Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

You guys ready?

Which one? The one that you caught a lot of hell for. Rick.

Where am I?

You moved. Rick, you're right here. You moved.

It's musical chairs, isn't it?

When you sit down, we'll start. Oh, that's turned brown. Good. All right, we'll call the meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Vice Chair Mascoot?

Here.

Member Rohana?

Here.

Member High? Member Winter?

Here.

Member Lancaster?

Here.

Member Woodworth?

Here.

And Chair Lewandowski?

Here. All right. We need to do a motion to approve Winter to be remote, correct?

Okay. I'll second it.

I'll make the motion. You can second it. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. Martin, you're in. Okay. Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Can I have a motion to approve the agenda as written?

Sure. I've got something to say about that. Okay, let's have a motion. A second?

No? Okay, go ahead.

Okay. I made, including the last meeting, but previous, talking about the review of the Marco Capri dredging status, the way it's stated in the minutes. That's not what we discussed at the last minute, and it's not what I discussed at the meeting before. We were – back in February, a presentation was made by – rose marina representative february 17th and we were directed by city council to fully discuss the proposal and conduct an additional visit investigation and study into the benefit costs and funding in developing a viable inlet manager plan etc etc the big part was that we have yet to have on the agenda to discuss that presentation and report back to city council as directed and it's been over seven months, hasn't even made the agenda, haven't discussed that. And certainly we haven't discussed, I doubt more than one or two people even know what an investigation study into the Inland Management Plan even is to discuss whether we want to do it, whether we have the capability of doing it, or what the scope and scale of that initiative is. So I'm not sure what we're gonna do about that. Do we bring that up at the end when we talk about... Well, we did that last month, and that's where we got into the minutes to discuss the status. We don't care about the status. We were directed to discuss that presentation as it is.

So, Justin, didn't Hideaway Beach vote on their part of doing the research on it?

Well, I don't want to conflate this committee with what Hideaway Beach Tax District does. What I suggest is that under Item 12 of this agenda, you add it as an agenda item for discussion, as Member Lujan is mentioning here, so that it can be discussed and deliberated and any recommendation forwarded on to City Council from there.

All right. Let's bring it up again a little bit later.

Well, he did that last month, and he put it down as a status report for the Capri-Marco Pass. We're going back to what we already did last month.

Okay, but when we get to number 12, we go through what we want to have for the next agenda. So on this agenda is what we chose for last month. So if we want to add it on for next month and we get to 12, let's bring it up.

Well, I understand that's the process, but that's what we did last month, and it got changed into a status report. We don't care about the status report. We want to make sure that we're discussing what we were directed to do by city council and reflects a little bit on what this committee does in the past and going forward as well. We've got an opportunity to not only do as directed, but also it's an opportunity for this committee to show them in light of what we came under the gun at the last committee meeting where they kind of put us as the whipping child for a

dysfunctional committee this is an opportunity to show that we can deliver something and we're not taking it okay well let's bring it up under 12 okay right now the we are talking about the agenda for today so we have a first for the agenda for today or motion for accepted the agenda as written for today do a second a second right and All in favor? Any discussion? No for me. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. All right. Motion carries. All right. Now approval of the minutes from last meeting. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes as written from last meeting? I'll make that motion. Okay. Any second?

Sure, I'll second.

Okay. I have a comment on that as well. Okay, go ahead. Very similar. The meeting did not reflect what we discussed, what we were just discussing, that what I was requesting was having that fulfillment of the city council directive to discuss that presentation. And what's in the minutes is asking about the status of the project, which is not what we were directed to do. And at this point, we don't really care. We were just told to discuss that presentation. So I want the minister to reflect that the discussion was, where is this discussion of presentation as directed by city council, and that's not in the minutes.

Can you maybe go back and re-watch it and look it up and see?

Well, I would suggest if Member Ohana has a change that he'd like to make to the agenda, if he could point that out, then we can do a strikethrough in addition, and then this committee can vote on it, and those changes will be reflected.

Do you want to do that? That's fine. All right. So then we'll just pause. We won't approve the minutes from last meeting. So we'll put that for next month. Correct? Correct.

Yeah, you can continue this item, approval of the agenda for the August minutes.

Or we can vote on it.

Or if he has the suggested changes now that we could cross through and add, we could do that now, and you can vote on it now, or you can continue it to next month, the approval of the August agenda. And at that time, you'll be approving two agendas, the August and... What do you want to do, Ralph?

Yeah, I mean, you can just add to the minutes the discussion on us not fulfilling the directive from city council to discuss the presentation for the Marco Capri Pass dredging presentation. And if that's added on there, that's what we discussed.

Dave, do you want to amend your motion for that? But, Mr.

Chair, if you could tell us under which item and what the changes are so that we could have the vote be clear.

Are you talking about under number 12 for the minutes of last meeting?

Why don't we just continue it, let Ralph write what he wants, and we'll approve him in the next meeting.

Well, we can just add to the minutes today what I just said, and then you can approve it.

Well, but they're looking for the actual words, so I'm trying to find the... Under 12, we have listed what we talked about. So big Marco Pass update, member high, that's what we talked about. That's what's written here.

Well, I know. That's the whole crux of the issue. That's not what we discussed. You changed it to that, but it was fulfilling the, we discussed fulfilling the obligation from city council to discuss the Capri Marco Pass drudging proposal. If you add that to the minutes, then you can approve it.

So I'm confused. Do you want every agenda approved? proposed item to have more detail to it? Because isn't Dan High's big Marco Pass update the same thing we were talking about? No, it's not.

I don't care. Nobody cares about the update. We were directed to discuss that presentation.

Well, yeah, that's what he was going to do.

No, we were told to discuss the presentation as provided in February 17th. We don't care about the statuses. That's between them and How would that be?

What if we just delete the word update? Big Mark, this is like a couple months ago. What if we delete the word Big Mark, just say Big Mark will pass?

How about just say the discussion that was directed by city council to discuss Capri Mark will pass, missing, was discussed. That's all.

We're in the weeds on a couple words here.

You're trying to wordsmith what you've got written there.

No, what I'm saying is that on the minutes, she doesn't have to have every detail for every item on here. So, to me, Big Mark will pass on here.

And I'm telling you, no, that's not what was discussed.

Okay, but same thing with the fertilizer ordinance.

I don't care about the fertilizer ordinance.

Mr. Chair, I would recommend that we add an item under number 12 there saying the Big Marco Pass discussion of the February 17th as directed by council. Just add that. Okay. That's all you would need.

That's what I'm trying to add to the minutes, and you won't do it.

Well, we're looking for the words. Now we can approve the minutes. You could make that as a motion, get a second, and vote on it, and that could be added.

You agree to change the motion? I will change the motion, yes. So motion would be for approving the minutes from last meeting if we just add that part that Justin said. Okay. Second. Yes, second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Good. All right. Motion carried. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Old business. Marco Island Police Department Marine Unit.

Good morning, everyone. I'm a new face here, so I just want to introduce myself. My name is Sergeant Kyle Price with the Marquand Police. Effective Monday, the 21st, I will be the new supervisor for the Marine Unit. So I just wanted to introduce myself. But for the report, I'm going to turn it over to Marine Officer Alex Cordero.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Any questions for us to start off?

No? No. When you get through with whatever you're going to do, just talk about the code enforcement both a little bit too, please.

Okay. We have a couple updates. We have that white floating channel marker by Stillwater Court. I don't know if you guys have seen it at all. We don't know what the object is. We got quotes from Justin and Public Works to get it removed. We don't have any update on when it's going to happen, but in February it was marked and it hasn't moved at all, so that's a good thing. at low tide it's about eight inches to a foot of water so it's not too much of a hazard you could see it at low tide we have a channel marker red four in collier bay that's been hit about three times in the last i don't know two three months so we agreed upon just having a floating can buoy there instead of replacing it because it's going to save the city some money the gis this seat floor project we have our contender that's been out for three months we just got it back about let's say two months ago that held us up a little bit on the project we just got a new bay boat it's 25 foot west end that also has the chip for it ideally we will be updating it every week now that we have two functioning boats so that'll help us out um but initially it's going to be the gis the whole program is going to be updating that map it's not us we just give them the data and that should be it for that The code boat, I've been on it a couple of times. I think we should honestly add Officer Ed Berrios in here. He's the one that's going to be running that boat. But I know from a couple ride-alongs with him that he's been looking out for the illicit discharging and dilapidated docks, and that's his main focus, any waterway obstructions. yesterday we had a fully submerged kayak behind Manor Terrace it was fully submerged we've got a call in from a new vessel operator that didn't want to hit it so we removed that and that's about it any questions for us you mentioned what they were looking for are they also looking for elicit dumping in the canal by the landscapers yep yep all the uh trees and grass clippings that are getting blown in there he's been looking for that um but mainly i mean he's looking for everything obviously but he's been looking for the illicit discharging from new construction houses and people dumping stuff in the canals that don't really care and they're just doing it so if people do see it give us a call and we'll respond to that you know if he's written any warnings or citations yet multiple multiple so it's paying off yeah definitely thank you it's also in service at Rose marina right now it's getting new lights on it and getting a little outfitting so it should be back on the water by today or tomorrow thank you

For the record, I have applied to go on ride-alongs with both the Marco Marine Police and the code enforcement, and I am personally looking forward to doing that and to being able to bring back reports and what I learned.

So we do have a form that you'll have to fill out. I will grab it for you, and I'll bring it to you. It's upstairs.

That I've already completed.

It has been completed? Yes. Okay, I'll check with the front office, and we'll get that squared away for you, sir.

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.

You got it, sir.

I'll take one, too. I'll bring a whole stack.

See, they like you. Any other questions?

I have a question. Is Josh Ferris still in the Marine unit? Yep. Yep. Josh is still on.

He's off today.

Okay, I think we're good. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you very much.

Sorry, I do have one quick question. On the code enforcement, on the stuff that's been written, how do we get access?

As far as what citations and warnings have been written?

Is there kind of like a summary form that we could get?

I will check with James Smith for the records and get that information and I can provide it to the chair or whoever.

Yeah, I think it would be nice for all the waterways guys to see, because we were fairly instrumental in getting the code boat positioned in the first place. OK. Thank you.

There is an agenda or docket for the code enforcement magistrate, and all the cases are listed on there. And there may be some other information that's included in the monthly report of the MIPD slash code enforcement to council.

For our next meeting, I can have a detailed spreadsheet if you guys want. I'll hand it to you guys before the meeting starts of our NOVE citations, warnings given out, just for the code boat. And I can provide it to you guys. That'd be perfect. Thank you. Of course.

Okay, anything else? No? Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, next item is dredging alternatives.

That's me. Martin? I flew in late last night, so hopefully I'm semi-coherent here. Okay. Just to review... This is probably a sequence of presentations that calls into question how much sediment and where is it when we talk about a third tier of addressing our clean water. One of the things that we're concentrating on is that the Harper report seems to indicate that the organic content of the bottom overall is 5.4%, when it's about 20% is when you want to talk about being muck, organic sediment, and only three places out of the 26 samples that were above, I believe, was 17%. So you can imagine if you were to do an overall assessment of the content of our canals, if it was 5.4%, it kind of changes a lot of our thinking, a lot of dynamics. I mean, it calls into question some parts of the Harper report at all, if they're that far off, because remember they said that the organic sediment was the biggest spew of nutrients in our problem, but it was gonna cost $189 million. And we kind of put it off to do something else. So it does call that into question. It also probably makes city council look pretty good because they rejected a Seahawk dredging proposal that might have put us in a position of spending millions of dollars to move sand, which wouldn't be appropriate. And certainly, if that's true, if it is 5.4%, start asking, well, what is the biggest smoking gun if it isn't the sediment? Well, it kind of says more important is AWT and the landscaping arena. And so it would seem to say it's the good direction that we're on. So anyway, that's kind of where we were, I think. One thing that occurred to me at the Seahawk Symposium, remember they had that box of muck in there, and I remember one person passing it saying, look at all this muck. There's two feet of muck in there. No wonder we're having problems. And it kind of took me aback that maybe not everybody understands what muck really is. I mean, sometimes you can step in it and sink and say, gee, that's all muck. It may not have organic content in it. And probably the worst case scenario in our minds would be quicksand. You step into it, you fall to your shoulders, right? Well, there is no organic content in quicksand. So what I tried to do, and I'll be a little wordage in some of these slides just to give somebody something to read if they want to catch up a little bit. But this speaks a little bit into what organic sediment really is. It's that dark brown soup-like stuff. It's not most of that gray stuff you saw in that tank. That probably was not organic sediment, probably not muck, probably not something we want to get rid of. Remember, when you deepen a canal by dredging stuff that isn't muck, you restrict one of our biggest problems, which was flow and flushing. It decreases that. That's one of the reasons why you saw in the Keys, part of their addressing was they added backfill, or what they called it, to raise up the bottom to increase the flow. I think one of the councilors asked about why it was so expensive to do one of these canals. I said, well, they added 17 feet of sediment to bring it up to seven feet, increase the flow so seagrass can grow and all that kind of stuff, and it seems to be pretty successful. This gets a little bit into more about how they test. I think we talked last time about dual frequency acoustic surveys for mapping. And also they add manual, we call it sludge judge and other mechanisms to do that in order to find out where the real muck layer is. And this is what speaks to it a little bit more if somebody wants to read through it. I did kind of make some kind of a matrix to give somebody an idea of what the difference of soft mud versus the organic sediment is. Probably the most important is the organic content. I mean, under 4% is usually what it is for a soft bottom. Our average, as I mentioned, was 5.4% based on only 26 from the Harper report. And high is often 20%, as I think I mentioned, of which I believe three were even over 17, one was maybe 20. So it kind of speaks to really is there organic sediment in our canals. And you've seen this slide before. It's probably the closest example to us as far as assuming that there was old muck all over the place. And they actually did a survey, the Arc Aquis survey. But the reason I have this on here is that there's a difference between the Arc Aquis survey. This is the most modern type of electrical resistivity. versus the seismic acoustic, which is normally what you see and what we've been talking about before. It's more expensive, and I think I tried to put a matrix together a little bit, talking about the difference when we ask about this, the normal acoustic with the vibrocore, which is the same thing as the sludge does with the vibrocore. I guess the clear polyurethane thing that you push down, except this one vibrates down, so you have less of a human element in it, versus the arcoquasis electrical resistivity profiling. And I should say the overall effectiveness, the most important thing is the electrical resistivity part is at a higher cost. And a little bit more about that so you have more information. The rest here, I talked about making a first pass of some of the things that an RFP bid package would consist of. Of course, staff has their own formats, their own language, so I wasn't going to write something for them because it might look totally different. But I tried to put together most of the areas we'd be asking about. And the most important thing here is I was looking for a limited survey of 50 canals to see if that gave us enough information where you can make a call of whether you want to continue with that, whether it's looking at 5.4 or it's totally out to lunch. I have trouble looking at being overall 5.4 organic content with what I see in the canals with the amount of algae. But I could be wrong. We just don't know. So the proposal would be for 50 canals were the second option to simply do all the canals. and find out where and when the organic muck is located. And I think it's important because we're gonna get more proposals for dredging. I think we've had three or four come in, and I think most of them got thrown out of hand. But there'll be more. There's money to be made if they can convince us to go ahead and dredge or do whatever. So finding out where and when the canals have muck certainly would be beneficial in having that negotiation and discussions. And all of this is just the areas that are most important when we ask city council, which is what I'm getting at, for if they want to pursue. And this committee would be first. If I want to put together something like this as a white paper to go to city council to ask if they want to pursue an RFP for going after an acceptable company, which they know of, a number of them, to actually pursue a 50 canal and 100 percent canal effort to go ahead and find out where and when this sediment is at. So that would be at this point. I could create a white paper and present it or send it to them and see if they want to go through it. But first, that would be approved by this committee. So I'll leave it at that.

Do you have any questions?

You know how many canals there are, Ralph, roughly?

I thought it was, I mean, they always say 100 miles. I thought it was 215 or 208. I don't know how many canals there were.

70 miles is what we've pulled off of GIS. The number of canals, I can't tell you exactly. But it's in the hundreds.

So I have a few questions, Ralph. Yeah. On the 5.4%, how did they calculate that? Did they calculate that as total water body, or are they looking at the total area of canal system that's underwater, and then calculate the 5.4%? I get concerned about percentages, because when I hear 5.4, I think, oh, that's not very concerning. It doesn't feel like it should be very concerning, but then when I hear 20 plus, I think, oh, that's problematic.

Yeah, and that's kind of the point that starter all is. The executive summary in the beginning of the report, the Harper report, said there's this muck as feet everywhere. And then when you look in the data, and again, there's only 26 core samples, which doesn't give me much, you know, I can't conclude much from that. But it's from those core samples that indicate 5.4 percent overall, of which three of them were above 17 percent. I think 17 to 20 percent, only three areas, which is what's driving this. We don't know.

Yeah, I mean, to me, I feel that we've got inadequate data there to really get into it.

Yeah, I agree, and that's what this is all about, getting enough data where we can make a call to get more data or to say, no, this is another thing that Harper was maybe incorrect about, and then make a call from there. But at this point, I agree with you 100%. We don't have the data. And visually speaking, it looks like we've got more stuff going on than what 5% is. But maybe that leads us to say, well, maybe a bigger part of our problem has been the reuse water and the fertilizer than what we're giving it credit for. We just don't know.

So my other question is, how do we, you know, you talk about organic material and muck, and you're sort of, I think you're delineating between the two. How do we, if we move forward with something, how do we pull out just the organic from the other stuff? Because to me, the muck is the muck. And what we're trying to do is get rid of it so that we've got more of a sandy bottom because it will oxygenate the canal system better.

Yeah, I agree. We're trying to get the muck rather than get out the good sediment because you hurt the flow if you're just getting out clean sand, which is one of the problems when the last judging proposal had mechanical judging versus hydraulic judging. The acoustics will get you pretty much the difference between the hard layer, hard sand layer, the soft mud, and the actual muck. But it's in conjunction with the coring, which would happen every 100 feet or so. You calibrate the sonar as well as seeing in the core sample, which gets sent to the lab, of what is the organic content of the material. I mean, a lot of the seismic part is because you get millions of readings over the whole canal, but then you get closer to exactly what is the organic content with the sampling, which goes in the lab, which is where those 26 samples came from.

So I think to me this is all good information. I think some of this to me though hinges back to the depth challenge that we have of getting accurate data of what the depth was which we know from 20 plus years ago and where it is now because To me, whether it's kind of muck or sediment or whatever, this information is going to at least maybe hotspot areas where we have got significant muck and areas where perhaps it's not as bad. I mean, I would love to see almost like a heat map type thing of the island of this hasn't really changed that much. This area is really concerning because it's filling in. And I think that's, we sort of continually talk about this, how do we get the data and how do we overlay it to the old data? And I'm not sure that we even have that resolved.

Yeah, well, that's what this proposal would give you, an ISO map or heat map of where and when the proposal is and how much. As far as the old data, that'd be apples and oranges anyway, because that was only bathymetrics from 20 years ago. It gives nothing that I know of, anything about the muck layer.

Well, it was a muck layer 20 years ago because most of the people I've spoken to said, you know, and I'm talking more than 20 years, I'm talking about owners that have been on this island for 35, 40 years, and they consistently tell me that their canal used to have a sandy bottom and seagrass and they could see all the way down. So on that assumption, not scientific, but there really wasn't any muck there when they first dug these canals out.

And that's where it leads into needing more data, which is what you led off with. You know, people, I mean, certainly there was seagrass and better water from all kinds of sources. So it's hard to tell one from the other. And of course that's important. There was no seagrass there before, or there was there before and it's not there now. But People saying it's hard bottom versus muck, and not knowing what muck really is, soft bottoms. There's an education part there, as I led off with, of what is the muck? Is there muck? That's what this would give you. But of course, you can't ignore what people's visuals are. In my view, which is what they did in the Keys, they also talked a lot about visuals. as part of their assessments of their canals. Can you see the bottom? How clear the water is? Besides the scientific cores, is there seagrass? Is there dolphin? Is there fish? That all counts. And this part is the scientific part of is there muck there? Is there organic sediment there or not?

Well, I mean, again, I don't have any scientific data other than I can tell you from my canal, which is actually got pretty good tidal flushing. There is at least three foot of muck, sediment, organic, whatever you want to call it, in the bottom because I've been in it and I've trod through it. And it certainly wasn't like that. 35 years ago is what I'm being told. So, I mean, to me, it's clearly there, but how do we quantify it with proper data? And do we push on getting the data that we're getting from sea keepers over that original data? And then on top of that, do, you know, a select 30, 40 canals with an even more scientific method so that we can really tell what that is. I don't know, I think we just got so many steps here that I'm just concerned that we need to sort of bite this thing slowly to be successful.

Yeah, well, this is part of getting data. I'm not sure, I mean, what trends you get from the past Seakeepers versus the Seakeepers data now. I mean, what happened 20 years or something, quarter century ago, different type of equipment. Probably a survey boat, one survey boat versus now you're getting it from all kind of boats with different equipment. We don't know if it's transducer to bottom or corrective for draft or water level to bottom versus what they did in the past. There's a lot of orange and apples, and it only deals with water depth. And like you said, you may have three feet of something else there, but certainly it tells you something. But what that is, we're not sure. But what this will give you is you know if it's organic sediment or not. If it's not organic sediment, well, there are places, you know where they are, where you've lost draft. That's a big problem with a lot of naples. They simply, with sediment, simply lost drafts, so they have to mechanically dredge to get the water just so they can use their waterways. And because they have commercial interests that feed into it, they have problems of mercury and copper and other things in it. Our advantage is we have no commercial industry, so the odds of it being nasty mud is a little bit different. But like you said, if you don't get the data, you're making decisions on scanty information. And I'm not sure that's what we like to be.

Yeah I mean I do agree the point that one of the things that has not been very well clarified is when we're collecting these readings from all kinds of different boats are they taking the depth as like the true depth or are they taking the depth from under the keel or you know so there could be I mean quite easily I would think even on powered vehicles there could easily be 12 to 18 inches difference depending on how that's set up. But I don't know whether they're correct for that. So to me, that's a very valid point, Ralph.

Yeah, I've asked the question a couple of times because there's other things that are just like that. They say they're processing it to a reference station. And I'm saying, okay, well, how do you do that? Because we know timing and heights of tides at the canals are vastly different from the reference station. The average – reference stations are an average. So from 25 years ago to now, even with climate change or whatever, there's inches there. I can't get any answer of some of these other avenues where they're distilling it down. So when we see that number in the canal, what does that mean against something 25 years ago? So – but it's just another question mark.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, to me, it's like the Seakeeper thing. I guess I was very encouraged by it, and I'm becoming less encouraged because it feels like we got the data, but, you know, having a data point with nothing to compare it to, and I agree your point about different methods and how accurate was it back in the day when it was done. But there's nothing we can do about the history. I mean, the old data we got is the best we've got. So to me, we need to figure out some way to reference to it so that we can get a picture of what is over, you know, a fairly big time window, what is happening here. Just my personal opinion.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. The Seahawks symposium and what they're doing kind of feeds into this a little bit. I mean, it's a scientific effort. What the intent is down the road, we don't know for sure. But one thing I noticed talking to them was the dissolved oxygen readings. And it's kind of interesting that the average seems to be about four or four or five or whatever, but it goes down to three. And if you follow the matrix, four is already kind of affecting reproduction, fish headed to the surface for air and all that kind of stuff. And three is getting close to almost an impossible environment for things to live. So that tells you a little something if they're getting a lot of threes. that there's something amiss that we don't understand and maybe finding out where the sediment is or isn't maybe part of that in conjunction with what Seahawks reports are on a dot by dot basis once they get it all together.

I mean to me on a very simplistic view I've seen stuff where they've done like samples in a you know in a kind of jar where they got sand and they just put an air source on the bottom of it and they you know, when it's just sand, you see all the oxygen coming up through the sand, and then as they pour in more and more muck, you just see less and less oxygen coming up.

Yeah.

I don't know that that's highly scientific, but I've certainly seen that positioned. So to me, it feels like, and I don't have any scientific knowledge other than sort of researching and YouTubing and stuff like that, but it seems like this muck is clearly a part of it. And all the, you know, the muck that floats to the surface in the summer. I mean, I don't think anyone could argue the point that we have that now in fairly prolific quantities, and we never had it 15 years ago.

Yeah, you're right. I think at this point, this is one piece that we don't know, as you mentioned. So I guess at this point, be asking the committee if they want me to actually create a formal paper requesting city council to go out on RFP. I know we're not supposed to talk about costs and whatever. I'm sure that'll be a big item for them. I mean, I don't think either, from my experience, a cost or AI costs amount to much. That's what an RFP is for. So I guess whether you want to continue this or kill it now, it's up to the committee.

For me personally, Ralph, I think we have to continue to push forward because the whole canal thing you know AWT is a you know a step but there are so many other steps that have got to be taken and so many other costs that have got to be considered if we're really you know serious as a city and a population of doing it you know a lot of people a lot of people are you know, talking about it, and a lot of people are like, well, the water's not as clean as it used to be, but we don't really have any data to give them, and we certainly don't have any financial information to give them, other than the Harper report that, you know, was a very, very big number.

Well, I'll just offer two pieces of anecdotal evidence. I did use the... clear tubing test with a diver that we hired to clean the bottom of our boat in smokehouse bay at the esplanade and on the depth meter on our boat shows depth about nine nine and a half feet but the diver when he went down to test it with the tube said the muck was actually closer to three feet, and when we pulled the tube up, that was true. So at Smokehouse Bay, I already know there's at least three feet of muck where my boat slip is. And on the other hand, we had a diver go off my dock in the canal, and he said the muck is from six inches to a foot deep. So I think there's various.

When I'm talking about 50 canal, I mean, I can kind of tweak that a little bit and get down to it. Just give you an idea. It's not cheap. Talking about on just Hollyhock, is it? And Danny something, that's $200,000. But at Pilot, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere around that. So I think $150,000 is probably cheap, but I can tweak it. But so you have an idea, it's not cheap.

So what you're asking to do is, or what you want to do is create a white paper. Do you want to create a white paper? Let's go back to that.

Well, to give enough information, it won't look much different than what you got here. Just long-winded. The Senate City Council, they can make a decision on whether they want to move forward an RFP. That's not insignificant in itself, adding another task. But I think it's important to realize they're going to get more proposals. you know, to dredge going forward. But, of course, money is a big deal.

So on the dredging part, so say you get a proposal out and it comes back and they come out and they scan 50 canals. When you're doing the electronic scanning, are you scanning what's the width of that? Because you're getting all the way underneath the docks.

Well, a lot of it depends. You know, when you put this together, questions like that might come up. Technically speaking, because of our age of our seawalls and some of our docks, our pilings aren't pretty deep, The presentation we have from Seahawks spoke to that. They're only going to dredge the middle of it. Now, it depends, because we've spoken about that before, the technique, the backfilling technique, that the keys user adds material versus digging it out, that sort of thing. What I would say is we'd be discussing as doing the middle of the canal for the 50, let's say. And they may get in between a little bit. But you're talking about very minimal amount extra. You know, they'll do it on a per canal basis. And you'll get millions of readings. And they'll do an actual core sample, the fiber. Viberchem, whatever it's called, every 100 feet to calibrate their machines and also give you a real visual and they'll send that to the lab and get that done.

So then we get the data back and then we'd want to dredge it. So we would know how much to dredge it, two feet, whatever. But again, we're still only looking at the center. So an average canal, that center is less than half of that total distance of the canal in a lot of places. So you're only getting out maybe 50% of the muck that's in there, and it should fall in, or sand will come through and push through, because that's where the others should go. So is that the next step that you're saying?

And that's the downside, you know, before even before finding this out, is that it's so fluffy, it does flow in, and we're talking about not the volume so much. as the square footage of impinging on the water column. And that's the downside. That's why I kind of advocate looking at actual encapsulation part of it. And that's a judgment that gets made. But having a knowledge of where it is and how much it is impacts it. I mean, you can imagine if you had... the 17% organic matter just in the middle of several canals, and the rest of it is all 5% or less. And you just do maybe those canals. And eventually, if you're not adding, a lot of it is adding to it or, I don't know, It's what the reuse water does and what the fertilizer does. It keeps recharging it. And Mother Nature trying to cure itself, it acts in the opposite way. Eventually, if you do Tier 1 and these Tier 2, and you're not recharging the canal, eventually it'll decay on the sides and whatever, and it'll reduce that recharging from the sediment itself. So there's that component, too. If you don't continue recharging, it'll eventually start to decay, and you live with it for a while, and it finally goes away after a while. It takes time. It's not an overnight thing, but you've got to have the data first.

Okay, so one of the things, so we keep talking about the water quality part of this, and my concern is that I don't know what we can do to stop it. Say we dredge the whole thing all the way to the edges. Don't disturb the seawalls because they should be fine because they went down to the hard bottom. But say you dredge the whole thing. That doesn't stop a palm frond. That doesn't stop the coconuts, the trees. So we're just going to be back to the same problem in 30 years from now.

Well, you're never going to stop all of that. That's what the Marine group is saying. They're the ones that are going to stop people from doing that. And of course, some is going to happen. Hurricanes are going to drop palm fronds. But that's only a small component. We don't know how much of a component. But if you keep going the way you are now, that component just adds to the rest of them. That's why we talk about a multi-pronged fence on this kind of thing, because it's multiple sources. And that's one of them. We talked – Ellie and I just talked a little bit about the – and we'll probably talk about it later – with the stones versus the other materials that you can put down that are organic. Mulch is one of them. You know, when you have a surge or a hurricane, you can have tons of mulch put in the canal. That's one component. We're there now. We want to improve on that if we can. And so that'll be up for discussion. So maybe what you're saying could be part of that discussion as well.

You don't even need a hurricane to get mulch in the water.

And if I could just add from last meeting, Rick brought up a very good issue when you presented the downward quality of our water that you presented. What we're doing now is not working. We are going in the wrong direction. And I'll be talking about that in a little while. But, you know, I think time is of the essence, and I think delaying is not a good idea. I think we should move ahead with what you want to do, and I'd like to get the white paper for us to look at and present to council. I think it's time. We need to go in that direction.

All right, so let's help them on working on the white paper because I think we're all in the same direction on this. So on there, I would say you're going to need to, on your list here for, you had it in here, like your cost, proposal, fee schedule, stuff like that. I think let's go through what we want to see. So is there anything you want to see on the white paper?

Data. The data. We can get the data. OK, so dredging.

The only thing I would add to it, I mean, I talked about the last time, once you have the boats out, you can do other things that would assess visual, dissolved oxygen, all those kind of things. I'll put it on there in some way, but unless you have something specific, yes, we want to have these add-ons. Of course, it costs more money. So I guess I'll work on it a little bit.

All right, so I'm seeing that we're doing, you're doing a core sample plus you're doing an electronic sample.

Well, it'd be one or the other. We'll ask for both. The electrical one is more accurate, as I mentioned, for getting the muck layer, but it costs more money. But in the RFP, you put both, and you'll get responses at both, and it'll make their arguments, as we talked about.

Okay, and then I want to address another part of this then. So say we get all that, and say the Esplanade Smokehouse Bay has three foot of muck out there. That would be a huge cost to dredge that.

Well, yeah. I mean, that's what these proposals you get are, to dredge it. And you can have that conversation when you say, yeah, we got that, where we have the muck, how much the muck, how much will it cost you to get rid of it. I mean, that's a whole different conversation. The first step is knowing how much you have where it is. And sometimes you get surprised. Like I mentioned in that slide in the Indian River, they were surprised. And they say 70% of the cost that they had assumed. So maybe we get surprised. As I mentioned, if it ends up being 5.4% average, oh my god, that changes all our thinking.

What I would like to see, along with all this information that you will be presenting in the white paper, a call to action or a solution proposal as how we would take this information and use it along with giving it to the council, but where you'd like to see this go and how you'd like to see it implemented. I'd like for that to be part of it.

Well, I think that that's what this is for. I know that. The next stop is we'd go to council and ask. I'd like that to be clear.

Yeah, I hear you. It gets to be a little opinionated there, and I don't think they want us to, but I'll try. I'll work on it.

We have a motion and a second. Yep.

Any more discussion? Now we need to go to public comment. Any public comment? No? Okay. All right. Roll call.

Member Woodward?

Yes.

Chair Lewandowski?

Yes.

Member Rohana yes Member Winter yes Member Lancaster yes and Vice Chair Mascoot yes okay motion carries okay thank you Ralph moving on new business landscape ordinance review I just want to offer one more piece of maybe anecdotal research to Ralph's thing

is I see these ads on the internet for the guys that are doing the suction dredging under boat docks. I wonder if it would be useful to go to one of those dredge sites and examine the muck that they're sucking out and taking away, because that would give you maybe a little more evidence to what's down there, actually. Just a thought.

No, it's a good thought. I actually talked to one of them when I was organizing. I forget the name. And they really didn't get anything. They're like... I don't know, not to be derogatory about it, but there are kids that are sent there to suck muck away from the docks, no matter what it is. I mean, it could be a body down there, for all we know. I didn't get anything worthwhile at it. But it is a thought. I mean, they're down there, but I got nothing. You have to climb in their trailer and check it out.

Yeah. They just pump it in there and pump the water back out.

That was great. You know, something's down there. Something's down there. You would think so.

right landscape ordinance review I did have the opportunity to present my ordinance position paper and the reform to the beautification committee and I think overall it got a good reception and I believe the committee voted four to one in favor of supporting Moving ahead with a couple of I thought very good comments The two major Comments, I think and we do happen to have a member from the committee here who could Maybe help focus my thoughts in a minute One was that putting too much rock in was a bad idea for a whole variety of reasons in particular I think that even if you put rock in you still got to keep kill the weeds and there was a heat element to rocks attracting heat and I think the suggestion was that ground cover might be a more effective alternative than all rock although certainly there's a place for decorative rock in the program and that mulch was probably you know a better alternative although everybody did raise the notion that heavy rains or storms the mulch can wash away and end up in the canal which is not a plus the second major comment I think was on using artificial turf and I would say generally people were opposed to letting artificial turf be a open choice by a homeowner that it should still go through some kind of review by the city I did some research which I think was circulated to everybody there is a Florida statute that you know prohibits prohibiting artificial turf so we have to be sensitive to that we can't prohibit it but we can still regulate it so based on those comments sort of redrafted I think a couple of the sections if Victoria would like to speak at this point about what the committee talked about I think that we could open it to discussion whether everybody supports amending what I did based on their comments and whether we should finalize a ordinance reform proposal for City Council

Do anybody have any questions yet?

Not yet.

Victoria? Justin, we can have her come up, right? Okay, I'll make sure.

Good morning gentlemen Victoria Myers Bluebonnet Court but I'm here as a member of the beautification Advisory Committee Rick did attend and gave a nice explanation we have very knowledgeable people on that and I did think they put some good thought into the response and Rick captured it well I don't know if you've read what he attached to the agenda but I think it he captured it all very well we are talking out of both sides of our mouth sometime when it comes to landscaping we require a large amount of grass yet we say we want florida friendly and less fertilizer so this is going to help that align better the committee was really excited and honestly they would love to ban artificial turf but we know that's not a possibility because of the laws in the state of Florida so we did want to keep it that it was only by permit that it was an open choice the other thing is rocks they had a strong opinion on the rocks it does create heat and even if you put down a barrier for your weeds under it that will accumulate soil in the material and things will start to grow and then you're going to be using the herbicides which we don't want so we do want natural materials rocks were preferred along a drip line where you have an area on the edge of a house like if you don't have gutters yes and they are also as a decorative edge when you're using a natural material to help stop heavy rains from making the mulch flow

so I fully support what you're doing here I hope it will pass this committee unanimously and move forward to City Council I'll be happy to answer any questions Thank you it was great the committee was great we had a very healthy discussion they brought up some great points there's some serious gardeners on that committee so it was great to have that input so thank you no I my I guess if I need a motion or anything to move this along I I would move that I make the changes that I proposed in the information that was covered in the proposal to amend the ordinance and that that we take that proposed ordinance and submit it to City Council with a recommendation from both the beautification committee and the waterways Advisory Committee to have council act on it whether they send it to the Planning Board or send it to staff it's up to council obviously

Rick, could you just quickly summarize the modifications, because there seems to be lots of pieces to it around artificial and rock and all that stuff, and are we looking to put this in place for just new build, or are we looking to do this island-wide?

Well, I think the core of the ordinance guess in some respects relates to new builds or substantial rehabilitation where the ordinance requires turf grass so the base part of my proposal was that the requirement for turf grass be eliminated and that owners have the flexibility to put in basically Florida friendly landscaping of their choice and that's it and they would still have to come to the city for approval for artificial turf and the emphasis on approved material for ground cover would be ornamental mulch if you will and and not all rock and that's it I think you know part of the committee was in favor of the ordinance because it gives people choice it's less regulation by the city and overall I did emphasize to the committee which I don't know that I did in my last presentation that you know 60 to 70 percent of the portable water sold and used on the island goes to to basically feed the grass and landscape irrigation at 60% uses 2.1 billion gallons a year at 70% it's two and a half billion gallons a year and if everybody listened to Jeff Poteet's presentation at the last council meeting I think we're gonna have a water problem maybe we already do have a water problem and it's only going to get worse it's not going to get better all by itself with all the new development that we're seeing in Collier County so I think anything that we do on this island that has two benefits reducing fertilizer and reducing water demand is something that we as an island ought to be out in front of conservation is critical And to me, wasting water is absurd and putting fertilizer that we can control on the ground that percolates into our canals is a mistake. And therefore, I'm a strong supporter of conservation. action on both parts of that.

So basically we're looking to ease the condition for people to actually put sod down because of the water requirement and give you more choice on Florida-friendly landscaping but no rock.

No, it's not no rock. Decorative rock is still permitted.

Okay, so no large areas of rock and No artificial turf without permission of the city.

So I guess I'm confused because in the, actually it's up on the screen right now actually, where I was confused is it looks to me like what if you already have it? So say you have rock or say you have artificial turf. Because you're saying in this one right here, all previous yard areas shall be installed with approved ground cover that provides complete coverage. So if they have rock, are you saying they have to remove the rock? No, it says pervious, not previous. Oh, I'm sorry.

You're right.

Sorry.

Yeah, I mean, my assumption would be that anyone that's got that now would be grandfathered. And this is why I ask the question, is this being targeted towards new build? because I think we got many challenges there. Or is it targeted towards anyone that's doing, adjusting to landscaping? And if so, when we do that, it comes back to the general market challenges, how do we enforce?

Well, it obviously is targeted at the new build regulation that part of the existing ordinance, but it would also give people more flexibility.

Yeah.

under existing conditions to change their yard. So I think it's a two-fold thing. I mean, I'm not asking for more enforcement, and this isn't forcing people to rip up their yards and put in Florida-friendly landscaping, but I think this is publicized a bit and people understand how detrimental to the environment fertilizer and grass clippings in the canals and the two and a half billion gallons worth of water were basically wasting people might be encouraged that when it's time to

upgrade their lawns they look at other alternatives rather than just replacing turf grass mm-hmm so also further down you actually said that the swales have to have some type of a ground cover and isn't the Justin correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the new exfiltration quails have the rock in them

That's within the right-of-way, so adjacent to the street, and you're talking only about a two-foot-wide area. That's at the bottom of the swale. So, yeah, but I don't think that negates anything that's in Member Woodward's suggestions here.

It's a separate ordinance. Tell me if I'm right that for new homes, they have to adopt the new swale construction specs right yes not just new homes but any home that does fifty percent or more of improvements in the public right away has to do that bring it up to code so this ordinance would follow that obviously I'm not trying to change what is already there in terms of the swales

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you want to make an ordinance change, I think you have to take the original ordinance and redline the ones in there and then rewrite what you want the words in there, correct? Yeah, which I...

I think he did that.

I know he did that, but I would redo it with the new amendments if you are all supportive of the two changes that the beautification committee helped me suggest.

I have no problem with it. The only problem I have is that the concern about the rock, for people that already have rock, because we have a lot of zero scape yards on this island right now, and I don't want to make sure. It doesn't affect that. Well, that's why I want to make sure that the wording states that you're grandfathered in until you make changes.

I don't know if grandfathered in is a concept in the code. Is it?

I don't think that's written in there, but specifically there may be other sections of the code where it addresses existing non-conformities that were there prior to the ordinance regulations being adopted.

I'm not trying to force people to do anything. I'm trying to give them options and move towards... Less irrigation, less fertilizer, less grass.

There is an overriding ordinance about grandfathering that covers a lot of, as you mentioned. But it's not.

I just don't remember where.

It's not in the specific ordinance. Well, it never is.

I have a couple of comments.

Sorry, Ralph. No, no, I'm listening.

It was fine work. I thought it was pretty neat. Just two comments. It's kind of interesting, the difference in priorities between beautification and waterways. I mean, it seems like, and I agree with the rock, everything about the rock other than the comment that there's more pesticides. I've seen my neighbors and how much pesticides they put on their lawns and everything else. I'm not sure there's more pesticides going on rock. or herbicides going on rock, but maybe that's the case. But to me, the waterways is an emergency type thing. And to the effect that we're saying no rock and more mulch when it's mulch by the hundreds of tons can get swept into the canals. I kind of question whether people should not be allowed to make their whole backyards, for example, or rock if they want to. It just gives me a pause of concern in that area. The second comment I had, I know we talked about here, maybe it's out of scope, talked about rats. And one of the mechanisms against rats is to put rock around your perimeter as well as termites. It sounds like maybe it's not allowing that, I could be wrong, but those are two

comments i would have on it otherwise i thought it was really good work thank you i don't think i don't think as it is it prohibits that and i agree with you about the rock i mean i see the guys when they're out there with the pesticides and i don't see them using any more pesticide on rock than the grass so they're killing the weeds in the rock

As a horticulturalist, I support, I love this. I really do. I think the option and the flexibility is absolutely fantastic. There are some things. The one thing I would like to point out, a couple of things which I will be pointing out in a little while, so it's going to probably be a bit, you know, I'll be talking about this twice. But when you do go to, last I checked, Florida, the Marco Island code doesn't allow for these plants to turn into jungles. Meaning you can go with Florida friendly, which is a great idea. I love it. But you've got a lot of work with that. You've got a lot more work involving that than you do with lawns. And I'll tell you why. Because you're going to be trimming and trimming and trimming. Yes, you want to get dwarf varieties. You want to get... shrubbery items that grow very slowly but this is Florida and things are going to grow and one thing people do need to be aware of is that when you do get into a more of a shrubbery tree type of a landscape, you're going to be doing a lot more work. So people who do their own yard work or who employ the landscape companies are going to be paying more money to do more work to keep it looking like it looks when you plant it. I think one of the important things is that we've seen beautiful pictures of newly planted Florida friendly landscapes. I love them. I mean, I wish they'd stay that way. But you've got to do a lot of work to keep them looking like that or Eventually, a Florida landscape turns into some of our undeveloped lots up on Indian Hill. And that's not what they're really looking for. So you've got to really put some effort into it. You also have to put some fertilizer into these plants. They don't grow just on their own without any help at all. And so they do require some care, not like lawns do. And I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. But overall, just as long as people are aware of what we're, I think the option, I think the flexibility, I think getting away from what we have now, which is obviously not working, is an excellent direction. I support this wholeheartedly. On the other item, I am personally not a fan of mulch at all. I don't use it. I don't like the termite possibility of bringing it onto my property. On any kind of slope, you're going to get it blowing on those dry winter winds that we get blowing into the canals. You're going to get them washing it washing into the canals during the rainy season. Mulch versus rock, I'm not so sure that, and I don't like rocks either. Mulch and rocks, you're going to get weeds coming through. You're either going to be going out there pulling the weeds, you're going to be using a herbicide. So there is that component to it. And you're still using the herbicides on lawns. And I'm going to be getting into that in a few minutes. But overall, I think if we can go in this direction, we're definitely doing something great for Marco Island and helping the situation. And I'd really like to get a lot of public education out there into the community to get people to know that this is an option. Very important. I just want to have my say on that. Thank you.

You're saying that this should go a little further towards allowing ROC. No, no, no. Backyards should be able to have rock rather than saying that you have to have mulch versus...

Neither one is great. Neither is... I don't like either one that much.

I really don't.

Ground covers. Florida-friendly ground covers could be a far better option than either mulch or rock.

There were examples.

Yes, I saw this. Some of the other...

Ground cover and... I mean, I happen to agree with you. I'm not as excited about mulch. And I prefer rock around the perimeter of my house. I prefer rock in the French drain by my canal. I prefer rock around some of the trees.

So I'm not rock crazy or mulch crazy.

But I'm just trying to give people some choice. reduce fertilizer, reduce water use that we don't need. It's the right direction to go. And move the island in the right direction. And I'd be happy if you substantially agree with what I presented as changes. I will mark up my ordinance reform proposal with red line changes for the next committee meeting. And if we can approve it, then we can move it on to the council.

I like the idea. Let me just make a comment on the mulch and the rock. So in my condo, we've done mulch for many, many years. We get pallets before everybody comes down. We put it out, and next year we do the same thing again because we lose it all. So a bunch of people decided that they wanted to do rock. So they put the rock in. Guess what happened? We lost the rock. The rock washed right in the river also. Really? Yes. So when you get the good rains or a good wave, like a hurricane, We lose the rock also.

So it didn't solve the problem. That surprises me because I've got rock in my French drain, and I've never replenished it in 10 years.

Was it rock or gravel?

It's rock.

Rock.

I've never had rock move.

I thought it was crazy, but I was there, and I watched all the rock move, and I was like, this is funny. We're cleaning rock up. But, like, you need heavier rock. Well, and then the property next door, along the seawall, they have gravel, right, in every wave. that comes by or the boats are doing the right way, because it will cause the wave to come over the seawall and wash over the rock. Or push the rock up in the yard, either way.

Really?

Oh, yeah. Come on by, we'll show you. Make a rock. Yeah. But, yeah, I think if you could tweak that up a little bit. My concern is just making sure that we don't force the people that already have done something, like the artificial turf or the...

zero scapes nobody has to rip up anything that's yeah we gotta make sure to love it's that part well thank you oh sure public comment victoria myers victoria myers bluebonnet court again um if you'll read what he did on page two the green lined area It speaks to what Ralph was talking about and others decorative rock and stone may be used only as a supporting role including as edging as in non-planted access areas along building foundations All right, it's there. It's allowed in rain guards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, roof runoff areas. So we've got you covered there. The beautification committee has also had lengthy discussions about the yards that are totally rock and some in the swales, which is absolutely not allowed. committee is against all that Dan has spoken to that before it was never allowed when we took on Collier County's it wasn't allowed it's never been allowed there's no grandfather you know something that was never allowed And it was believed that someday in the future, there's going to be tougher things written. If your house changes hands, it must be corrected. Or after so many years, period, it must be corrected. Now, we haven't seen that yet, but we may. So that is coming in the future. And the reason for that is when you have a plant material, it has roots. It sucks up some of that big rainwater. It sucks up a lot of those pollutants. And that's what we needed to do. Rocks do none of that. Thank you.

Thank you.

So we need a motion or is there consensus?

We need a motion. I'll make a motion to approve it. Is that what you need? I'll bring it forward at the next meeting.

I will absolutely. All in favor?

Aye. Perfect. I'll bring it forward next meeting. Perfect. All right, moving on, we have staff communications.

So to tie into what you just discussed here, it just so happens that yesterday I was called to a seawall permit project. That's a seawall that's being constructed and because it has a city storm outfall pipe in it and the home adjacent to it has what's in the picture here. I took a picture while I was there yesterday. The homeowner was kind enough to allow me to take a picture of it, but what you're looking at here is actually artificial turf with decorative stone adjacent to the seawall here. And what this does is It eliminates the possibility of having grass clippings fly into the canal from maintaining that. So I thought it was something that was very well done. It looks beautiful and just wanted to share that with you since you had this discussion just now about the proposed ordinance change. Just food for thought. I don't have anything else to discuss as part of staff communications. That was it.

Thank you. And, Rick, just to show you, see the rocks that are in the picture there? Those are huge rocks. Yeah, I like those rocks. Those won't move. So, like, we may have to give examples when we present this to the council. This is a great picture of that. We may have to get, like, because that'll work. But it's when you get to the smaller stuff, they lift up and they float away.

Yeah. But I think that looks great.

I mean, that's, I think if all the neighbors did it, you could play a round of golf down in the backyard.

All up and down the canals. Right.

And, you know, the most important thing there is you don't have grass growing up next to the canal where if you run a weed trimmer or lawn mowers where those clippings are going into the canal. That's the important thing that I saw here.

But now isn't the city requirement that you can only go to six feet to the property line with artificial turf?

Yeah, well, you can't put it inside of a utility easement or in the public right-of-way, and there's reasons for that. Obviously, if you have a storm sewer pipe going in the utility easement, that's the six feet from the side property line. That's not the rear property line. That's what this is. Right. So you could do it along the seawall. You just can't do it. within six feet of the side lot line because if you have a storm sewer pipe, the city needs to get in there and replace it, then you're going to be digging up through the artificial turf. But those are just very narrow places where you can't do it. Also, can't do it in the right-of-way because you have the swales and you have all your telecommunications and water mains and everything in there. but you can do it on your lawns, you can do it in the back, you can do it on your side yards, just not in that six-foot strip.

What about where the turf is? Couldn't you just put rock there, too, rather than the artificial turf?

Well, you could, but you still got to kill the weeds in there.

Right. So no weeds will come up through the artificial turf. There's a

rubber barrier there so is it pervious or it is pervious but you have I'm not sure if it's a what type of a geotextile goes down but there is a weed barrier and the artificial turf itself is a weed barrier it's just like putting a carpet down on top of the soil you can't weeds can't grow up through it I'll just give you one more anecdotal story and then I do have two questions Justin

My mother had artificial turf in her backyard in California, in Santa Barbara, when they were going through the critical water shortages out there. And her backyard looked like this. And there were no weeds. She had a dog and take a hose and wash it down every now and then. And it looked great for nearly 20 years. So I know there's issues that there may be PFAS chemicals in there, but I'll tell you, it looked pretty good for a long time, didn't fade, didn't break up. California's not South Florida either.

So if this can only be done in the back, it can't be done in the front?

up to the public right away up to your street up my sidewalk up to the sidewalk so you could do the front of your house all the way up to the sidewalk there's a few houses like that already have it some of it looks pretty good well it's green all year long right but two questions from Justin one are you still getting reports from the water testing people yes and we've requested the August report haven't received that yet and I think we just received the July report could you send it since it's not posted anymore yes Mike if you want to get it to me anybody else who wants it any update on the bubblers project

that's still ongoing through through the end of this month where the the lab is still it's a different lab but they're they're still doing their their sampling and testing and that goes through the end of September and then about 60 days from them we we should have a report from the engineer on the results of that there's no reporting that's happened or No, it's a final report. What's in the scope is the June through September, which are the warm months for the highest water temperatures, is when the testing is done. And so when that testing is done, that gets turned into the engineer. The engineer then evaluates it and does their final report.

Just a question. I mean, I was there last week. I didn't see any bubblers going. Does that happen after?

Yes. We're in the last phase now where it's post-aeration. So we had two months of aeration, then we turn it off, and then we're getting samples and tests done during this post-aeration. So we're in the stop period. Yes.

Thank you, sir. any other staff communication okay City Council communication any no any public comment nobody here everybody left all right the next meeting is October 15th is everybody available not hearing anything negative so we'll go forward all right number 12 Ralph Right now, for what the items that we've missed, that we've kind of passed over, canal access for paddle boards and kayaks. Member Winter, do you want to try to work on that? No, we kind of pushed that off, didn't we?

I think, unfortunately, there was no really support from the committee.

Yeah, I think we, yeah.

So, I mean, we didn't put it to a formal vote, but kind of requested, you know, who was on it, and everyone seemed very negative. Okay.

So then the other items I had left were the bathymetric survey for the waters, but we're kind of talking about that right now. Ralph will probably represent his white paper next week, so we'll put that on there next month. And then staging options for seawalls. Does somebody want to bring that up and work on that?

Well, I can include that in my sort of general construction topic. Okay. But the short summary of it is we've reached out to Collier County regarding the staging area on the Collier side of the bridge and pretty much been told, no way, you're not using it. Okay.

And then we also talked about testing. I think it was water testing from last month. Is that anything you want to bring up?

uh... wide haven't gotten any more portraits okay okay so we'll get the you'll get the august report now for uh... and i'd just want to add to that that we are preparing an rfp uh... testing services based on the inconsistent results we've gotten from from the lab that we're currently using and also another update is that uh... dp will this month i think on the twenty fifth will be on the same boat as the lab and they're going to take their own independent tests so there's going to be some calibration or proofing of what this current lab is doing.

That's great news. Do you want to be on the agenda for that next month or not?

If I can get the reports, you know.

We'll know by that point. Okay, so I'll add you for right now. Okay. Then, Ralph, we talked about the Marco Pass, so can you reach out to Member High and make sure he's ready to go at some point?

Well, this has nothing to do with Mr. High. This is about the presentation. So this has nothing to do with Mr. Hyde. Like I said before, we don't need a status report. We're discussing a presentation on Mr. Hyde made. And I mean, it's a case to be made since it was made pretty public at the last Cuyahoga County Marco meeting was made public. that his argument to me is, hey, well, it's in Collier County's hands, but the complication there is the same Marco Island representative to Collier County Coastal Advisory Committee is Dan High, and also a member of this committee is Dan High. So whatever that tells you... I don't think we can bypass the conversation. I mean, I don't know who's advising counsel on this matter of dredging, but, you know, maybe make some conversation.

Well, maybe we're talking about the wrong thing here. We've got two different issues. Yeah. His proposal was when Hideaway goes to dredge, Right now, they're dredging further north into Key Waden area. And he was asking to go to the square that's right below that. It's still outside of the pass.

But this has nothing to do with the details of the presentation. We were directed to talk about those things, the presentation, and report back to the council members. It has nothing to do with is it right or wrong or better or worse. BUT I'M HAPPY TO LISTEN TO THE COUNSELOR HERE AND SEE WHAT'S GOING ON.

I'M JUST CONFUSED BECAUSE I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO GET AT HERE BECAUSE...

I'M NOT SURE WHY YOU'RE CONFUSED BECAUSE IT'S SIMPLY WE WERE DIRECTED TO DISCUSS IN THIS COMMITTEE THE PRESENTATION AND REPORT BACK TO CITY COUNCIL. AND WE HAVEN'T DONE IT SINCE FEBRUARY 17TH. AND WHETHER THAT'S STRATEGY OR NOT, THAT'S NOT FOR ME TO SAY. BUT WE HAVEN'T DONE IT AS DIRECTED, PERIOD.

hi Deb Henry Marco City Council I just want you to know I'm also the representative for the CA on the CAC as a counselor and actually we had a meeting on Thursday of last week Dan was not there but we discussed so many things but because of our late council meeting I did not tell anybody because by then it was 115 and I'll save it for next meeting But, and I'm trying to understand what you're saying, because I know you and I have corresponded. I had had amazing talks and this might be somebody to even ask coming in from hideaway Linda Ryan I sat down with them and hideaways engineer and stuff and talked about the different permits in the different areas they're working on as I emailed you when we had our joint meeting and it was basically determined with the county commissioners and Marco City Council was basically determined nobody knows who owns the big Marco pass and Dredging is on their minds as well and I sent you this excerpt from our meeting that basically Collier County is looking into that and working with the City Council and whoever will be our elected official in District 22 and hopefully Yvette Benaroche as our state representative for money to pay for that because it's not federal, it's not Coast Guard, it's not nobody. So that's that portion. And so I'm trying to understand where you're, and I'm understanding your frustration, but I'm trying to figure out how to answer your frustration because are we talking about two different things? Are we talking about a report on does the Big Marco Pass need dredging? Is that what you're alluding to, a report does it or doesn't it?

Whatever the presentation said or didn't say has not been discussed here. And that's the whole point. It's not specific areas that were discussed and not discussed. That would be part of it. It would seem like I would be, since I've done that work before, that would be a part of what I would like to discuss in the presentation. But the fact that we can't even get it on the agenda, is appalling to me, especially during the presentation when you had a line of residents had questions and concerns, and the president and the presenter stipulated, which is perfectly fine, this is right, to say this is residential boating safety and nothing to do with the marina. That's fine. But it had a lot of residents with a lot of concerns and questions, and we can't even get on the agenda for discussion to even get into the area you're talking about.

So you want the opportunity to talk about it even though it is being talked about in the higher-ups?

Well, that was general because naturally I knew there was a lot of discussion going on because they've had meetings for several years with Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, FDEP, and blah, blah, blah. but finally came out publicly that you're having that conversation. I said, well, how can you have that conversation when it bypassed a committee, the waterways advisor? We're supposed to advise you on that sort of thing. And we haven't had an opportunity to discuss. But I did mention If it's out of our hands anyway and in your hands, maybe we don't bother with it.

I think it's kind of – the conversation is still including council, in my opinion, but I do believe it's – into Collier County is – and Rick LeCastro and the county commissioners. I think it's in their discussion and in their thought process as well. It never hurts to have a discussion, but I don't know how much time you need to have on it because – It's already up there being talked about. So I see what you're saying. You don't want to fail the request of the council.

Well, it's not really the council so much as the residents. We're supposed to be an advisory committee and a conduit for the residents, and they had a whole lineup of people with concerns and questions at the presentation. At the very least, we should be able to see what the residents' concerns are and discuss them and feed them into you. And that's why I mentioned of who the representatives to Collier County. And one of them is a member of this committee. So between the bunch that says, well, aren't we bypassing the residents and handing this to Collier County when they have concerns?

And that could be, I know, because the Coast Guard's involved now, because they've had to move different, and I always say the wrong etons, right? Yeah, you got it. They've had to move several because there are significant boating issues for personal watercraft maneuvering themselves because of the sand shifting through different storms. Okay. to have a conversation for the people, go for it. I know all the emails I've been receiving, anybody on Market Big Mark is a voter saying this needs to be done because it is not safe. So, but yeah, so no, I see, I was just trying to differentiate, so you want to still have the discussion even though you know, I'm trying to define, even though you know it's into the upper hands just for the sake of, and I agree, so that the residents' voices can be heard.

Well, you hit the nail on the head. The people at that upper level all want it to be done, and there's rationalizations why it should be done. There's a lot of people that say, well, it should not be done. Why are we spending millions of dollars to do this when we already have a cruise ship with an 8-foot draft already going in there?

Well, the problem is because you have sailboats that – and, Martin, you can help me with the numbers. You have sailboats that have a 12-foot draft. Right. And a 40-foot sailboat has a 12-foot draft. So that is where you get into trouble. It's a personal watercraft.

Our situation is... And we can have the discussion. I'm not here to have an argument or anything.

I just wanted to clarify, because I'm trying to make sense, because you and I have corresponded, and I want to make sure everybody is understood. So I get it. You want to have a conversation. I think that's where we're trying to go.

That's why we need to have the conversation, because it's not about...

one 12-foot draft sailboat it's not about that and we're a different situation what exactly is the concern of residents about dredging because to me dredging is a safety issue and and it feels to me like the residents concern about it is it all stems back to they don't like the cruise line which we can do nothing about

Yeah, and that's part of it too, but the residents should have a mechanism for making their feelings or their idea heard, whether we agree with it or not. and bypassing this committee from that discussion to hear things like, well, we have a concern with a 12-foot draft sailboat or not. And is it the same when they talk about, yeah, well, they dredge doctors' paths and we are in the same situation or not? That discussion's never had. It gets put up there and says, well, they assume. And that's why I put out, well, maybe it is up at Cuyahoga County and it's off our plate.

I'm just trying to get clarity and I understand your position and I understand the fact that it feels like this has been bypassed from the waterways committee but I'm trying to understand what the residents concern is around moving forward with a plan to dredge a waterway that is to a certain extent unnavigable at this point for certain vessels, so many sailboats included.

Well, that's the kind of discussion that we need to have because there's different points of view. For example... All right, hold on.

You have... Yeah, he's got some stuff to go on, so we'll go back to this. We're still on the agenda part, so we'll add that to the agenda. Let's see if we can get somebody to actually come up with that.

Mr. Garrett, just for clarity for... Because we have to prepare minutes of this, so what is it that we're adding to the agenda?

An update to the Big Marco Pass discussion.

I thought it wasn't an update.

Well, I would like to get an update from Dan.

A question on the presentation of February 17th that we didn't do. Does that make sense? I don't know what the confusion is. We either have the discussion or the presentation is directed by city council, or we don't.

That's fine.

You're aware that we did have a presentation on the March 19th meeting, which was from Member High, which included the Inlet Management Plan and then also the Big Marco Pass dredging. So this is a discussion in addition to that?

No, that would be the meeting. The one where we voted on and then you guys went to the City Council.

That was February 7th. Oh, no, the one the City Council was February and then we discussed it but didn't discuss it.

March 19th there was a presentation on the city council the city council here here but we didn't discuss it that's why I got kicked back at City Council I think there's three or four different issues going on here well yeah and we're the agenda for right now let's just do big mark will pass what was discussed at council And then we'll figure out.

That's the presentation directed by city council.

So you're going to put that on the agenda. If we have time, I have some comments on that.

Yeah, well, we're not going to have time, though. Okay, let's move on. You can get the details from the recording, sorry. Good luck.

Okay. You had a quick – it's not quick anymore, sorry. No, no, three, four, five minutes if I can. I was tasked with getting involved in the – oh, hold on.

No, we're good.

Moving on. Involving the fertilizer issue. You know, we live adjacent to the water. The fact that the community is right on the water and we've got – couple of competing issues here we want beautiful landscapes and we want crystal-clear water and we want two things that really are incompatible we're what was suggested earlier by Rick I think is a great direction for us to go into but I guess wanted to present a couple things as to why I'm not going to try to craft the fertilizer ordinance that's the bottom line currently we've got lawns they need fertilizer You should be mowing them at least four inches or more, and they need water. The problem we have is, at this time, we have a summer blackout period. In order for turf to work, it needs to be fed, and it needs to be fed when it wants the food. It wants the food when the roots are growing. The roots are growing from June through September into October. We can't feed it. It can't do its job to the degree that it was designed to do, particularly in the swales. It's just we're not allowed to do that. And there are good reasons that we can't. But there's also political reasons that it's believed that we absolutely can't put fertilizer at this particular time. So we don't. So the issue is either stay with what we have or really try to get to more Florida-friendly items in our yards, whether it be ground cover, shrubs, trees, and whatever. Of course, as I talked about just a moment ago, Florida yards do require a lot more work in order to keep them looking good. What I would really love to see are Florida yards that not just planted last month, but planted five years ago and 10 years ago, and see what they look like, particularly if you don't take care of them. It's like Florida is going to want to do what it wants to do. And if you go to even the Naples Botanical Garden and take a look at what the Florida garden looks like, it's not what people who come down here and buy the multimillion dollar homes and think that they know what a Florida yard looks like. Because that's not a Florida yard. What is presented as the ideal Florida yard is not what really works for our environment. So the problem I've come up against is To craft a fertilizer ordinance would involve being able to feed turf when it wants to grow its roots and survive the rest of the year without much fertilizing maintenance. We can't do that. So at this particular point, as far as I've come up with, and just really tossing this around for months, it's really a non-starter. I really like Rick's direction is to help us get toward options for more Florida-friendly yards. Because if we can't maintain turf the way it should be when it wants it, we shouldn't be really promoting it as strongly as we are. I think that's really the bottom line. Because when you've got unwatered, dead, deadish kind of lawns that are not doing their job taking up the pollutants, particularly in the swales, Then what Rick pointed out last meeting with the water quality chart that he brought in, yeah, because it's not taking up the pollutants. It's not taking up the runoff the way it's designed to, because we can't let it. So as far as I'm concerned, we're just really shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to using the fertilizer all the rest of the year and not putting it out there when the grass needs it. And so Ralph was also correct last time when he said we don't want an Elliott mass scoops says. I don't want that either because I've gone to so many professionals and looked up so much, you know, experts and really we can't do what the landscape wants. And so that's why I'm not presenting a fertilizer ordinance of my own, because it would be an Elliott Mask Obsess. And we can't do that. I don't want it to be that. So I'm going to drop it at this particular point. You've got the expectations of perfect yards and clean water. And the way it is right now, Rick's right. we're going in the wrong direction. And we're not allowed to go in the right direction. And even if we tried to go in the right direction, I don't know that it would work. So I'd like to really, really put a lot of emphasis on the ordinance that Rick has proposed and see where that might take us.

So that's what I had to say. I'd like to just comment on something that Ralph said that I think is maybe a little bit the heart of the issue is People come down to Marco Island and they see all this beautiful turf grass. That's not Florida. Correct. If you go to Siesta Key, to Sanibel, to Captiva, to Gasparilla Island, and look at what's on those barrier islands, it's a lot of overgrown Florida-friendly landscape. Oh, yes. Right. I think the city maybe has to determine what our look is going to be because the look that we have is what people have where they came from, from the Midwest, from the Northeast. Everybody had beautiful lawns. They liked the look. I mean, my wife loves a beautiful lawn. I keep telling her, hey, we're living in Florida. This isn't real Florida. go look at the other barrier islands, go to Key West even. And it's a different look. And I don't know that we're going to change the perception of what Marco wants to be to be that way?

Well, public education is going to have to be, and that's one of our four mandates on this committee, is public awareness and public education. I look at it every time before I come to this meeting, and I go over water quality is one, seawalls are another, public education is another. I mean, that's one of our main mandates, and also the navigation issues. We have not been stressing that enough. I think this is a great opportunity for this committee to get on board and to help craft public awareness and public education and see where this island wants to be. What's more important to the people of Marco Island? How your yard looks or how clean your water is. And I really think it's an either or. I really do.

I completely agree with you. That's an issue. I don't know if this committee is going to solve it or the beautification committee, but certainly working towards them, maybe we could get some traction on what look do we want Marco Island to have. Frankly, I like the way the grass looks, but I don't think that's really Florida. It's not what the mangrove looked like. That's not what this island looked like before they came down here and changed it.

And as I said before, if you go up to the undeveloped lots on Indian Hill, that's Marco Island. These lawns, these yards are not Marco Island. Can't say it any more clearly than that.

One comment. You know, when he's saying, is it possible to do it or whatever, if you go out west where they have really bad drought conditions out there, and they were able to do it. If you go see what their landscaping is, drastic change from what it was a quarter of a century ago. And they saved, in some places I've read, 50% of their water usage because they had to make that change. It's simply a matter of what are our priorities. I mean, I think water quality is a heck of a priority, and we need to change. And this committee is the starting point of really getting that going and started. And I think the people in their voting, when they vote, who's on city council is a big part of that. They are the ones that have to tell us which direction we need to go. And their voting is going to tell us that.

And it may be available water, not just water for irrigation. We may not have enough water down here. After watching Jeff Poteet's presentation to council, the wells are collapsing. I'm worried. We're getting all the crap from up north from all the development in our water. I mean, something has to change.

And your chart from last meeting tells us, let's wake up and let's get started. Got to do it.

Anything else? Nope. With a couple minutes to spare, meeting adjourned.