we're good okay it is uh 10:00 on March 12th and I'm calling to order the meeting of the Marine environmental resource task force committee and with
that I will have the pledge 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 thank you okay um with that um I need to ask do I do a motion now or after roll call I do it before roll call okay um we have one
member of the committee that is here on zoom and I would accept a motion to approve Ed rude to attend remotely so move so move second second second motion made and
seconded uh for Mr Roode to attend remotely all those in favor say I I I oppose motion carries okay now I can callor all okay uh starting out Ed
rude I'm here okay uh Sharon Hegstrom here Robert how David nusom here Leo sand here Jennifer rust here okay I believe we have a quorum uh Mr
Alto um has that excused absence so with that I still think we have a you so it's a legal meeting so we can proceed and uh Rob is running late oh is he yeah okay with that uh I will accept
a motion to approve the minutes of our Wednesday January 29th meeting I so move it's not on the agenda that's what she was I think talking about or was that the joint one I'm sorry the joint one then
you need to approve the agenda first first sorry I need a motion to approve the agenda as written uh from the committee okay I approve have a motion to approve so move is what you need to say
so move thank you SE second it second motion made and seconded to approve the agenda uh as written all those in favor any discussion do you have to withdraw the other motion no all those in favor say I I I I I
opposed motion carries agenda is approved thank you Dave now thank you councelor now we can approve the minutes from our previous meeting which was held Wednesday January 29th at uh
2025 uh I will accept a motion to approve the draft of the minutes from our January meeting so move second second motion made and seconded is there any discussion hearing none I'll call for a
vote all those in favor say I I I I I oppose motion carries unanimously thank you okay that business done we are now at public comments we have some gentlemen in the audience would uh
anyone care to speak at a public comment at this time please state your name and you will have three minutes for your public comment my name is Dennis Ros I reside at 21611 madira for last 24 years I'm
here to find out uh what if anything the town can do after Ian filled the end of our Canal the last 200 feet of it right now low tide is partly any water and uh
I'm that's what I'm here for to find out if there's anything can be done to uh help this okay thank you next hi good morning thank you for being
here um I'm Craig loose at 7150 Estero part of the 7,000 group I'm trying to be one point of contact to uh fill in all my neighbors on the beach your nourishment and the possible uh erosion control method along the runway there
they're using the runway right now to be a a staging point for the all the beach renourishment going on around Leonardo arms trucks coming in and out heading south uh through they come out north of us go out howy in and down towards the southern end of the beach so um I hoping
I was hoping Chad could give me an update on that so I can stop all the hearsay and just share the facts with our neighbors on the 7,000 block of EST stero that being said um I don't see Chad here today and I was just wondering about an updated timeline so okay thank
you thank you thank you uh seeing no one else we do have two uh wrin that ask to be read in public comment so Vice chair Rus would you please read one this uh letter was uh I believe sent to Amy
Baker our town clerk from Michael thoron on Tuesday March 11th 2025 at 10:35 a.m. and was forwarded on to the committee uh murf committee hi Amy Chad indicated that you could provide my comments to
the murf members at tomorrow's meeting thank you my name is Mike thoron my wife and I own property at 21541 madira Road I am a member of The yachtsman Cove subdivision Association
ycsa board of directors our board President John Munger fellow board members Shelley Gates and I have been working to identify dredging options for our Canal to support safe operation for visiting
boers and direct access to boat docs lifts for our property owners like other canals on FMB our Canal is in need of dredging due to sand deposited during Hurricane in a broken
seaw wall which has recently been repaired and additional sand deposits from the 2024 hurricanes our Canal may have been more susceptible than than some other canals on FMB due to the loss
of all of our homes along the west end of the canal during Hurricane in leaving little protection from the 2024 Storm surges I should mention that these property owners and other property owners on our Canal have already or are
currently finalizing plans to raise the height of their seaw walls to provide more protection for Canal from future Storm surges I include a recent photo of the northwest corner of our Canal as an
example of our current Canal condition recently shell had a discussion with Chad chuts and learned that there is an effort being made to obtain government assistance with canel dredging for Fort Meers Beach that is great news given our
understanding of the complexity complex complexity of the permitting and the excessive cost of the dredging our board certainly supports that effort and request that murf continue to provide us with guidance and or recommendations for
any now dredging efforts finally the board would like to thank murf for their role in the debris removal operations already completed making all the canals on FMB safer for boers feel free to contact me as needed and thank you in
advance for your support regards Mike thoron yman Cove subdivision Association Along with this letter uh provided is a photograph of the canal that I assume Amy will uh provide in public
record thank you um thank you Jennifer uh I also have a uh letter that was sent in and forwarded to me this was written by Michelle Yates
505 Compass Lane to all in attendance at the murf meeting Wednesday March 12th please share and record the following comments first I would like to say how great grateful I am for the canal cleanup that has been done or is being done on our Island thank you for support
thank you for your support of this important work as you can see from the attached pictures of The Canal at Compass Lane between medira and Williams there is more work to be done with regard to the sand that washed in from
hurricanes Helen and Milton last fall on top of what came through with Ian it also it is also important that the town address the dredging of the canals as this is only one of the many with similar deposits with this kind of sand
in the canals the water levels are not sufficient for boers to navigate docks to be built or other rebuilding steps to be taken this is a hindrance to both residential and Commercial proper commercial recovery efforts as it makes
it difficult for lot owners to sell their Lots or to rebuild on them with with access to the water for every property owner on every Canal to try and get the required dredging permits from the various government agencies that are
involved is a NeverEnding nightmare is there anything that the town of Fort Meers Beach can do to move this process forward make it easier simpler more effective more affordable for all of the residents and businesses is there any
local state or federal government assistance available I urge you to address this issue in whatever way you can thank you for your interest and attention to this important issue of dredging the canals and for the work you
are doing for the benefit of our community so those are the two that were sent in and we've had public comments so uh is there any other public comment that any of the uh committee uh people
have that they wish to share okay with that I will close public comment you could share that um Harper Master Curtis lewood will be addressing this on the agenda yes it is an agenda item and we will be addressing these
issues further down on the on the agenda thank you thank you councelor thank you okay current items first on our docket is the uh Florida Gul Coast University usdc Grant project we have
with us today and I can't read the little tiny writing but um CH we have two distinguished professors from Florida gulf course I believe Chris Dy Chris Dy why I see two oh that's Ed R
also Ed oh that's Ed rude okay so Shar joining our meeting today is Dr Christopher Daly assistant professor Coastal and I'm going to wreck this
geomorphology the water School Florida Gulf Coast University Dr Dy welcome to the meeting thank you chairman um so I prepared a uh
presentation to give an update on uh the work that we've been doing in our uh Florida SE Grand um uh project uh as you know we've been uh in touch with the um Council of Fort myus Beach
uh last year in June uh at that time we uh went over a few um of the objectives of our uh research and uh we in consultation to get uh some feedback on what we were calling uh resilience
experiment so we're uh using um models to predict uh changes that will occur um along the beach during uh extreme events um and then also looking at uh you know what are some of the interventions we can uh
uh Implement um maybe uh am I able to share my screen yes yes okay so let me share here okay it's showing oh I think it's uh uh
okay all right sorry about that so um we are working on this project in collaboration with um a number of Institutions so it's Florida Gulf Coast University um an institution in the Netherlands called delaris they are um
uh the ones who have been uh uh developing a model called XE which we are using for our study um and of course we're working with uh the town of Fort Myers Beach sanabel Naples these are the three jurisdictions uh who are part of
this project um as well as folks from the USGS in uh St Petersburg um so the three main objectives of our project uh firstly was to um document how hurricane Ian um has
impacted uh the the coast and we've been doing that by by carrying out regular um liar surveys uh these surveys we uh fly um a drone uh equipped with this lier technology and it's able to measure uh
changes in elevation along the entire uh length of uh our beaches uh so we have tried to do these surveys uh twice per year so usually uh just before and after uh the storm season um and we've uh done
over uh 30 different uh 35 different uh flights last year uh along um the southwest Florida coast um in addition to that we also uh collect uh GPR data to look at changes in the
subsurface um and uh that helps us to kind of not only figure out how what were the immediate impacts of Ian but how the coast has changed or you know um recovered since then we know that last year was a very uh uh difficult year
with three storms we had Debbie uh Helen and Milton uh and we were able to get uh data during those events so not only were we you know tracking recovery since y but we've also seen the impact of these uh new
storms um the second objective is to develop uh these morphodynamic models that will help with predicting uh changes on the beach as a result of storm events um so that's uh the X beach model I will go into detail in that in a
in a in a moment and the third uh was more of the application how can we use these models to um uh figure out what uh kind of interventions we can uh uh Implement on the coast how effective
they will be um and we call these resilience uh experiments um so in terms of the area that's covered uh we're we're looking at uh the areas in yellow you can see we have Fort Meers Beach as one of our
target areas here um and uh we're using um a model called uh XP so it's a model that simulates waves storm surge and also uh calculates changes in sedimentation so it can tell you where
the sand uh will be moved to where it will be deposited and where it will be eroded from uh so with these changes in topography we can look at things like uh storm overwash uh beach erosion uh um
all of these uh um uh processes like and uh resolve features like e surge channels which we saw on the southern uh part of um Port Myers Beach and SEL after the passage of Ian um so what we see in this image are
the locations of um of these model grids so the model has to be broken up into small uh sections where we can simulate uh various parts of the coast uh so we have a couple of grids uh for each area for per M Beach we have two
grids um and in terms of the um resilience experiments that I mentioned before uh they were uh based on two types of things so one was interventions uh interventions being uh any kind of
structure or or it could be hard or soft that the city might consider implementing in the future uh that could be seaw walls it could be uh widening the beach uh and we discussed a number of these interventions last year um in
terms of the scenarios that's generally the the forcing conditions you know the event that we're going to be looking at that could be something like a hurricane Ian or it could be a smaller event like a one in five or 10 year storm uh and we
also uh discussed those potential scenarios uh last year um so how it works in our model is that the scenarios represent the boundary conditions of our model and the interventions uh would go into the
bimmetry so we can change the initial uh structure or configuration of the the landscape in our model and then we can allow the uh these flow and sediment transport processes to take place so for Fort Meers Beach we have these
two uh areas uh in the uh North and South uh so the northern um grid starts from the pair and it goes down to about Madison Court it's about a mile and a half and from the southern uh grid it
starts from around Dakota Avenue down to uh around Bell uh Lago so just um uh where we have the uh kind of uh cat's tail Pond uh coming off to uh onto the
beach so um in order to uh initiate our model we need to have a what's called a digital elevation Model A a representation of the landscape uh so that we know uh you
know if we have a surge how high does the surge go how if it passes over certain areas of our of our um landscape so we are us using uh publicly available data from Noah and initially this was data from
2018 um and we've used it because it is continuous across uh the entire domain so it goes from uh ocean up onto land and Inland um now this um data set has
recently been updated uh so now we have um prean data um from June 2022 um and that's the data that you see here uh on the left uh you can see it
covers a bit of the outer uh Shoreline area of of Fort Meers Beach um and after uh Ian had um passed then there was an emergency uh survey uh funded by Noah as
well um carried out by the Army Corps and that data is what we see um on the right so the difference is we for the postan data uh we don't have a lot of
information uh in the water because at the time the water was too cloudy it was too murky it was difficult to take any measurements or any accurate measurements there so we only have changes that have occurred on land um but nevertheless that's a valuable data
set that we've been using to validate our models because without that we're not sure if the model is actually predicting um something that is that is good um now uh in terms of our simulations we have um run our model
starting with the 2018 B neture because that's what was available previously um and that we have put in the wave and St norm and surge conditions representative of hurricane Ian um and what we see here on the left
for the northern Fort Meers Beach area um is the final Beth themetry on the 29th of September right so hurricane Ian hit on the 28th um so the model ran um during this time and uh calculated what
the surge was um and this is the final resulting uh landscape after uh this passage of the storm um so we can see a few things here um one at least on the figure on the
left this is the measured data that we have from um Noah so you can see that strip of that narrow strip of data is where we have information um and that's that green outline here on our um simulated um
Model area so that's the overlap area and that's where we're um kind of checking to see the performance of our model um you will notice um I've also drawn a few lines here these represent
Contours so the blue contour line um is mean sea level um the red contour line uh is uh just a a meter above um that value so we
can see uh a little bit of how the Topography of the beach uh has changed um and what we're going to do is to now compare what the model has predicted to what was actually measured after uh
hurricane Ian so we see this model uh elevation for Fort Meers North and here this is for Fort Meyers South um again we see a bit of um changes here on
the model grid so again this uh 1 M contour line in blue the 0er meter Contour so sea level in red um and uh the buildings so we've actually had to uh make sure that we
could resolve every single building on the island within our model because we know that um when the surge comes on Shore it is channeled through these buildings and they actually add um uh modify the flow and and generally direct
where we would have um overwash deposits on the island um so in this figure we're showing the um simulated sedimentation erosion um so just to orient you a
little bit on this figure um what we see here uh on the color scale is that where we see red that's where we have uh erosion uh so we've lost sediment in that area where we see blue that's where
we have deposition that's where sand has been moved to uh so these would the blue areas would represent areas where we have these storm deposits um when we look on the model we see that we have a lot of red in between
the buildings um you can see these red channels that have been scoured out in Fort Meers North so that's these are those e surge channels that had uh you know popped up that we see cutting uh through um the beach and uh sometimes
going across the roads um where we see blue in the model is the areas just behind right so uh on a lot of the property um lying just behind uh the the the main road the main Avenue um and we
also see um some blue in this offshore area you see this line of blue here that was the area where a lot of sand was actually pulled offshore and deposited in deeper water so we had sand that was
moved both on shore on land and a little bit of that sand also moving offshore um when we look at the data from the measurements now we also want to compare the same pattern that we
see in our model with what we observe uh with the measured data um in the measured data we see again a lot of blue in the middle you get that means that we have blue is indicating
deposition um and then red here is indicating erosion now there is an issue here with this data um because because it is using the 2018 data that we used to initiate our
model rather than the 2022 Preen data so one of the things that we've noticed is that there is a large difference between the 2018 data and the 2022 um prean data so um the
20128 data is actually showing a landscape that is more eroded than the 20 22 um and so we see we have this kind of artifact in our measured data so it is something that we are working on to correct so it means rerunning our
simulations as well um not necessarily to um that it that the simulations are incorrect because we do see um some of the features that we know uh occurred but just to have a more accurate
comparison to um our measurements we wanted make sure that we're using the most upto-date information when we're doing our comparisons uh so we see the same this is the Northern end of Fort Meers Beach uh when I look at the southern end um we
see the same pattern here um a bit of um uh so this area here that's what we call uh Sunset Beach that's the broad open uh area uh in the model it shows that we've had a little bit of a burm form ing on
the front of Sunset Beach not much change on the beach itself but we have a lot of sand deposited just behind along all the buildings and roadways um on the interior um and then we also have a bit
of uh deposition offshore but we see a lot of um erosion we see a lot of red right here and this is where we have that the shoreline begins to curve uh back at the southern end and and we know that that um happen in in reality um one
of the things that's um not showing well in our model in the southern part of the island are the E surge channels that we know occurred um in between the buildings here so they're not as pronounced um so that's another um issue
that we're working on um it means that we need to include a bit more um information in our model at the start so when we um do our simulations we're representing the buildings as being non- erodable of course we don't expect the
buildings to wash away but we ALS but all the other land surfaces are represented as sand um so we actually have to um include other non- erodable surfaces especially roadways in our model um and that will help us to
improve the predictions because of course if we are predicting you know erosion where we have a roadway we know that that is um an inaccurate uh prediction um and finally here uh this
is just an comparison direct comparison with um put the one meter uh elevation contour and we're comparing the measured postan and the modeled postan uh data together um we can see that we have
pretty good agreement in where the shoreline position is in terms of the how far it has been eroded um we even see a little bit of uh these uh BMS that on the southern that formed on the southern part of the
island um so we're confident the model is is doing a very good job to begin with um but we're we we want to make sure that it is doing the best job so we're going to um again redo some of the simulations by uh changing the initial
bimmetry so you using the 2022 data instead of the 2018 data um and then also including uh more non- erodable surfaces such as roadways in in the model um so that's uh just a kind of
overview of where we are with uh our modeling um we know we we want to start off with hurricane Ian and have the best um uh let's say validated models that we before moving on to looking at our resilience
experiments so we uh again just uh will uh conclude or at least finish up or uh hurricane Ean validation um we've done I mean we're working on this at different locations so Fort Meers Beach is of
course one location but we're also doing that validation at Sanibel in Naples at lover key um so I think this is the part of the project that has been taking the longest time um um but um I think we're on the final steps of the of our
hurricane Ian validation uh we actually have um a conference paper that we'll be presenting next month in Portugal um on uh all of this work that we've been doing um the next steps are then once we
have our model and we know that it's uh we're very confident in its predictions we can then um readapt our initial uh configuration to include um the interventions we discussed so the three interventions that we're going to look
at are uh increasing the beach width by 150 M so that's all along the shoreline we're going to um increase that that um Beach width not necessarily increase the height but the width and then we can look at the changes that have occurred
with that increased Beach width um the second intervention we'll look at C is um having a linear Dune uh on the uh Beach that is about 4 feet high and 15 ft wide um and the third intervention
will be having that Dune but also um a seaw wall so that seaw wall would also be represented as an another non- erodable surface in our model um so with those interventions we will um run uh three scenarios well
we've we're already working on Hurricane Ian that's our validation case um after that we will look at um we mentioned a fiveyear and a 10-year event during our meetings last year so we'll have those
um simulations uh lined up uh after that um and finally because we've because of our ongoing um measurements last year we had uh pretty good data that we recorded during the passages of hurricanes uh
Helen and Milton so we had a wave um instrument that was measuring waves and water levels and currents offshore Fort Meyers Beach during those two events we can see some of that data here um so we
see we had wave heights up to uh over 1 and a half meters uh during both events and we had uh an offshore surge of over 1 and a half meters as well uh so down in the lower figure this is
our usual water level so that's just the daily high and low tides and you can see how significant that those surges were uh when we look at the um and this is just the base surge offshore it does not
include um any wave runup that we would have experienced at the shoreline um so if we see a surge of a base surge of one and a half meters offshore it means that we have to add perhaps and especially with a wave height of about 1 and half
met an additional um 50% of that wave height goes into a surge at the shoreline so we would actually have a surge that was over 2 MERS um on the beach and then based on the elevations we know uh that you know would would
have uh resulted in a lot of that overwash uh that we've seen last year um so because we have this data available and it's uh um pretty well documented uh we're also going to run
those uh simulations for uh hurricanes Helen and hurricane Milton uh as additional uh cases in in our in our work um so those are that's just a a an update on how far we've reached with our
modeling what are the next steps um and yes if you have any questions uh I'll be happy to to answer thank you dror um I have just one question and one
observation the question you had mentioned a five or a 10year event in your opinion where would you put Milton is it a five-year event a 10-year event or something not in the study I think
Milton would be a bit higher I think maybe something like I'm I'm not exactly sure but I would put it at around a 50-year event uh or well oh sorry um 25 um Ian was that one in 100 you know kind
of year storm and Ian surge went up to about two and no 3 MERS uh so what we are seeing here with a base surge offshore of one and a half um that
uh it it's it's up there but I I think it would be more than that five that one five year event so a fiveyear event would be something lower than um Milton and Helen all right thank you then my observation is and I think I speak for
everyone here on Fort Meers Beach we really want to stop giving you examples to put into the into the into the scenario um we we've provided enough examples we'd like to rest for a while
so that's just a personal observation does anyone else have any questions for uh Professor Daly before we move on I have one um in your slide it says 150 ft of adding Beach which you mentioned 150 meters which is
it oh sorry yeah no it should be uh 150 ft which is about 50 m all right thank you of additional WID I apologize for that I had a question Robert how I'm late to the meeting I apologize um you may have covered this prior to me
getting here um did you go over anything about planting the dunes was that talked about or discussed um are is that in any of your scenarios and how that would affect um some of the some of these issues yeah so in the scenario where we
would simulate um a a a kind of burm or or June yes we would be able to include um uh vegetation or simulate the effect of vegetation on that D how much so that will be included how much of a positive or negative effect um does that show
when you run those scenarios um we haven't run those scenarios as yet okay um but uh so it's a question whether or not we would run it with and without vegetation yeah I guess so and and um well the I idea was
to run it with vegetation because it it um kind of seemed like the the best combination so both Dune plus vegetation um I'm sure if we run it without the vegetation we would see um
worse results okay um we would probably have a lot of the sand in the in the Dune kind of just uh wash away we're always promoting by adding the vegetation we're increasing the the surface roughness and that reduces the
amount of erosion that we would have during any event we're always promoting strong healthy Dunes so more evidence to that effect actually change a little bit how The Surge actually change a little bit how The Surge passes over land um so that's something we didn't um include
initially uh we were um more concerned about um buildings like structures um but we've realized since that the the uh these other um rotable surfaces are very important to put in the model so we're going to do that um
it means that the models also take a little bit longer to run because uh you know a building is pretty large we can have a model grid which is about 5 m or or or so uh when we're trying to put in roads or roadways we have to reduce that
um resolution to about uh 3 or four M so it gets um it it basically takes a bit longer longer to run the simulations each simulation um takes about a day and a half to run um so it it does take a
little bit of time um so we're balancing you know the time it takes to the simulations with the accuracy that we want to get okay thank you Professor um we uh certainly appreciate the update that
you've given us we anxiously look forward to seeing all of the results of the scenarios being run and uh appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to address the committee all right thank you as well I
know we've been uh a bit quiet the past uh months but it's we're you know slowly trying to get all of our um models up and running and then I think after this summer we'll uh come back with uh another report uh definitely by the end
of the year when all of our simulations have been completed uh we will have um an open Workshop where we'll invite um the public to um you know look at bit at what some of our results are are like we certainly look
forward to that doctor have you uh submitted that those um that documentation to the town so we can have copies no they're yeah certainly thank you okay okay thank you thank
you appreciate your time okay thank you very much you're welcome to sit in for the rest of the meeting if you wish or you can move on thank you okay okay that was certainly informative and
we look forward to it going forward um if everyone doesn't object to it I'd like to just do a quick flip on the current item agenda and get to Canal
dredging u in front of water quality does anyone on the committee have any objection to that okay with that let's immediately jump to Canal Dred all righty good morning um I'm
filling in for for Chad this morning my name is Captain uh Curtis Curtis lewick I'm the Harbor Master here for the town of Fort Mars Beach um just to follow up on the uh Canal dredging and where we're at with this um I'm just going to read this read this
statement um and it should this should answer the questions on the two topics and the uh public uh comment um that was that was read by yall so um I'm just going to dive into
it the canals of Fort Mars Beach are are an invaluable resource for residents and visitors their their socio economic importance includes recreational boating fishing and and storm storm water
conveyance hurricanes Ian Adelia Debbie Helen and Milton cause caused sedimentation of the canals impeding navigation and a and storm water storm water conveyance impacting quality of
life and proper property values restoring Canal depths is a top top priority for the for the community but the funding of a dredge project is a is a is a
challenge dredging did not qualify for for the FEMA FEMA FEMA funding because because the town has not maintained maintained the canals in the past however FEMA
fmaa did a study of the Town storm water system including including uh canals um which I have that here and I can share share with yall um as well
um the staff is preparing permit permit applications for for the for the FD and the USAC CE the in the permitting process may take um a year a year or
longer uh to go through so that is where we're at with the canal dredging um you know like like stated the town is working on it we're trying to get the ball rolling um but our biggest objective is the is the funding on it um
and we are looking into resources and different things to to kind of help us help us with that and move forward so do we have any idea what the cost of that is
um no we do not right now but we're talking yes correct and is that for every Canal on the island um that you're applying for U yes yes the goal would be to do every every Canal do you have to
submit we're getting the funding before you get the permit or you can receive the permit and still be actively working on where we're going to get funding um that's honestly a question for Chad Jennifer I don't know that answer right
off the hand I'll write that down and get with him and get you that answer um is it possible that it would go back to the canal adjacent Property Owners um that would need to pay for that drudging
um um I believe so that they're I'm not 100% sure but um we are trying our best to get as much funding as possible um and to cover it um so the residents will not you know to eliminate the residents
with the funding but um and please I'm not a not 100% sure on this but um you know it might you know we're bringing this forward now to discuss it for the future to bring the
Town Council see where we could get help on our end and then see what the residents are willing to to help something to help subsidized correct yes ma'am you probably don't know this but uh one of the comments uh included a
picture and I believe I'm very familiar with this area I monitor sea turtle nesting in this area and I uh see that uh one of the to the left of the picture is South Point I believe and then um
homes to the to the South and in uh Condo building to the North and then there's a canal with which you could see where the sand came in um washed over maybe into the canal and I'm curious I
don't know if you can answer this if you're aware if those properties to the to the South if uh they actually signed an easement for dune vegetation that I don't know I do not know the answer that okay
um thank you Captain and is there any recommendation from the committee that we would like to give to the board from an advisory standpoint I will say I I do
want to one other thing now with this debris debris uh debris project we have going on with the canals so we are collecting data um for what we're pulling out and this will be going towards our
um maintaining and maintenance records for the canals moving forward so we are doing this right now so this this canal project is also going to help us with dredging and having data
to put up against that for any future funding from F correct Absolut under future issues because um we don't have any there was no records or maintenance data of the canals in the past so that's where we fell short with the people funding something like that I know in
one one area in the past a neighborhood had been assessed they' paid that assessment to have the dredging done the dredging wasn't done so that was refunded after Ian I believe but uh so that's another strike against the town for not having that which would have
qualified US for funding which neighborhood uh it's on the south end I think I don't really remember exactly is there is there data on the seaw walls as well when you're doing this because obviously some of those
seaw walls are quite old you start dredging you might have them fall in I mean there there's a lot of different scenarios of those channels so there's a lot of variables we have to take into consideration for this dredging um you know I'll give Chad mention that to that's another thing we need to look up
but I know that all aspects are going to be considered next does that just if I may um are you talking about individual property owner seaw walls yes so if they're not maintained or if there's cracks and things like that if they start dredging that could potentially
cause issues yeah they could they could fall in I mean you'd have a number of them that were talking about um increasing the height of their seaw wall but I think if the seaw walls haven't been maintained over the years they could be in really tough shape and when you start dredging you know those things
could fall in a very interesting point counselor correct me if I'm wrong but you're wrong on the I believe I believe the seaw walls Remain the responsibility of the individual owners
whose property runs up to the canal I believe I believe that's correct yeah um and the to my knowledge the canals remain part of the Estuary I I'm not sure about that I
don't don't think that's entirely true but um I'll write that down that's my question is is is the canal part of the Estuary uh because it's actually submerged land and for Florida Statutes
if it's submerged land it's either part of the state um it you know MH because it's it's submerged and it shares water with the Estuary so that's my question as far as you know who's whose
responsibility is it for the canals per se now it doesn't stop someone from saying we want to get group a group of neighbors together get a permit and see if we can clean out our Canal um but U everything that I've read
is once once it's submerged it becomes part of the state state land I believe don't we have some private canals too though or we do yeah so just a thought okay yes sir as I said is there any anything that
we'd like to advise the councel on this before we move on okay thank you very good report thank you also for all the cleanup I've received 50 pictures and
it's amazing thank you so much to the town and town staff and I don't I don't know if you'all seen that post uh yesterday that was posted so all that debris was out of one one one Canal so which canal canal three behind m Moss
Marina so um but they're moving along now I should be working South um the rest of the week and M forward okay thank you you're welcome all right um going to Item B on our
agenda um captains for clean water I have received numerous compliments from people that have watched the video they were very impressed with the Captain with the joint meeting said it was a great
Workshop atmosphere um and I hope we can do something like that with uh the Anchorage Committee in the future when we come on like topics including perhaps
the canals so um with that at the end of the meeting we kind of adjourned it because it really wasn't an official murf meeting meeting and I have to ask the committee members is there anything
being an advisory position that anyone wants to recommend to the Town Council as a result of the meeting um well that we still continue to go to legislation and and uh support
uh the initiative uh for what uh Captain's for clean water is doing okay keep pushing like Chris had you know spoke about that uh he needs it's not a an end game it's a continuous go
and keep fighting Leo did you have anything well I would recommend that the Town Council get actively involved in trying to figure out how to finish up the 68 projects for the uh the uh Everglades Watershed because that's a big deal I
mean they got 50 I think it was 55 of the 68 projects underway away and I happened to drive the uh drive that about a month or so ago and it's you know it's you can see that things are starting to progress with the wetlands or Everglades restoration but that is a
big deal because that'll help us with the water quality coming down the river second yeah I think it's just being vocal and active in what's going on in the community I think is is what's going to do it more people that become aware
of why our water is the way how it can be positively different is is huge so the fact that we had that and that they're willing to come out I work directly with captains all the time and they're so willing to come out and talk to people send Representatives send merch they they are they're awesome
inclusive water Keepers is another organization that you can be involved in if you want to be part of water testing if you're on a canal or something they're always looking for water testers and information so yeah being involved and getting it counsel behind that which they they seem to be a lot of the times
sure that's good okay well I'd also Echo everything that everyone was said um I think I think the Town Council uh mayor and vice mayor should actively regularly send letters to our Representatives
supporting the initiative going into the Everglades U one of the other things that um vice mayor uh aderhold brought up is you know contacting the visitors and bringing it in and um I'd like for
us to reach out to uh the Chamber of Commerce and see what they can do as far as including the visitors that come to the island and actively talking to their State uh
representatives and senators from their state because because as the captain brought out uh funding is crucial and every year they have to get funding and if we could somehow get uh the visitors
to the island perhaps putting a a small blur uh in the uh murf tent and I we'll talk about whether you got your murf tent going down but that was my recommendation that we we as a
committee uh technically asked the Town Council to pursue it and also some of the other uh areas such as the Chamber of Commerce to see what they can to get the word out because as the captain said
we are at the end of the we are at the end of The Flume as it comes out of Lake o and anything we can do improves our water at the end of the day yes sir Mr chair I don't know if you can make it on Monday or if you can designate someone from the committee to do that but at
Monday's meeting under uh a committee reports you might want to address that because I know the mayor and the town manager are going to Tallahassee next week I can make the meeting thank you okay um um so with that I'll make a
motion that we address the town uh at the Monday meeting and give our thoughts as far as activating the town or encouraging the town to uh extol the
captain's uh clarification and importance of keeping the Everglade project going and since we're going to Tallahassee that would be a good time for them to bring this up so I'm making the motion as there a second I will second that very
good okay motion made and seconded to advise the Town Council per say all those in favor say I I POS okay thank you everybody John what time's that meeting 9:00 okay members item starting
with Rob coming around first off Rob how present sorry I was late I got a project with Turtle time and FWC I was setting up um down at P shell so thank you guys for your patience and understanding um three things I want to bring to light number one um had a uh great time at the
Shrimp Festival passing out um our activity books along along with many others very proud of the um residents visitors and anyone involved in that not only being part of it but also cleaning up after it um there was hardly any candy wrappers and stuff afterwards so I
thought that was very very good so that's always on the back of my mind um two things that I want to start talking about is are we still under the ordinance that there aren't supposed to be any plastic straws on the island should be um how do we bring uh that to attention or start looking into that
again for residents that are or not residents but restaurants and Facilities of that's code enforcement so code enforcement okay so um I'll probably compile an email about that because there's multiple restaurants that are backed to using plastic since the hurricanes and it's um I think it was
just an ease of money because of lost but it's still an a code that we should enforce I think does any I kind of wanted to talk about that a little bit or maybe put on next weekend over next month um the other thing is it also code enforcement to make sure that the RV
that are currently being lived in on island um where they're pumping their sewage I see a couple that seemingly are going right into the drains by the road locations you're going into the sewer storm sewer or sanitary SE looks like
the storm I've seen it too so that's something that we need to get pictures I'm starting to see on my kayak tours I'm starting to see some residuals from that in the Back Bay so we're talking about that's going to be something that might affect a big effect on the people
matter and issues that we have in our water you might want to start with Chad on that I thought they had a limitation on those RVs on single family lots like a couple years right uh they should all be out here I think by September okay that's awesome so yeah those those are
the two things if we could maybe discuss next time when Chad is here I'll also start compiling you know about both things for code enforcement to start looking into that and anybody information on where they've seen it whether it's the straws or The Dumping please let me know um or
like I guess we'd have to email Chad right yes then have Chad let me know so I can put it all together thank you okay I'm so impressed with Rob and his ideas um I'm just I'm all for what he's
saying I think we've got to be all there communicating as the captain said that's number one get the message out I think book is so awesome the more people that read that the better it's easy but smart
you learn a lot so that's it go well I uh I'd really like to see us get involved in this Captain for clean water and try to push us through with the Town Council and try to get
funding as well as complete that because that has a big impact that water quality coming down the river has a huge impact to us on our beaches and and and everything I mean it's just unbelievable how much I learned from that yeah health
reasons and wildli oh my turn um oh just um that um murf uh popup is um going to be at the grand opening uh March 16th this Sunday at the libraries uh Grand opening it
starts uh at 10: a.m. uh I'd appreciate if uh you can't come to volunteer with the popup um that you come and say hi and uh speak with some of the people that may have some questions of murf um you'll be on the third
floor yes I believe so is the elevator working yes that's yes it wasn't working the yes it's a new elevator I couldn't get a third one oh it it's it's well the other day uh you know when uh um Mao was there talking oh yeah yeah that's that's
Sunday correct that's Sunday um also uh the Anchorage committee is having uh the um Cruiser Appreciation Day on uh a or we're planning on it uh April 27th where murf is also going to have the popup but
I will be assisting with Anchorage committee so if anyone can man that tent along with that tent we'll have uh uh other organizations have been invited the Women's Club to sell the passport um books and uh the Coast Guard
auxiliary will be there to talk about safe voting practices uh we will also have keep Lee County beautiful there and someone from captains the clean water will be there um so we're really excited all that
volunteer and help out will receive a free lunch that day it should be a lot of fun and uh that again is April 27th from 1 to 3:30 3:30 glad you're here and where
is that again and that will be at Bayside Park b side yes one of the things I'd like to uh address uh and maybe add to the agenda because you know we are just a few
months now away from Hurricane SE season is um uh I did see that they had uh pulled out some of the ouses the the um what are they the the porta potties out of the Back Bay that had um ended up
either there from Ian most likely not from Ian because we really didn't have a lot of porta potties on the island prior to Ian but after Ian we had a lot of porta potties and from Helen and from Milton many of them ended up in the bay and if
you all know that's a biohazard that's uh that's not good so we need to make sure I would personally like I know it's hard to um to make sure that every construction site is cleared prior to um
a hurricane or a flood event U or a tropical storm but uh I think those um of you know if nothing else those things should be taken off um immediately so they don't end up in our back base and our in our um golf of Mexico I had three
that landed right on my property after um and and it was disgusting so uh I'd like to either add that to the next U month's agenda or you know in the future but soon um the
excellent idea thank you um I don't know if the town can can write a hurricane ordinance on on having those removed and you know so on and so forth I I think
that falls within something we can enforce with stuff already on the books I believe but okay okay all right we could certainly put that on the agenda for next month thank you you all right um I uh really didn't have much of
anything other than again what I would like to see uh and I did a lot of reading before and after uh Captain Whitman showed up and I can think of
nothing more important to this community than the EV completion of the Everglades project uh because I've been here through several years where the discharge made the beaches literally
unusable both from a u an appearance a smell U everything and we you could see it it was like an oil slick that went out almost a mile in some cases
so I really believe we need to uh do a full court press uh not only on U the normal officials from the town but try and get as many of the visitors that
come here engaged in the process even going to a point to where we have a pre-printed post card or have a u list that says if you send me an email we'll send you a
a pre-written letter um and we'll even give you the the names of your senators and representative from your area and you can do it right from your cell phone or you can do it from your computer uh
if we have 10,000 visitors come down here think of the impact that we could have if we even had 10% of them or 20% contact the various senators and representatives from different states
all saying we need to get the Florida ever Glades project completed as rapidly as we can for the health of the Everglades for the health of the Gulf of uh America for the health of all of the
estuaries surrounding it um it's it's a in my mind the most important thing we can do and that's part of the Mur Charter so that's that's my thing and I think we can brainstorm it at another meeting and think of different ways of
trying to get the word out so um after I mean I think I've had at least a thousand popups and uh I did have um a poster with a QR code that people could go right to and it would go with a it
was to the uh I believe it was conect Ed to Captain s clean water that literally had the pre-written letter to legislation and then it would go all through there but I I don't know if I have that anymore but I'm sure I can find something well we can contact Captain Whitman and try and get his
input but you and go forward and see what he can do he may have something and rather than us Reinventing the wheel we can just say okay here's what it is and but but you have to push it you have to sell with sizzle or or you're never
going to get the sale well our popups if you've ever been to one it's we don't sit behind a table we're very interactive with people and uh I would tell you that over the tons of thousands of people I've spoken to the tourism that isn't one of the number one um
comments is that they would love to see uh our water cleaner you know that uh the South and the you know um Marco Island the water is uh Bluer and clear and the water on you know to the north is is clear so um but that was a that's
been an ongoing comment is our waterways and that's all I had so uh [Music] Ed see if Ed has anything oh about I'm sorry
Ed did you have any any uh uh items that you want to bring up I don't at this time thank you okay that concludes members item
staff update Captain you're up pretty much the big staff update I had was the canal stuff so I talked there um Tred to not um to me anything else to discuss for you at this at this
time um so um anything that he has I guess he'll he'll bring to the next meeting but the biggest item we want to talk about where the where the canal okay we're going to keep the canal dring um on the agenda for next time so uh
Chad is here we can ask him questions we can put we can vote on that down the road at the when we set the agenda okay thank you public comment we have two additional people
that joined anyone would like to make a public comment now's now's your opportunity I just want to introduce myself you have to I just want to introduce myself my name is Ethan um I'm the owner of Lee Marine construction we've been doing a
lot of work on the beach and uh the canal dredging has come up many people are requesting it it's a huge problem um you know we build a dock for people and they can't they've got a beach behind their house so it's a major problem um that needs to be addressed um I'm going
to come to the meetings just to kind of keep tabs on it uh particularly the residents of madira Road have been requesting us to provide them some sort of proposal for dredging their Canal because it's it's totally unusable I mean they literally have a a beach
that's the sand on the other side of their seaw wall is the same height as the sand on on the property side so they need something done and they're just looking for Solutions okay thank you thank you you anyone
else once twice okay with that I will close public comment all right murf award anyone have anything I have one if a new one
if anyone okay um I was um going going down to uh the North End on Saturday uh early in the morning to
avoid the traffic and saw a an army not just a few people literally an army all dressed in white shirts and all walking around with bags and I uh got curious and started trying
to track down who they were what they were doing why they were there and I used try and follow a lot of the things going on in the island and it turns out that it was a beach cleanup sponsored by
tunaskin so I did some some investigative work and contacted the owner um Ben Deval and uh he gave me a brief history of it
so I would like to nominate uh Ben and the tun employees and the hundreds of people uh that were here that Saturday from the south end to the North
End and this is basically what I talked to Ben about tunaskin sponsored their 10th Annual Beach Keepers cleanup on February 16th for the entire island with over 400
volunteers they removed three tons of garbage littered across Fort Meyers Beach and surrounding neighborhoods in just one day events director Ben Deval and his entire tuna skin team arranged for
sponsors from local restaurants and businesses donated commemorative shirts for the volunteers and participants and raised enough money to to donate $5,000 to keep Lee County
beautiful I and for me looking at these people I turned around and drove all the way down to the South End they were all over the island they were on side streets they were everywhere it was it was like you know Locust all over the
island and they were all picking up garbage and I thought what a phenomenal phenomenal thing which prompted me to track it down so get pictures no I didn't get pictures Ben's got pictures and I can get pictures from Ben
I think we have a winner there I think we have a winner um unless somebody else is I do have two um one but I would have to we can keep it in the bank but one is the church I mean not the church the library opening up to our
community um and um and then the other one is um uh the woman who painted the in the library I have pictures of her doing that but uh we'll go with the we'll go with tuna skin okay I'll bring
up the others next time all right thank you uh anybody else have any suggestions for the murf award I thought I'd bring that out first and just short shame everyone else all right so with that I would like
to make a motion to award the murf award to of all his employees at tunaskin and the 400 plus volunteers that cleaned up the island I'll second it okay motion made in seconded any further
discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I I I oppose motion carries unanimously thank you everybody there was my agenda okay set agenda for next meeting and the next meeting is a
different day that's right the next meeting for everyone is April 10th put that on your calendar the Town Council has kicked us out of our spot um so hopefully we'll be in the new digs by then but we'll see hopefully hopefully
um so April 10th is our meeting um I believe as someone mentioned we'd like to talk about um a followup on Canal dredging and put put that on is everyone okay with
that okay and then uh I would like to do some additional followup on Captain for clean water and how we can push that
forward as a committee as an advisory committee and going to the other people ah let's see um rob you want to talk about straws yeah um maybe just kind of overarching of like update on ordinances so we can talk about the straws we can
talk about um The Dumping and then anything else that might driving on the beach so kind of an overarching like just bring up some of the ordinances and discuss and and you know removing porter potties okay so we can put that under
update of ordinances okay that should give us enough to can I ask a question is Chad the person that actually goes out and does the the um the code enforcement or do we have a separate division of people out there
doing like the Rangers do they do the code enforcement we have a separate Department we have a you have a separate Department correct depart Tom Tom so should we email him if we are compiling this should we compile our maybe it
might be helpful if we can ask him to come can we invite him can we invite him I would have to check with u u the town manager and see because you can certainly invite him we can invite him I'm I I think we should invite him and
try to get some answers Al when is a I recommend I recommend you reaching out to chat on that send him an email stating who you want to invite and then chat and probably get the ball rolling with that ask who he needs to ask do you know what day the town
manager's last day is April 29th do we have a new town manager we do not what's is there a deadline to find the town manager oh before April 29th but we have some possibilities they're they're they're working on it
now yeah they're still Gathering and interviewing U talking to uh and doing background checks on applicants the left I heard uh they were narrowing the field down to I think five with two
alternates and then they were going to have kind of an open Forum to allow residents to come in and and meet and greet and I think from there they're
going to whittle it down or make a selection yeah then uh the council will meet question them each individually and then we'll come into a joint Open Session and ask some questions as well and then uh figure out what to do from
there John that the meeting in Tallahassee uh as a mayor and some council members going for any specific reason uh well we've uh submitted lists uh since Ian of things that we'd like help with State funding for so we'll be
pushing those as well do you need some help with that uh in what way just talking to representatives and sure always yeah when are they going do you know you know I'm not sure I don't know if it's uh
after the meeting on uh Monday or okay I don't you I don't know their schedule exactly if you could find out let me know that be thank you okay all right um are we still doing the the the once a
month yes that's right and uh Leo submitted his so who's next go around the table when did you do it I was not too long ago and I did mine but I'll do another
one not the not the um Murphy award the spotlight it's not and when was when did you do the spotlight last two he's Frozen he's moving I see
hising I couldn't hear you oh I said what was the last time you did the beach Spotlight I'm sorry I didn't understand last time I did what the beach Spotlight article I have okay you're
it so Ed it's a next time lie Ed sorry I'm frozen I can't hear anything uh it's it's essentially an article where you pick anything nature related like Community related that you would like to talk about or educate people about or
just bring light to it's kind of like you can use it as an extension of the Murphy award you can use it like I talk about specific species usually when I do mine um something that really gets your heart you know happy and you want to share it you could um honestly like not to not
to give you a topic but maybe like what that um what that area behind your property means to you the wildlife that you see something like that like what wildlife in your backyard kind of thing would be cool you when we talked about it you were very passionate about it it was very very heartfelt AB see thank you
um and then Jennifer I'm in April for uh to discuss uh Turtle season sea turtle season okay and so he's going to be doing March Mr rud's going to do March I'm going to do April do we know do we
have a deadline date usually it's before the next meeting so we can you know I I hate to put a gun to someone's head but I turn it over to the public information officer once I received the article okay and then they disseminate the article as
they see fit I could do may then if you want to make a okay are you ready this so we keep it'll be on the minute okay all right you all right so then where does the article go I'm sorry the Pio sends it
out to all of the you know newspapers Publications you know so on so forth okay puts it on the website okay that's does a Facebook post I believe yeah so um is it going to continue in June yes
every month you can do you can volunteer to do June though I'll do june thank you all right thank you uh with that um the question you you we authorized
funding for you to purchase a new popup and you did get one no I still have to find out through Jeff who I need to order through I used to be Karina at the mountain house but I'm not sure anymore so I need to find that out and I'm glad that you brought that up because one of the tables I went to open up and it just
disintegrated so salt water does not take to no folding tables okay all right all right with that I believe that concludes our agenda and I will accept a motion to adern the meeting I will
second that no you have to make I'll make it I'll make the motion very good motion made in seconded discussion caring n all those in favor of adjourning the meeting say I hi