Brad Freeze >> here. >> Thomas Bradford >> here. >> Russ Redmond. Wade Chance >> here. >> Joe Wenta >> here. >> Michelle Shar >> here. >> Drew Enriquez >> here. >> All right. Um, any changes to the agenda
as written? J. >> I make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted. >> I second. >> All those in favor? I >> motion carries. Uh, communication from citizens. Would you
like to say anything? >> Okay. Um, okay. Our first presentation is by Mr. Tomifford. >> That's correct. >> All right. Um, I have here Palm Beach Fishing Association. Is that incorrect? I see Palm Beach County.
>> Palm Beach County Fishing Foundation. I represent. >> I apologize. >> No, that's fine. um here to talk about the oyster habitat recycling restoration program. >> Thank you for coming. >> Sure. Thanks for having me. I uh I said
earlier I've somehow become an oyster nerd in this whole process. So um just bear with me. I am a you know true confessions here. I am a fisherman. So I I uh everything I say is absolutely true. Right. And uh if I speak too long,
somebody might have a gaff around here and you can uh give me the hook. But uh I enjoy what I do. I'm very passionate about this. Um and so um yeah, let's get started. Jay, am I am I missing a clicker or do I use
>> because it's you sent me a PDF, I have to click through. >> Oh, let me go. >> I got you. Okay. So, um, I represent the Palm Beach County Fishing Foundation, uh, which is the charitable affiliate of the historic West Palm Beach Fishing Club. If you ever go downtown, it's that
little, uh, unassuming building that sits on the corner of North Flagler Drive and Fifth Street. Um, kind of caddyy corner from the Palm Beach Yacht Club. It's been there since 1941. It's on the National Register of Historic Places. It's one of only two or three
that I'm aware of uh fishing clubs on the National Historic Register in America. Uh it's a really special place. It's always had a full-time staff. I've worked there 38 years, but the club was founded in 1934 and uh it has a tremendous conservation
legacy. So, this oyster shell recycling and restoration program is is kind of a really good fit um in our DNA uh structure for a lot of the things we've done. We we've planted mangroves. We've created living shorelines. We've built
all kinds of artificial reefs offshore. We're still actively involved with uh acoustic telemetry. Uh that's the tagging of different species of marine fish um for uh research purposes. uh and we we collaborate with the Tquesta lab
right up the street here with the folks at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. So, we've been working with them for decades. In fact, uh in 1970, the state of Florida established its very first marine lab, the one that's up there, was inside the West Palm Beach
Fishing Club. And uh the early research was centered around Atlantic sailfish, but uh we're still very actively involved with them. All right, Jay. Thanks. Um, so I'm here to talk about this oyster shell recycling and restoration program that we started um
here in Palm Beach County. And it's a real simple mission. We're just collecting shells from local restaurant partners. Those are shells that are being thrown away right now. They end up in the landfill. And um we recycle them
by taking them to a curing station. Uh so you're not allowed to use the shell for environmental restoration uh until it's been cured in the natural elements. The sun, the heat, the rain, the flies, the the the roaches, the raccoons uh
have to take whatever remnants are still left on the shell. And you don't want to be introducing any u foreign pathogens, viruses, bacteria because a lot of the oysters come from other places, right? Prince Edward Island, the Chesapeake Bay, the Pacific Northwest. And so we
don't want to introduce uh foreign pathogens to our local waters. So uh we let the shells cure out in the elements for uh 6 months and then we use those recycled shells for locally based restoration. So in our logo, you see the
big circle there. Uh we're just trying to complete the circle where we we source shells from local partners. We intercept them before they go to the landfill. We cure them and then we use them for environmental restoration and they end up back into the estine
environment. All right. Okay. So, the good news is that um we have oysters in our estuaries. That's the Lakew Worth Lagoon. Really interesting picture there. That's 1915 Palm Beach Inlet. That's Singer Island on the north side. Um but you know the
Lakew Worth Lagoon was a freshwater system and then when we uh dredged and permanently maintained a navigable inlet it changed from a freshwater ecosystem into an estine system and naturally uh
seaggrasses and oysters and mangroves recruited to the waterway. And of course we have the Lockxahhatche River which was already uh an SU system back in the day. And so um over Over the decades uh the last h 100red years um we have
degraded these estine systems tremendously through uh dredging and filling uh bulkheading removal of uh uh critical habitats and then uh inundating these systems with not the best uh quality of water and I'll talk about
that a little bit more in a minute. Uh next Jay. So again more good news is that um there are oysters present still in our systems uh in the Lake Worth Lagoon in the Locksah Hatchee River.
There's naturally occurring uh oysters in these waterways and back canals of North Palm and uh here in Tquesta. uh there are oysters and so that's really important to know because that's where we will be recruiting the new oysters
that we want to um actually attach to these vertical oyster gardens. So vertical oyster gardens don't work unless oysters are already present somewhere nearby because that's where you get the recruitment of the new oysters. So there's places like Snook
Islands, John's Island, MacArthur Beach State Park where there are lots of oysters already within the system. Next, Jay. Um, so what's important to remember is that u you know the surface area of
places like the Lockxahhatchee River or the Lakew Worth Lagoon are impacted by a much larger watershed. So this is the example of the watershed that surrounds and drains into the Lakew Worth Lagoon. We call the Lakew Worth Lagoon a 42:1
uh estuary. 42 to1. Uh what I mean by that is the surface area that drains into the surface area of the Lake Worth Lagoon is 42 times larger than the surface area of the lagoon itself. Uh so
think about that that that image there. We're getting and draining water all the way from Lake Okachchobee and a lot of the agricultural areas out west. That water finds its way into the uh the system, the Lake Worth Lagoon. And the Lockahhatchee River is no different. And
there's an image there of somebody holding um muck in their hand. And this is really this is this is kind of the the aha moment. This is a water sample that I took from uh Riverside Drive. Uh
I I had I had installed about eight vertical oyster gardens underneath uh one of our members docks at Riverside Drive just a little to the west of the railroad bridge. And so this is a bottom
bottom sample of the um of the area underneath that dock. And what we're facing is when the watershed when it drains into the Lockxahhatchee River into the Lake Worth Lagoon, it's not just the water that comes with it.
We have what we call tremendous sediment loading. And so there's a lot of very fine organic particulate matter that is in the canals and everything. And because of the head pressure of the water, it goes with the water flow
towards these estuaries. And then of course the water runs up into the backside of a spillway, right? And then when we get heavy rains or it rains in the summertime, they open the spillway up to release the water because there's no place for the water to go and it has
to go into the to the Locks River or the Lake Worth Lagoon. I live on one of those spillways. I live on the C17 canal in North Palm Beach. I've had a front row seat to this for 38 years. And um when the South Florida Water Management
District designed these spillways, they don't dump water from the top like this. When when it's time to dump water, the spillway opens like this from the bottom. And guess what's piled up at the back of that spillway? because of the
head pressure of everything draining from the watershed is a bunch of sediment. It's not toxic material. A lot of people think it's it's it's like heavy metals and really bad stuff. It's mostly organic sediment material that is
drained off of agricultural lands, but also people's yards, right? Um uh grass clippings, whatever. That stuff decomposes and it makes this fine sediment. Well, when we dump, so we get a rain
and this push of water comes out and with it comes this sediment loading. This has been happening for decades and decades and decades and decades here. Uh, Lake Okachchobee is full of this stuff because of what we did to the CMI
River. Whole another story there. I'm talking about the impact of this sediment loading to the estuary like the locks river and the Lakew Worth Lagoon. So what happens is when it's calm it it looks great and good clear water
is great because the light can penetrate and that promotes seaggrass and then good things can happen. Um I don't know if you can see it there but there's really a very fine layer of darker material. So the normal material would
be sand, mostly a sandy sediment in the bottom of the lake uh Lake Worth Lagoon and the Locks of Hatchee River. But over the decades and decades, as I described, the sediment loading has happened and then we get um let's say uh
a busy Fourth of July weekend and all those boats are out there and all of a sudden the water starts to get a little agitated. Okay, now the water becomes a little more turbid because there's all these boat wakes floating around, bouncing off
of seaw walls. You've seen them in the river, right? On Fourth of July weekend, whatever. Now, let's say we start to get a tropical system, a tropical storm. Now, we get a hurricane.
So what happens is this sediment loading is pervasive throughout the lagoon throughout the locks of Hatchee River and it's smothered our seaggrass. It's smothered our our oyster beds and this problem is a massive problem. What I'm
talking about today is not going to solve this problem. This needs to be dealt with eventually. And I talk till I'm blue in the face about ways to deal with it. But um that's a whole another story for another day. But what happens is this fine
smothering sediment gets resuspended in the water column and then on the wind and tide it drifts around and then it calms down again cuz Fourth of July is over and this stuff resettles wherever the tide took it, wherever the wind took
it. Often times it's in the back end of canals, these backwater areas or dredge holes in the Lakew Worth Lagoon. So this is the bad news. Next Jay, sorry. Again, Los Hatche River, uh, same deal.
See how big the watershed is. Those are natural reefs that occur in the river, but again, a lot of them have been smothered by this sediment. Go ahead, Jay. Next. So, important to know oysters are what we call a keystone species. They are
critical. They provide critical habitat for all kinds of fish and invertebrates, other types of wildlife. You'll see birds and raccoons eating oysters. Um, they filter the water. So, one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a
day. Think about that. One oyster up to 50 gallons of water a day. So, what we're trying to do is harness the natural filtering power of an oyster and multiply that by tens and tens of thousands to help mitigate this sediment
loading problem that we have and to increase oyster habitat for fish and wildlife. Oysters also play a really critical role in stabilizing the shoreline. It's not as important to us here in Palm Beach County because our waterways are more narrow, but in places
like the Chesapeake Bay or the Gulf Coast, oysters play a really critical role in stabilizing those shorelines. Uh that's not as much a concern here. And then oysters also sequester carbon. So there's a lot of great things going on with oysters. Go ahead, Jay.
Um need to know that oysters are what we call broadcast spawners. So when one oyster spawns, millions of little oyster larae are spewed out into the the water column and they drift around. They can't
control where they go and eventually some of them settle on what we call a hard substrate. A hard substrate is anything like a rock or a concrete piling, a seaw wall that's concrete. Um, you know, you've probably seen people's
dock ladders with oysters on them, but an petrified oyster shell, a cured oyster shell, um, is like the ideal substrate to recruit new oysters. So, if you have oysters present and a larve settles on this and becomes what we call
spat, um, we are successful at recruiting them because they love this material. And all oyster reefs are are generations and generations of oysters that spawn, spew their larve, some settle and they they become the next
generation of oyster reefs. So when you go to places like Chuckleski or Pelicer Creek up by St. Augustine and you see these big oyster reefs, that's just generations and generations of oysters doing their thing, piling on top of each
other. We've lost a lot of that opportunity here because of the sed sediment loading that I've mentioned. There's the life cycle of an oyster. Um, but we have to do an end around we we need to try and do an end around this
sediment loading because that's a much bigger issue that we can't solve. So, um, next check. So what we can do is we can um get around that by not doing benthically
oriented restoration. So, uh, restoration techniques where we put shells in bags and put them on the bottom or in places like the locks of hat, uh, the Chesapeake Bay or, uh, Hudson Bay, they actually bulldoze tons
of shell and make new reefs out of the petrified shell. Those techniques won't work here because of this sediment loading that we have and because our systems are very narrow. Um, what we're doing here and what I'm talking about
today is nothing new. Um, in fact, I say we're late to the party here. I don't know why we haven't been doing this for a long time, but uh, I guess, you know, this was just the perfect opportunity for the Fishing Clubs uh, Charitable Foundation to step in and try and lead
the way. But there are examples of what I'm talking about all over the country. South Carolina, North Carolina, the the Florida GF Coast, Louisiana. Um the Billion Oyster Project. You want to get into this. They It's just phenomenal
what they've got going on in New York. Um so we're just doing what's already being done. We're trying to catch up and uh these people have laid the template. Next. Okay. So, we have partners already. Um, you
know, the fishing club has over 1,600 members. Um, and so we've got a lot of support there. A lot of them are waterfront property owners that want these on their docks. Uh, we need Shell. So, we've partnered with the Breakers Resort. They have 10 restaurants. They
estimate they go through a couple hundred,000 oysters in a year. Um, and so every oyster is a buy valve. So, one oyster is actually two shells. That's a lot of shell. And uh our our superstar partner right now is Cotton Capers because they're a wholesale distributor
and they supply oysters to a lot of other restaurants. Uh so we get our shell from Cotton Capers and the restaurants they work with and breakers and then we take the shell to MacArthur Beach State Park uh where we cure it in our curing station that we've built
earlier this year. The village of North Palm Beach is is a very active partner in this and that's kind of why I'm here today. um because uh Rick Sartorii came to one of my talks at the uh uh at the village and he thought this might be a
good fit for Tquesta. So that's one of the reasons why I'm here. This is what our curing station looks like. It's it's like a big fancy horse stall. I say it's fancier than any horse stall out in Wellington, but I'm biased. So um but that's where we take all our shell. We
collect them in those bins and like I said, they have to sit out for about 6 months. And so we've already got one bin uh kind of quarantined off that we're working out of right now. We started to fill the next bin. Um and our curing station will hold at least 20,000 pounds
of shell. So we've already collected over a ton of shell um since we got started. So I mentioned some of the restoration techniques. You know, they hang baskets underneath docks in some loces. They build those reefs out of shell in other local. We actually
participated in a in a um restoration project in MacArthur Beach State Park about 5 years ago, dumping a lot of rock rock grip wrap uh to recruit new oysters. But this is the technique that we believe will work the best and get
the uh the biggest bang for our buck and will be a great facilitator for engaging the public. So these are called vertical oyster gardens. got the petrified shell that we punch a hole in and we just simply string the shells on stranded
stainless steel cable and uh we suspend these underneath docks and boardwalks. Again, a lot of other municipalities are already doing this. If you go up to Stewart to their boardwalk, you'll see a bunch of these things hanging underneath them uh underneath their boardwalk. And
so, uh, the reason this restoration technique is ideally suited for where we live is be precisely because of this. Um, because the sediment settles on the bottom. And so, by suspending the shell,
you're not as likely to be impacted by this heavy sediment loading. And so, the oysters actually have a chance and don't get smothered. The key to making this work is number one, there has to be oysters present at docks. So, uh you
might be able to see the one on the the inset picture. There's oysters on the seaw wall. Uh so, we know oysters already present. So, that's where we're going to recruit our new oysters from. And you have to suspend this and this is the most critical part. You have to suspend these in what we call the
intertital zone. It's that happy place between high and low tide uh where oysters are their happiest. And so if you go to the Questa Bridge on a dead low tide, you might see about a 36 to 38
in band of fouling material on the concrete pilings of the bridge or the Flagler bridge or somebody's seaw wall concrete seaw wall. It's that band where the oysters will actually thrive. It's the intertidal zone. It's kind of right
in between high and low tide. And so it's critical when people hang these. So we've been reluctant to just give these to a bunch of people because we want to make sure they're doing it right. I've actually written an installation guide if you want to become an oyster
gardener. Um but uh so those are the two critical factors. The other critical factor is um it's got to be brackish water. So if you live close to Jupiter Inlet, it's going to the salinity level is going to be way too high. If you're right next to the spillway, the salinity
level might be too low. Uh oysters like that kind of happy spot in between that just magic mix of fresh and salt water. But there's tons of waterways like the canals in North Palm Beach and the ones here in Tquesta that are ideally suited
for increasing oyster habitat using this technique of edge. Almost done here. So just a just a little math quiz or example. So if we installed 1,200 of these things, we've already installed over 200 by the way between us and the
village of North Palm Beach. If but if we get up to 1,200 that's that's uh putting six of these things underneath 200 docks and we presume they recruit 14 oysters. So you know 1,200 * 14 is
16,8800 oysters. And if each oyster only filters 30 gallons a day, not even the 50 that we know they can, that's filtering over a half a million gallons of water each day. And these are just super conservative numbers, but I just wanted
to give you an example of the the the incredible power of of harnessing something very natural that's free um to to help clean and uh improve our water
quality. Next, J. Um so there's some examples of of places we've hung them docks. You can see the phall organism organisms on some of the pilings there. Uh and you can see that band that I spoke of. And if you go to someone's,
you know, dock on a low tide, you'll see oysters fouling on ladders and and other materials. Um and you know, so if they're present, this is going to work. Go ahead. So there's an example of what they look
like new, just like the one I lifted here. And then there's some that have only been in the water 6 months. And there are um the one in the center there, there's there's dozens of new oyster recruited, new oysters recruited to that
single vertical oyster garden. Again, remember they filter 20, 30, 40, up to 50 gallons of water a day. So, um, it doesn't take much of an imagination to see the power and the impact something like this could have if we are able to
put thousands, tens of thousands of these out into our waterways. Next, so people always ask me, where did this idea come from? Who made this up? Mother nature has been doing this for eons. If
you go around red mangrove u fringe um especially well-developed ones and you look at the prop roots, you will likely see oysters like these hanging from them. That is mother nature's vertical oyster garden. We're just simply duplicating what mother nature has
already been doing for a long time. Next, uh, one of the things that I wanted to point out is it's become popular, at least I've seen it in North Palm where I live, people scraping their seaw wall. So, the seaw wall on the right has been scraped. There's no boats
that dock up against that. There there is no reason why you need to scrape a concrete seaw wall. That is the original seaw wall that was built in North Palm when it became North Palm in 1960, whatever it was, or 59. that seaw wall
is is 70 years old. Oysters haven't haven't compromised the seaw wall in any way. So, um people are being misled that they need to scrape their seaw wall because somehow it's going to cause it to fall in the water. Why seaw walls fall in the water is because the tieback
rods uh rust and it loses its support upland. But oysters have nothing to do with that or or the cap the rebar in the cap expands and the cap starts to crack. Again, oysters have nothing to do with that. So, um boy, if you're ever talking
to people and they need to scrape or, you know, they're contemplating scraping oysters. We're losing tremendous filtering capability by by scraping the seaw wall. So, don't scrape your seaw wall. Um,
again, I I can't overemphasize the uh public engagement opportunity with a project like this. Um, I was telling Jay, you know, I we had the Forest Hill High School fishing club kids at the at our club a couple weeks ago building these things. I gave a talk at Lakeworth
Middle School two weeks ago. Had kids in a science class building these things. Uh the village of North Palm Beach has been tremendous at engaging their residents and so it's a great way to connect the public with environmental restoration and make them feel like they
can actually make a difference. If they don't live on the se on the water, they probably know somebody that does that might benefit from this. And so uh what a great way uh to to help educate the public and give them an opportunity to be part of the solution. Uh again, I
emphasize this is not going to solve all our water quality issues, but it is definitely going to help. And that's the beauty of this. You know, we've been building artificial reefs and we've been in involved with the county's efforts to build these restoration islands for decades at the West Palm Beach Fishing
Club, but it doesn't really connect the general public when you build an artificial reef. There's no there's no opportunity for the public to to get hands-on and be a part of that. there is with this. And that's the beauty of this. This is uh and again, it's done
all over the place. We're just late to the party here. And um so we're we're getting that ball rolling, Jay. So we we're cultivating all these oyster ambassadors, we call them. These are people that are helping the cause by
hanging them underneath their dock, helping us build them, uh helping us collect them, and yes, actually eating oysters. And uh so you can help by eating oysters. So just in conclusion here, this is just a you know there's this is
a win across the board. You know, we're collecting the shells which reduces landfill waste. It makes the restaurant look pretty darn good, too. Um these these vertical oyster gardens are a proven technique. They work. This is not like a
speculation. This this stuff actually works. Um, the environmental benefits of creating more oyster habitat is just tremendous. I I talked about all that spawning activity. Every all of those larve, a lot of people don't understand,
but the oyster larve, most of it doesn't survive, but the larve plays an incredibly critical role in the marine ecosystem. All kinds of little worms and invertebrates and glass minnows uh eat that larve. So that larve alone plays a
really important role and a beneficial role to our ecosystem. Uh but if we can get some of them to find purchase on a vertical oyster garden and start recruiting new oysters, we get the double whammy. Um again, meaningful community outreach and just, you know,
lots of ways for you to get involved. If you know people that want these, we we have them to give out. Uh we can show people uh how to install them. uh if you want to get more involved with a shell pickup or um you know there's just
there's a lot of ways to get involved. If you know groups that would like to uh engage in this um you know we give these talks and um yeah so again that little line there using locally sourced shells
for locally based restoration. That's what we do. Um, you know, you can buy these shells that you can buy a truckload of shells from South Carolina or Appalachiccola. Uh, but what we're trying to do is really complete that circle in our logo. Locally sourced
shells that are going to our landfill and then using them for locally based restoration. We complete the circle. So, we'd love to have the village of Tquest involved in some capacity. Um, and you know, I'm all ears. I love this uh
quote. I'm a big quote person, but this one from Margaret Margaret me uh kind of says it all when we talk about programs. Grassroots programs like this. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever
has. So, thanks for having me. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Ybody have any questions? >> I have a question. >> Let's just start down. >> Start down. >> You have a question? Uh yeah, I do have one question. The piling, you know, some of the pictures that you show of hanging
them under docks and then you can see in the background picture of the pilings, they collect around the pilings in many cases. Is there a a garden attachment can connect to each one of those pilings? >> Um well, is that a worthwhile thing to do?
>> Yeah, not really. I mean, it needs to suspend vertically, so it would lay up against the piling if you did it that way. It's better to to spread them out a little bit because I don't like if you look at some of those mangrove crop roots, you know, they they it starts to
go like this. So, you know, we usually space them a couple couple two three feet apart. Okay. >> Um, you know, >> based on our our hope that they will will will expand. Again, these won't work everywhere. And so I've put them
in, we have them all the way from the locks river down to hypuxo. And so we're really because this is we just started this back in April. I mean, we're new at this, but um in terms of getting the whole systems in place and and really
getting a bunch of teams out there doing installations. Um so we've intentionally spread them out. We got Singer Island, North Palm, HypuXo, Lakeworth. Uh, I'm putting some in in Palm Beach, Everglades Island in the next week or two. And so, we want to see where some
of our really hot spots, our good spots are, but I've been surprised. I mean, they they they've been working everywhere we put them. Just some are growing faster than others. >> And that probably has to do with the salinity fluctuations. >> My last question is, um, how can the
village of Dquesta help you? If you had an ideal scenario, what would you ask for? So, I think there's a great opportunity for this committee, very much like the village of North Palm is doing for public engagement. And so, their environmental committee uh has an
event. I believe it's on November 22nd. So, some of you might want to just go check it out to see what the village of North Palm is doing. But they they have a network of village residents that um they they speak to through Instagram and
their newsletter and what have you and invite them to come to the rec center and build vertical oyster gardens. And so they will have a supply of shells and all the tools and materials to build a bunch of these that will then be ready
um to be deployed. And so it's a it's a wonderful opportunity for the village of Tquesta to do public outreach and engagement. Uh beyond that, uh the village has, you know, a bunch of waterfront property owners that may want to have some of these. And so reaching
out to them and saying, "Hey, this is what, you know, this is what's going on in our community and this, you know, represents a way to help improve water clarity and quality off of your dock. Are you interested?" And then you just
let us know and we'll put you on the list. Uh that list is filling up fast, but you know, we'll we'll try to get some people out there to install them or we'll show them how to install them so that they can do it on their own. So that's two ways that the village of
Aquesta could could be actively involved. So we're collecting the shell. We're happy to give the shell to whoever wants it for environmental restoration. I had a call at the fishing club uh a couple months ago from somebody from the town of Jupiter uh who represents the
town of Jupiter. He's an engineer and they're going to be doing some restoration at Sawfish Bay. and part of their restoration is uh they have an oyster component uh oyster habitat component and he was asking me if they could have access to some of our shell
and absolutely that's what we're what we're collecting them for. >> Thank you. >> Um that was one of them. The other one installation. So somebody actually comes out and >> right now we're doing that. Yes. But
that's the bottleneck. We we need to train more teams. This is all just grassroots right now. And so I need to, you know, I've been doing a lot of it myself, but the village of North Palm Beach has some people that have been doing it um from the village as well.
And I've got an installation guide that I've written up to show people how to do it. >> So I'm thinking like within the village if we could if we did something like this to have somebody in the village that knows how to >> right cross, you know, train somebody, >> right? The one thing I did didn't
mention that you need to be aware of is um vertical oyster gardens don't require a permit, an environmental permit. So, if you're going to take a oyster shell and um and you're going to use this
shell for uh restoration techniques where it goes on the bottom. Now, you need a permit. You got to go through the core of engineers, South Florida Water Management District, whoever owns that bottom, could be unincorporated, Palm Beach County, whoever. But because
you're suspending them from a privatelyowned dock or a public boardwalk, they're not on the bottom and you don't need an environmental permit for this. That is huge. That is huge cuz I, you know, I don't know if any of you
have tried to get permits to do work. Um, it's not an easy process. So, this not requiring a permit is huge. You just need the permission of the dock owner or whoever owns the structure that you're putting them on.
>> Okay. >> Well, that was an excellent presentation. Um, thanks >> and I appreciate you doing that. The uh just two things come to mind. Um, you talked about the ideal sweet spot for
salinity for the oysters. Um, I assume someone somewhere knows what that sweet spot range would be. And I'm pretty sure the Locket River Environmental Control District uh measures salinity on a
regular basis. So that for example, this would be down the road. we would be able to say, okay, if you're westward of this point, don't bother, but and if you're this close to the Atlantic Ocean, too much sal don't bother. So, we would then
have the sweet spot for us to work on to get people to participate. >> Absolutely. Um, one thing to add to that is the sweet spot often changes because of weather,
you know. So, in my dock, where I live on the C17 canal is a perfect example of that. I have nine of these underneath my dock. And I've over the years tried to recruit oysters just naturally on the bottom. I they get smothered a lot. And what I have observed uh over
the years, the many years that I've lived there, is I'll get great oyster recruitment for a period of time when we don't have a lot of uh freshwater discharges. They're always letting a little bit of water go. And that's that's the way it's supposed to naturally work. But then when we get
these inundations, like about 3 weeks ago, I don't you know, it was raining every day, right, for about two weeks straight. that spillway looked like a cola Colorado river in my backyard. And what I observe over the years is I'll get great recruitment and then they'll
kind of they'll kind of back off a little bit and some of them and then they'll have like a little bit of a die off, but they don't all die and then they come back quick again. Um, and so, you know, trying to find that sweet spot, it it's kind of a moving target
sometimes. But, um, the the important thing is that they're still alive. It's, you know, there's still that that kind of foundation that's still there, at least underneath my dock. I mean, when I go down there and have my coffee in the morning, I can hear them popping. And
that's that's music to my ears because I know I know they're doing their stuff. >> That's a great one. >> That was a great presentation. Thank you. Yeah. >> So, before I forget it, um, a lot of this I would imagine might be on your website. >> Uh, some of it is. We have, you know,
some of it on there. Not highly detailed, but I mean, Jay, you're welcome to I mean, um, you know, >> use this or share it. I don't, it doesn't make any difference. >> Curious what your u you, what do you call it? URL was. >> Yeah, it's the it's west palm
beachfishingclub.org. >> Okay. West Palm Beach Fishingclub.org. It's kind of long, but >> we do a lot of other stuff. I mean, this is, you know, we we do club stuff. We tournaments and contests and seminars. And >> my last question is this.
>> What what if any when you get any push back from say a property owner um >> may have they may have been initially interested in this and then you you reach out to them. do what kind of things did they say to
you that they might consider to be negative about this if anything? >> And and so I want to be totally clear, not everybody wants these, and that's okay. That's that's certainly their prerogative. Same with scraping their
seaw wall. Some people just want to scrape their seaw wall. Well, that's that's there's no law against it. I I just don't think they're um fully aware the the important role the oysters play. Um push back. You know, some people say,
"Well, I like to catch snook off my dock and I don't need a couple more um things for my fishing line to get hung up on." you know, um you know, it it that um I if you hang them just off the side of
your dock, they could encumber like if somebody's coming up in a small boat or a kayak or something. So, you don't want to put these where it's going to cause a a problem for a boater or something. I was telling Jay earlier, uh, all of the
installations that I do, I I get up underneath the dock on a on a real low tide. I always go on a dead low tide. And, uh, a lot of times I have to have a ladder and install them way up underneath the dock in that inner title
zone, though, and you kind of set it and forget it. You don't even know they're there. The ones underneath my dock, I don't even know they're there. Um, I wish I could say I caught a lot more snook off my dock than I have been lately, but uh um I'm I'm I'm not concerned about that. The other the
other thing I've heard some people say, "Well, I don't want you to put a hole in my my dock." And so we use stainless steel um selftapping screws. Um and we usually go in the crossmembers. They're usually like 2x8
uh pressuret treated wood. And we put a little tap screw in there. And then to adjust. So you might be wondering um so we use stainless steel stranded cable so that uh boring organisms like worms and
barnacles and stuff aren't boring into nylon rope or polyropylene rope where we're introducing microlastics to the system. We don't want to we don't want to do that. So we use lengths of stranded stainless steel cable. This part is mostly out of the water
almost all the time. And then we just use clos lines, you know, polyropylene rope or whatever, uh, to adjust to that if this is the happy zone so that we get it here. But most of this up is generally out of the water and it's up
underneath the dock so it's not as impacted by sunlight and uh, and other elements. Ideally, what we would like to do is to be able to have these pre-rung on 8 foot lengths of stainless steel cable. And then when we get up
underneath the dock, we adjust and then crimp off at the right elevation. Uh it's a little more labor intensive and it's more time consuming. So, we're sticking with this method right now, but eventually we're going to get to the other method where um the the longevity
of it is really great. >> Thank you. >> And even if they fall in the water, they still have oyster habitat on them. Now, they might get smothered by the sediment, but um >> thanks for having me, gang. >> Yep.
>> No question. Just it was amazing presentation. Very educational. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Well, that's that's that's the beauty of the program and and just so think about this uh when we're talking to groups of kids, right? I mean, there's there's just a tremendous uh
benefit to educate kids on um the importance of environmental restoration and the really important ecological role of a silly oyster place, >> right, >> in the environment. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> True. You have any question? >> Yeah. Uh, have you ever put any sort of
public newsletter or anything out there explaining the how negatively impact how negatively impactful it is to scrape the seagulls? >> Uh, I have I got the village well I wrote a piece for the village of North Palm Beach that they put in their
newsletter and then they followed it up with another piece because we've had um I guess maybe they were um hard up for work in the summertime because all the boats were gone. So the companies that do this are the same companies that scrape boat bottoms. So when all the
boats are gone, I guess they're looking for more work. And so they've kind of figured out that maybe this is an opportunity. And uh I've talked to people who've scraped their seaw walls and they think they're doing a good thing um
because they they they get the sales pitch from the guy that's going to be doing >> seems like it's just lack of education. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> Yeah. Exactly. I'm happy to share the the piece I wrote for uh the village. I can send that to Jay and if you guys have a
newsletter, you want to edit it however you want. Um yeah, a good friend of mine is Charlie Eisinger. I don't know if any of you know Charlie. >> Yeah. So Charlie and I have been friends for a very long time. He's, you know, he's put in and permitted countless
docks. And I reached out to Charlie when this became an issue and said, "Charlie, are are oysters compromising the integrity of concrete seaw walls?" And uh he he used a word that I won't repeat right now, but um no. The answer was no.
And in fact, he found a paper that indicated that maybe they make them more resilient. So, uh, there are there are seaw walls made out of vinyl and aluminum, and those might be ne I don't
know for sure, but those might be negatively impacted by oysters. But oysters don't really like that material. They like concrete. They like that solid substrate. But yeah, you can uh if you um if you need a a source um to um kind
of back me up, Charlie's your guy. And then do you have any vendors for the colle any restaurants in Questa that you collect from? >> So I've had restaurants reach out to us that want to participate and we're just not at that point now. We haven't scaled
up enough. Uh 1,00 North um I forget the gal's name. Um she came to one of my presentations at the Marine Loggerhead Marine Life Center a couple months ago and uh they want to participate. I'm sure the lucky shock, you know, I mean, gosh, what a what a great fit that is.
Logistically, you have to understand we got to get the shell from these places to McGregor Beach State Park. So, the further our radius, the reason I'm working for the Breakers is cuz I work at the West Palm Beach Fishing Club and I I'm 2 minutes away from from where they're where they're stockpiling their
shell. Uh, it takes a commitment on the part of the restaurant. So, it sounds simple. It it's not as simple because, you know, restaurants are in the business of making money and and they have oftentimes limited space and so getting their weight staff and their
kitchen staff to segregate the shell and then keep it in a, you know, walk-in fridge or freezer for a period of time before somebody comes by and picks it up takes a big commitment on their part. And so we do weekly pickups right now at
the Breakers and Cotton Capers. And so we're just not in a position to expand uh up here, but we want to. And um I I'm pretty sure we eventually will. Um you know, we just haven't This is all pretty new. We started this in April. >> Yeah.
>> Then how does your how does your like supply of shelves compare to how much you're you're hanging? >> Like are you are you are you in lack of shelves? >> Not yet. No. I mean because so you know we started collecting the shelves. what we built our curing station in like
March, April, and so it's been 6 months. Um, you know, so we're just now using the shell that we collected, you know, 6 months ago. Uh, but the shell's piling up faster than uh we're getting oyster
gardens out. So, yeah, >> I have a quick question to come back to, Tom. Who who maintains at the MacArthur State Park? Who's is it the state park that is rotating? So volunteers. So it's a collaboration between state park.
>> We so I've raised uh private dollars um to do all this. doesn't require a lot of money, but um we built that that uh beautiful curing station out of our own back pocket uh through our foundation
and um and we maintain it and and we're the ones going over there, you know, dumping the shell every like I was there uh yesterday. I I I put I I deposited about 85 pounds of shell yesterday from the breakers. Uh we weigh every bucket
of shell. So, we know exactly precisely how much shell we've collected. Um, uh, and by the way, we weigh every vertical oyster garden and we tag it with a number so that we can go back to that dock and reweigh it and see if it didn't expand and do the deduction to see, oh,
we've grown, you know, x x amount. So, we we have a monitoring component that we built into this. But, yeah, it this is all privately funded. Um uh I actually don't want public dollars for this. Um this is truly a grassroots
initiative and we want to keep it that way. And we have we've been blessed at the fishing club to have some family foundations that are really supportive of of a lot of things that we've been doing through the years, whether it's reefs or tagging fish or whatever,
taking kids fishing. And so um they they share our vision on this and um we're good to go. We just need to keep scaling up. >> I have one question. >> Go ahead. >> Um >> because a lot of my questions were already answered, but um do you have
like a single page fact sheet? >> I got I I put some over here that describes it. It's in a nutshell describes pretty much what I just spent way too much time talking about. I think Jay's probably ready to give me that gaff hook. But uh um um but yeah,
there's a there's a one pager there front and back that kind of outlines it that you can share with people. Um one I brought some of our newsletters and our in our charitable foundations brochure so you can see some of the other initiatives that we're doing. But this is taking up a lot of our time right now
because there's such opportunity here. And again um it just makes I give these talks I've given a bunch of them and the response has always been the same. People are really fired up about it because they see the opportunity for themselves to help make a difference and
be actively involved in it >> instead of hearing about it or reading about it. They can >> get their hands they can do this and um so it's just a tremendous opportunity to engage the public and really get them feeling good about um environmental
restoration. Is it fair for us to assume that you didn't have much uh problem with FD to use the state land at MacArthur Park? >> Yeah, it's funny you bring that up. Um, ever since what went down at Jonathan
Dickinson State Park, they are super sensitive to um any outsiders coming around, you know, proposing anything. Uh the beauty of this project though is that there are a couple other state parks across the state that already do
this same thing. They they collect and store oyster shells. So there was already a little bit of a template there. Uh but the hierarchy of just getting approval to build our 20 foot by 30 foot curing station was um there were
a lot of layers to that and uh but Andy Flanner who's the park director there 100% on board. The park staff has been nothing but uh very supportive and um and they are already doing oyster
restoration work. I one of those previous slides. Well, it's that bottom left one. That's one of the oyster projects we participated in at the park five or six years ago. So, they're already actively engaged in oyster restoration. So, this is a really good fit for them. Um, you know, and we
weren't proposing building a putt putt golf course or a or something else state park. It's, you know, it's environmental restoration, right? I mean, it's a state park. It's just it's a natural and everybody feels that that same way about
it at the park. So, we've had nothing but um a very positive uh experience with the park. Just takes a long time to get there, but we we got it done. So, yeah. Thanks. >> Great. Thank you so much for coming. >> Thanks for having me.
>> Y I appreciate it. >> Very interesting. All right, Brad. Jeremy's got about five minutes to do his thing, so if you want to just >> We'll skip over the consent agenda. Go straight to your regular agenda, new business. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. Uh, sorry about that. Um, Jay
and I talked so I can just kind of lead off and then you guys can have some additional conversation. I think most of it's going to be centered around looking forward. I know um, Mr. Bradford been around for a while. seems like every year we're like we're start the strategic planning process and EAC is
kind of like at the at the tail end trying to put together initiative to give to council. So we really I put it on my notes last year to really get ahead of this process, get it to you guys early so you guys can really start trying to put together initiative. So today I just really want to outline the
process and this will give you guys two months to really put together some initiatives to give to council uh with the intent of the council. you guys making recommendations to the council. The council will take those initiatives. They'll prioritize them if it comes out as a priority and and what really hit
home with me is I know you guys have had a couple conversations about things that require money. This is where this process comes in. If there's a pro an issue that you want that you think is important, you submit it through the strategic plan process. Once council if it if it gets, you know, scored high
enough, it's an initiative. Then when we get that, we use that document to help prepare the budget and try to prepare for initiatives. These initiatives can be one year. You typically on the strategic plan is anywhere from 1 to 3 years. Um a lot of times they'll carry
over into multiple years. So it may not some of them might just be a one-time initiative. Well, we're going to plant trees and you know that's for that year. Most time like a tree niche is probably a bad example because that's over a multi-year process. But um I think you get the idea. there's some some
initiative that might be very specific in a one-time expenditure. But um so we're as in prior years environmental advisory committee has submitted some initiatives for this. Um the topic of the or the agenda for the has two objectives today is really to review
what we have in the current strategic plan and then solicit recommendations three to five priorities from the environmental advisory committee to take to council for them to consider. Um in our current plan and I you guys have this in the backup but uh there's
there's about four items that are currently in there that I think are you know environmental type of initiatives. Um, one which you guys have had some conversations but we have been working through it is you know enhanced storm water resilience. I know you guys have talked about some of that. Um, a couple
other items in our strategic plan uh the remembrance park phase two that got delayed but uh it is still you know an an initiative for the council as we move forward. Land acquisition to kind of preserve the natural the green space. Um
and then the tree planting um phase two which uh we are working through uh currently and still working through that. Um and then so those you got you basically have four pillars which is operate a physically responsible government, protect community appearance, character and identity,
build and maintain municipal infrastructure and operational excellence. I could easily see us providing one more pillar which is like an environmental stewardship or something like that if there if we have some of the initiatives we can break off like some of these current ones and put
into like a fifth pillar um or have it fit into one of these other four pillars that we already have. So the idea or the process will be very similar to what we do with council is that um by December 1st if you have an initiative that you would like to see send it to Jay and
what he's going to do is compile all compile all of your initiatives that you would like to see and we'll he'll bring it back in December. You guys as a group will talk about each individual initiative whoever sponsored that. Um, and then at the end of that process, you
guys will rank those and you guys will have a ranking system. So, out of you guys come up with 12 initiatives collectively, you guys will rank those and come up with your best three to five that you guys will recommend to council. When we get to the council strategic planning workshop in January, February,
those will be included in their initiatives to rank. And so, that'll be the process. Um, I know that Jay has talked a little bit to Allison about if you guys submit some to him by December 1st, she can kind of look at some of those initiatives, provide some
feedback, may provide some steps that may be needed. Um, and then as you guys get to the December workshop, she can also, you know, attend and help you guys talk through, you know, what that looks like. Um, obviously if you guys have ideas of what it looks like, provide those to J2 with your with your
initiative. This is what I think it is. That way there won't be any guessing game. Um but with that we have uh I think our strategic plan with the council has worked really well in the last several years and that we're funding some things to really move the village forward. I know you guys had
some good ideas. I I follow along. I'm I'm a big fan of what you guys are doing. I'm always on Zoom. Um but uh I think you guys have some some items that were, you know, have some funding tied to it. It's really hard to, you know, throw money at it right in the middle of a budget season, but this is the process
to lean forward to the next year and think strategically. So, I can answer any questions real quick if you guys got any. >> I do have a question about uh strategically I do not watch every council meeting so maybe this is covered and I probably should and you could tell
me that if that's the case. Does the council have a priority list of rankings? And if so, how does environmental topics rank into that listing? >> So, in your agenda packet, I have a link
in there to the clear gov to our strategic plan has all of our our strategic initiatives that we have for the year. Um, and typically those are tied to budget items that we have. So when we when we do that strategic plan, created the priority list, I know what
the council's priority is. And you know, one of them might be a million dollars. We may not get that like remembrance part. It might be a two or three year by the apple, but I know it's a priority for them. So they rank those and they're prioritizing that strategic plan. It'll say like P1, P2, P3. Those are priority
for the council. So it should be in there. >> I've seen the list, but it is ranked, you said? >> Yep, it is ranked. And they're going to rank by category by each one of those pillars, but they're also ranked overall. It' be like P1 through I think P12 or something like that. If they don't have like one of those, it might
just be there's a prior they have a priority list and then they have some that, you know, that were just on the list um that didn't necessarily weren't necessarily priority, but you know, they may not have a cost associated with. So, it wasn't no problem for for the staff
to continue to work through that. Joe, >> no. >> Thank you for doing this because this basically >> puts us into the loop. There's no guarantee that, you know, anything we come up with will get funded, but it at
least we're in the loop. That's very >> Well, I know we've tried to do it the last few years, but it's always kind of a scramble. I think this gives you guys an opportunity to really talk about for you guys what's important and really and that'll allow me to relay that to council and put it in your guys' priority list. So, I think it's a good
process. >> So, you mentioned the link that we have in this agenda backup for us today to the strategic plan, but just for my edification, where would I go on the village website to find it? Would it what department
would it fall under? um on the on the top of the tabs of the of the main website if you go to the top I think it's under council and it'll say strategic plan 2526 click on that link and then it'll take you to our third party which is clear gov and then you
can drill down to any of these four topics I usually I'm going to say it's time time depend on my time but you know on a month should be monthly I go through there I try to update where we are on those things I just did it for
the first time last month. But in theory, we just started the budget process in October. So last month, I updated where we are on some of these initiatives. So if if a you know environmental issue, the one of those four that I brought out, if you wanted to see where we were on the tree initiative, if you go in there and you
look, I I put some notes in there. And it's not, you know, it's nothing, don't hold me to all that. We may be a little further behind but are ahead but uh you can you can track all those initiatives that we have when you talk about the priority is initiatives you can see where we are on some of those.
>> All right. Thanks >> questions. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And yeah, Jeremy had to kind of give a little bit of a rush presentation. He has a 3:00 meeting. So, thank you Jeremy. Um, but I did put together uh a quick slideshow that shows the eight
strategic priorities that Brad presented to Village Council in September. So, this will kind of give you an idea of of kind of what you guys have already talked about. Obviously, you can add more stuff. Maybe oyster shells, right? That was pretty cool. >> Um, number two,
>> yeah, you can almost create like a water quality improving water quality as its own thing and tie the oyster beds and the mangroves kind of in its own category. >> Agree. Um, but yeah, so we've got these eight. I'll resend them to everybody so that you have time to, you know, review
them and and add to it before December and then like Jeremy said, we'll we'll have a a workshop in in December. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> I heard this name, I think, twice today. Who is Alice? >> So, I was going to mention that. I was I was going to mention that, too. So, uh, so Marjorie Craig, our utilities
director, retired a couple weeks ago. >> So, um, she's, you know, retired. And so Allison was our deputy director. She's been here about a year. Um she came from Jupiter. Um Brley Sharp. She was the uh young lady sitting over here in the
corner. Um she's the interim director. She's really into water quality stuff. I think she has an undergraduate degree in something environmental science um with an MBA as well. So really sharp. and um she's going to also come to the December
meeting before you have your strategic workshop just to give you an update on on some of the the stuff that the utilities department has been doing, some of her initiatives. She also gave a really thorough presentation to the village council at their last meeting about um everything
the utilities department is working on. I'm going to send you a copy of that video. She'll give you an abbreviated um version of it. Um, but she's she's been kind of brought up to speed on on the issue like the storm drains, like uh creating new signs for storm drains. She
loves the idea. Um, so she'll come and talk to you guys in December. >> Did you say someone retired? >> Marjorie. >> Marjorie retired. >> No, I didn't know that either. >> Wow. I didn't know that. >> So, the workshop that you're talking about for EAC, are we going to set a
date for that so we can get that on our >> It'll just be in a reg regularly scheduled meeting. >> It would just be one of these. Okay. Yep. >> All right. >> December is kind of a tough month anyway. >> So, I think Brad and I will try and coordinate to make the agenda manageable so that you guys have enough time to do
a deep dive on everything. >> Okay. >> Is there a uh projected amount of funds that are going to be available for these strategic goals aside from the operational expenses that >> the village incurs? >> That's a fantastic question. Uh to the
to answer you, not really. We we honestly don't even generally have an idea of how much money we have to work with in the budget until I think sometime in the um summer we get an estimate of how much we'll get in advorum taxes from the county and then
from there um the budget kind of gets whittleled down. So usually everyone will kind of throw throw all the the potential funding ideas in there and then it gets whittleled down from there based on how much the anticipated budget is. Um, and there's obviously a lot of
uncertainty right now with the state. Um, they're going to be evaluating the property tax situation. So, uh, it's it's going to be an uncertain budget season. Um, but I think a lot of the things that you guys are looking at are pretty low budget items like the
mangrove project. That that oyster bed thing is pretty, you know, it's free. >> Um, but there's a, you know, the the the signage for the storm drains, I think, could also be relatively cheap. So, I think my recommendation would be look for the things that you think are going
to be get the biggest bang for their buck and that are relatively affordable because I I don't think there's going to be a lot of play money next year. >> They're not going to give us 100 grand. >> So, you got to think u confused about
something. So, Allison is the new utilities director. Is that correct? >> Interim director. >> Interim. So, they're going to go through a thingy and but but let's say that she becomes Why is she working on the strategic
they're having her do the strategic plan? Is that what they're doing? >> No, no, no, no. So, so she's coming to your next meeting to give you an update, just a brief update on some of the water quality things, >> you know, do ditch um whatever water
quality projects that the utilities department is working on. so that you can incorporate that into your strategic initiatives. >> She was the lady that did that last month, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, I've watched all that. Okay. I know who she is.
>> All right. Anything else? >> So, we're going to discuss these at our workshop or next meeting, December meeting. >> If you Well, unless you have something additional that you need to send to Jay by >> December 1st. number seven. I have a
different opinion of that now since we first started. >> Yeah, I do too. >> Yeah. So, we'll discuss that in our >> Well, we're discussing it. It's on the agenda. >> Oh, okay. >> Um what? Oh, I thought you wanted to speak. Sorry. >> I'm good. Uh anything else on that on that particular Okay. I'm going to go
back to the consent agenda, the minutes from our October 8th meeting. Um is there any changes? Anything needs to be modified? If not, motion. >> Make a motion to approve the minutes
from the last meeting of October 8th. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I no motion carries. Uh so skipping down to the back down to the regular agenda old business. Um,
so the number four, uh, I didn't have time to reach out and, uh, and, uh, get more information, including pricing, uh, from contractors that, uh, would be able to manage and and help us,
uh, pull off a amnesty day for hazardous materials. I don't know if anyone else did any leg work on that. No. >> No. >> I promise by uh by next meeting that we'll uh we'll have something to discuss on that. Um
anything else on the hazardous waste amassy day that is left out? Okay. Next, stormwater drain signage. Um, I put this in here for this agenda because it seemed like we were doing a
lot of talking and not a lot of doing. Um, and I just wanted to come to some sort of finale uh on on storm water drain signage. Do we want to include that in the strategic goals or initiatives
uh that we're going to send to J um J has a list but uh for consideration by council and if so what are we are we going to ask to have more in con or more conspicuous signage
vertical signage or are we happy with the little buttons because they already have the buttons and they They can do that. >> I think that's more economical is to do what they've already >> Do we have a picture of that button? >> Tight budget. >> Anybody know what that button?
>> Yeah, I would think >> pictures anywhere >> like for example the button. >> Yeah. >> Looks like a plate. >> I know. But I was see That's what I was just going to say. They're not that visible. >> That's right. >> Um I don't like painting a big obstructive sign everywhere in the
neighborhood. You said that's Yeah. Right there. >> That's defaced, but that's the size of it. >> Yeah. So, if it's not defaced, is it obvious? >> You can It says um no dumping drains to waterway, I believe.
>> Yeah. >> And it has the toquesta seal on it. >> Like personally, I think aesthetically that looks better in neighborhoods than painting you. I'm looking at all the examples instead of painting the
>> um throughout neighborhoods. >> That one's not as offensive maybe in areas that are more commercial or industriall something more obvious because those would be the ones that I would think it the most uh near business that wants to
dump something. >> It's not going to prevent them, but it's a good warning. I think we should stick with the buttons. And in my neighborhood, for example, all of the catch basins, they're pretty much so faded, you can't
really read what the button says. So, they need to >> just replace those. >> Let's replace them. Yeah. >> Yeah. and the uh and it does >> I think this is a good thing for our strategic plan items because it's a low cost relatively very low cost
>> and it's an existing >> and I did look I think it came from Brad all these photographs about the uh >> I don't think people were going to would be happy about having a sign you know it's >> not in the neighborhoods >> but if we needed to do more I mean this
kind of goes against what Michelle was saying But the things that seemed the least obnoxious to me was a stencil thing sprayed on the asphalt as opposed to a sign. But I think the main thing is
so use the buttons and keep them updated because they're going to fade and you can't read it. And >> maybe a button, this may be over the top, but maybe a button that says the exact same thing, but only it's in Spanish. So that a
worker that's working for Timbuktu landscape company, he can understand what it means and that we're asking him don't put that in this in this uh inlet. >> But I think it's the buttons. >> We will focus on the buttons.
aesthetically in a neighborhood that looks nice. >> And the concern for me is more towards commercial and industrial areas uh that dump things in there that shouldn't go in there. So maybe
something a little more obvious there where it's not such an aesthetic value to it that it would be something more prominent whether it's painted or or a sign. Just my opinion. >> Agreed. So, the finale then is stick
with the buttons, >> keep them updated, make sure they're current, >> visible on all of them. >> Okay, perfect. Um, and last on the old business list here,
single stream versus dual stream recycling, uh, history and data. So, I was prompted by Mr. Bradford, or I should say AI Bradford. uh because it it sort of piqued my curiosity and so I did the deep dive and
probably spent too much time on that not enough calling about our amnesty day but um trying to understand and get my my thoughts together on on single stream and dual stream because initially I was very adamant I mean if you can collect
more recyclable material better why the heck wouldn't you? Um, but reading into it more, uh, this contamination thing is an issue. It's a big issue. Um, not so much prior to I should read this. Did
you care if >> I didn't read all that? That's why I've changed. >> I didn't read it cuz you don't you mean the agenda backup sort of? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I read it. >> Oh, you did? Okay. Well, I won't read it then. But it it basically all changed.
um a uh in 2018. Uh so China was a major importer of lots of our garbage including recyclables and in 2018 they essentially stopped doing that.
So it would it prior to 2018 it was great. a single um single stream collection bin worked just fine and it was all sent to China. Um there are some other countries as
well but they're those countries mostly in in Asia um also following suit with what China did. So now you're back to um I guess companies
looking for cleaner recyclables, >> right? >> U because um China's out of that game. Uh so that led me to believe okay well then I think Wade you had mentioned this in our last meeting. Well, how how much
more contamination is occurring single stream versus dual stream? It's an important question to answer. Um, and there was a lot of information out there. I I summarized uh this information came from a very
very long uh journal article, scientific journal article. I forget what journal, but um reputable, a lot of data, a lot of statistics. Um, but it it had a salient point about
the contamination level for dual stream and and single stream. So, with all that being said, >> um, I'm I've changed it changed my mind. Really? >> Me, too. >> Me, too. >> So, and I I'm not trying to sell, you know, this is all just
>> It's true. Yeah. This is >> Well, it was more education. >> Yeah. >> Uh more knowledge than what we originally had. And that's the whole beauty of this process. So, thank you for getting all that information put out for us. And the bottom line is with recycles, yes,
it's a beautiful thing to do, but if nobody's buying it, then there's no purpose. And if they're not buying it because it's contaminated, and Palm Beach County has one of the highest cleanest recyclable materials, then it doesn't make sense because the contamination is higher with the single
stream. But my only question is not for us, but in the state of Florida, why are there so many counties that are engaged in the single stream knowing that are they not selling? Well, you know, if they're not selling, they're not >> they have no purpose to
>> Well, it's not that they're not selling, they're just selling a lot less. And >> so, a major major portion of it is going to be rejected. They're taking that option of um lower uh less clean product and putting it in
their landfill versus having clean and being able to sell more. >> Yeah, I think a lot of those single stream uh counties that still do single stream. I I think they're just holdovers from, you know, maybe a few years back where it was profitable.
>> Um >> Oh, before the contamination became an issue. That makes sense. All right. Again, that's an assumption on my part, but >> and then the downfall of that would be move up to today where it is the consideration because a buyer is not going to want the contaminated product.
They're going to go to with this the virgin sources of of product. So, >> well, the dual stream does create >> inherently a cleaner, right, >> recyclable material. There's still contamination, >> right, >> that does occur, >> but it's lower,
>> but it's lower than just throwing it all into one bucket. >> Yeah. and everything's messing up in that >> the way the way I've materialized all or interpreted all of this information that we've learned since we originally brought this up >> was that I think the assumption was if we collected more from our community we
could yield more recyclables. And the answer is if we change the distribution from single or dual stream to single stream, we think, okay, we're going to collect more, that's a good thing and we're going to yield more. But the answer is no. We you don't yield more, right? Because there's a lot of waste
that occurs through contamination. So the system we have now is actually yielding more recyclable goods than it because people are buying it, right? Because it's a quality material than a single stream would. >> So I think we just confirmed >> Yeah. until such time that technology changes.
>> Yeah. Well, that's the thing. There actually is technology is a company called Pure Tech Pure Pure Technologies, Pure Cycle Technologies in Ohio that is doing this, but I think it's not at the scale yet. And I don't actually don't think it's necessarily um the
contamination as much as it is the efficiency of separating it, right? Because it's very difficult to take it and separate that type of material at at a future site. So if you were able to convince you know say waste pro or covanta or one of these energy providers
that well you're going to get 20% increase in your participation rate which if you invest in you know separate in sorting then that'll more than offset the additional cost of investing in technology. I think it's just down the road. I just think it's too early
because these technologies that do sort and separate are just not yet they don't have enough market share to actually effectively do it but it's growing. >> Is it a robotic optical process? >> This pure cycle technologies company um I don't know what I don't actually don't know the proprietary system but they
they do separate um they separate all recyclables and it's growing. is pretty big and like they're doing things where like in like in Ohio they have like one of the NFL stadiums like one of the you know one of the benches all made out of like recycled material that they collected there. So it's growing it's
just not to the point where it's it's good enough yet. I think waste management just doesn't want to do it >> um as more so than like oh it's completely contaminating and burning. I think it's just a matter of it's easier for them to collect it that way and sell it as opposed to having to sort it.
>> Yeah. It's >> my understanding too though, it's not just the sorting technology because you know if you're dumping everything in the same truck, you got glass breaking on the cardboard and that stuff sticks to the products and >> you know how how do you separate glass shards that are in a piece of cardboard?
>> I think that's some of the stuff that was being explained too. So >> totally definitely some of that I agree. I don't know if it's >> I don't know if it's because there's not they're not willing to invest or adopt the technologies yet or if it's just you know more efficient. So for our
concerns, I would I is my opinion for number seven to put that to bed. >> All those in favor? >> I no. >> Motion carries. >> We had a good thing. >> It was a great idea.
>> Good to learn about it. That was a Yeah. >> Um Okay, let's just couple future agenda items. Any comments? General comments? >> No. No. >> All right. Then, uh, our next meeting is December 10th. Try to get your, uh, if
you have something up and above that list of initiatives that we had already put together, make sure to get it to Jay by the first, right? December 1st. >> And you're going to email us that list again. Thank you. >> I just have a question. Yep. So um like
my first meeting a couple couple meetings ago we were going through items and I was asking questions about you know insecticides, pesticides, different things that is allowed to be sprayed into stuff. Where can I find what already exists in like
>> the code the village code? >> Uh it's got to be >> you can you can find it in MUN code. It's a it's a website that has all the entire village code in there. um it's tough to comb through sometimes. So if there's something specific, you can always just email me and and I'm happy
to kind of direct you there. >> The reason I asked was there a does the state of Florida ban Roundup in Florida or No, >> but but wasn't there something that requested it years ago where they banned it in public places or commercial?
They they they don't use it on village property that they own and control, >> but they haven't said, you know, we citizens, >> it's not prohibited, >> but they do on it. >> And there's a rainy season fertilizer ban though. So there during rainy
season, there are certain things you can't use, >> right? That I noticed. Yeah. >> And there is education in the village newsletter about um uh what's it called again? >> For no roundup. >> Roundup. Thank you. >> So that goes in I see it at least once a
year in there to keep educating people about it. >> It's something that I'm pretty passionate about. Um and I'd like to kind of keep pushing on it more and more >> public entities getting rid of it even on you know even like from private companies utilizing it
>> because there's a lot of organic materials out there that do the same thing and it's not going into your water. >> Yeah. Did I ever send you the template for um uh including agenda items for our meetings? No. >> Well, maybe you did actually. I just I I'm not I have not really had a lot of
luck with the email stuff. Okay. >> Could you email that to all of us again? >> Oh, yeah. Sure. >> Start a new file that's got all that. >> Um I think I have the email that you are using like a personal. >> Yeah, I I do get emails, but I am not sure in past emails I had trouble accessing it on early. So, why I'm
saying that is um do some research on it and come up with something and put it on a on a staff memo and send it to Jay and myself. >> Next year, but I mean I I want to at least get >> we'll get the ball rolling. We can talk
about it. Um, if you want to look at municipal codes, the municipal code of ordinances across the United States, >> yeah, >> including to question, go to municode.com and you can click on any state. If you like, for example, you click on Florida,
you're going to see every city in Florida that's part of the meaning code system, including Quest. And uh, I use it all the time. It's a great resource. Yeah, >> it's municode.com
[Music] >> because because I think like some other states don't have other states don't allow Roundup and I think that that ban for the whole state. But if a village, you know, says no, but the state said it's okay, will the village supersede
the state law or the state over supersedes this the village? >> That's a good question. >> That's a good question. I think I think our legislature took that power away from us, but I'm not sure about that.
>> That's a very good one. So, >> all right. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Alison, say hi. >> Alison, the mystery lady over here. Thank you.
>> I'm going to also send you guys an invite to the resident academy. I don't know if anyone's done it before or knows anyone that's done it, but um they're accepting applications. Turn.