And now that there's vegetation on that little, it used to be a little tiny sandbar. Now it's the big sandbar, and there's vegetation on it. So unless we get another hurricane that wipes it out, which I've seen it happen. And once it gets vegetation on it, they usually start to stick around.

I I have a on Ready. Under what you're saying about where they took the sand to this is what I'm working on in a white paper that, I'll be hopefully presenting next meeting is where they take the sand, is they they don't there's, like, multiple, agencies not talking to each other, and, there's there's an effort out there to, bring it all together so that when there is beach renourishment, they they take the sand from the channels. I'm not it's not, but you're saying the channel's clear. But like in the case of Big Marco Pass, they take the sand not from the channel that needs to be dredged, but they take it from a, like, 300 yards away.

Right.

And there is an effort to align those borrow areas they call them into the channel, at least for Big Market Pass, not for Kaxambas because Kaxambas is clear.

When when they said they're they're taken from Kaxambas, all the boaters thought that they're taken from Right. The the cut through.

Mhmm.

And here, they took it from the pass Right. Which is good, but that changes, you know, the ecosystem of that pass and the and the current where ships landing for whatever reason for I think since the beginning of Marco, that's been a huge fishing spot for those guys because they did the place was just full of snook underneath at night, and all the guys would Now their snooker are gone. Yeah. The dolphins moved in and they just tore them out because now they got 30 feet of water and it's a great place for them to hang out. So it it changes things.

So Yeah. I think you're

helping and sometimes those old fishermen aren't aren't too happy about it.

But But

the but the dolphins are?

The dolphins are. Right.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. And we'll be hearing from you in a in a while.

Yeah. Public

comment. If that's okay.

Where are at?

Where are we at?

A public comment on comment from the committee and public.

Mike Josephs, Marco Island. So Elliot asked what what can we do better? What more can we do? I would say two things. Strongly encourage, any boaters about the local boulder, local boating knowledge course that the coast guard does. It's fantastic. I forget what it was. A 100 $200. I don't know how you do it, Elliot, but promote that because it is fantastic. These waters are are great, but they're very shallow.

And the other thing perhaps, I don't really know, but the the the rental places, right, the boat people, they need to make it clear. Right? So if if you're renting a bike, you have to tell them, hey. There's a a 12 mile an hour bike speed limit. They really should give them some type of information on where the shallow spots are. And there there's a lot of them. But I think perhaps that that may help. That may be a couple of simple things, maybe using social media or whatever. Let people know, hey. There is a great, boaters local knowledge course by the Coast Guard.

I think they do it twice a year. And then encouraging the the boat rental places to make sure they don't just say, here are the keys. Go ahead. Good luck. There's a couple of life rafts in there.

Could be what they're doing. Right. Thank you, Mike.

I I can assure you

that's I can assure you that's not what they're doing because I've rented boats on the island from various people.

I have a comment. When you're done, I'm sorry.

And quite honestly, that, again, that kind of rhetoric is like, oh, yeah, people just show up and grab the keys. It's so wrong.

Glad to hear it. Sure.

So Chris was working on, the navigation safety, presentation just for you for you from what I found is that, everything South Of Naples is handled by the Fort Lauderdale, office of the Coast Guard as far as markers. And, we've been in touch with them numerous times and they they literally come out in in matter of a day or two. They're very responsive, and it's the officer in charge at the Fort Lauderdale office. And their phone number, which they encourage people to call and text, is (954) 350-1389. And when there's a marker in the in the pass, the big marker pass that goes down, that's my first call.

And it's just getting that information from the public and then pass it on. So for your presentation.

Yes, it's perfect.

Can I do informational too?

I'm sorry? Will they do informational markers too?

I don't I mean, I think they'll address immediately what is permitted and installed and fix it if it's

Because we're still missing two on the pass.

I think they prioritize it. So navigation markers would definitely be the first one and then everything else, I guess, is secondary.

When can we look forward to your presentation, Chris?

When I can get a hold of these people to get the I am trying to figure out which A John belongs to who.

Okay. So can you kind of October, November, December, what's your

Hopefully, next month or two.

That's that's all that's documented on the

We have the city ones.

America's Boating Club website. Is that America's Boating Club? Or I get them confused. But it's either the power squadron or American Power squadron. Power squadron or or Coast Guard Auxiliary. And I'm sorry for those two agencies that are out there. I get them what you're how they overlap. But they have a spreadsheet.

Do they?

Okay. And and they have every marker. The owner, its GPS coordinates. Yep. And they do a survey every year.

Actually The city has all the city ones.

It's listed on there, which is city on what you're city on, what you're county.

I'll see if I can find the contact person that I spoke to several years back, but they do a really thorough job of the markers, the coordinates and who owns them and which ones are compliant and non compliant.

Yes, because what we were talking about doing is actually taking the city's GIS one and adding on another version of it that would have all of the Marco surrounding area.

I think someone most probably done a lot of that heavy lift already,

Chris. Chris, I'll try to get his name. My bet is that Sergeant Montgomery can answer about 99.9% of the questions that you have rather than try to go to 15 different people and He figure it probably can point you in the right direction on almost all of

them. Perfect.

I'd like to get your report soon. Okay. So hopefully, it will be on the agenda in the very near future for our committee. Okay. I think with that in view, I think we've had excellent discussion. I don't think that we want to proceed with any kind of direction until we get that report, that information, I think, which will be invaluable and see if there's anything that we can or can't do. So I think I appreciate that. Any other discussion on this at the moment? I I appreciate having the time to bring it up.

I just I did find it. Sorry. And I'll pass it on. Sure. It is the people that that have the markers. It's Cliff Winnings, the chair of the charting committee for the sale and power squadron. They do a report. They give it to public works. Give it to the city every year.

Okay.

Usually after season.

Perfect. Thank you.

Well, I appreciate the time on this. And I everything we talked about is extremely important. I think this is about as important as things get. So I appreciate that. If it's okay with our committee, I'd like to move along now to a white paper at Derelict Vessels, Member Winter, ID 20Five-four691. I'd like to turn it over to you, Martin, if that's So

I don't know whether we're going to Martin is going to pull this up. Really, this is in true style, this is certainly not a white paper. A white paper is much more framed as to the issue and what we do to resolve the issue. This is much more just an educational piece because quite honestly, we don't really have an issue as such and a lot of the compliance pieces of it are not actually controlled by us. I mean, the Marco Island Police can be involved in it, but it is well documented as what the Florida Wildlife Commission can do and what Collier Sheriff can do depending on where those vessels are.

So pretty much the like we discussed last time, these vessels fall into really two categories as what they call derelict or at risk. And basically, if it's an at risk vessel, it could turn to a derelict vessel. I'm sure the officer down there will correct me if I'm wrong, but this is already just captured from the state website. I guess the issue kind of arose because we have some vessels that are out in the other side of Jolly Bridge that have been anchored there for some time. And there are people that either don't like it, complain about it.

But from what I see, there is very little that we can do to enforce it. The way that it gets enforced is basically there are three criteria and that is steering, propulsion and the integrity of the hull. So if it meets all of those criteria, it passes the quick muster test and everyone can kind of move on. If it fails on those things, then it can be cited and it falls into a process and it goes down the path then of certain things have to be posted onto the vessel, you have to allow the owner X number of days to correct them and those things can take a long time. I mean, we had a couple that were stuck in Factory Bay.

They were there for eighteen months or more until they got I remember. And I think one of the issues there was one of the owners was actually his last known address was like the prison in Key West or something crazy, but it took a long time. So the state itself have done some, in my opinion, some pretty good things. One of the issues I think with Darek vessels is the owners are either can't afford to upkeep them, can't afford to store them. So they go throw an anchor out somewhere and walk away.

The state do have a like a turning program where you can voluntary hand your boat over to the state and they will effectively remove it, sell it, do whatever they need to do to it. But as you can see from this, the other avenue is the public nuisance avenue, but again that falls into very well stipulated and there's a process and these things twenty four months is not uncommon to get some of these issues dealt with. So what else can I tell you about it? The other thing that comes up is sanitation because everyone says, these boats are anchored there and they're pumping their poop into whatever, whatever. So my understanding of that is basically you have really three levels of sanitation.

You have MSD one, two and three. So the very first basic level is you have a holding tank. So that's connected into a sanitation system and you have to take that somewhere to have that pumped out on a regular basis depending on how big your holding tank is. The other systems are a system onboard the vessel that actually processes this product or byproduct and if it is compliant then it can be discharged unless it's into a totally no discharge zone. So the Keys for example is a no discharge zone.

So it doesn't matter kind of what you do, you can't pump anything overboard. So there's clearly best management practice. I don't know if the officer would like to make comment because I'm sure he's been involved in several of these. And from what I can see,

it's

you have to do the propulsion steering and hull integrity thing before you can move forward much with all of those.

All that was correct. We used to go out on a monthly basis and check all of the sewage. They had to have a Y valve that was locked that they couldn't. We dropped dye in the toilet and, you know, talk to them, check to make

sure the valve is on,

then you get off the boat. And if it's not correct, it turns the water. I mean, you see it like it's bright green. The law has changed where we cannot do that anymore. I can go and I can ask you if I can do it, but you can say no, and I can't just board your vessel to check your that that's a new law that passed. So but luckily, most of our boaters are very friendly. We're like, hey. How are doing? Can can I board? They're like, yeah. Mind if I check your sewage? And they're pretty good about it. Mhmm. We have checked the boats even though they're out of our jurisdiction. They were in compliance.

We we go around and check the boats as much as we can. We do do the derelict vessels. Josh has done a great job. Get part of the problem is who's gonna pay to tow the boat out, like the one at Rosemarina that thinks it sank. So you have to pay someone has to pay SEAT TOE 70 some thousand dollars to pump it up, dive in, raise it up, and then tow it out, get it taken out of the water, and then disposed of. I think it was 70 some thousand dollars.

The one at Factory Bay?

Yeah.

Was the green the green one? Did it have the Green Top?

Yeah. It was the one that was by Jane Hitler Park for the longest time.

Yeah. It had the generator. No one liked. We had issues with it. It got moved out there where it was a little more room, and then it ended up sinking. We ended up getting a federal grant for that and got it all paid for and done. But that's part of the process. It takes time. You have to cite them twice. One of the boats, not the ones you're talking about, but over by Jolly Bridge, we did site it once already. Not because it it was inoperable. Well, it wasn't operable at the time because the tide went out. It was very negative tide,

and it

was sitting on the bottom. He he had parked too close to the shore. And when the tide went out, it it couldn't steer, so we sighted it. So that guy's actually taking care of the boat. It's in good running shape, but it it is kind of an eyesore. But we told him that so he moved it out to safer water. The other two, I don't promise they're not doing anything illegal.

Absolutely.

They're they're coming. They're from they don't live here. They come every weekend. They park their boat, their cars underneath the bridge Yep. Mhmm. In a kayak, and they kayak out. And they kinda camp out on their boats for the weekend, and then they they leave on Sunday. Legally, there's nothing we can do about it. I just

Question. A question on that on those specific boats. On so the derelict, it has to run. What are the the what are the criteria? It has

to be operable, and then the haul has to be

it it's three good My understanding is it's three things. So it's has to have a steering mechanism, has to have propulsion, and it has to have hull integrity. All three.

All three.

Not one or

the other.

No. No. All three.

Well, on Thursday, September 11, I saw that boat halfway underwater. Yes. So how is that thing still running?

So there was people actually on the boat working on it. That again, that's out of our jurisdiction. We did go check on it, but I can't cite them out there. I called. I didn't. Josh called the county and FWC and had them respond, but tied together. It wasn't too we can't do anything with that those two boats over there because when you go over the bridge, you see the little Mark city Of Mark Wildland sign or the Collier sign. That very tip that of the that's also the waterway. We're we split the river in the middle. So if they're on that side, that's that's

But the derelict pro the derelict vessel Derelict vessel.

So we

know Yes.

We notified them. I don't know if they cited them or not, but we did go out there. Josh notified both the FWC and Cloyer County and said, hey. The boat's taking on water. There's people working on it at this time, and I'm sure they went out and responded at some point. But I'm I don't I don't know the outcome of that.

I'm not in

charge of those guys.

Mhmm.

It's interesting that they use it as their private the the the area around the bridge as their their their private waterfront. I even talked Like mooring situation.

We've a a meeting Doormat.

If you you know.

Meeting about it whether we can make, you know, no overnight parking underneath the bridge. Like but but again, that have to go through the county. So parking on that side. If we could come up with somewhere they can't park there, then they'd have to move their boat somewhere.

The boat that's closest to the island. I mean, see kids going out there.

Oh, yeah.

Kids just swimming out there and going out on that boat. Not not the not the owners, but they're out there jumping off the back of it and swimming and having a good time on that boat. So

Yeah. There's get a lot of people, believe it or not, that that instead of going another two miles to the beach, they they come to the island, they sit there, and they they camp there all day. They set up tents and fish and

Yep.

Most probably because I can park there quite easily. Yeah. Yeah. The beaches, parking is a little bit more challenging.

I wouldn't swim there. People have been fishing there. I see people lose lures there all night long and can't be the safest place to fish, I mean, to swim.

Okay. So the only other thing and I think you raised this point is there have been in the last twelve months or more, they changed quite a few of these or there's a new bunch of rules coming

Not only did they change that, they're also working on changing the safe mooring standards. Each county, they're deciding which counties it's gonna be. Yep. Collier's a big county, so we're still waiting to see what what the court system's gonna do. Mhmm. And they've they've talked about putting limitations on that you can only if, like, we're a safe mooring area, but you can only keep your boat here for seventy two hours. Yeah. And then you gotta move it. Like

I think that the state one was thirty days.

Thirty days.

Yeah.

But we need to find out if they're gonna enforce that in Collier County. If they do, that's gonna that's gonna solve a lot of our problems. There's not gonna be boats sitting here, you know, permanently. Mhmm. They're gonna have to move. And that's that's a lot easier for us to monitor. We can go out and take a picture and then go out thirty days later and say, alright, these three boats are still here, let's side them.

Yes. Then you'll get into the quite honestly, you'll get into the whole thing that's happened over in Miami where there's major battles going on between what is charted as safe anchorages and where people are allowed to anchor and what people that are land based don't like. And the whole thing of moving the boat, quite honestly, you just up your anchor, you move your boat 300 yards and you re anchor it. And you say, hey, well, I was there for twenty eight days, but now I'm going to be here for twenty eight days.

And I would like that better than that boat's been sitting there with no one on it for months.

I would agree. I would agree.

Because I mean, you go out and look at some of these sailboats, they got, you know, 18 inches of growth on the bottom of them, but they're not taking on water. They just, you know, no one's been here for three months. Mhmm. Because they went up to Chicago or wherever they're from, and then they'll come down, they'll clean up the boat, they'll do what they want for a couple months.

We

try we keep an eye on them, but legally, we can only go so far.

Mhmm. So anyway, I think that the point of this was really more educational, certainly not a white paper because the a lot of this is out of our control. And so I think if people on the island are frustrated by that, they can obviously report it into Marco Police. It sounds like we've got a channel to report that to Collier. And then if it meets muster, there's not an awful lot we can do.

So, there really is not much that this committee can do. We got some education and you presented some important information that we need to know.

The one thing that I should also mention actually on that, Elliot, is there is a interactive derelict boat map that you can go to. If you go to the website, you can actually zoom in on Marco Island and the surrounding waterways and you can see how many boats have been cited for being either derelict or at risk and you can then actually look at kind of where they are in the process. I think when I looked and started pulling this data together, there was only one, it was outside of Marco City and it was over in towards Capri. But there is only one. There are several up near Wiggins Pass and stuff, but

So what you're telling us really is not a major problem, but it is something to be aware of and

Whether or not people consider it to be a problem, I think that depends on the individual. The reality is that it's mandated by state. It's outside of our control. We can channel things up through MIPD. Well, that's pretty much what we can do.

We we do get a lot of

complaints, but especially in the Smokehouse Bay Yeah.

Speaking on microphone.

Could you get on microphone? Yeah. Can you go right over You can turn over. Oh, right from there. Yeah. Yeah. That'll work. Appreciate it. There you go.

Can you hear me?

Yep. Think we're

There we go. We do get complaints on them, but again, if it's not illegal, we we can't do anything because if especially the sailboat that was parked over by CJs. And when the wind would change, it would come within like 40 feet of some of the docks. And people were like, hey, it's too close to my dock, but it wasn't. Was legally there was still a channel in between it.

I get that they're worried that the anchor is going to slip, but it was well anchored. Just as the wind and current changes, it would swing whatever way. And sometimes it would appear like it was coming closer, but it was properly anchored. But we kept an eye on it for days and days. We do keep in contact the best we can with we keep like a I don't want say a database, but a phone record of the owners of the boats.

And we try our best to get in touch with them especially if they slip anchor. We'll help em out and re anchor em, pull em out in the middle unless it's lightning or there's a major storm then I'm not going to go out there and risk myself to save someone's derelict boat But we'll we'll if if it's safe, we'll go out and re anchor the boat in a safe area and call the owner and be like, hey. You need to come remedy this.

How how does the city deal with, like, those generators mounted on the back of the boats that are out there? They're not the mufflers are not below the waterline like on a marine

Correct.

Generator. So they're out there just all night long. Is that a is that a violation in in, like, Factory Bay or Smokehouse Bay?

If it's over the the decimal reading. So we'll go out. Our actual road patrol will go out. Say you called from from your house if you're on the water over there on Orange Court because I know the one you're talking about. We went over and stood on the guy's very edge of his dock with the noise meter and it it was under the the permitted noise. If it goes over, then it's a violation and our code department will will cite him.

He just needs to wait for the tide to shift or the wind to shift whereas. Pointed right at their house. And take the reading.

This point, is there any more discussion in relation to this? I don't think there's any kind of direction we can take right now or anything appropriate. I think we've learned something.

I will. I think as a matter of course, it would be good for us or for me. I'm going to take this educational piece and I'm going to send it to all the city councilors just so everybody is aware of what the legislation is around that. I think that might be beneficial for them.

I agree and I would like to thank you. I would like to go on record with appreciation for what you have done. All right. Thank you for the education. I

would just

like to add one more thing.

Yes, Rick.

About five years ago, the Waterways Committee had somebody from the Florida Fish and Wildlife here made a presentation on the whole program and how you go through the steps that Martin talked about And the guy that was there is not there anymore, but I did find on their website there is a vessel program. And the contact person, I just wrote his name at the bottom. So there is a program. There is some grant money available for you can keep that, Martin. And they were more than willing to come out and do a presentation, the whole process, and it was very informative.

That's great. Okay. If it's okay with our committee, I think we do need to move along because we are under an hour left and we do have some miscommunications from staff. I'd like to go to 8A ID 20Five-four692 RFP for canal water quality improvements. Justin Martin, our director of public works, will make that presentation.

Yes. What I'd like to do, since there's two items for staff communications is actually cover eight b first. We have sergeant Montgomery here and also Rosie Moore from the Seakeepers. She's a citizen science manager. So I'd like to turn it over to sergeant Montgomery and miss Moore for item eight b first. Alrighty. Let's do that.

So I've talked enough today, so I don't have to talk much on this.

Welcome back.

You guy not you guys. City Council had a meeting and they were talking about budgeting or or finding money to map the waterways. Officer Ferris, who I've talked about earlier, he has worked with Seakeepers before on another venue. And he called me and mentioned it. I mentioned it to the chief and what it does. And she brought it to the city manager. City manager thought it'd be a great idea for the public to get involved with with as well. So this is Rosemarie Moore from Seakeepers. So she's gonna explain what exactly it is and how it works.

How do I flip through this thing?

I'm not sure.

Cool.

Just hit a button. Yep.

Okay. Cool. I'm actually going to skip through what we usually present because I don't need to bore you with who we are and what we do. Just as brief overview as it is a non profit, we do a lot of oceanographic research, lot of water quality things, outreach and we run expeditions for scientists. The main thing we do is we take private vessels and we connect them with researchers that need to collect data around the world. So we kind of act as liaison between the private boating community and scientists. So I will skip forward and I'm going to present. So the Seabed 2,030 project is the one he's discussing and we're going be discussing this device right here. So I'm sure many of you guys are familiar with bathymetric data. It's kind of like LiDAR or digital terrain model if you're not familiar with it.

Obviously, on land, it's super easy for us to fly drones and to collect that kind of data, but underwater, it's a little bit more difficult. So since 74% of the global oceans are currently on map, this is actually a United Nations Decade action plan to try to map all of it by 2030. So that is the whole purpose of this. So when we talk about mapping the ocean, it's the GEBCO. This is the chart we're referencing.

So this project was created to actually boost GEBCO and collect more data by crowdsourcing the bathymetric data from private vessel owners. So how this device works, picture this is your boat. On the inside, you have obviously your GPS receiver, you have your depth transducer, and then you have your NEMA 2,000. So this device here actually screws into your NEMA system. So while you're cruising around or driving your boat, it's actually passively collecting data on the water depth as you go.

So what we do is we provide free loggers to any vessel owner that wants it. We help you install it super easy. If I can install it, you guys can install it. And then we also process the data because it doesn't just automatically upload to the IHO and to Gebco. So we actually have support staff that does the coding and the processing of the data to get that to the UN.

So once this is installed as you're driving around, like I said, it's actually collecting any like, you know, it's collecting your path as you move and also the depth of the ocean. So it's great to have on boats. Once this is uploaded, it's actually publicly available for anybody in the world to use, which adds another note on that if you want to collect data anonymously. Your vessel is completely anonymous. Your name is not attached to it and neither is your vessel name. So this map is publicly available for anybody to look at. Obviously, it can be used for a lot of different things, inundation modeling, also mapping the waterways. So that's kind of the objective here. Any questions?

Yes, have a question. So basically, you're going to get this and we're going to hopefully disseminate it across several 100 voters

Mhmm.

On the island. They'll plug it into the NEMA 2,000. Yep. So it will track and then installs the data actually in that device. Then after a period of time, you come take the device, download the data and then map that?

So the way it actually works, there's an SD card in here, it's a micro And every six months, three months, however often you want to do it, you just pop this out and drag and drop the data to a file and it uploads to us.

Okay. It's impressive.

Cool,

right? So my other question on that was how many like vessels do you think you would need to map the whole of Marco Island?

Well, we're gonna install it on the police boat Right. Today. And then we're gonna purposely go through every canal, hopefully, within the next week. We're gonna take that data and send it to them. When I reached out to them originally to see if this was possible Mhmm. Their data analysis lady Yeah. Shoot they don't have anyone on in the 10000 Islands. She's like, we would love to do it. And she's like, I'll take put everything else I'm doing aside, and I'll just work on your map and get it to you, like, in a couple weeks. She said, usually, takes months.

Wow.

So hopefully, in a month, we'll have a detailed map of all of our canal system, which was awesome.

Yeah. And another note on that too is, as we were discussing the changes in the waterways are pretty frequent in the Thousand Islands area is this maps the changes over time as well.

So does this can you also source data from like ActiveCaptain and all those other sources that are doing some of this, I would say a low level.

Can you

pull data from that?

What do you mean by that?

Well, so in ActiveCaptain, it's basically web based and you sign up into Navionics and then ActiveCaptain is a boat on piece. If you go to an anchorage and you can put notes in there to say, went to this anchorage on the chart,

it

said three meters, but it's actually one.

I think the only problem with getting data from that is the actual processing the data from there and not from these devices because they're coded with special like codes where we can actually process the data to the IHL.

I have a question for Ms. Moore. Thanks for presenting. How does it know what tide you're at when you're getting this data? If you're going through at high tide, is it's gonna report that reading?

Yeah. It's gonna report the changes. So it does like an averaging and like I said, it like goes over time. So it's just getting a general waterway.

I actually talked to the one of the data analysis lady that

I was

talking to. She said that's when they send

it to

Noah, it takes the information date and time and the tide chart and zeros it out. And they also ask you how

Okay.

So when you register your boat, we had to measure how far from the waterline the transducer was. And then how far away it is from the head unit. It knows exactly. So it zeros out everything, including the tide. So And it it

Yeah. Whenever you register, we actually have a form. So we'll get all the specifics on your exact vessel too.

So when it publishes on the chart that everyone can look at, you're looking at it mean low water?

Yes. Okay.

And they the sorry, the data analysis lady says that that's what she that's what takes the long like even though I give it to her, that's why it takes a couple weeks.

I gotcha. That's that's impressive. Think was all that.

That's a very smart piece of

I do apologize for the question. This is kind of a more Justin. Know we had mentioned that we wanted to do this and have it surveyed. And there was obviously a financial cost to that and it was, I think, a couple of $100,000.

Yes, it was 100,000.

Okay. Are we looking at this to circumvent doing that?

This is an alternative to that, yes.

Okay. So we from our perspective as a city, take that out of budget?

It's not in the budget. It made it into the So this is an alternative that was presented to City Council that can be done that potentially could give us the same results without having to money.

That's fantastic.

Okay. So then my other question, my follow on to that is, can we take this data and overlay it to the historical old data that we've got to see what the deltas are?

I'm not sure what format this comes in, but what we have for the old historical is just a PDF file that shows all the points on it. So if this data can be overlaid on aerial maps or even charts then you could be able to see both.

Yes, we can actually put it into GIS data as well. It doesn't come like that, but we can transform it into that. So if there's a way for you to overlay that data into GIS then.

So for me, I think this is phenomenal. It is. What you're doing, I really do and I appreciate you coming in and spending time with us. I think my concern would be to just make sure and validate that we can do that because for me, one of the big things about doing this survey is, it's great to know what it is, but what I would like to know is what was it twenty years ago and what is it now. Because with that information, we can figure out where the sediment buildup is in these canals and then what we need to do about that.

Yes, definitely. And if you guys have technical questions too, I can connect you with Haley that can answer anything on that side too.

Will you be coming back to give us a final report?

Sure.

Okay. Do you have any idea about how how long that'll be from now? Because I'm I'm excited.

How many are we installing?

One. We're gonna put on one boat. We gotta do we're gonna use our our our contender has two voters, so we can flip it around.

So, yeah. How do we get one? Yeah. Think that's the important piece because to me, it's great that you're doing it. But to me, with data, the more data points you've got, the more concrete this is going to be.

Yes. That was why the city manager thought it would be great to

get you

guys involved so because it yeah. That's why the city manager thought it'd something great to bring to you guys so we can get it out to the public because we're gonna run every canal. So you'll have a a line going up and a line going back. Every time someone does that, it gives them more data each time a boat

goes So can I make a recommendation, one, that we get real clarity as to how people can sign up and get this and put it on their vessels? Sounds

You go to the website, seakeepers.comseabed Okay. 30. Okay.

And and can I make a recommendation for you that I think it would be very beneficial for you to go and talk with the power squadron and all the other boating communities on the island? Because I'm sure that Cliff would have at least himself and five other people that are doing the Eton surveys that would jump at the chance to be a part of this.

Yeah. That would be great.

Absolutely. What a fantastic idea. What a fantastic thing you're doing. Thank you so much.

Thank you, guys. Sorry,

can we just put in the minutes that we're going to check that we can overlay these two data sources and I think that most of it falls to Justin.

Well, he said it's in PDF format. I

know what the old thing looks like to be honest.

I think if she can get it in

geo If you can figure out.

It's just a PDF with all the data points on it showing the depths overlaid on aerial. Can

we maybe just get that information to these folks? Yes. For someone to look at it?

Absolutely.

Appreciate that. Thank you. Great suggestion, Mark. Thank you. That's amazing. I'd like to move on to

Well, we can go back to 8a now.

At 8a, that's what I'd like to do. Yes. That that was how what I was about to say.

So I I think that's the first time I've ever heard applause at a Waterways Advisory Committee meeting for something that wasn't contentious. I want to congratulate the committee. Okay. So this next item is to discuss an RFP. This committee has overseen RFPs in the past for information that's requested in order to improve the water quality within the city's waterways.

So included in your packet is a draft of an RFP that is for deliberation by this committee to see if you wanna make any changes, add to it, delete anything. But this was intended for, disseminating it out into the the public to get, feedback on some of these issues that have come up in the meantime, like muck reducing bacteria, fertilizer alternatives, and then other types of solutions. We can advertise this. They can submit and then this committee can review the submittals and have the submitters come in and make presentations.

Okay. Would we have any, anybody would like to present any ideas or discussions on this?

I just asked Justin a question. Since the city is already going out to get a proposal for AWT, is that covered under this or is that a whole separate process?

No. That that's separate. That's already moving forward. The city council voted to approve the, the proposal from the consultant or I'm sorry, the engineer that is is putting that detailed review together. So that's not included in this. This is more things that have come up in the interim, as I mentioned, the the muck eating bacteria, the the fertilizer alternatives, other things that would have positive impacts on water quality in our waterways. So AWT is already moving forward.

This is So this would

This is additional items that

So since city's already worked on, say, the bubbler project, that wouldn't be covered by this either?

There's already a pilot program for that, but it's this is, you know, we may receive some other types of aeration proposals. I don't know what responses we are going to get, but this is an invitation for any technologies that could help improve water quality in our canals.

Ralph?

Yes. I see this is a good direction to go. One minor point, one of the techniques, I guess you would call it, I guess an alternative to the dredging is actually a technique, the backfilling technique, the encapsulation of the muck that's out there. It's more of a grunt thing, barges with sediment and gravel and there's a technique around it that they've chosen to use in places like The Keys rather than dredging. I'm not sure that's a vendor, these people do this type of thing.

It's more of a technique. I'm not sure how it gets out to the people that do that since it's more of a general construction type thing. Is that sort of thing covered or how do we manage that a little bit? It's not a vendor in particular.

As I mentioned, this is a draft. So this is for your deliberation if you wanna make any change or you wanna add some specific wording to this. This will be advertised just like we advertise our public bids on demandstar.com. And so whoever is subscribed to that will get this advertisement. And it'll also be advertised on on the newspaper and on the city's website.

So if you wanna make any changes, add any other types of specific criteria, then by all means, suggest that and we can add that to this.

Does anybody on on our committee want to to offer any suggestions or changes? Any discussion on that?

It seems to be pretty inclusive.

It does.

Pretty general, I would say.

This is if you have some company that has an idea that can do it like you are muck eating bacteria, they can come out and propose? I

think I wouldn't change anything that Justin has presented. I don't know if anybody else wants to, I wouldn't. Would we wanna make a motion?

Yeah. If that's the case, I'd say a motion.

That's what I'd like to do.

You don't have to it doesn't have to be a roll call vote, but this will then go to city council, to get their blessing before it gets advertised.

I think it's a great

If they have your recommendation, that'd be good.

Absolutely. Is there any comment from the public on this? Anybody want to offer anything?

My concern is we've done the RFPs, but request for information before on this kind of topic and we got very limited response back on it. And my concern would be, it's good that it's broad, but my concern would be what happens when someone reads this and says, hey, I own a dredging company. I think the real solution here is we got to go dredge all the canals on the island. And then they put that forward as a proposal and then where does it go from there? Because we've already been there. We've already had those proposals and so are we looking for new innovative things that haven't been done before?

We have had that. But in the interim, since then, we've had some, like you said, new alternatives that have been requested. And in order for the city to consider those, we have to put out a public invitation like this.

I don't think it can do us any harm.

Right. I I

guess it would cover also what you're talking about, turf, grass could change.

It could. There's a whole world out there of what we don't know that we don't know. And this might help to fill a little bit of that in. And I think it could be very valuable. I see I would love to put a motion on the floor to proceed with Justin's proposal. Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

Motion on the floor. Do we wanna take a roll call vote or do we wanna just do a

voice vote? We need to do a roll call vote because it's gonna go to city council.

I've seen it go. Yeah. Yeah.

But it which what's going to city council is your recommendation. So it's not an expenditure of funds. So I think just a voice vote.

Voice vote is sufficient. I'll go with Justin's suggestion. Then we'll take a voice vote. All in favor of Justin's proposal? Aye. Any opposed? Seven to nothing. We're good. Thank you. Let's clap for Justin. Thank you. We're doing fine time wise. I'd like to get, I'm honored to have two of our counselors here. If either one of them would like to come and make any comments or communicate to our committee anything that they have to say, would be welcome at this time. No? I see no. Oh, Councilor Gray.

You. I'll I'll take a quick shot here. First, love the conversation. Justin, what you put forth is we're in a very dynamic economy. I think what we just learned about the testing in the canals and the depth is an example of we could throw a $100,000 into something and the technology and the innovation has actually given us an opportunity to get to the right insight a lot cheaper. Anything we can do to entertain things that are constructive, cost effective, or helpful to us. So I love the conversation. And I just believe our economy is very dynamic, and there's always innovation coming down the street that we should be looking for. So thank you for the conversation.

We appreciate it. Thank you. We can then move on to public comment. We have a few members of the public here. Would anybody like to come up and make a comment to our our committee?

Very quick. Dave Crane again, Mark Oyland resident. Just a question, excuse me, for Martin. The aeration, how's that is that moving forward? I I've seen the boxes are there, but I

Yes. The compressors have been installed. The electrical has been installed. The meter is there. The the hoses are in.

The diffusers were in. The problem is that the protocol for that pilot study has a short window during the, the summer months where the water temperature is the highest, and there's a ten week period for that. So, we had issues with the contractor finding the the right the right equipment and procuring that. So there were some delays in that. So we've missed our window, but, the contractor will come back in May, which starts the next window next year.