Okay. All right. So, this is the Environmental Advisory Committee meeting for September 10th, 2025. Uh, a bit after 2 p.m. Uh, if you want to do the roll call.
Brad Freeze here. Mr. Bradford here. Russ Redmond here. Clay Damon. Joenta here. Michelle Charels. Drew Enriquez here. All right. Um, any changes to the agenda
as it's written? Anything you want to add? I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted. Second. I I have one recommendation. It's a small administrative leak. Um, Clay is gone right from the agenda.
Should his name be removed and my name be added? Uh, yes it should. That must be uh an oversight. We'll we'll fix that in the future ones. No problem. Okay. Sorry about that. That's the only That's the only change. Very material. Okay.
So, we need a vote. All um so all in favor to make that particular um correction. Uh and uh say yay. Yay.
Any nays? Motion carries. Communication from citizens. None. Presentation. Oh, please. Still waiting. All right. We're going to skip the presentation right now and then
go to uh other business in the agenda. the consent agenda. This would be the uh minutes from our last meeting in August. Is uh anyone have a a comment about or
changes to be made to the minutes? I have a comment for let me uh get this. So when I click the uh the uh environmental advisory committee August 13th, if I click that, I get an eye
compass thing asking me for my username and password. I don't know what the heck that is. I don't So in other words, I was not able to read the minutes is what I'm saying because I don't have access to what this
eye compass stuff is. Was anybody else unable to access? I didn't have a problem. I just I just did the same thing and it did that to me, too. So, there was clearly something there. Well, we'll um since you guys didn't get a look at them, we'll put them in the next the next meeting agenda. You can skip over
them today. Okay. But if if you were able to read them, Brad, and you thought they were acceptable, that's sufficient for me. Well, reading them and
accessing them are two different things. Are you talking about the link right under where it says minutes? Yes. It's just supposed to like leap you down to page four. I think that's what it does for mine. You don't have a page four. No,
you're probably already I'm looking on the lefth hand side. He's already in the document. It's Yeah. Oh, so when he clicks it, page four of nine. I I might have just gone in and clicked it so that you don't have to do that anymore. Did you get it? Yeah.
All right. Well, you want to make a motion then to approve the minutes from the August meeting? I make a motion to approve the minutes from the August 13th, 2025 meeting.
Is there a second, guys, to Jill's? Okay. All those in favor? I motion carries. All right. Um, did any did anyone here read what I put together for the uh the
village council? Yeah. Yeah. Um, were were there any suggestions or things they may have missed that you would want added? Because I'll have FaceTime with them. If it's not on this document I created,
um, please let me know. Did I hit everything? I I was I got the same problem. You got the eye. I got the eye compass everything. So, I had tech issues. I couldn't get into the system. So, I don't I didn't have a chance to do any of it. Unfortunately,
I could look through it right now pretty I can skip through it if we have time. Well, if you need if you need a but um a lot of it was what we did over the past year or so. I don't know if you know. Um Brad, the only thought I had was on the
looking forward the 2025 2026 initiatives. Yeah. Is there any value in um reordering the one through eight into like what would our is is that order of priority or it's just you just put
the way I the way I put it it there's no priority. It just stuff firing off everything. Um I don't do I don't know if there's is that yours? Maybe Jay would know. I I don't know if there's value in presenting to the council. Hey, here's our priorities in order.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh if we have an order, we may not we really haven't debated that or had that discussion, but it's just a small thing. Yeah. No, it kind of makes some sense. Um I guess then the question would be
how would you order them? Right. That might be the bigger challenge, right? Think I might just leave it the way it is instead of trying to figure it out. Um that's the only feedback I had. I like Yeah.
Yeah, I was gonna Yeah, I can ask them if you know there's something that way. I I I may be wrong about this, but I you know, in years past I had to make that presentation and u I I believe there's been times when the
council asked, well, what are your top priorities for the upcoming year? Mhm. Um maybe I winged it. I don't remember. But but I used to I used to sometimes when I
first encountered that I would sometimes write the memo in a priority like Wade was talking about where maybe the top three u just so that would catch their attention primarily. You know whatever it wasn't that we were dealing
with in that particular year. I might put the top three. I might not tell them it was the top three. I just put it there to make sure it would be something that they read instead of assuming they're going to go all the way down that list. All right. And the the reason that I suggested that
I was where my mind was was, you know, there's a lot of energy right now in the state of Florida about future property taxes and what that means at the local level and perhaps even budgetary cuts that may have to take place at the local level uh across the state. And I was
just thinking ahead like if we had a list and all of these cost money, if they knew what our top priorities were, other things that fall at the bottom list could be less, you know, more discretionary. Um, and it might help inform our next steps if if we're
presented with those next steps. All right. No, that makes complete sense. and we're going to come back to it and let Mike uh do his presentation. But um now that I'm thinking about it more and more, I think there it would be a
probably a better idea to to rank them and maybe that's something we discuss. Who hasn't seen it? You haven't seen it. I I I just I just looked at it. I just had a question about are these set in stone or like can the priorities? Yeah. No. Well, this is what we're
Well, no. Well, the reason I say this has already been sent or it's already No, no, it's fine. The I was just I was one thing that popped into my head when I was looking at number five, the ones around green building incentives. Yeah. Um, one thing that I thought is kind of you're seeing more and more across the
country is initiatives around the type of things that are used in landscaping. Mhm. So like the type of fertilizer like more green oriented um fertilization and pesticides and insecticides across like because you breathe that and it's so dangerous. So, a lot of places
are moving toward green um type of products that aren't so poisonous because it's just, you know, especially in areas like, you know, you see it less on the on the West Coast um because it's kind of less maintained, but here the amount of HOAs and people
pay for really, you know, really nice landscaping, a lot of it is just soaked in really, really terrible insecticides and pesticides and stuff that people are breathing every day driving by. So, I don't know if that's like kind of overstepping or anything, but I think that's something that I always thought
would be an interesting initiative that is good for the community. When you say it's set in stone, it's set in stone for my discussion tomorrow night. Nothing here is set in stone with regard to the business that this committee does. stuff. So, yeah, bring every good idea like
that uh to the table and uh we'll implement it because I've done a ton of research on it like cuz my wife and I are like super super sensitive to like and around girl uh green building strategies like I we we live like that way ourselves. Yeah.
So, we kind of know a lot about that. So, I'm more than happy to help. Great. Developing strategies around. Awesome. Or just FYI, we we have talked about and made recommendations to update what's called Florida called Florida
friendly landscape and just by the fact that those plants are native that uh they require less water, they require less pesticides and less fertilizer because they're native.
And so to Questa now has on its books that every new development has to use Florida friendly landscaping. That's great. Yeah. I'd love to look into like more of the specifics around what that means. Yeah. You can Google Florida friendly
landscape and it'll take you to the University of Florida website and you can go to municode.com and look up code and then type in Florida friendly landscape and you'll see what they have on we have on the books. Okay, great.
Awesome. Thank you. All right. All right. So, we'll come back to this and uh second so our we'll skip back up to our presentation uh by Michael Tommpkins uh
the lead project manager of South Florida Water Management District and he's going to give us an update to the Lockache River Wershed Watershed Restoration Project of SER or comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you, Brad. So, I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak with uh you all again. This is the second time I've been here to kind of give you guys an update on how we're making progress through the Locks River Wershed Restoration Project. So, uh like Brad said, my name is Michael Tomkins. I work for South Florida Water Management District, lead project manager on the
Locks River Wershed Restoration Project. Um so, just kind of give you a sort of overview of how this guy got started. The locks river wershed restoration project is a part of the comprehensive Everglades restoration plan. Uh SER authorized was authorized by Congress uh
in word of 2000 and the locks river project was subsequently authorized by Congress in word of 2020. So SER projects are a 50-50 partnership between the uh Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Florida and the South Florida Water Management District operates as
the non-federal sponsor for the state. Um so when I say 50/50 partnership with the state that um in the state and the federal government that encompasses the responsibilities of designing constructing and maintaining the projects and the funding to carry out those activities.
Um so here's the study area for the project. The Lock River uh area is about 480,000 acres or 750 square miles. It's highlighted in the red study area there. And then we're looking at sort of two graphics. the historical Everglades and then what our current development is
like. So currently the land use is highly urbanized to the east uh natural areas, open land and water in the west and the north and the landscape was historically dominated by a mosaic of wetlands and uplands and sloohs. Uh so the purpose of the lock river
project uh the primary purpose is to improve the freshwater flows to the northwest fork of the Lockahhatche River. This is the nationally designated wild and scenic river and also to restore the hydrarology and connectivity of wetlands and wersheds that form the historic headwaters of the river. So
there are five primary objectives that we're trying to achieve with this project. The first objective, restore those wet and dry season flows to the nationally designated uh northwest fork of the Locks River. Objective two, restore oysters, seaggrass, and other estuary communities to the Lockahhatchee
River estuary. Um objective three increase the spatial extent and function of wetlands. Objective four restore the watershed connections that's among the locks river headwater natural areas. This is to improve hydraology, sheet flow, hydro periods, natural storage and
vegetative communities. And the final objective to restore the abundance and diversity of uh native plant animal species in the watershed natural areas in the river and in the estuary. So the project benefits that we're looking to achieve and that is to meet the restoration flow targets for the
Northwest Fort uh the project once it's complete will uh be able to deliver 91% of the dry season flows. The dry season target 68 CFS and 98% of the time we'll be able to meet the wet season flows. That's 110 CFS during the wet season.
Presently there's a minimum flow that's uh that we try to achieve at the Lanehart Dam that's 35 CFS. Um but once we get all these features in place we should be able to exceed that you know virtually all the time. Um another benefit promotes the recovery of
riverine freshwater species and estuarine zones for fish, seaggrass, oysters and other protected species. Um also improves watershed wetland hydraology. Um that's improving 17,000 acres of existing or former agricultural
lands and 10,000 acres of existing natural areas. Um it's also kind of a big continuous area. Um where all this together uh you get an ecological connectivity area of about 78,000 acres. And then in addition
to this restoration uh for uh plants and animals. We're also um going to be adding a lot of features that promote outdoor recreational opportunities, hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, canoeing, kaying, things like that. Um, so this was the authorized plan
that's in alternative 5R. This is in our project implementation report. And I'm showing you this just so you can see that we've got three primary flowways. So you can see up uh on the north section, this is primarily uh up in Martin County is flowway three that includes uh the Kitchen Creek
restoration, Moonshine Creek and Gulfream East, the Cypress Creek Canal, Gulfream West, and Palmar East. And then to the west, the sort of purple color, that's flowway two. Flowway 2 is primarily a a above ground empoundment.
That'll be the C18 West empoundment that will have 9,500 acre feet of above ground storage. And there'll be four colllocated aquifer storage and recovery wells that would be used to capture excess water that the reservoir cannot accommodate. Um and then to the southeast we've got in orange flowway
one that includes uh two structures G160 and G161 and uh restoration in the Grassy Waters Triangle area in uh just north of North Lake and then also a pump station in the M canal and the idea of that is that we
would pump water out of the Indian Trail Improvement District's lower basin route that through grassy waters up to the project. So kind of in a nutshell, flowway one and flowway two, the idea is to get more water up to the Lart Dam. So we'll be sending water through the C18
canal through G92 and then ultimately to the northwest fork of the Locks River. Then flowway three. While we do get benefits to the locks river, it's downstream of the lane hard, but those benefits would be to improve uh the wetlands, the hydraology in those areas
and also to provide some additional base flow to uh meet some of those solenity targets that we've got downstream. Um okay, so now just a little bit of a deeper dive into flowway one. Um, two features in Flowway one, that's that
pump station, the S100. You see that down in the lower lefthand corner there, and then the Grassy Waters triangle regrading. This is a a small earthwork project. Ultimately, Grassy Waters is slightly too dry. We're going to try to connect a canal that would spread water
out a little bit better in that area. Um the primary purpose to in flowway one is to capture excess water that's being uh released from the Indian Trail Improvement District lower basin. So this water is basically it's routed off the map but it's routed through the C-51
canal and it's lost to the Lakew Worth Lagoon to tide. And so rather than let that water leave the system, we're going to try to capture it, store it in flowway one through uh grassy waters preserved primarily in Lockahhatche Slooh. Um and then when needed, release
it through there to get to the Northwest Fork. Um flowway one is the last flowway to get into design. We've had some issues that we've been working through with some uh pending litigation that is finally wrapped up. And so we're looking to execute a design so in the next
couple months. We were hoping to get it in this fiscal year, but that's kind of coming to an end very quickly and so it'll probably be at the very beginning of the next fiscal year. So FY26. Um so that's flowway one. Um flowway
two, that's the C18 West impoundment um with those colllocated ASR walls. purpose here provide water delivery to the northwest fork of the Lax River to achieve those flow targets. Again, capturing water that would otherwise be lost to tide. This time we're going to be pulling it from Indian Trail
Improvement District's upper basin. We're also going to be getting water from JW corporate wildlife management area that's just to the west of the empoundment and from the Hungry Land Slooh that sits just to the north of the empowerment. So that's primarily flowway 2. Um,
now what I was just showing you was what our plan was in the PI. Um, so last year in September, we uh got our team together, our design team. They looked at the design that was in the PI and um they didn't like several of the features
that we had in the P's design. And so we've sort of reconfigured how the uh facility would operate. This shows what the the uh draft structure locations. Um our preliminary modeling indicates that
this is going to perform better than the uh PI version, which is why we've went with this route. Um the empoundment footprint and the storage is unchanged. What is different is that rather than three pump stations, we've condensed that all into a single pump station. So it's a little easier to design, easier
to maintain, um and just easier to operate. And in addition to that, we've got a single discharge point. There was two previously. Um this is just fewer penetrations through that dam uh which improve safety. Um and then the last thing is we've added some we to the uh
perimeter uh seepage canal. So this is designed to capture anything that's leaking out of the empowerment. Um we've added some wears to that so we can hold different water levels in the seepage canal. And this is to make sure that we don't have water, you know, leaving the site and impacting the nearby neighborhood. So you can see we've got
the acorage just to the south and there's a new development that doesn't show up in this aerial but to the east is that Aanir development and this is just kind of a artistic representation of what that empoundment would look like you know once it's
constructed. Um we are in design for this right now. We executed our contract in FY23. We've finished the vast majority of our survey and geotech work. Um preliminary design is still kind of pending that we finalize the structure locations. Uh but
that's looking pretty solid right now. So we're looking to get started in preliminary design in uh December this year. Then we'll have uh intermediate and final design phases after that. Uh so that's flowway 2. Uh flowway
three. Uh several features in flowway 3. This is um uh all primarily in Martin County. there's a little bit of impact and and improvement in Palm Beach County, but most of this is Martin County. Uh so we've got Gulfream East
regrading um Hog Grove Hog Grove ditch and then we're also going to be constructing a bridge to connect the Ocean Lake Trail across the Hog Grove ditch. So once we make these improvements at Gulfream East, the water levels in the ditch are going to be a lot higher than they are right now. Right now, people actually just walk
through the ditch, but there's only maybe, you know, a foot of water in there. But once we make these improvements, there's going to be several feet of water in the ditch. And so, we're going to build a bridge so folks that are um hiking on that trail have access across um Gulfream West will
be a flow through marsh. That is that triangle that sits just to the west uh the red triangle that sits just to the west of 95 in the turnpike. um Palmar East. Uh that's uh just to the far left of the figure there. We're
looking to fill in this canal that sort of separates Palmar East from Nine Gems, create a a larger contiguous area of wetlands that's going to also sort of balance out some of the hydraology in that area where Palmar East is typically a lot wetter than Nine Gems. Right now, that Burman canal sort of serve to dry
out Nine Gems. We're going to try to resolve that with the restoration. Uh Cypress Creek Weir and Burm improvements are also a part of flowway 3. You can see Cypress Creek Canal that kind of runs east and west there. We're going to be constructing a weir just
sort of just under that Gulfream west flow through marsh and that we are just going to be bringing water levels up in that canal so we get the groundwater stages a little higher. Um, Macdary pump station uh is a pump station that'll pull water out of Cypress Creek Canal,
distribute it into a spreader swale, and then that would just flow to the east through the Cypress Creek natural area. So again, um, getting water into the landscape to improve the wetland hydraology. Um, and then Kitchen Creek wetland restoration. That's sort of off this map, but I've got another slide that
addresses Kitchen Creek. But same thing trying to redistribute water in the watershed get it into the wetlands to to benefit those areas rather than just let the water escape to tide. Um and the purpose of of flowway 3 improve hydro period and ecological functions of
wetlands. Improve the timing of the discharges to the northwest fork. Um restore the historic topography. Reduce over draining. Enhance habitat for wildlife by restoring connectivity and hydraology. Um, so this is a little bit of a closer
look at the Gulf Stream East restoration work. So this is one of the projects in Flowway 3 that we're going to get to construction first. This is uh slated to start construction next year. Um, what you're looking at here in the center is a LAR image. So that's showing you like
uh land surface elevations. So the blue represents canals or water bodies. And essentially what we're going to be doing is regrading the site to fill in those agricultural ditches, restore the natural topography. We're not going to laser level the site or anything. We're just going to be moving the the material
that sort of sits in between those canals and just gently filling in the uh agricultural ditches to restore that topography. And you can kind of see it's a little higher on the west, a little lower on the east. And so that'll continue to be that way after the restoration. Uh the phase one also includes uh constructing the maintenance
roads. That's these red lines that you see around the perimeter of the project. So everything that's interior will be leveled. There's some existing roads out there right now. Those will just be brought down to grade. Um phase one also includes a bridge that'll go over the turnpike ditch. So
you can see there's two roads that kind of parallel the center of the property. Um that was an issue that we just couldn't resolve. We would have really liked to have filled in that ditch too um to sort of make the site completely connected from the north and south, but
uh that drainage uh for the turnpike in 95 was was uh going to be too impacted if we were to do that. So, we had to retain it. Um so, we will be making some improvements to that ditch uh sort of clearing it out and making sure it it flows better. And then we're also going
to be putting a weir at the end of it. rather than filling it, we are still going to try to use it uh the ditch to get the groundwater levels up. So, there'll be a weir that goes in toward the end, bring the ground water up a little bit. Um, and then phase two would be constructing another weir at the end
of the Hog Grove ditch. So, that's that uh red line that's sort of going off the screen uh to the to the right. Um there'd be a we at the end of that ditch. What that'll do is raise up the water levels in the Hoveve Grove ditch. And I wish this pointer would work, but
it's not going to show up. And what it's going to do is help us to reroute into the historic Moonshine Creek. So that that blue area that sits just under the Hog Grove ditch, that's the historic Moonshine Creek. And right now, it's essentially completely cut off from all flows. And so when you get out there,
you see these great big cypress trees, huge cypress knees. But um there's just no water out there. there's no recruitment. And so that'll be a um a great improvement. Rather than just let water go through the Hope Grove ditch where we're not really getting this um wetland benefit, we're going to redirect
it in through Moonshine Creek. So that same water will just flow through the historic creek. Um and there'll be a couple of bridges that'll uh go into that as well. So there'll be a bridge that go that goes over the rehydrated Moonshine Creek and then another bridge that goes over the Hope Grove ditch. and
that's to facilitate that ocean lake uh hiking trail. Um so that's what's going on at Gulfream East. And then the the other one that we're looking to get to construction fairly soon is Kitchen Creek. And so this sets up in Jonathan Dickinson State
Park. Uh Kitchen Creek flows to the south um and then it flows right into the northwest Fork of the Locks River there. And so this is considerably different than what was envisioned in the project implementation report. So, what we were supposed to do according to that reported, we were supposed to
construct um a weir or some sort of a structure in Jenkins ditch. That's that ditch that goes north and south in the graphic there. And that would raise water levels up in the ditch. And then we were going to dig two spreaders swailes east and west. And that water would just naturally flow into these spreader
swailes and raise groundwater levels in that area. But what we found is that when we were to put that structure in the ditch, it would actually raise water levels um to the north offsite and there was potentially going to be impacts to groundwater uh flood storage um in those
properties to the north. And so we had to come up with a different alternative and that's what we're looking at here. Um so what we intend to do is to construct a very small pump station by district standards. It'll be three 5 CFS electric pumps that uh will be housed in a pump station house. Um, and that will
pump water from Jenkins Ditch and then it'll be delivered through a barrier pressurized pipeline to our target restoration area, which is this flood plane swamp that sits at the bubble up outlet that you see just to the uh right side of the picture there. And so idea
is the same to try to get water to these uh wetlands that have essentially been cut off by that development. You see that development to the north. Typically, historically, water would have just flown um to the south from that development area, but now that's been cut off by roads and other sorts of
uh drainage changes. And so, in order to get water back into these water starred areas, we're going to be, you know, pumping it through this system. So, that is also um one of the projects that we're trying to get to construction fairly soon. This one should be uh
starting at probably in mid 2027 I expect assuming we continue at the pace we're at. Um and so this is just kind of an overview of where we're at in flowway 3. We executed our design contract in FY23.
We've just we're kind of putting the finishing touches right now. Our consultant is on the semi- regional model which is sort of telling us what's going to happen once we get all these features put in place. Um, and then like I said, preliminary designs underway for
Gfream East and Kitchen Creek, and we should get that construction going in 2026 and 2027. And I think that's what I've got for slides. Um, I'll be happy to take any questions that you have.
Great. Thank you. Um, question. No questions for us. No question. Yeah, I do. Um, is it would it be fair for this committee to be of the opinion
that there's no relationship between these projects you've just described and the lockache river coordinating council? I asked that because this seems to be ways and means to get water uh
freshwater flow uh improved for the Wachche River, but it seems to me, I could be wrong, that the coordinating council primarily focuses on uh water quality issues. Um so that's kind of what's in my head, but could you
kind of clarify that if it needs to be, please? Um, we certainly the project is certainly supported by the Glax River Management Coordination Council. Um, I meet with them probably about once a year to provide an update on the project and and get input from them. Um,
they aren't exactly directing the project though. I mean, the Lock River Coordination Council, they try to provide advice on, you know, what different agencies should be pursuing um, as far as solutions for the locks river. And I think a lot of it has to do with water quality improvements as you
pointed out. Um this project is specifically not a water quality improvement project. However, um just because it's not a water quality improvement project doesn't mean that that will not be a significant benefit of the project. And so that flowth through marsh that we were talking about
um that sits just to the west of I95. So that'll be sort of very similar to a storm water treatment area. you know, it'll be burned up around the outside. It'll have emergent vegetation in there. We'll be putting water in the north. It'll be flowing through all that vegetation and discharge to the south.
And so, I think it's reasonable to assume, and that's exactly what we did in our modeling, was assume that there would be some treatment through that process. And so, even though that's not a stated objective of the Lockahei River Wershed Restoration Project, it certainly is something that would be um a benefit of the project. So that's one
feature that would certainly be helping with water quality, but virtually all the features help improve water quality. And so without these features in place, what we end up seeing is um high flow rates and that carries a lot of nutrients, a lot of contaminants and these high flows. And so rather than
allowing that to go through the system, if we can capture it and put it into these flow through marshes, we can help to settle out some of the solids to provide some water quality treatment at the same time. Um and so that improves the the quantity and distribution at the
same time as water quality. So, thank you. Great. I thank you. That helps me better understand the roles of the uh council. Um now, you know, big picture, you have x number of projects that are in the
whole program as you just described. Um, if you you pick a place, but if you were like say if you were to choose where are we today or where are we going to be at the end of the FY2526
fiscal year? Can you tell us where you think you are? Like is this percent have you done 33% or 50% you know like where do you see yourself being in the big picture for the whole project? like what percent complete are we with the project? That's correct.
Um well, if I were to look at it in terms of the timeline um and just kind of think about that, uh we don't expect to be done with construction for the entire project until about 2033. And so 33
2033. Okay. Exactly. some some of these features. For example, the flowway 2 empalment that we're working on construction, we won't even get into construction on that until probably 2029 and there'll be several years of construction on that. And so maybe we're approaching the 30%
completion range um just in terms of time because there's so much uh time that goes into planning and the design process, you know, then we get into construction. So if I was just looking at it on the overall, maybe I'm giving it too much credit, maybe 25 20 to 25
might be more fair, but um we're we're toward the beginning, you know, once we get into construction, that's when we start to see the the real uh progress. Okay. Well, thank you, Joe. No, what's the funding for this project?
Where where does it come from primarily or the major funding sources? Sure. So, so it's a cost shared project. We share the the the cost of implementation of the entire SER with the Army Corps of Engineers. And so we get an annual allocation from the state
and that covers our half and then the federal government, you know, gets an annual allocation that covers their half. And so I consider that we're essentially fully funded. I've never seen that, you know, we've wanted to, you know, take our foot off the gas at any point. It seems like
we've got the money that we need to continue the at the pace that we're at right now. But it's an annual process and at any point I suppose things could change but you know we're not anticipating changes. All right, no more questions. Hey, just a quick question. Yeah, sure.
Is there any ability to to sort of bond out for it to take away the uncertainty of the almost like bond out for the project, you know, um like grant anticipation revenues or something like that. Oh. To raise money. Yeah. to pay for sort of like to to kind
of mitigate potential cuts in the future. Not not in general. Um just to give you guys an idea of the scale of the project, it's a roughly a $1 billion restoration project and um a good chunk of it is real estate that we've already acquired. And so we probably already
have $300 million of the real estate, you know, in in our hands. It's just a matter of the construction funding at this point. Um so, you know, I think we're doing fairly well. Well, I have not ever heard that we would um you know try to go out to find additional funding and generally
the SER projects are fairly well supported both by the state and by the federal government. Yeah, I was just thinking you know hoping that in the future construction costs don't go up and those type of things you know. Well, they are unfortunately. Yeah. The um we were
originally authorized as a $770 million project and then just with you know increases as a result of inflation uh supply chain type issues that we've all been dealing with since CO started really you know the the now the price tag for the project is is I've seen
estimates that put it over a billion dollars for sure. And so the, you know, the price just keeps going up. And the risk really is if, you know, we don't move on this as fast as we can, then, you know, price could just continue to go up. So we've got to, you know, make progress to try to keep the price under
control. Anything else? All right. Great. Thank you so much, Mike. Yeah. Great. Appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity to come and speak with you again. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Back to the agenda. Um, so
the annual review and initiatives for next year, I like the idea of ranking them. Um, since I think that'll probably be the only thing that I really discuss with them unless they have specific questions
on something we did last year. Um, you know, I'm not going to take up a bunch of their time with a review of a whole year's worth of stuff that we did last year. So, um I would like suggestions on how to rank them.
Um does everyone have eyes on You do. Okay. Me, too. Here. Okay. You can do it. I'm pulling up, right? Okay. Oh, you put it up. I have a thought as a starting place.
Then we can just pick it apart. Um, you have eight items there. I was just looking through the strategic plan for Tqua and which items that we have that like seem to directly support the strategic plan going forward. It seems
like there item number four, six, and three seem to be um called out in the strategic plan for Tquesta itself. So those seem naturally to me to I don't
want to say rise to the top but um have at least some level of designation. What were they again? Wade number four. So uh budgets not needed to mitigate storm water there. The storm water in both number four and number three I
think signage for storm water. storm water was called out as okay there's some um desire to improve the facilities there how to handle storm water and then number six
uh that's also uh beautifification of toqua in general is one of the strategic initiatives as well so that seems to support that some of the other items I didn't see like specifically called out but I was trying to I was listening and doing at
the same time. So, probably missed it. It also seems like four of the eight here require additional budget and then the other four probably we could do on our own. You know, meetings
or education, those kind of things. So, so basically put the ones that are going to require a budget first. Um, no, no, maybe. Yeah, the rationale is there. Um, if it's part
of the quest to strategic plan, um, I would imagine number four, six, and three, they all are requiring budgets and they're all listed, you know, as a connection. Seems to me I'm I'm fine with what you said, Wade,
but I think we need to make it clear to them that we're not suggesting that we want the money to make it happen. We want them to budget to make these things happen. Right? because they support the initiatives, right, that have been laid out by the city,
or the village, right? Well, I mean, the funding would go to probably community development, right? It would be the like the They'd probably go to public works to put to plant trees, for example. And what's the other improve storm water?
Storm water would be the the utility department would put those in. And then what was the other one? Budget needed to mitigate runoff pollution that's also san uh utility department. Okay.
But having said that, I mean, we've spent a lot of time talking about living shoreline and I didn't see it like directly listed in the strategic initiative of the village, but it seems to me based on our prior discussions and
um effort that we put into it that it would rise pretty close to the top. If not, and we're we're aren't we saying here that we would love to get a uh pilot project going somehow somewhere for that?
Yes. Number Yeah, number two. Yeah, that's Yeah, number two. That's kind of been the stumbling block. I mean, the site into Questa Bridge was too deep. Too deep. the two other locations in Toquesta Country Club that
we had talked about, they already have Living Shoreline pretty much. Mhm. Um so we're kind of stuck at well we want that but where you know um and then we started talking about
well maybe we can find someone that would be willing that lives on the water to uh you know kind of be a not a test but you know let me ask a pilot for it. Let me ask Jay this question it's
related. You know how city managers and public works directors, they know the approximate per foot cost for traditional seaw walls and kits, right? Y is there any data out there that you
remember or may look at that gives you a general idea on a a a linear foot basis how much a shoreline a living shoreline project would be. say it had rip wrap and they planted some mangroves.
There's a lot of conflicting data out there because there's so many different types of living shorelines. But if you honed in on a specific type, we could we could probably fine-tune a cost estimate per linear foot. Yeah. So, what why I asked that question is as follows. So
eventually there's going to come a day where somebody's going to knock on Jay's door and says, "Hey, tell me about this living shoreline concept and cuz I need a new seaw wall or something like that." And then if we if if if
they agreed to let it be a focus type project for the village, instead of us seeking a place where we would have a a pilot project, we would just give this guy X amount of dollars for him letting
us be or or to advertise or to market. Look what this wonderful thing is that he did. Like an abatement. Yeah. Like a bait. Yes. be like we would we would help reduce his cost. Maybe that's the way to go. The only problem is, you know, I've been
here two years and I haven't had anyone come in my door asking that question. Yeah. So, we could be waiting another 5 years for for somebody to come through. So, that's why I think I think you have to be proactive with creating a project. You can outreach and you can do some
sort of outreach or find a way to get, you know, like to market the idea to somebody and then and then they may raise their hand, but I don't think people are probably going to just Yeah. They wouldn't know, I guess, right, to come knock on the door, right? Yeah. Well, they should know that
they're going to need a permit to do a new seaw wall. Yeah. So, maybe when they go to get the permit, then that's where it can be presented. information. The problem is they go they go to the state first. They go to D before they even come in the village typically. So they're they've already done their design before they even get to us. It's
different than most development. Is there a way to know which ones might be coming up in need of a new seaw wall so that we could reach out to them? We'd have to do like a seaw wall inventory of the whole village. Guess I'll have a boat day. Yeah. Yeah.
Drive around and see. But it's tough. It's also tough to see from the water, right? Because a lot of times the seaw walls are failing from from the caving. They're caving in inland, right? So tiebacks have rusted away and all that. Yeah.
Marketing, I guess. So So I think we could do it similar to the the tree rebate program we're doing, right? We're we're just starting to roll out this tree rebate program. Drew, we talked a little bit about the last meeting, but um we're going to give a credit for $300 per tree for or for a
shade tree and $200 for a more of an ornamental tree on people's properties, trying to get people to plant trees, right? So, we're we're going to be rolling them out some stuff and trying to, you know, encourage people to do it just just to increase our urban tree canopy, right? If there's value to the
whole village if for every tree that there there's put in, right? So we can do a similar thing with this mangrove concept, right? Where we we create the EAC and council creates a program and funds it and we determine to to Tom's
point, we determine how much it costs per linear foot and then we say, well, let's say it's $10,000 on the on the typical lot or $5,000. Then we get enough funding to maybe do two, three, four projects a year and then we roll it
out and say, "Hey, we've got $20,000. First come, first serve. Come and get it." Yeah. So, I think I think that's that's probably the best approach and I think what we kind of talked about at the last meeting and I think as far as what Brad's
presenting, a lot of what he's presenting is is getting a blessing from council for you all to move forward with further evaluation. these concepts, but also to put it on the radar for the strate strategic plan for next year. So, they typically do their strategic planning in March. Uh, so it' be March
or 2026, but if Brad gets something on the radar right now, we can start working with them to to kind of get it on that strategic plan. Um, for instance, the mangrove project, and then and then if things are in the strategic plan, they typically then get put into the budget, which then happens the following summer. So that's that's kind
of I think the idea of getting having Brad present now to get ahead of the strategic planning process. Another thought I had would be so my recollection is Jupiter has had this requirement way longer than
we have. Right. Mhm. So, what if they have some projects that the private property owners have done and they know of one of them who is just, what's the right word? I'm very
enthusiastic about letting the world know what he or she did. Okay. Then maybe we could do a video on that job showing look what they did over in Jupiter and this is why we're trying to get it to happen here and to quest.
It's a great idea. We can we can reach out to Jupiter's environmental department and and see if they have any good projects that we could consider. I mean, what do you all think about that? I mean, it's like it would just be a videographer to make a video. Sounds like a much more efficient and quick way of making the case. That's
what we're trying to do, right? Make the case. Yeah. We don't care if it was in Timbbook, too. Really? We just Right. We want somebody to see this stuff works. It's not pie in the sky kind of stuff. Let us know what you, you know, you call your counterpart or that department you
mentioned and see, let us know what they said. Does the village give any rebates or or incentives around like sustainable um things that go into like new construction homes or even existing like solar um you know passive homes or
anything like that? Any any sort of thing? No. So that's that's what um Brad had mentioned. it's similar in his thing that but the EAC has vetted green building incentives. So, we've done some workshopping with them and and we've
taken those recommendations to the council and we just need to adopt them. But, um there won't be any actual cash incentives. Um it's generally like uh like rebates on permit fees, expedited permitting, you know, things of that nature. But that's good.
But, um it's it's baby steps, right? It's incremental stuff. That's great that even thinking about that. It's awesome. All right. So, I like the idea of 463 and then I'll run through the rest of the stuff.
Yeah. If nothing if nothing else, we can say we we would like to shape and inform how 46 and three are done, right? Because it's in the strategic initiative. We'd like this council's input to, you know, shape the projects that are going to be funded through those. All right, that might be an automatic way of
getting at least three of our things, right, supported. All right, sounds good. Sounds good to me. I don't think there's a need for a motion, right? Let's go on to the next thing unless there's anything else you guys want to
talk about on uh the review and the initiatives. All right. So, new business. Uh, we had discussed in the last meeting uh the potential to have a toqua hazardous waste amnesty day kind of modeled after
the paper shredding event that they have what twice a year I think. Um, because I've been to that paper shredding event and it seems to be well attended. I know it's different paper and hazardous waste, but they have a system where you
drive through, you unload your paper, and you drive away. Um, so I thought, well, if you make it easy, perhaps people will be more apt to uh to bring their stuff. I also emailed each of you
a link to I think it was Sumpter County um has an amnesty day for their household hazardous waste. Um just to give you kind of an idea of uh how they do it, the wastes that are eligible because not you can't bring everything
in the radio, right? Um and so, you know, just as an example, um I did write a staff memo for this with a bunch of information, but I don't know what happened to it. I think
Meg like just deleted it. Probably not. Not on purpose. No, I I couldn't find it to save my life. It was the strangest thing. Um anyway, does anyone have any discussion or ideas
or maybe experience uh with such an amnesty type scenario for hazardous waste? When I was village manager of Tquesta, I have a vague recollection that we partnered with waste management at least
one time to have a de facto amnesty day somewhere on the village property here. Um, and uh, you know, waste management put it on vehicles that were safe to
transport and they took it to the proper place, which is probably off of Military Trail north of Donald Roth Road and they took care of all of that. So that to me seems
like the easiest thing instead of you know doing it from the ground up and to quest trying to figure out what kind of a truck to put it on and having workers take it you know try to partner with waste management. Yeah. Yeah. Especially because I'm sure there's regulations around what type of
specific types of waste. Yeah. They may have they may set you know like say the truck has you know the space on the truck. This might be for paint. This might be for tarpentine. This might be for that. So fertilizers, you know, to keep it so that it's easier
to put it in the right place when they get to the place that gets taken to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Similar to the paper event. Um I think I forget the name of the vendor, but they come in, they've got big trucks and they do all the uh shredding and
disposal of the paper. So basically the case we're trying to make is we're just expanding from paper only or mostly to all these other items. I wouldn't have it on the same day but Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Have a different day. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Cuz I I think the shredding event is is Yeah. It's very busy. Yeah. So is there a recycling center in Tqua? Pardon? Is there a recycling center at all where you can drive and drop recycling off?
There used to be until we had curbside recycling pickle. I think it was at the Questa Park if I remember. So then the question is back um who can interface with waste management to try
and Yeah. So I think if if you get council's blessing at your meeting tomorrow night, I think that's on the list, right? Jeremy Allen or I will reach out to Waste Management and we'll we'll set that up. Um, and we could possibly even have them come here and just kind of
workshop it with you and figure out how to do it. Okay. Two items we want to talk to waste management about. Was that single stream? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. When was the last time that um they came? Was it It was a while ago.
Was it two summers ago? Perhaps. Jess, you mean? Yeah, Jeff Jeff Sin. When was the last time Jeff Saven came? I feel he may have come to tell us about the new pickup automated pickup.
Yeah, I'm dreaming. He did. No, he did. I think that was I think that was last year recycle much higher. They're recycling centers that do that. They split up. You know, it's something for all of us for uh particularly for
Brad and or the staff when if it gets that far. The fire departments are fire departments are very supportive of these amnesty days because one of their big fears is, you know, if there's a some little tiny fire in a garage or
something, it can turn into a major fire because of all this stuff that's sitting on shelves in the garage that should have been taken somewhere years ago. And I'm guilty of the same thing. in my garage, you know, I've got paint
and petroleum products and all kind of stuff that need pesticides where needs to go. It's a great point. And so the fire department, I don't know how you but just to mention it that it would be beneficial. I know that they
are always supportive of those projects because they they see that as a fuel for fire is basically what they look at the stuff that's accumulated on private property. Brad, I'll try and reach out to the fire chief before tomorrow night just to get
him on board with that where he could maybe say that they kind of partner with the EAC or co-sponsor it or at least support it. And I because I think it's a great point, Tom. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, anything else on this?
So, comments uh from committee members. I have one comment. Welcome, Drew. Um, did Drew get the, uh, Sunshine State Law or what is it? No, we'll have we'll have to give um give him a little tutorial on that.
Sunshine law in Florida. Bill rights. Basically, sign over your life. So, the long and short of it, without going into great detail, is whenever you receive an email from anyone on the EAC, don't reply.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Because you're not we're not allowed outside of this venue, we're not allowed to talk about EAC business to one another. We can talk about the golf game, the football game, or the weather, or anything else, but not
EA. So, like when I wasn't able to log in and I replied to everybody that I can't log in, kind of like that. Yeah, you or you could talk about Florida State beating Alabama in football. So, anything like that. I mean, no business.
Yeah, that's right. Um, what else? What else? Sorry, Tom. Got real quiet in here. I'm a Gator fan. So, and was it who who do I actually is it Brian that would help me with the login
stuff because I had an issue with it. I didn't remember till just now when I looked on this computer, but even on my desktop, I was not able to see any of the items. Every time I went to click the link,
Mhm. I got I compass password user ID and I even looked at my master list of those things. I compass does not exist. I don't know. I I think I know what it is. It's like a protective process or
something, but like a VPN or something. Yeah, it's just not letting me do a thing. That was my issue was Duo, which is I think like that security VPN that like they send a text to your phone and you put the number and I never got to text my phone.
So, it's it's a challenge. That's right. I'll have to work on that. So, does anyone have any suggestions for future agenda items? I like putting you on the spot. What I'll do, um, Drew, I'll send you, um, a template
of a staff memo. If something comes up, if you know, whatever, whatever you think is, uh, pertinent or Germaine to discuss at EAC, just write a little something and you you saw my my staff memo in here, just, you know, a short
little blur, okay? And, uh, what it why it's important, blah, blah, blah. and um and then we just add that to the next agenda and discuss it as a commission. So how do I send that for example? You can do one way communication. So
that's the reason you can't reply. Correct. Uh but you yeah just send it to me and but don't expect reply. Got it. Okay. And I'm not trying to ignore you but that makes sense. I got um or you can send it to Jay. Either way. And that way you'll know
that someone got it because he can reply to you. He's staff. You can copy us both on it. That's probably the best way to do it. Um, all right. Any anything else? All right. Would someone like to motion
for adjournment or we can sit here for a while? I motion to my motion. chair and I I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I I cares. You know what that ceiling reminds me though? It's just like that scene
reminds me of that