e good morning everyone and Welcome to our first ever joint meeting of the Anchorage advisory committee and the Marine Environmental resource task force uh I would like to invite I thank like to thank everybody who's here today
we'll do some introductions in a minute but let's do the Pledge of Allegiance first 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 excellent so welcome to everybody who is here who are our members of the Committees and who are our Liaisons with either staff or the council will get to all those introductions uh just want to say a few words first I am Chris rle
King I'm the chairperson of the anchored advisory committee and my co-host for today is Dave npam I'm the chairperson for the Marine environmental resource task force advisor committee um the
purpose of today's meeting is really to bring these two committees together to hear information from our wonderful guest speaker um that could be beneficial to us both while we have different remits we also have a bit of overlap in some of the things that we're concerned about when we think about what
we're trying to advise the Council on so we thought it would make sense rather than to have a guest speaker come for both of the Committees to do it at once and get all of our conversation on the table at one time so I would like to do introductions for the Anchorage advisory
committee first and then we'll do MF um and if you could all just introduce yourself and say how long you've been on our committee and what you would like to learn about today I'll start uh as I said Chris rle King I've been on this committee about a year and a half and
I'm just interested in understanding what this organization does and how it could be beneficial for us dead law I've been on the committee for over 133 years and uh I'm looking forward to your
presentation that's going over I've been on Anchorage committee for well I think it's a year and a half since that's how long you're saying I think it's about a year and uh looking forward to the presentation Hi Sam Lorry I'm the vice chairman of the Anchorage advisory committee and I've been on the committee
about 10 years I'm a coast guard 100ton Master captain and retired IRS enrolled agent yes Jennifer Rusk I'm on the Anchorage committee as well as murf uh committee which is the Marine environmental resource task force I'm an
environmentalist I care about our water greatly uh our water quality and uh I've been on murf I believe this is my fourth term this is my first term on Anchorage committee and thank you so much uh for
coming I really appreciate it I think we'll all benefit from your uh your expertise thank you and our Town Council liaison welcome Chris my name is Jim aderhold I'm the vice mayor for the town of Fort Meers Beach and so John doesn't have to stand up he doesn't have
a Mike John King is my fellow colleague from the council and he is the layers on to the murf committee pleasure meet both good morning Captain uh my name is Dave nusom I'm the chairperson of the the uh murf committee I have been on the
committee now this is going on my second year I made two time generation second generation owner on Ford Meers Beach and I'm on the murf committee uh to actively promote the stewardship of the island
our our home is on the beach and we are very concerned about the impact of the discharge going down the river and what does to the Shoreline and the economic impact so I'm I'm very interested in
hearing you know your comments on this and with that Leo's got you I'm Leo sand I'm on the murf committee I've only been here three months or four months or so I'm interested in learning more about the Clean Water I live on the the the
Gulf of America right on Caper Beach so um thank you for all the information you gave us as well appreciate it and I'm Sharon Hegstrom I'm on the murf committee same amount of time as Leo and u i too live
on the on on the Gulf of America and H and I've been uh down here in Southwest Florida for about 45 years so I'm very interested in hearing you today very and we have uh Robert Howell that's uh
remote yes I'm here okay you're on Robert hi everybody yeah I'm just very interested in uh better educating ourselves and the public about all the options to better the island that's why we're very thankful you're
here thank you and Ed yeah Ed rude um I've been lived on the island for 15 years now and uh U on the beach and um I've been on the committee on the murf committee this past year and uh also
very interested in what you got to the information you're going to give us and and uh about the effects of the of the discharge from Oobi down the river and Chad sir environmental manager at
beach Chad is our staff leaon and as Kurt kurtt my name is um Captain Curtis Curtis lewig um I've been and um the Harbor Master here for about nine months now and um I'm very interested what do
you have to say about the uh about the red tide analy off the coast right now but thank you for being here so Kurt while you have the mic would you just do a little introduction as to what the remit of the Anchorage advisory committee is and how you know you see us
assisting you and your staff who are out there in the in the audience today as well yes absolutely um um um I believe the Anchorage committee um um the um uh committee me U members um um help me give me give me Insight of
um What the residents in the town um you know are saying and um giving me um um advice and um how to how to kind of operate the the moing field and um kind of to better the town here here um
from Fort Myers Beach so it's about Marine operations navigable waterways canals that sort of thing canals clean water um we were we are right now in a project of cleaning cleaning all the canals and uh getting all the debris out
um from the P the past um uh hurri and Chad could you give a brief sure you know summation of the murf committee for the captain sure and just to build on what
Curtis said um you know the Inception of the moing Air Field uh area was to clean up the waters um get boats on moing balls to stop both the the anchor scarring in and around the bay as well as to uh pump them out of sewage and uh
remove that um pollution for lack of a better term um in the waterways so that's been a very successful project that the town has had um uh over the last up to 10 years it's got to be close to 10
years um anyway so that's a great thing about the moing field um and its a contribution to improved water quality as for the murf committee uh marine and environmental resource task force so we have a lot of uh uh natural resources
here on Fort Meers Beach um our economic Center is the beach um ass iic importance for uh both residents and uh businesses alike um tourism is uh one of the number one uh economic drivers of
the US and definitely the number one for Fort Myers Beach in the county so um it's important and uh they weigh in on that a lot as to they uh with all environmental uh Wildlife listed species um vegetation um and just uh
finding that balance between um maintaining and conserving resources and um uh allowing people our residents uh visitors and businesses like to um enjoy
them and and profit off and be be successful okay thank you Chad and with that um I believe we've introduced everyone from both committees and the staff so at this point I'd like to
introduce our guest speaker who is Captain uh Chris Witman uh Captain Witman is a fourth generation Florida native he's a co-founder of captains for clean water and after witnessing the consequences of
Florida's water mismanagement he decided to get involved his extensive experience as a fishing and hunting guide nationally renowned tournament angler on Camera Host and TV
show producer allows him to engage leading Brands and personalities across the industry and identify opportunities to expand the organizational reach the organization Works to advance science-based Solutions
through efforts focused on awareness and education empowering people like you to speak up for our water quality and hold elected officials accountable together we've United the outdoor industry environmental groups business community
and concerned citizens around these important issues and are seeing more people than ever getting involved in the fight for clean water I stole this off your website as a result progress is happening at a record Pace but we have a
long way to go and we need your your help so that's a little background on our captain and his organization and with that Captain Whitman the floor is yours all right thank you David uh good
morning everybody pleasure to be here and appreciate the opportunity um as David said I'm captain Chris Whitman born and raised here I grew up on Santa Bell Island my mother grew up on Fort Meers Beach um our family's you know deep roots here my uh
my my mom's best friends uh familyowned fishtail Marina Harry Nichols was like a second grandfather to me um and so I spent all of my childhood either on the beach here or the beach of Santa Bel and
so very special place dear to my heart um captains for clean water we were we were founded out of uh Water Crisis 2016 uh I had come back from a season of filming my TV show and all of my fellow
fishing guides were out of work we had a massive discharges from Lake okobe uh which were nothing new to us it something i' had seen my whole life and throughout my whole life had seen
constant Decline and degradation of the fishery that ultimately not only kind of built me into who I was but also what what I built my business on and you know many of the oyster bars and seagrass beds that I fished at the mouth of the river as a child by the time I
was a fishing guide no longer existed um so these discharges weren't foreign but what was happening was we started to I started to see them in a different light it was less of a an inconvenience as an angler and became
more of an impact um economically to my business to my fellow fishing guides to my industry and that was really kind of the Catalyst um that myself and the other founder Daniel Andrews who's also a
fishing guide um took a look back and at if this is the path that we continue on the future of businesses like ours that depend on water quality depend on clean environment healthy ecosystems basically
the the center of our tourism industry here um all the future of those businesses were were at stake um we knew that because our clients were going home you know ,000 to $1,500 a day as a
fishing guide you you make your money during those time so you get a couple weeks of those people that leave it's it it hits you pretty hard um what we realized at that point was we started looking into something has to
change and why hasn't this changed in our whole lifetime and through that process we we learned that this wasn't a problem that we needed science to figure out like how do we fix it it wasn't one of these
things where it's like this thing's happening we don't know how to there this problem had been identified in the 80s um a solution wasn't a problem where it's like okay we know it the problem is now how do we fix it the a solution was put in place uh the year I started
guiding in the year 2000 and so these discharges were a result of man's changing of the hydrology of Florida back at the turn of the century we looked at Florida as worthless swamp and how are we going to tame the swamp
and and make it into something productive and in the process an effort both both private and ultimately the government got involved to drain the Everglades and that effort ultimately was successful the flow of water that once flowed from Orlando through the CMI
River Basin to Lake okachobee and then overflowed the southern rim of lake okobi and ultimately slowly meandered all the way down to the Florida Keys and Florida Bay that one giant River giant system was compartmentalized was
fractured the water was stopped at Lake okachobee the area south of Lake okachobee was drained through a series of canals out to the Atlantic Ocean it was compartmentalized with with levies and dkes and and Canal systems tamami trail
from Fort Meers to Miami acted as another Levy cutting off flow from the north to the South and the water that then used to flow to Everglades National Park in Florida Bay was then held back into Lake okobe as a result that water
had to go somewhere and Fort Meyers and and St LC became the emergency relief valve for that water that what what scientists saw and ecologists saw and and everyday people and fishermen saw
was that action you know a hundred years ago started a chain reaction of the imbalance of One MA major ecosystem you know our ecosystem here we see it as our backyard but it's it's all same part of the same ecosystem as the Everglades and
the keys and it's it's one giant e lakeo Kobe and so they realized that in doing so we are getting destroyed by the volume of fresh water that comes the other component to
that is it is polluted after Decades of pollution but even if that water was drinkable water perfectly clean it that's what would kill our oyster beds and our seagrass the the nutrient aren't what was killing the basis of the ecosystem it was the fact that you're
taking a saltwater fishery and you're dumping billions of gallons of fresh water into it for months at a time you essentially take a saltwater area and turn it into fresh water if you had a saltwater aquarium and you took all the salt out of it even if the water's clean
everything dies and so that was the the the longer lasting was the salinity plummet from these discharges it's what killed the the basis and then that's what binds sediment there's this huge Butterfly Effect at the other end of it
Florida Bay and the Everglades were suffering because they weren't getting the water that they historically and naturally got and so Florida Bay was becoming hyper saline three times saltier than the Gulf of Mexico the result there was very much like us
becoming too fresh the hypersalinity water killed the sea grass killed the oysters as the seagrass died it decomposed it spurred algae blooms as the nutrients were released that were sequestered within those grasses and it started at a domino effect the
Everglades begin to dry out it started to change um the hydrology it started to change the plants and the and the tree Islands it started to change uh the different trees and the ecosystem as a whole the biscane aquafer which is the
drinking water supply for over 10 million Floridians um began to go dry and they started to get salt water intruding through the ground where Miami day people were turning on their Taps and they were getting salt waterer coming out of their Taps because the water was no longer flowing over top of
that area and percolating down and recharging the aquifer and so scientists realized all this and a bunch of extremely bright people much smarter than myself got together and they came up with the comprehensive
Everglades restoration plan it's known as Ser it is the the largest ecosystem restoration project ever undertaken in the world and it's here in South Florida it is essentially 68 projects that
reconnect the system that man went in and disconnected a century ago and so it does so without displacing our current you know communities developments um Farms agriculture it it works within the
current confines of society to reconnect and mimic the timing and delivery of water back to the way Mother Nature had it essentially it reconnects Lake okobe back to the Everglades in Florida Bay and it does so through removing some of
those barriers to flow if you've seen if you've driven from here to Miami in the last couple years you'll see now that there's big sections of bridges as you get over towards the mikasuki um reservations those bridges are allowing the water to flow Out of Water con
Conservation Area 3A uh into Shark River slooh which was the historic flow way into the Everglades um going up through there they're taking down some of the levies and filling in back filling in some of the canals that was shunting that water um off to the Atlantic Ocean
and keeping the the center of the Glades artificially dry and then the heart of Everglades restoration lies at at the south end of What's called the EAA which is the Everglades agriculture Cal area um south of lake okobi and and that's
where um the Everglades agricultural area Reservoir is being built and this is a a massive Reservoir that will take lake oobi's waters during the wet season during the rainy season and instead of discharging those Waters to our Coast
they'll take those Waters into that Reservoir fill up that Reservoir and then it will be metered out through an engineered Wetland um which ail Marsh known as an sta um to the Everglades throughout the dry season mimicking how
Lake okachobee and the Everglades and the River of Grass once functioned where the water would overflow slowly take months to meander through that River of Grass and ultimately reach Florida Bay so it the water that fell in the wet season in the north part of the system
is what hydrated the southern part of the system throughout the dry season so Everglades restoration um is designed to do that fast forward that to 2016 um Everglades restoration was a
bipartisan um effort at the time between our governor Jeb Bush and our President Bill Clinton it is a partnership between the State of Florida and the federal government it's a 5050 cost share and in the year 2000 they signed that into law
in the Oval Office and everybody popped champagne bottles and thought great we're going to fix this problem um it's going to take 30 years to do so and several billion dollars so in 2016 um when I speak of this Water
Crisis that I came back to we're just over the halfway point of Everglades Restorations timeline and not a single one of those 68 projects had been completed what we learned was that there
was one real critical Missing Link and void it wasn't the scientists um it wasn't engineering we had the largest engineering firm in the world the Army Corps of Engineers um tasked with with building these projects
it wasn't environmentalists environmentalists have been screaming forever this this is killing the sea turtles and the manatees and the Dolphins and the fish and you name it it was really the uh Collective voice of
stakeholders um that were impacted and as a result of of their absence the absence of those voices special interests the Industrial Sugar industry had been successful in just essentially lobbying decision
makers to kind of Kick the Can down the road they saw the current system and they still see the current system um the the the status quo of water management it it it works perfectly for them you're
you're keeping the Everglades area artificially dry in the wet season and then artificially wet in the dry season the Everglades agricultural area well that's that's 500,000 acres of land right in the middle of that ecosystem
right below Lake okachobee and right above what is remaining of the River of Grass and so when you do that if you're trying to manage that much land the total opposite of how the ecosystem works you actually want Lake OVI High
throughout the dry season because it's then you you want it managed as a reservoir not a natural part of the ecosystem if you hold Lake oobe high in the dry season that means when you enter the following wet season there is no
capacity within the lake to hold more water because you've held it back artificially for a backup water supply and so the result is we get those discharges so they had been very successful through lobbying you know the
the the typical way that politics are influenced um in in kind of slowing progress you had the largest restoration projects cost billions of dollars it just wasn't being adequately funded and as a result very little was happening
what we recognized in our philosophy was if if more people knew about this issue and more people knew about the solution that was available and was in place for the issue that more people would then be vocal would use their voice and that
voice would create public pressure and the public pressure had been the missing link and that public pressure would drive the political will needed to fund these projects and that's why we built Captain for clean water was to educate people first and foremost on this
because during that time we're out of work you you could go and ask a bartender a realtor uh somebody in the hotel industry a fellow fishing guide somebody just a a tourist on the beach you could go ask every single one of them knew there was a problem every
single one but if you ask 10 people you might get 10 different answers about why it was happening or whose fault it was or or what the problem was or if there was a solution or not a solution and so we realized if first and foremost if we we we needed to work
backwards we needed public we needed political will in order to get political will we needed public pressure if we expected public pressure to happen people had to use their voice in order to get people to use their voice they had to be educated and and and confident in what they were saying in order to be
empowered to use their voice and so we built the organization to do just that to educate stakeholders um Empower them to Advocate on their behalf the behalf of their businesses and then give them a
mechanism um to both track opportunities like asking the government to fund Everglades restoration and track threats like bad water policy that may backtrack um those restoration projects and so that's why we built the organization
and and since then that was 2016 in February um since then then that philosophy and that model has been extremely successful um we have engaged millions of people across the country it's important to engage people outside just Florida because it's a it's a
federal partnership so this funding for the federal side has to come through the Water Resources development act and so you need the other 49 states to say yeah let's send billions of dollars to Florida to restore the Everglades and um so so that education outside Florida is
very important but one of the key components uh for us here and the relevancy to Fort Meers Beach is the impact on on the business Community you you said it the the tourism industry um we commissioned a study which I believe
you all have maybe a one sheeter on and I don't have the is the other side of this yeah okay so on the back side of this one sheeter this this study is just Lee Collier in Charlotte County and the thought here is I got involved in this because I care
about Tarpon and oyster bars and Snook and that but but policy makers need to see you know a language that they can convert to why are we investing money in this and and that's jobs that's tax
dollars it's it's the the typical thing so this study took all of the information from just those Three Counties not it didn't include the East Coast the keys anywhere else and during this uh the during the uh water crisis of 2018 and 19 how many of those people
here in this room were were here for that water crisis right it shut us down during that water crisis Jacksonville reported a 13 to 15% decline economic loss because of our Water Crisis much like the BP oil
spill we didn't have any oil on our beaches but we saw an economic decline because of it so this is not including any of those this is just looking at Lee CER in Charlotte County um lost property value $7.8 billion
that's a big one um lost economic output 5.2 billion property taxes 60.3 million and this is over a couple of months this isn't this isn't years um outdoor recreation 8.1 billion
uh the jobs one 43,000 jobs we all remember 2019 we had to have the the food banks out here on the islands providing groceries to people who worked in the hospitality industry because they literally could not feed their family
the hotels were empty the restaurants were empty so this uh water quality is the number one issue that faces our community that we can control we're
sitting here in recovery from a hurricane that hit us years ago and we can ensure against hurricanes the process rebuild and and remain and stay in business is is a very very difficult
one but if we are to suffer a water crisis on the heels of those natural disasters or a pandemic or anything else like that that is the nail in the coffin for our businesses it's the nail in the
coffin for our communities it quite literally will reshape our communities when those businesses and those people people have no other option but to move away and the tourists that save up all
year to bring their family here to enjoy our resources if they come here and they have that one bad experience I don't know if anybody's owned a business here but you can have you can have Yelp and Google reviews you can have all these great reviews and you
get two or three people on there saying you know this is a terrible place to stay don't go the food here is terrible that does real damage and so in the in the day and age of of social media and yel when people save up they come here spend tens of thousands of dollars to
bring their families here and there's dead fish on the beach their kids can't go swimming they can't go fishing they don't come back and that word travels and Jacksonville's decline is an example of that and so I would say that um the
big thing that uh the town of Fort Meers Beach can do is to recognize that water quality is the most important thing if you have a legislative priority uh that should be number one into perpetuity that's the that is the one
thing that will be the driver of your businesses the culture here the way of life of the people who come here um everything and so uh I would also say that the the municipalities and the
business communities um and the the people that make up those communities are one of the most important voices in this in driving progress um th those are voices that you can have a paid lobbyist walking around
the halls of Tallahassee or Washington DC and they can have some impact but if you have real businesses people who have worked their entire lives to retire here because of what we have or people who are building their lives on the back of a business um that is that his
foundation is here those voices are authentic voices that carry a tremendous amount of weight in the halls of Tallahassee and Washington DC and those voices are the ones that we've seen affect change and so here we are um 10 years later than after we started
captains for clean water and many of those voices have been heard um the city of Santa Bel the chamber on Santa Bel the chamber on Fort Meers Beach Jackie um they've all been extremely engaged in this process with us they've been to DC
with us they've been to Tallahassee with us they've made it known to policy makers that funding these projects and and better Water Management better management of lake okobe is is the number one critical ask and as a result
of that you know 10 years later um over 55 of those 68 projects are now under construction are being built um the bridges that I spoke of on tamam Trail are are one of those that Reservoir that will reduce our
discharges with these other projects up to 80% it doesn't eliminate the problem but I mean I sure as have would rather be hit with a with a switch off the tree than a baseball bat
and that's what that will do and so progress is being made but the reality is um the efforts to maintain the status quo continuously exist those efforts actually become stronger and more
resource put into them the more uh the more action and the more people that get involved to to drive change um but real change is happening and and the the power of a unified voice from all of South
Florida advocating to policy makers in Washington DC and in hasse to say fund these projects get these projects done as quickly as possible because they are a cost to the taxpayer but we know that
for every $1 spent on Everglades restoration $4 is returned back into the economy so it is I I would I would make that investment on any with all of my money a 4 to one return every single day of the week and
so if if we if we expect to see this completed and we're not talking years we're talking several several years but we are at the we are at the the hump of it we're we're about to be over the hump the light is at the end of the tunnel um we have to continue to fund those the
faster we fund it the less it costs us there's every every day everything goes the more expensive it gets a b bag of groceries today much more expensive than it was five years ago 10 years ago so the the the faster we complete these
projects um it's never going to be more economic IAL than it is today certainly not than it was yesterday so um I would just encourage um the town and the members and the citizens to first get up
to speed as much as possible on this we we um have an extremely talented team at Captain for clean water we put together a lot of resources um in multitude of mediums however you would prefer to digest that information from written
blog reports video content um any any of those things I'd be happy to share a resource document that has a ton of those um uh available in in one big list with links but I would say get up to
speed on on what we do what Everglades restoration is the role everyone plays and then um and then you know lend every every bit of effort you can into that it's it's what is needed to preserve the
future of of why we all live here so be happy to take any questions that's terrific thank you so much I mean I really appreciate your perspective that business and environmental concerns must work together and can work together um
what are your biggest obstacles I mean what are the big obstacles right now that you see to keeping the momentum going besides the unification of our voices biggest obstacles uh would somewhat vary year to year but ultimately they are losing momentum in
this um the the loss of momentum could come from people getting complacent if we have a few years of of decent water quality um kind of goes back a mind could come from us getting completely annihilated by a hurricane uh could come
from a pandemic you know when there's a a a national and international worldwide pandemic going on kind of puts uh discharges from Lake okachobee a little bit back of mind when you're has 16 ft of water in it it kind of puts the the
water in the bay well it puts it from back of mind to directly in your living room is what it does but it um it you know so those are I guess the lack of momentum um and and we are you we're good at navigating how do we keep
attention on this without um you know with you you can't force it when when we're all trying to literally survive um it is what it is but that's probably the number one um risk the part of that there's a significant um amount and and
effort of kind of misinformation and confusion campaigns that do come out of the sugar industry um simply to keep people on the sideline you know unified businesses and voices that have um come together and been vocal those people
people like myself I'm a fishing guide that literally grew up on an island and I was not involved what ever if those people and those voices stay on the sideline then all you got to do is walk around and hand out campaign checks and you get what you want if if
people are engaged so the the the real the reality of the politics of it where um there is a real effort to confuse people or um divide people get the east coast fighting the West Coast you know oh the the West Coast you guys are
getting all the discharges cuz the rich people live over on the west on the east coast and they tell the the East Co you getting the discharges because all the rich people over there in Santa Bell Island get you know don't want the water or you know the the Inland fishermen bass fishermen they don't care about the
lake they just care about the the tarpon and the saltwater fish or hey the tourism industry this is agriculture against tourism this isn't about agriculture versus tourism it's it's it's not it's not agriculture as a whole it's two big companies that are driving
water policy um that have no benefit to you know cattle ranching Citrus vegetable it's it's not so but those intentional divides are it does happen and the whole reason is to keep people divided you look at it in politics today
in the world um if you get get people divided they're not focused on what the real problem is and so those would be the risks and the O the way you overcome all of those risks um sustaining that energy in the movement or or combating those Mis is is through education if
people understand it they recognize it they see through the division and um they stay engaged throughout times when our water is good or we have other problems on our plate thank you Captain Whitman uh
question I have is when Governor dantus first came in he went through and and cleaned house um and I don't know the exact name but the people that were on the water board for
Florida some of them were fought fought they're just fought their removal from their position but he replaced it do you feel those people are adequately driving the Everglades program and if
not uh should we be petitioning to replace them great question um for it's the yes South Florida Water Management District um and you are right when when I started this um we would go there
and it was kind of like go ahead you've got your three minutes but while you're talking I'm going to pick up my phone and make sure you know that I'm not listening to you um one of those board members when we were talking about that very Reservoir um there was comments made you know
somewhere that that basically saying you know we were going to release the land that they were going to build the reservoir on and people in the back of the room started grumbling those are taxpayers that that agency is funded through avor tax and so their constituency start kind of grumbling and
one of the the board members from the Das referred to them as the peanut gallery and asked them appreciate if she she was she was subsequently removed but um to answer your question are they adequate absolutely that agency has done
a 180 um they are are leading Everglades restoration at lightning speed um the result of those projects being under construction now and many of them completed are a result of that new governing board and that new drive there
um the chairman of that governing board is chony Goss from Santa Bell his father was is Porter Goss was the architect of the Santa Bell plan was a member of Congress when the comprehensive Everglades restoration plan was put into law and um that that governing board
that is there today is doing an incredible job and we're we're fortunate to have them there okay are are they lacking funding then U to speed the process up or is it just time because
it's a Monumental task yeah it's time because it's a Monumental task um they we have seen record funding out of uh both the state and the federal government every single year for the past 6 years uh we've seen it from both parties we
saw it during Trump's first term we saw it during Biden's term we expect to see it again um out of DC uh we've seen it every year out of Tallahassee under Governor Dan Sis's uh Direction um you know when before we started you'd be
talking 5060 million a year in budget into this stuff uh I think the last Governor's budget was 1.2 billion um significant resour resources are being put in and they're being put in based on what the Army Corp says they're ready to
execute on and what The Water Management District says they're ready to execute on it's just not arbitrary numbers it's hey we're ready to do XYZ this is what this part for over the next year or two years is going to cost us here's money
so it's not that there is now that being said there is constant threat to that funding um diverting it other places whether or not the legislature fulfills that side of it with the governor's budget or the president's budget
um where we keep that funding and and ensure that that funding continues is is with that constant public pressure thank what questions do the committee members have Chris um out of the 55 projects that are underway how many how many are
completed um I don't know that answer off top of my head I could I could absolutely get it I I know um I mean I can name a few of them that are really the the big you know some some of them are very very significant big but so the bridges ac across Tamiami Trail is one
that's allowing that water to move where it would bottleneck up um in the bottom part of the system and result in flooding of like the tree islands and the mikasuki uh reservation there so that water can now move under there into Shark River slooh and Taylor slooh um
another is as they start to push that water East to go under those bridges there's 8 and2 miles of community off Miami called Los palus that was built outside of the Everglades protection Levy so when they developed these areas they built up Levy all the way along the
side of the Everglades and there's this section of community they built on the wet side of the levy because the Everglades were being held artificially dry but now if you go rehydrate that area and push that water back in you would flood this 8 and half square miles and so they looked at you know do you do
you go in and and it's it's not it's not thousands of properties but it's 8 and a half square miles fair amount of people um do you go and take it through a minute domain do you what is the what and and what is the timeline for a legal process of something like that what they came up with was the fastest way and the
Water Management District came up with this would be to build a curtain wall around that 8 and half square miles where they basically took a massive trencher like you would put in a sprinkler system went 60t down into the
ground around that whole area poured a curtain wall underground and created this Levy around it so now they can raise the water table because it wasn't just the surface water it would push through the ground up into that area so now they've separated that groundw so they they're able to push that water
back in without flooding out there's that that project's done as well um the uh some of them are massive pump stations The s333 Pump Station moves water from that bottom part of the system back East so it can go under those bridg um they're currently raising tamami
Trail so that ra roaded doesn't get inundated with water the filter Marsh component of the STA for the EAA Reservoir so that's at engineered Wetland that's a 6500 acre filter Marsh that is completed and is being grown in
with aquatic vegetation as we speak um there so those are some of the bigger ones that are that are completed there's a number of of others um that are you know smaller that but I don't know the exact number of them but I do know from
looking at the um it's the integrated delivery schedule the IDS basically the workflow for Ser um if you look at that I mean that the amount it's like lightning speed over the last couple years so you're five years from 2030
which is a 30-year plan back in 2000 obviously we're not going to make that what do you estimate it's going to be if funding stays consistent yeah if if if the funding stays there and um you know doesn't get held up by lawsuits and
and whatnot uh I would estimate you know late 30s um I think the EAA Reservoir slated to be completed I want to say 2035 um that's one that you know if if
it's not delayed the the sugar industry is suing the Army Corps of Engineers right now over the operations of that Reservoir um basically saying that you could build a reservoir um but they should get the water that's in it instead of the Everglades or at least
have priority to the water and if you do that what it does is it does the same thing as what happens with Lake Oobi you want that water when through dry season in case you need it well if you're still getting water from the lake you don't need so you basically just hold the reservoir full through dry
season and then you enter wet seas and say okay we don't need it go ahead and send it to the Everglades okay well now the Everglades is getting rain now the reservoir is full so you can't take water out of Lake of Kobi so it just basically renders that reservoir from a dynamic Reservoir that has adds capacity
to just a water supply Reservoir that's always full so I seem to remember reading articles about funding that you must have gotten some big boost and fundings in after from 2016 to present day massive yeah yeah are you you feel
that's that's enough to complete this project no it has to come every year okay and how much every year um it changes the IDS schedule and you could you can pull it up on Army corp's website and it change it changes with inflation but um it's kind of like it's
kind of like building a house when you start it the amount of money you need to to do the site work and the foundation it kind of escalates as you get to the the middle part of that and when you get on the back end of the project it goes back down we are at that
that Peak right now um over the next probably five years um that we're probably at the height of what the funding requirements would be and then we start to go on a downtrend so when this is completed at the end of
you know let's say the end of the two 202 2039 or whatever it is do you think we'll see less water uh coming to us and less uh pollutants coming towards us absolutely I think we would see probably depending on the year
um between a 60 and 80% reduction in those discharges thank you how soon how soon can we expect the level to start going down on the discharges so we've already seen
that a little bit and and it's not a it's not a like we wait to see the benefits until surface completed there's incremental improvements as projects come online like the bridges like the curtain wall um the the Dyke around Lake
okachobee the Herbert Hoover Dyke um at one point was beginning to fail there was seepage around that so when the lake would get high it would seep it would it would threaten flooding those communities around the lake the Army Corps went in did a rehabilitation of
that entire Dyke um so at that that point they had been managing lake okachobee off of what's called L's 08 a lake okachobee system uh or I'm sorry Lum or L's 08 Lake Oobi uh regulation
schedule and and they were taking into account that old Dyke and so when the lake would just start to get high they would be dumping water to the coast after rehabilitating the Dyke they they looked at and built a new management plan which is like the army corpes war
book says when to pull what lever um it's that was that's low and or low sum and that process was like a four or five year process including stakeholder input including municipalities and they came up with a new regulation schedule and so through
that schedule Alone um it we're looking at on average about a 30% reduction in the damaging discharges so you can't manage your way out of the system without the infrastructure out of that problem without the
infrastructure but you but they're they're looking at instead of flying that airplane on autopilot and it just saying up it's to this point dump it they're flying it manually so there's a lot a lot more control but it's a lot
more variable and um as a result of that you know we've seen we've seen improvements already if you look at the lake levels um after Hurricane Ian and then after Hurrican Milton um we sh we
would have Under LS we would have been getting massive discharges since about July of last year we had not re started receiving any large discharges until just you know the at the beginning of of dry season which
is actually when we can take more because we don't have local Basin runoff and um and it's not it's not you don't have that compounding effect and even so you know the longer that that weighted half the lake half the water that leaves Lake of Kobi does through through
evaporation so so just changing the timing of when they're sending water to us we're getting I haven't checked it in the last couple days but we're getting about 203 to 2500 cubic feet per second out of the Franklin
locks uh last time I checked a few days ago this time of year you want to see about 1,500 to 2,000 cubic feet per second would be like the idea range so not not great but not you know the the 10 11,000 cubic feet per second that
we've seen during those Water Crisis if one wanted to learn more is there a website we can look at captains for cleanwater.org okay perfect thank you we would appreciate that resource list if you would send that to us and we could circulate it amongst people sure yeah and it's a lot there's there's
videos there's third party videos there's art news articles it's just kind of a media compilation of of things that you can kind of sip through I have a question for the captain is there also septic systems
private and Municipal that are affecting the water quality of course septic systems affect water quality um inadequate sewage infrastructure affects water quality uh people fertiliz in their yards affect every every one of us
have an input for sure phosphate mining um I you you name it it washing your car has some effect that being said um there's not less people using the restroom today
than there was yesterday there's thousand people a day moving to Florida we don't see these crippling events that that shut down our economy until we have these discharges so it's not to say that I always say
Florida's dying from a, paper cuts but if you look at it as a patient on an operating table who had a heart attack in the process of the heart attack they wrecked their car and broke their arm we're we're that patient's on the operating table if we focus on the
broken arm the patient's going to die and so not to say that we should not fix inadequate sewage infrastructure for our growing communities or convert septic tanks that are within FL zones
that may have a an input um but we've got to address the the heart of of what'll shut us down and that's those Lake okobe discharges so you would look at the um septic problem to more towards the end I
would just say we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time um but we could fix every single septic problem we have today and if these lakeo Kobe discharges keep coming it doesn't
matter Sam um f two questions first question is the ref the big billion doll referendum was that 2000 so um yeah so 2000 so there was also there was a this is an interesting
one when they were looking to um put Everglades restoration into action they were looking at acquiring land to build these projects and there was a ballot initiative that basically asked
taxpayers would you um support a stamp tax on real estate to fund these projects it was I believe it was Amendment one um the populace voted over
70% to support being taxed to F to fix that so to show you know the the level of of um willingness of investment from the from the stakeholders there so that that first
part of that funding in the first part of Everglades restoration was not being used to its highest and best use and what you saw was projects that were ancillary that were not politically challenging they would put money at
those projects or would spread money around on projects to where you didn't really have the juice to complete any of them it's like I've got got enough money to build one house and I'm going to start building 15 so that so that referendum which was
the big money back back then that would that's totally account that's accounted for but maybe not spent in the best way well yes and that's a it's a reoccurring um funding and so that's a portion of
where Everglade stuff comes from the the state legislature has to provide funding back to the Water Management District for everl restoration projects and that's the the state funding you're talking about but also Washington DC has to put in their half and that comes
through Water Resource development act so that's also you know competing with a dam or something else in another state um and and in in Warda in that Warda package Everglades restoration's The Lion Share of what's taking that money
um so it's it's really important also one of the other reasons why we've got to get it done as fast as possible because how long are the other 49 states going to say yeah let's keep sending billions of dollars to to Florida so you're lobbying the best you can to get the most use out of those dollars
absolutely second question was this morning on the news they showed a machine the size of a boom box that is the cure for red tide do you have any information on that oh have I ever heard about cures for red tide it's it's on
the news all day today must be if it's on the news it's about this big yeah no so you know look I don't I'm not going to knock any solution to red tide or or harmful algae blooms I'm not a scientist
um what I believe though is and the philosophy that we have is we need to be addressing the cause of the problems not the symptoms if I keep getting headaches cuz I have heart issue and my blood pressure
is dropping the answer is not to keep taken Tylenol so should we Implement Innovative Technologies in the process to try to mitigate what the impact is of a harmy boom sure absolutely should I allow that
to be an easy scapegoat for policy makers to say look we're doing something um when it's really addressing the symptom of a problem rather than the cause definitely not one other
questions oh well actually um you all have um already asked the questions but uh I guess one for you Chris would be that we're just a little island Barrier island of seven miles and we're two uh committees that advise Our Town Council
what can we do to move forward as a committee and and a fulltime myself as a full-time resident to better help um you your cause um first change that
Outlook you're not just I'm just one fishing guide that's the Outlook I had for 16 years um you all are a critical voice and no there is no way that it there is no too small you be one
individual Community a small island um your voices are are like critical component to to driving the change so what you can do is is be educated on it educate others on it make sure that anytime there is a a policy maker a
decision maker an agency person you see it every time people start to run for office right they hold Town Halls they come here I'm running for congress I'm running for Senate I'm running for whatever dog catcher ask them what what we care about
is water quality what are you going to do to improve our water quality what are you going to do to advance Everglades restoration um that's the kind of of pressure that will hold hold feet to the fire um I expect that kind of pressure
from our donors and our board to make sure what are you doing to get the most out of the resources that are coming into Captain for clean water to affect change pressure is good and so um I would say that you know don't
underestimate the size of this island or the group or the people or the businesses on it um collectively those voices are the most powerful thing that has affected change and you know uh you could walk outside right now and scream
at the top of your lungs and maybe some people within earshot would hear it but if that same person's filled in a a football stadium with 20,000 others that are screaming as well the sound will be defening and so um yeah I would not
certainly would not underestimate your voice and I would utilize your voice through first educating yourself educating yourselves with the resources available captains for clean water there's secf has great resources Everglades
Foundation has great resources the south Florida Water Management District and um and once you're educated use your voice and we try to provide multiple outlets for people to do so thank you Kurt or
Chad any thoughts questions question um I'm cap um I saw a couple days ago you posted a video um uh from uh from a helicopter on the red tide that's off our Coast right now um here's it it's
kind of been hasn't been moving too much kind of been um uh you know um a holding off here can you kind of update us with that or what what knowledge you have of that yeah so I haven't been up up in the
air since that and that was probably what 10 days ago maybe um it seemed like that so that balloom seemed like it had kind of slowly been migrating South and then we had had some onshore winds it was it was starting to come in we were starting to get reports
from fishing guides of red tide coming into the bay some isolated fish kills bait starting to die things like that so it is hard to say however conditions like we have today we've got
a pretty stiff offshore wind um that's definitely helpful to to push that out and help break that up and you know red tide generally if it's able to make its way into Ure there's more fuel available
for it more nutrients in the water um we've also had very dry conditions which is helpful um so it's kind of I don't know I don't want to I don't know what I haven't gone up and physically looked at it in in a week or so um I have not been
getting a ton of reports from our guide Network that it's like getting crazy or worse so I don't I you know I don't know exactly but I I'm hopeful that like conditions like we're having now will help to get that out and if if can get
out and eat itsself out of fuel it can kind of dissipate and go away counselors do you have any questions or thoughts just have a quick question Chris and I don't mean to get political but you talk about resources and your tax status may not allow you to
have this but maybe you could recommend a voter guide to see who's taking money from Big Sugar who's supporting evergates Everglades restoration how can voters get informed before they go to The Ballot Box um great question so yeah we are a 501c3 we are um nonpolitical we
don't endorse candidates we we do not give um money to candidates we we don't even have a lobbyist the people are are lobbyists and so um we however the most important thing there is right in order to be able to
hold people accountable you've got to have some idea th there are voter guides out there if you if you Google them you can find them um how how incred you know you might see some that like give bad scores to some people you've got to
really look at it for for water specifically because you know there there are people from both sides of the aisle that are that are not great and there's people from both sides of the aisle that have done some great things um and just because they've done some great things before doesn't mean they
always will or vice versa and so um I think the number one thing there is is when when you have an opportunity to interact with people running for office or in office
would be to ask them how they've voted what their position is you could straight up ask them do you take money from the sugar industry and how much um it's it's not it's not easy it's a little bit cumbersome and it's intended
to be that way um but uh but that is a that's a great you know a great question but we you're right we do not offer that um our our focus is is educating those people and we believe that educated people will we'll seek out that type of
information thanks Chad do you have any questions for the captain um yeah I Lots every time he says something another question pops up so we have uh you know we have a quantity issue and we have a quality issue what I'm hearing is
that the quantity issue is going to get better with these reservoirs um kind of taking that water and not just blowing it out um our army Corp has these we updates where they take information from stakeholders and I
would always get frustrated whenever it seems like we're blowing out the water during dry season because it just you don't that there's a natural e and flow of our ecosystem and there's value when it's wet and there's value when it's dry and
whenever we're changing that it seems like it's it's an artificial you know you're blowing out this big fresh board plume which is a quantity issue never mind the the quality issue and changing that ecosystem in a dry in a dry time when it should be dry it should be more
s yep and I guess with the new loom are y'all seeing any improvements to fisheries and or nurseries and you know catch effort kind of measurements yes and and those also there's a little bit
of a like a a lag it's like a train starting and stopping there um but yes we are and so it's a a great point for cl around sending water out during the dry season so one of the impacts or results
of us developing area is water sits on our land for a much shorter amount of time in our local Basin and so we actually the upper Estuary so mouth of the clache river up to the Franklin
locks actually needs that water during the dry season to maintain lower salinities in the upper Estuary so like even even as recent as when I was a kid uh there was tape grass freshwater tape grass from like Thomas Edison's home all
the way up to the Franklin locks to the trestles there's none of that now that's a result of being too salty so what would happen is we would get huge flushes of fresh water that would come out would kill the seagrass out to Santa Bel Island then it would they would shut
that water off from Lake okachobee during the dve dry season to hold it back like a reservoir for you know for irrigation for sugar and as a result salt water would push all the way up to the Franklin locks and so that salt water would kill the the freshwater
stuff that was up and so you you eliminated this mixing Zone that estuarium area where you had marine and fresh and a hard line on one side of the locks and a hard line out here and a desert in between and so the need for
some fresh water and that's where I get that number of about 1,500 CFS to 2,000 CFS that's the ideal amount of water coming out of Franklin locks into the Estuary during the dry season and that
would mimic what would normally be coming off our Watershed slowly from the wet season before we sped up our our local Watershed and so um secf has a lot more scientific information on that but
but where what their scientists are showing is we kind of need the sweet spots really like that 1500 1700 CFS range anything above 2,000 is considered harmful so where we need that to where
the that area kind of between the locks and the Cape Coral Bridge is the constant mixing zone of of saltwater so you don't have saltwater pushing all the way up to the lock structure um the the the challenge there is also when
you get you know when you're getting those discharges during the wet season you know typically that local Basin runoff would would you know would ramp up but it's very flashy so our local Basin act reacts very quick so you might
get a big push of water out of the river it spikes and then it tapers off for you know a week or a few days two weeks whatever what we see with discharges from Lake okobe is they ramp them up and then they hold them there for months on
end and so that's what the estuarium ecosystem can't sustain you know like oysters and seagrass they can sustain pure fresh water for a few weeks outside of 30 days The seagrass Sheds its blades
starts to Die the oysters die and so the flashiness of the uh local Basin in the wet season yes there's a big push of water but it's real up and down it's it's when we start to span that and fill in those
valleys during the wet season with those discharges that you see that that real impact and so um the the need for fresh water is is kind of an artificial supplement to US
changing our local um water shed and then I mean are we seeing improvements with not having those blowouts of fresh water during the dry season absolutely yeah there's already um you know so when I when I grew up we would fish I'm not
sure how familiar everybody is you know with the island but basically from like punasa to the cattle docks so to like the mouth of the river to sword point which would be like the point going into Matt leche that zone right there in mouth River and it was like the best
fishing turtle grass that was you know 2 ft long in the summertime you could catch permit inshore there giant snook giant red fish it's incredible um after 2016 and especially after 2018 that
whole Zone there was Zero grass zero live oysters completely gone since then since the 200 uh 19 Water Crisis um we are starting to see signs of grass recovery around Fisherman's key
uh picnic Island some of those areas there actually where some of that stuff is starting to come back and recover the the thing about it is it may take three months to kill that stuff and it could take a decade for it
to come back and so if if in the time of that decade it starts to recover but then every 3 years or so it gets knocked down again you're just in this stair step of decline to where you got to put it to where the the swings of recovery
are much more longer and spread out than the than the swings of impact does uh storm water um drainage issues on different islands have any
anything to do the kill SE the the storm water drainage off the islands absolutely has a a very significant impact I would say it probably has more to do with um algae blooms than it does the killing of the seagrass directly because the most of the impact of the
seagrass is just that salinity low salinity drop however it can be killed by um you know lack of sunlight so the water's becoming too turbid that can happen because of microalgae blooms um you can get micro algae and macro algaes
um a lot of times you'll see it where it washes up on the beach we call like red rolling Moss is what the fishing guides call it looks like red tumble weeds so that's a that's a an algae bloom that's it's a sign of excess nutrients in the water and so what happens there is the
the runoff doesn't kill the seagrass but it fuels and algae bloom like that then those big mats of algae drift and sit over top of the seagrass and block out the sunlight much like if you left your yard cut too long and then left the clippings laying on the yard so
everything has an impact for sure um and that's also why you see after a hurricane you will see a red tide Spike up right because you're getting this flush of nutrients you're also getting an upwelling effect from the deep golf that is where the crania brevis
originates from um but generally if it if it's that flash hurricane you get that push of water off the landscape it'll come up and then it'll eat itself out of food it's if we also keep
dumping that water out of the lake that it gives it that artificial food it's like it's like a forest fire if a forest fire pops off Burns itself out of energy it doesn't burn so hot that it kills all the trees and everything it kind of just cleanses everything underneath Burns
itself out food if you're going into that forest fire and dumping jet fuel on it for four months straight it's going to burn much much hotter and for a much long dur longer duration and so it has a a much more significant impact and so
that's really what those those discharges are is like that jet fuel onto a forest fire so local Basin stuff um runoff storm water runoff off that all of that should be addressed and should be a part of
responsible planning from municipalities santel's done a great job with with their um the way they manag their their storm water I think they there's a lot that um you know could be gleaned from that are you familiar with Bonita Springs uh what they're doing with their
water I'm I'm not and and solely just because our focus is so Everglades restoration Centric that um there's there's so many different issues and things all over that we we you know don't have the bandwidth to really keep
our finger on all of that so what I was told is that they take the water the uh storm water drainage and they put it through a filtration and then release it into the Imperial River and it seems um to work out for there for them um but
for our Island we really uh just basically our storm water we have very few swells uh because the streets are very narrow andh and uh the so the water is just going basically right out and we're hoping that the filtration will
happen naturally with the with the mangr but we have very few mangroves now we even have people cutting down mangroves um for their property or for whatever reason do you think there's um a better way we could uh handle our storm water
drain off I I don't know the answer that just simply because I'm I'm not an engineer in that aspect I I would say just in life in general I think there's always a better way when whenever somebody asks me you know how are you guys do I there nobody we're never
perfect we're never doing as good as we could do um and so sure there's probably a better way I don't know I don't have any solutions thank you Captain councelor King do you have any questions you mentioned uh sea
grass and the oyster beds that was one of the reasons you started getting involved what what's the status there um we're starting to see recovery in in some of those areas um in it's you know if if you look even before we
started the year before we started uh Florida Bay lost 50,000 Acres of seagrass because it was hyper saline put that in perspective that's more seagrass than you have in the entirety of uh the stero so they lost 50,000 Acres um that
was 2015 it is just now starting to come back with some noticeable amount so 10 10 years later yeah and and that's really a result of um one some Everglades restoration
recently putting more water back into the system but it's really a result of so many hurricanes coming over and putting so much water fresh water back into that system um that was enabled Florida Bay to to kind of lower its serenities back down um here
locally we're seeing recovery we've also seen some that started to recover and then and then went back away so um but we are we're definitely starting to see recovery the the real question is how long is it going to be able to recover
you know if we it's been since 2019 since we've had real you know long-term massive discharges that really that stuff and so if we can keep stretching that out and that's what Everglades restoration will do you're still not going to eliminate discharges
completely because if you have backtack hurricanes that go and dump water into the semi River Basin and raise lake oobi's levels you know 3et overnight you're going to get discharges but if it's happening once every 10 years instead of once every three then you
know the system can certainly sustain that a little bit y thank you thank you I know we uh we have a couple minutes left and we could probably go a few minutes over since we started a little bit late but we have a few people out in the audience do you have any questions if you do you can come to the mic you
want to come up to the mic introduce yourself I'm Gil Crabtree proli and I just want to thank this joint meeting of these advisory committees and especially you Captain thank you so much for bringing all this very Dynamic information my
question is is there any relationship between our beach re nurishment project and water quality that is a a great question it's something that a lot of the fishing guides have have brought up and asked
and my answer is I don't know um that would be something that would uh be very interesting to me I I can tell you and again I've said it I'm not a scientist but observation is a big part of Science
and I am a a student of observation of of the waters here um when I was a kid you could come out on these beaches and you could take a scoop handful of sand and there'd be a thousand little coina shells that would be burying down and tickling your hands
and um the the sand and the benic life down in the bottom was alive and I believe that you know and I'm not saying we don't we we can't have beer nourishment I believe with Beery nourishment you lose that um the answer
is how do we how how do we sustain and make it sustainable maybe where we don't have to do be Tre nourishment enough as much it's also really freaking expensive um but yeah like does it have an impact if we're
dredging and it's it's releasing sediment and and phosphorus that is bound in that sediment back into the water column does it have capacity to feed to become a food source I would think Common Sense would tell me yes um
but I don't I don't have sign scientific data to say yes to what degree or anything else um I know you know I I and this is way off out of the Wheelhouse of captains for clean water but just somebody who has lived and walked every
single foot of these beaches from from boka Grand to to Naples um I've often had the philosophy that uh you know if if if every you know quarter
mile within a mile of a pass you had some minor you know Jetty te groin um and then it could get spaced out maybe as it went further down the beach I know a lot of people oh it's it's unsightly to the beach or what but what happens is you break up the lateral
movement of water down the shore and you create edes and pockets and it holds the sand there they do it a lot on the East Coast um and they actually had it when I was a kid down at at Big Carlos Pass you'd come in there would be a hugee bay
and a finger that wrapped off and and came off the holiday in and and wrapped out and it was like a big Sand Bar and inside of it was a great big Bay um and I would fish there and and there was a series of there weren't real big Jetties
there's a series of Jetties that came off that beach kind of from this side of the bridge moving out towards the pass and as those the the longer those were there the more the beach held and actually grew between those Jetties and
and ultimately it broke up that current and now that that area what was a bay is a massive area of beach down there but I do think to answer your question and not being an engineer but if I if I was design it and you would go
and you would put some kind of current break whether it's it's Boulders or te grin or a combination near the passes where that current lateral movement is most EXT stream and then space it out where when you got those rip tides and those currents that pulled down the beach it
didn't also pull sand with them um yeah if you get a hurricane that blows all the sand from over there to over there that you know it it may you may have to do some renourishment but I think you could get away from the the need of of doing so much renourishment where you
see sand put on the beach and then it gets pulled down and deposited in the passes or outside the passes so um you know I don't I don't know what the impact of water quality is or whatnot but just as an observation of somebody who's been on the water here my whole
life I would I would think something like that would be good thank you Captain does anyone else attending here have a question for the captain Chad Chad final question all right last question so uh we talked about quality and then quantity if we're
you know knowing like you were saying before you know sugar blam agriculture agriculture is blame the septic tanks you know and just get that kind of finger pointing every which way if we were going to try and um save you know what are the top issues with um
affecting water quantity or sorry water quality what are the uh what's the science say these days or what are youall hearing and seeing depends on the part of the Watershed for one um also depends on a lot of our a lot of the data there is is it's non-point source
and you can't determine exactly where it's coming from what I would say is it pertains to Lake oobe discharges specifically since that's our area of focus is the reason why we support Everglades restoration so
much is IT addresses both the quantity and the quality the conveyance the timing and the quality of the water and it does it um south of the lake where it's cleaning the water before it's sending it to the Everglades
we're not sending dirty water to the Everglades so the the challenge we have is Lake Oobi has a 100 Years of Legacy pollution within the lake it is also we are not
meeting the total daily maximum loads the tmdls of phosphorus coming into the lake so you have you're not meeting what is targeted that needs to be the phosphorus load in order to start reducing the phosphorus Within Lake
okachobee we're not meeting that we probably need more teeth and more enforcement on best management practices there probably needs to be more um addressing identifying those Point sources and if you can or can't and putting you know engineered wetlands and
stuff in in those hot spots but the reality is there is so much Legacy pollution within Lake Oobi that if we were to be putting Pure Clean drinking water into that Lake meeting the TM dl's down to zero it'd be 50 to 100 years
before Lake oobe was rid of those nutrients and when you're when water managers have no choice but to open those gates for risk of flooding communities and you're getting N9 10 cubic feet 10,000 cubic
feet per second coming out of the locks there's no way to clean water in that you know velocity and in that volume um so we have to do a few things there one is is is we have to give water managers
the infrastructure to manage Lake oobe lower in the dry season that will enable aquatic plants to grow within the lake itself um which will take up those nutrients and sequester those nutrients
um and and then realize that once the water's coming down the c44 or the c43 those two canals you're you at that point there's no there's no putting something in its path to clean it it's it's coming and so
that's why Everglades restoration with those storm water treatment areas are so critical and like I said that that EAA Reservoir to put that into perspective you could take the entire island of Manhattan the entire city of Manhattan and put it inside of this Reservoir it's
30 ft deep it's massive so um you know to address the the water quality component in the world that that I operate in it's really the one that we're going to feel within any of our
lifetimes is is the ability to do that south of the lake we also absolutely should be addressing the pollution that is still coming in um but you know the the thing is if Leo
kobi's a bathtub full coffee we can start pouring water clean water into it today but it's there's still coffee in that bathtub and thank you Captain okay um first of all on
behalf of the Anchorage and murf committees that are advisory and nature to the town the two staff members that support both committees our esteemed vice mayor and counselor
uh from the Town Council and the audience that was here we thank you very much for taking time to come in and give us your views you've certainly give us given us something
to deliberate in both committees I'm sure uh the vice mayor and counselor uh are carrying some messages back that they can share at the next town council meeting and um we certainly wish to support your
efforts because we are the direct recipients of everything that comes out of Lake o and we have seen all too well that the economic catastrophe that occurs
when the discharges become onerous to our environment and our economies so we thank you again for being here and with
that I will adjourn the meeting thank you I um before you do that toy I will make sure we share I think Diana shared this economic study a link to this there's also a couple studies um that I'll have her share one is a study that
showed that the red tide um as fishing guides we already always saw this but the red tide in boka Grand as far away as boka Grand during 2018 was feeding on nitrogen from Lake Oobi and they tracked the the radioactive molecule within that the
isotope within that to show that what we all said was when these discharges happen these red tide blooms get worse and it was always the discharges don't cause red tide it's not it's like well it doesn't cause it it's making it worse and so I'll have them and yeah so
there's there's a study that shows that there's a study that just came out that shows that of all of the tributaries down that the kaloa hatchee tributary has roughly twice the level of nitrogen during those uh lakeo Kobi discharges so
those three studies I think economically and then um the scientific ones around red tide cran brevis be helpful and I'll have Diana share those with the committee as well thank you thank you so much Captain Madam chair we didn't several of us didn't get those handouts they're over there yep Yep they're on
the table so you can get right thank you thank you both uh Chair King and chair uh nesom for organizing this it's been um very informative