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BCC Minutes 02/06/2001 W (Water Issues)February 6, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE WATER WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, February 6, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Also Present: James D. Carter, Ph.D. Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Tom Henning Pamela Mac'Kie Tom Olliff, County Manager Page I BCC Workshop - Water Board of County Commissioner's Chambem Turner Building, 3rd Floor February 6, 2001 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Agenda Overview Water Resources Potable Water Water Reclamation Water Re-Use Utility Billing BCC Discussion and Staff Direction February 6, 2001 do, CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning. You're alive and well. Welcome to the workshop on water. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'll tell you what we're going to First of all, we're going to have an overview. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He's got the only agenda. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I've got the only agenda. Boy, talk about control. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's all power. CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's all power. But I'll get you copies. Good morning, Mr. Mudd. MR. MUDD: Good morning. I'm Jim Mudd, Public Utilities Administrator for Collier County, for the record. We're getting agendas right now for you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. MUDD: Sorry for the, for the oversight on our part. We have a list of distinguished speakers this morning to talk to you on water issues. The intent is to give you the cradle to the grave, okay, as far as water is concerned, from where it is, how it gets there, to, we pull it up; we make potable water out of it; once that's done and it goes back into the sewer plant, how we reuse it and reclaim it, and work that whole process. One of the questions that I, one of the questions that I asked all the speakers to be cognizant of, and it's one that every one of your constituents ask you'- If we're under water restrictions, why are we issuing all those building permits? Okay? And I know every time you're in a forum, somebody asks you that question. Today we plan to get at that answer for you. Okay? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had a breakfast at 7:30 this morning where I had that question. My timing was bad. MR. OLLIFF: And our goal is for you to walk out of here with a good answer in your pocket, so if you don't leave here comfortable with that, we've not done our job this morning. That's one of our-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's great, 'cause I've got three association meetings this week. I hope I'll be doing better than I have in the past. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. We'll let you know. Page 2 February 6, 2001 MR. MUDD: The -- to recognize some folks in the audience that are here, first, Trudy Williams is here. She's the chairperson of the Big Cypress Basin board on the governing board of South Florida Water Management District. She's our rep for Southwest Florida. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you for coming. MR. MUDD: Jerry Krenz is the senior planner for South Florida Water Management District. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Jerry. MR. MUDD: Bob Verrastro is the senior hydrogeologist for the South Florida Water Management District. And as we start our agenda, first up to the podium will be Tom Missimer, and he's going to talk a little bit about what's underneath the ground and how it all works -- he might even get in a couple of things to talk about our ASR issue and how those aquifers move -- to be followed by Scott Burns, who's going to talk about allocations and consumptive use permits; followed by Mark Eisner, who's going to talk about the lower west coast water supply plan; followed by Clarence Tears, the director of the Big Cypress Basic. At that time Paul Mattausch will talk about -- our water director -- will talk about potable water and how that process works for you and what things we've got planned for the future in order to meet those demands. Joe Cheatham will talk about reuse and reclamation. John Yonkosky will talk about how he gets the bills out, okay, in order to get the monies to make all this work; and then last but not least, Bruce Adams from the South Florida Water Management District will talk about water conservation and some of those restrictions that we're under. At that time we'll open up for discussion. You can ask questions at any time, but at that time it's pretty free for the Board to just hammer all those experts with every good question that you've got. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that sounds good, and we will take public comment at the end today on any of those issues. MR. MUDD: Without further adieu, I'll be, I'll be followed by Tom Missimer. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning. Page 3 February 6, 2001 MR. MISSIMER: Thank you for the invitation to come here and speak with you today. I've been working on your water supply system now since 1984, and I've looked myself in the mirror. That's back where I had hair, and I wasn't as gray as I am now.. But I started working in the hydrogeology of Southwest Florida in 1973, and there's been a lot of changes. In 1973 there were about maybe 70,000 people total in this planning area of the south or the southwest coast, but one thing that hasn't changed is the geology in the subsurface, and I'm going to talk about that today. First of all, with an introduction, Collier County is blessed with having some of the largest quantities of fresh water resources of anywhere in the west coast of Florida from Tampa south. I think you need to keep that in mind, because the plans that have been developed over the last 20 years to utilize those resources have been carefully worked out and are using the natural system in its best form and without any type of impacts. While a lot of the areas are in great fear of failures of water supplies because of the drought conditions, Collier County really does not have that same type of situation. If we take a quick look at a -- sort of a schematic cartoon of the subsurface. And what I've done is take the confining beds out, something like your colleagues from the city of Naples seem to have done in a certain case recently, but I wanted to try to put these into a perspective. These are the aquifers that underlie Collier County. The Water Table Aquifer at the top underlies most of the County, and is a very highly productive zone. It contains -- on particularly the northern part of the County north of Immokalee Road, it's very productive and -- A SPECTATOR: And just for your amusement, I brought along a piece of it to show you, and this is why there's so much productivity in the limestone north of the road. MR. MISSIMER: Basically what you're seeing there is a core of rock from the Water Table Aquifer north of Immokalee Road. It has 58 percent porosity, and the testing on that show that it's one of the most productive aquifers in Florida in terms of yield. Now, we don't even use that aquifer to any great degree right now because of potential impacts on wetlands. Page 4 February 6, 2001 The Lower Tamiami Aquifer that you see, which is the next one down, is confined from the Water Table Aquifer by a series of muds; and essentially there's a fresh water system, and you do use the Lower Tamiami Aquifer. Couple of reasons you don't use the Water Table Aquifer: One, it contains a lot of organic carbon and other compounds which are expensive to take out of the water and treat. It's much less expensive to use the fresh water from the Lower Tamiami Aquifer; it's easier to treat, and you actually have less impacts on the surface environments by using it. Tom, can I ask you a question? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: MR. MISSIMER: Sure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: source of the organic carbons? What is -- what would be the MR. MISSIMER: Basically naturally occurring plants at the surface that -- you're in a subtropical area. The plants die; they drop on the ground. You have peats, wetland areas, and they -- basically the water that percolates through them picks up organic carbon, adds to the system. There's a little bit of iron in it. In fact, a lot of the iron in the areas now have shown that -- we used to think it just came from the organic complexing, but it's actually coming from the fallout of African dust, so -- and that's been going on for thousands of years. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What is, what is the depth of the Lower Tamiami Aquifer? MR. MISSIMER.' Okay. The depth of the Lower Tamiami Aquifer, the top of it ranges from about 30 feet in the northern part of the County, and the essential area of the well field at the top is at about 70 or 80 feet below surface. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The water that we draw for our, our, our utility customers and for the city of Naples, are they both from the Lower Tamiami Aquifer? MR. MISSIMER: Yes, they are. The city of Naples has two well fields, one in the Golden Gate Estates area on the far west. You have one in the Golden Gate Estates area, and then the City has another well field right on the coastal ridge. When the coastal ridge -- when it gets very dry, they shift a lot of their pumpage from the coastal ridge out further east away from potential for salt water intrusion. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, if the Lower Tamiami Page 5 February 6, 2001 Aquifer isn't supposed to influence the water table of the aquifer, the upper region where you got the canals and the, the swamps and whatever, how come that when they draw for the city of Naples they dry -- the canals in Golden Gate Estates dry up? MR. MISSIMER: That's a good question. What I'm -- what I said, the impacts of pumping the Lower Tamiami are not directly as great as pumping from the upper zone, but the way the recharge system works -- and I think I have a -- well, yeah, I have another little slide here that maybe would help that a little bit if we look at -- this is sort of a general geology here. If we look at this system, when it rains, the waters comes down and fills up the Water Table Aquifer at the top, and then it slowly percolates through the clay that's between the two aquifers and recharges the Lower Tamiami. They're both part of the same hydrologic system. Down in -- out further to the east, certain areas of Collier County, there's not much clay between the upper and the lower portion of the system, and when you heavily pump the Lower Tamiami Aquifer, you can drop the water table down and cause some impacts to wetlands. Because of that situation, in 1986 the South Florida Water Management District asked the County to do a safe yield analysis of the Lower Tamiami Aquifer in the Golden Gate Estates area. That safe yield modeling, you know, revealed that 50 million gallons a day would be the maximum amount of water that should be pumped out of that aquifer at any time on an average basis. The County responded to that by limiting the pumpage from the Lower Tamiami Aquifer to their allocated share adding the city of Naples' existing agricultural pumpage and an allocation for individual homes and abandoned going any further in using -- of using that aquifer; therefore, they went deeper into the Lower Hawthorn Aquifer and used desalination processes. So the County has in fact followed good management practices following what the natural system is doing and what other utilities in the area are doing so there would be no conflicts. There really has never been a conflict in years between the County and the city of Naples because of cooperative aquifer management, and the water management district would probably agree. They -- it's, it's been a fairly happy Page 6 February 6, 2001 family. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is this good report on television so that audiences can see it? Great. MR. MISSIMER: If we now go down to the -- deeper, Immokalee and some of the other areas use the Sandstone Aquifer along the coast; that aquifer doesn't exist, so you really have no ability to use that. The Mid Hawthorn Aquifer in this area is really more related to the Lower Hawthorn Aquifer, contains saline water, is a minor zone that occurs somewhere around 330 feet below the surface and in fact is really not used by anyone. Now, the Lower Hawthorn Aquifer is extensively used by Collier County for the North Water Treatment Plant. That's the 8 million gallons a day that was just recently added to that well field. That aquifer contains water with a salinity of somewhere around 3,000 to 3,500 milligrams per liter, and you use membrane processes to convert it to fresh water in the process. So the important thing to understand, also, you're going to be using the same aquifer in the south regional water treatment plant. The important thing with saline water conversion to fresh water is this: Number one, it's drought-proof. That aquifer is not going away. It's recharged in Central Florida. There's a ton of water down there, okay? That's number one. Number two, the cost of desalting that water is fairly similar to the treatment of fresh water at the top based on the new water quality standards. Used to be there was a big disparity. There isn't any, any longer. And three, you're creating a new fresh water supply that wasn't there before, and, in fact you're getting two for one, because you're creating new fresh water, and then you're reusing it in your re-use system to substitute for other water resources, so you're getting almost $2 for one back for treating that water, something that, that many people ignore. So this is sort of the system. All these systems are confined from, from each other by clays, and what I'm going to do is, is switch over, I think, with the help of a little technological help. When I was in school they didn't have computers. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, can you tell us while you're switching that, the, the Hawthorn percentage of, of salinity Page 7 February 6, 2001 versus the Suwannee and the -- MR. MISSIMER: Okay. What happens, the salinity in the, the saline aquifer system actually increases with depth in this, this area. It's not a regular increase with depth, but what happens is, for example, in the Water Table Aquifer you have a chloride concentration of about 40, okay? And then it goes down into the Lower Tamiami maybe about 60, and when you get into the lower Hawthorn, that chloride concentration is around 1700 to 2,000. When you get down into the Suwannee system, the upper Suwannee is very similar, about 2500; the Lower Suwannee goes up to about 5,000. And then we get to the Avon Park, it's, it's at about 10,000. And sea water is a concentration of 19,000 milligrams per liter, so that kind of gives you a relative perspective. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And Avon Park was 10,0007 MR. MISSIMER: The Avon Park is about 10,000, yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So it's about half. MR. MISSIMER: Right. If, for example, you said, okay, we, we really don't want to use fresh water at all anymore, you have about a half a dozen aquifers in the subsurface you could substitute and convert if you so chose to do that. But the system design today is the most economic system for your citizens providing the maximum amount of environmental protection, because you do really have a drought-proof utility system in terms of a lot of comparisons to your neighbors. You're not dependent on surface water reservoirs or Lake Okeechobee; you're not depending on femoral streams. You have interior well fields not subject to salt water intrusion in .Lower Tamiami, and you have a saline water source that provides you a constant source of supply that actually gives you re-use water of high quality. Now, if we take a look at this section here -- I better get my glasses, because aging creates another problem. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excuse me. I think everybody -- I want to make sure that I'm clear on this. We're talking about potable water when we're talking about being drought-proof. MR. MISSIMER: Correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And if you overdraw on that for your lawns and everything else, that's where I think we -- everyone -- Page 8 February 6, 2001 there's a perception -- we get in a lot of trouble here -- that any new growth is going to cause us enormous problems because we're going to run out of water. MR. MISSIMER: You hit, you hit something right on the head. That's a very important concept. Southwest Florida citizens, since we get so much rainfall and we have tropical vegetation, are basically very poor stewards of their own water needs. We have 100 gallons or 150 gallons. In certain cases the Naples area used to have 700 gallons per day per unit that's used primarily for exterior home uses. That's an outrageous amount of water supply. When you compare it to the per capita use in a lot of overseas places like England, it's only 40 gallons per day per person, and in the Middle East, it's 25 gallons per day per person, we're -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What is ours? MR. MISSIMER: -- we're here at 120 gallons per day per person commonly, so we really use more water than we need, and, and permanent restrictions on lawn irrigation that -- things are actually good, because most people overwater their lawns anyway, don't allow the grass roots to grow properly, you know; and then when, when it's really dry, the grass dies because they haven't really understood how to irrigate right anyway. So the whole idea of overuse by irrigation is a problem, and, and -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: The biggest offender is the individual homeowner, is what I'm hearing. MR. MISSIMER: That's correct, and, and people with a lot of ornamental vegetation around, very expensive facilities. Water use is directly related to economic income in Collier County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Besides, we, we wash our fertilizer out of the, of the lawns and trees that, that we put down there, and it ends up down in the Gordon River. MR. MISSIMER: There's a lot of, of stewardship issues that homeowners need to learn. Actually, farmers are better stewards, because it's expensive to use fertilizer and pesticides, and they're very good stewards of their land. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, how do we address the -- you know, the big question is, how do we address the golf courses? MR. MISSIMER: The golf courses are primarily using re-use water today in, in this area, and, you know, and that actually has Page 9 February 6, 2001 been beneficial, and that provides also some recharging of the coastal ridge back into the system, which hasn't hurt anything in the terms of potable supply wells and the coastal ridge. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, stacking things up on stewardship -- now, I don't play golf, so don't -- don't understand where I'm going here; but in terms of stewardship, and I've heard this forever, farmers are by far the better stewards of water supplies because it's an expense ratio. How does that apply to golf courses? MR. MISSIMER: Golf courses today are extraordinarily well-managed, because they have the same problems as, as farmers. They're growing a crop; that crop is turf grass. They have very carefully over the years -- for example, the Audubon Seal Golf Program. They are measured on how little water they use and how little amount of fertilizers and other things, only enough to grow the fertilizers. These systems have improved vastly. Golf courses used to be water hogs, no question about it, but that day is over because of the, of the issues going on. The South Florida Water Management District permitting, when I first started permitting golf courses, we got an easy million gallons a day; today we're lucky if we get a half million gallons a day, and then it has to be mostly re-use, so things have changed considerably on the stewardship of water use on golf courses. They no longer are the water hogs of the past. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well -- MR. MISSIMER: The individual homeowner has by far elevated in status, either high or low, whichever way you put it, in terms of use of water. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I know in my area, for example, Collier Enterprises removed 800 living units, built the golf course. Signature removed a similar number of units, built a golf course. So right there that tells me that the water consumption for the particular area will be down because of the stewardship of the golf courses versus if we had individual homes in there, another 1600 living units, and if the people weren't good stewards, then we would be consuming a lot more water. MR. MISSIMER: That's correct, and if you look at what's happened historically in Naples, the entire Naples ridge prior to development was essentially tomato farms and vegetable farms Page 10 February 6, 2001 with extremely high water use rates, because the water table was low and they essentially then used ditch irrigation which, is the least efficient form of irrigation. If you add up all the permits that occurred and that have been abandoned and replaced by golf courses under re-use, there's been an overall permitted reduction of water use in that area of the ridge of Naples, 'cause I actually have been doing that as an exercise lately myself. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that might be interesting somewhere to put on a map to show where a development is versus what was there in the past and water consumption, and I know that's something we all struggle with, but I think it would help all of our communities better understand what's going on in water use, what was there versus what's there today, and I don't think any of us really understand that. MR. MISSIMER: No, and I think that's something that, that needs to be looked at by both the District and the County, because there has been in certain areas a reduction in use. Some areas there's been an increase in use, and we need to look at that in terms of what the real impacts are. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We need that to make decisions. MR. MISSIMER: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Now, I want to go quickly again to the -- to this diagram here. And you're going to see, up on the television, you'll see where your potable well, well water comes out of the Lower Tamiami -- maybe I can use this pen here -- and then basically you have, have the -- your basic other aquifers that are used. The Lower Hawthorn is used in certain areas way out to the west, and then you can see where the ASR, proposed ASR wells, is in Naples down here in the Lower Hawthorn. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, you keep saying west, but you mean east; don't you? MR. MISSIMER: Excuse me. East, yeah, east. Your well fields are way out to the east in the Lower, Lower Hawthorn here, and you have some zones potentially in the Suwannee. Your deep well injection system that gets rid of the concentrate or the brine from the water, the water treatment process at the plant, is injected way down in the boulder zone Page11 February 6, 2001 3,000 feet below surface, and that contains sea water. And then you have -- you can see the relative fluorides, 50, 100, 200, 3,000, 3,000, 5,000, 15,000 going down in the system, and there's about 20,000 in the Oldsmar. Now, there has been some question in the past about, I've heard, about confinement and how good confinement is. I just -- sometimes I watch television, to my own detriment, and see what's being stated, and sometimes I'm not there to refute certain things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gets your blood pressure up; doesn't it? MR. MISSIMER: Yes, it sure does; yes, it sure does, and I'm glad you're sitting where you're at and I'm standing where I'm at on that particular issue. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Pam's better at controlling that than I am. MR. MISSIMER.' Well, anyway, in terms of your ASR system that's been proposed -- and there's three different kinds of ASR systems that you're aware -- you have an operating ASR system at Manatee Road that's working fine. That's a potable water, fresh water supply system. If you look at what the pressure is in the Lower Hawthorn here, pressure in the Lower Hawthorn is anywhere from about 25 to 30 feet above sea level, okay, somewhere in that area; it depends on where you're at. If you look at the pressure in the Lower Tamiami, it can be seasonally varying from anywhere from about 5 feet or 6 feet above sea level down to zero, so you have a big differential pressure, over 20 feet in most cases. So let's make the assumption there was confinement or poor confinement between the Lower Hawthorn and the Lower Tamiami. That means it would have 20 feet of pressure; the water would have actually been flowing up through the section into the Lower Tamiami and, Io and behold, there would be no fresh water in the Lower Tamiami if there was no confinement. So you can go to all the testing of 2-inch diameter cores or wave your hands all that you want, and you're not going to be able to improve it any better than nature has proven it with the actual distribution of quality that exists. That's my, my last soapbox statement for the day. Page12 February 6, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Better your soapbox than mine, but terrific. MR. MISSIMER: Okay. With that, if there's any other questions -- I think I gave kind of an overview of where you're at, 'cause I've used my time; I think. MR. OLLIFF: Tom will be followed by Scott Burns, who's going to talk about allocations and consumptive use permits. MR. BURNS: Good morning. My name is Scott Burns. I'm the Director of Water Use Permitting at the Southwest Florida Management District, and I'm responsible for the staff's involvement of the allocation of water for all water uses throughout the 16-county area of South Florida Water Management District. That amount of water more than accounts for all the water that's allocated elsewhere in the state combined and exceeds the amount of water under allocation in many of the states of the United States. In doing this program, obviously it is extremely important that we administer this program in a, in a manner that is consistent with the growth that occurs throughout South Florida and is mindful and protective of the natural resources of this area, including the Everglades, the CREW lands, the Fakahatchee, Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee River, and a number of unique things that have characterized the Florida landscapes that make the state so popular. The program that we administer, the consumptive use permitting program, is a statutorily directed program that is administered solely by the water management districts and the Department of Environmental Protection. It is a non-delegatable program, meaning that it is handled only by those agencies; and it makes sense, because there are issues of county versus county or region versus region. Water does not stop at county boundaries, and it is necessary to establish a regional agency -- at least this was the finding of the legislature -- to regulate this water that moves from one region to another. Permits are issued based on the ability of an applicant to demonstrate a three-prong test. The first prong is, is the use reasonable and beneficial? And that term kind of boils down to, is the water used efficiently; is it used for a purpose that is consistent with the region, for Page 13 February 6, 2001 instance, agriculture and agriculture public water supply; is the demands for that water conservative and reasonable, not excessive; is the use of that water going to occur in a manner that does not cause problems to the water resources or impact other existing legal users. The second prong is the public interest: Is that consistent with how the areas to be developed of the overall goals -- for instance, I mentioned the Everglades system, some of the natural systems that characterize South Florida, are these permits being issued in a manner that are consistent with preserving this public interest. Thirdly: Will they not interfere with existing legal users? When you have a water right issued, is that water right going to be protected? In administering this three-prong test, for each permit that comes in, we look at not only the individual permit's impact but the cumulative impact of all of the existing users together on the water resources; and we look at them not only in the average conditions, but up to what we call a level of certainty or a one-in-ten drought event. And this is important, because it goes to your question of whether or not water uses should be issued or land use decisions should be made during drought periods of time. The South Florida Water Management District, in working through the water supply planning process -- and some of you-all might be familiar with our activities on that in the couple of years that culminated in the west coast water supply plan -- have adopted a one-in-ten level of certainty for consumptive use permits. What that means is that the conditions of the permit, those protections for the natural systems, those protections for the other existing legal uses, your assurance that the water will be there undisturbed, are all tied to events up to and including a one-in-ten drought or a drought event that you would expect to occur once every ten years as a general frequency. Now, in South Florida, however, we're not guaranteed that nature will only provide us water shortages of that magnitude. In fact, last year, the southwest coast experienced droughts of one-in-40-year-return frequency, something that we would expect to see once every 40 years. It's a pretty extreme event, and last Page 14 February 6, 2001 year, as a result of that, some things happened and we had water shortage. This year we're currently experiencing water shortage on the area of about one in 25 years, and the forecast is for lower-than-normal rainfall, and we expect that that drought return frequency will be somewhat more severe. What happens in the permitting process under a drought that's more severe than what we contemplated? The district utilizes computer models to simulate the impacts of withdrawals. Underground you can't see the water; you can't go out and measure it at every location; you can't put in wells as some economic trade-off and measure and guess what happens between those. And the computer models allow you to simulate those same things and do that across a county or across the state, depending on the problem that you're working to answer. When we look at permits, as I mentioned before, not only individually, but cumulatively, we look at, through the computer model, the impact of that withdrawal up to a one-in-ten drought condition. That's important, because during a one-in-ten drought, there's not as much water recharging. You heard Tom talk about how water recharges and goes into the shallowest water table aquifer and then filters its way down through the clay layer to deeper, fresh water formations. That situation obviously is reduced during the dry season, and during a drought, even further reduced. At the same time, the demand reasonably increases for water; however, the water resources may not be adequate to meet that. What happens in a drought that is greater than a one-in-ten is that the impacts that were considered to meet the criteria, safe yield, those levels that were considered safe up to one in ten, may be greater; they may go down farther, beyond what was contemplated in the permit. In some cases there's no harm to that. In other cases though there may be water resource risks. Those manifest themselves in the form along the coast of salt water intrusion. In the areas where there is high degree of development, it may manifest itself in well interferences. You may have heard, in your own neighborhoods last year, complaints of individual 2-inch wells losing their services Page15 February 6, 2001 temporarily. They may not run every day or the pump might burn up 'cause it was trying to irrigate the lawn and it didn't work, or their house water. These things are associated with droughts, and in order to try to minimize and control those for that short period of time during drought until such a time that the rainfalls return and we get back into the normal hydrology of the area, the water management district has been authorized through statute to impose restrictions, and we look to partner those water shortage times with the local communities and local government to try to work a common and a joint enforcement of those types of things. Utilities, such as the ones that you-all operate and are responsible, don't really use water themselves but provide a service for public health and safety. Your customers utilize water in a manner that is either conservative in nature or, as Tom alluded to, in some cases, not very conservative. And the water restrictions and the partnership on enforcing those waters restrictions are geared towards reducing those high demands to cover the water shortage period of time or a temporary term until the normal hydrology returns, at which point systems can go back and operate as the permits were issued. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If I might, I have two questions. When we're in these periods, do you reduce your permitting because of the drought conditions? MR. BURNS: No, sir, we do not. The reason being is, again, the operation, the level of service, the level of protection that is being provided is for a one-in-ten. When we reach a period of time when the water resources cannot maintain or can't be protected to prevent it from harm during a one-in-ten, then that's the maximum development potential of that water resource in that particular area, and then we do not issue anymore permits. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: May I follow up on that? Have you measured that? I mean, do you know what amount of consumption would trigger that? MR. BROWN: Yes. It is, however, a complicated issue, because different water resource things have to be protected at different locations; and as Tom's presentation covered, you have certain areas where the water resources are more prolific than other areas even within the same unit. He mentioned the area north of Immokalee Road and Page 16 February 6, 2001 showed you that core. It has permeability similar to the Biscayne Aquifer on the other coast, but you can go within that same shallow area onto the coastal ridge and you'll find little more than sand, and the water doesn't move through the sand as well as it does through those holes that you can almost stick your finger through in Tom's core. So even though they're shallow and it's the same aquifer, the characteristics of water flowing through it are different. Along the coast you have salt water. Over on Immokalee Road inland, it's miles and miles away, so salt water wouldn't be a constraint in one area of your county, but it certainly would be a constraint. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if it, if it -- if there are that many factors, how, how do you know when you've triggered the one in ten? MR. BURNS: That's the -- again, that goes back to the tool of our trade that I mentioned before, the -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- computer model. MR. BURNS: -- the ground water computer models which are verified through a series of monitor wells. You've probably driven around and seen these large, brightly color tubes sticking up that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tacky. MR. BURNS: ¥eah, thank you. They were necessary to keep the moving crews from knocking them over, and they're filled with cement and re-enforced. But towards that end, those provide us with a barometer to measure the actual response and to fine-tune and verify how the computer models are simulating the actual or the theoretical drawdown. These computer models can account for the variations in permeability. They can, through the mapping that's associated with GIS technology, identify where weapon systems are that need to be protected. The computer can show the footprint of the well field, not only from the shallowest wells but even the deeper wells in that relationship that Tom talked about where water kind of works its way up because it leaks down. Some of the wells in your area, the Lower Tamiami Aquifer, even have impacts on the Water Table Aquifer and potentially wetlands, so those are things that have been incorporated. Page 17 February 6, 2001 We also are able to incorporate not only your well field withdrawals, but neighbors, individual home wells, if necessary, agriculture to golf courses, all in the area and look how they all interact and then verify industry that would most affect those tacky field wells. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' So what you're saying is that there's no mechanism in place at this point in time to limit permits? MR. BURNS: Oh, absolutely, there is a method. There are many areas where permits are restricted and limited within the District. Where the water resource -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA'. Can you give me some examples? MR. BURNS: Yeah, sure. In the lower east coast or the upper east coast of Florida, there's a surface water system that's provided through by a series of canals in St. Lucie for agriculture. Since the mid '80s that carrying capacity of that surface water source was maximized, and we haven't issued a permit for that, any new uses or additional uses from that source. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But that's a discharge use, right? MR. BURNS: No. That's, that's a consumptive use. No. They pull out of that, they pull out of that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They pull out of there. MR. BURNS: Yeah. More closer to this area, in Hendry County, there's three canals, L-l, 2, and 3 canals that are located in, in Hendry County, and those surface water sources have been maximized. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are there any aquifers where -- you know, underwater sources that have been maximized that you -- MR. BURNS: At this point, in a broad scale, not yet, although we're looking at developing some criteria. There are some areas in the mid Hawthorn Aquifer in portions of Lee County where we feel that that water resource may be approaching its safe yield. There are many areas in Collier County adjacent to salt water sources, adjacent to isolated wetlands on a local scale where there is no more water available until or unless somebody changes -- Page 18 February 6, 2001 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So in those areas, we're not issuing building permits? MR. BURNS: I don't know if your building -- your ability to issue building permits is, at this point in time, related to but not concurrent with the issuance of consumptive use permit. In many cases, for instance, while a well field may be limited because of salt water intrusion and there may be no additional water at that location, you could authorize building permits in that area; but the water for those new houses, for instance, if it was -- may come from a well field located at a different source where there is water supply safely available -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words -- MR. BURNS: -- and you bring it in in a pipeline. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- it gets more expensive for the developer, because he has to lay more pipe to get to a water source; but because we eventually have a water source they can reach if they're willing to lay enough pipe, it doesn't interfere with the construction. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So we're not in a crisis situation by any means, is what you're say? MR. BURNS: That's correct. We are in a situation -- or let me qualify that. We are in a very severe short-term situation that's associated with an extreme drought, and there are areas that we have to be very careful to continue to protect them. At this point we have not measured salt water intrusion in the -- for early in the dry season. Last year we were successful in preventing salt water intrusion with the help of everybody. The lower west coast generally has very good compliance, but we had some small wells that were knocked out last year. We anticipate that there are some areas in Collier County, a few areas, a few more in Lee County and several areas in Hendry County where we would anticipate as many as 40 or 50 wells, individual family wells, over the course of this year may be knocked out. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's because they're in the Tamiami, which hasn't had sufficient recharge. MR. BURNS: That's because -- yeah, Tamiami, or they may be in other aquifers. Page 19 February 6, 2001 This is a very complicated situation, and I'm sorry if I'm going into more detail, but in many cases it's not because the aquifer doesn't necessarily have enough water in it; it's in most cases because the owner selected the least expensive pump to meet their needs at the time, and the pump that they selected only has the capability of taking water from 20 feet down from land surface. The aquifer, as Tom talked about, may be 100 feet down or 150 feet down, and out of the distance between the top of the aquifer, there may be maybe 100 feet of water that could be available on some of these ones that have a lot of clay and you can find them from the surface. But if your pump can only reach 20 feet and the water level drops to 25 feet for a few days, you're going to have a few days when your pump doesn't work. If you'd put a different pump in at the same location in the same aquifer, you'd be fine. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Make sure that I've conceptualized this and got it in my head right. I could look at an area, and let's take Golden Gate Estates where they're on, they're on well systems, and depending on the type of pump, you could be going down in to get the water out. Also, let's say that 100 more people build homes in that area. There's still enough water, if I'm understanding it correctly, if they get a pump that will go -- take it down far enough into the aquifer to draw the water, 'cause you're looking at the aggregate of the aquifer in that area and not so much whether it's 50 feet or 100 or 75, but across the board, and that's how you're making your decision on your model that Y number of homes or businesses or whatever can go in there and won't exceed the capacity of the aquifer. MR. BURNS: It's not only the aggregate number; usually in our modeling it's much more the specific local scale as well as the aggregate. The problem when you average something over a large area is, you miss the peaks, and it's the peaks that oft times are associated with the problem, not the average. So specifically to your well field, you may have individual homes that have interruption of service from their domestic well Page 20 February 6, 2001 within maybe 500 feet of one of your production wells, and you have several that are distributed over the area, so you may have a very small area where the drawdown of your production well is sufficiently large that it could impact some of these domestic wells. When you get back away from that a little bit, 700 feet from the well, you may have no problem. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are you -- MR. BURNS: So looking at it as an aggregate wouldn't necessarily help. When we're evaluating your permit, we'll be looking at the individual well impact as well as the aggregate of all of the folks in that area; and we also will look at the water supply in -- typically in, in evaluations of public water supply well fields, we will also look at the land use and what the proposed density and what their water supply sources are; and if it's looking that there might be a problem because we're anticipating drawdowns of 20 feet in some areas, we will also simulate the aggregate demands of not only the existing uses but potentially the future uses, not to limit you, because once you're first in time and you have your permit, your new folks have to stay out of your way. So the existing folks that were there before you came in, you have to protect, but the other ones -- but it's also good for, for public utilities to kind of know what the land use is going to be and what the potential impacts are going to be, 'cause, it's, it's just public relations. It's never good to have to deal with even if you have the legal right; it's always difficult when somebody's out of water and they're your constituent. So we try to work with that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I could, I'd like to put this in the simplest of terms. Dr. Carter's going to be appearing before three different associations in the next week. The question comes up, what about the water and the development and the problems that we're having? Should Dr. Carter inform these people, there's no problem; everything's well under control; there's nothing to worry about? MR. BURNS: I think that Dr. Carter would -- could carry a message on behalf of the water management district that says, hey, we are in an unusual situation, and until it starts raining Page 21 February 6, 2001 again, you need to be careful with your water use, more so than you do every other year. The good news is, it will start raining again, and we'll be dealing with not only normal water levels, but probably, within a year, floods. That's South Florida. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, see, they will say to me, well, you ought to stop all this development and stop approving these PUDs, because what you're doing is, is, is using up the water. And, see, the PUD does -- the approval does not mean they're going to build tomorrow. We don't know when they'll start building. I guess another question that I need to clarify is, at every time we approve one of these, does it go into your model for consumptive use so that you know if we have 500 PUDS out there that at some point in time those will develop and will use water, but you have already planned for that? MR. BURNS: To the degree that the PUDS are incorporated in our regional water supply plans, the answer is yes. In reality that's not always the case. Our plans are done -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Until they make an application for a consumptive use permit with you, you're not counting them. MR. BURNS: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right? I mean, so -- MR. BURNS: That's correct. We don't know -- yeah, right now that is an -- and that is an issue that has been a strong concern of the governor's office -- not only this administration, but the previous one; it seems to transcend republican or democrat -- is, trying to enhance the linkage between land use decisions and water use. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. BURNS: They directed us to do these water supply plans to provide local governments with an idea of where the water's available, where it's kind of getting tapped out, and what the future sources are. We identified through this last planning process that there are some areas where we anticipate that the safe yield of some of the shallow systems, the Lower Tamiami Aquifer and the Mid Hawthorn in Lee, are probably going to be maxed out over the next 20 years; and towards that end, we looked at developing, in partnership Page 22 February 6, 2001 with the local government, alternative water supply for irrigation. Let the folks who want to water their lawns, the golf courses, the median strips, use one source of water, and reserve or protect the high-quality water at the well fields for the drinking water sources. And you're going to hear one of our speakers talk about that, that program when I leave. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: So just for the sake of understanding, we have 127,000 homes, or we did last November anyway, that have already been approved, but, but they haven't applied for this consumptive use permit. MR. BURNS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But say for instance we get to be about 80,000 of the already approved homes three years ago and you find that they've reached that quota even though they've been approved by the previous commission or commissioners way back, can they then be -- can that development be stopped because they cannot get a consumptive use permit? MR. BURNS: No. What, what really happens -- and this has, this has happened on one or two occasions elsewhere in the district, there has been situations where the water supply that they were looking for, not drinking water supply -- that's always assured through your-all process, I know you-all have checks in, in dealing with that, and we work with that through our regional planning. But in some cases there has been situations where they wanted their irrigation water for their medians or they wanted all the individual folks to have their own wells and things like that, or, or essential irrigation system, and the water resources weren't available to do that; and they came in to get a consumptive use permit in their development prior to building, and they couldn't get the amount of water they did. That triggers a variety of other things that have cost implications to that developer. The first thing is, is, well, can I buy water from somebody else if I can't get it within my own lands at the four corners of my property? If that's not the case, can I get reclaimed water? And you-all have been a leadership role, the County, in many years, and you certainly know that you don't have enough supply to meet all those demands in this Page 23 February 6, 2001 particular region. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, thank you for that comment. I like to hear that. We have a leadership role and we're trying to deal with it, because the public is beating us up time and time again, not only this commission, but other commissions on that issue, and we really have been trying to get ahead of that. Thank you for recognizing we are trying to get, get it done right. MR. BURNS: Well, I -- I've used you-all and the city of Naples in a lot of discussions. The lower west coast, both Collier and Naples, in particular, do have that leadership role going way back, and when you get to the other coast, you were all heralded as an example of a program that not only works from a water supply but also has reasonable economic assurances for the end users and a good assurance of water availability. And when folks say that it can't be done, we send them over to your utility folks by name to tour plants or to see how this works, and we appreciate your efforts. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, back to where you were going though on the other, it says, if I have a PUD and it comes to the point where I come for the use permit and you guys say, sorry, you don't have enough within the area, then I, the developer, I have to go out and find other sources of water to get to my development. If it's effluent for the yards, that's one question; if it's potable water, that's another issue, depending. If I'm hooked into our lines for sewer and water, that's probably not a problem, because we've got plants that are designed I think up to ten years out and protections and everything of-- everything that's on the boards. So we -- when we approve a PUD, if it meets all the other parameters, you're telling me that water -- how do I factor water use into my decision-making? MR. BURNS: Well, I think there's, there's a couple things that you can do into that decision. The first thing is, is the issue of water supply, and that's work for your staff and your utility. Your permits are issued with a duration period of time and growth built into that, and as long as you're within your allocations, you're fine with that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: For -- yeah, for the potable water, I really don't have a problem with that, because I think we've got the plant. Page 24 February 6, 200t My concern is, how do we deal with the other and when -- that's effluent water, because that's, that's not there; and if we don't have effluent water, I know they go right to potable water to put in their yards. MR. BURNS: Right, and if potable water's not available and they're not allowed to do that, then oft times they have to change their scope of their development. In some situations we've had projects that have not gone forward because there was not available supply. But outside of that, what you can do is that you can work with our local office here, the city of Fort Myers -- Fort Myers -- service center of the water management district, or Clarence can get in touch -- knows how to get in touch with us. We have our water supply plans that talk about growth and where we saw growth and where we modeled that in the future to see if that's compatible, or have your staff pick up the phone and talk to my staff, and we can help you out if there's areas that are particularly of concern. The planning document that your staff I'm sure not only participated in but has knowledge of identifies areas where we think getting close to as much as you want to allocate and the areas where this vast water's still left for over the 20 years. And it's those areas where it's getting kind of tight that you might want to take a look at. And those are the same areas that Mark's going to talk about a little bit on, on this alternative irrigation supply source to meet those future demands. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Maybe my questions are premature, but I will tell the Board where I'm going is, effluent water for all of your consumption into your yards or golf course, whatever you're going to do -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nonpotable water. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Nonpotable water, if that -- I want to see that in a plan, because what I'm thinking is part of the decision-making that I can exercise so that we don't tap into -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's an excellent idea. The only problem is, from what I understand, we can't produce enough to take care of the customers you now have. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the other thing we need to think about is -- and hopefully this is where we're going to come to some policy-making choices here today -- is all of the storm Page 25 February 6, 2001 water runoff, what we're -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Exactly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- sending out to the bay in the Golden Gate main that is a pollutant to the bay that would be a good source for irrigation if we could get some way to store it in the wet season, which brings us back to ASRs. MR. BURNS: And I'd like to take the opportunity to move towards Mark Elsner's presentation, but that is exactly the area. It's not -- nonpotable irrigation water is not necessary throughout Collier County. There are certain areas in Collier County where it's a very important idea of the next 20 years that it gets put in place. Reclaimed water is not going to be the sole source, not only now, but in the future. You're all not going to be able to generate enough to meet that alone. Towards that end, the lower west coast looked at capturing storm water and reclaimed water, storing that through ASR facilities underground and distributing it not only in Collier County but also in Lee County at the same area making it available to the local utilities to distribute and bill for it, but centralizing a system of distribution and storage to accommodate the vast volumes that you will need to deal with the peaks and valleys. And I think you've all just exchanged -- covered this program. With this, I'd like to turn it over to -- I hope Mark's the next speaker. Yeah. CHAIRMAN CARTER: While he's moving up here, that's exactly where the regional planning counsel is going, and the subcommittee on water that I'm sitting is, we want a management plan that will be coming back in a couple of months which he has alluded to that you have a regional way of storing the stuff and using it, so I think we're all beginning to get on the right page. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And as I see it is, the city of Naples is not interested in doing anything with their effluent water, from what I understand. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't believe that's correct. I believe they do -- they use their effluent water for the golf courses. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, and they're trying to -- as a Page 26 February 6, 2001 matter of fact -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's not going down gulf-- Gordon River. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, it is, but they -- but they're starting -- they're trying to address that. I mean, one of the things that they, I think, are ahead of the curve, of our curve is, for example, they're about to lay a dual waterline, if I understand it right, in Port Royal, that the city is going to front the cost for that the Port Royal irrigation then will pay for -- they'll pay potable water rates until the City's been reimbursed for the capital outlay. I wish we would be doing some things like that in retrofitting in Collier County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It sounds like that's where we're going to be going, from what I hear. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, maybe not with effluent, but maybe with storm water, 'cause they're not going to have enough effluent, but storm water, we got. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you're right. The president of the Port Royal Association -- I spoke to the president's counsel last Friday, and he said to me that that -- you know, that's what -- they're very concerned about the amount of potable water that they use and how -- as you're, as you're saying, Commissioner Mac'Kie, where they're going to try to get this into a better perspective of where they're going to get -- use effluent water, so they're very cognizant of what has to be done and it seems to me taking some actions to, to deal with that, so again it becomes a cooperation between the City and the County in managing the water supply. And although we've had one difference over one -- I call just one small part of the whole plan, I think at the end of day, we have to have cooperative agreement and we have to do all these things so that none of us abuse the water. And I'm sorry to take your time, sir. MR. ELSNER: No. That's -- and the commissioner was right on with Naples. They do have a very successful reclaimed water program. Every golf course in Naples is irrigated with reclaimed water. They have to do more. Like ground water, reclaimed water has a seasonality feature associated with it too, and when you Page 27 February 6, 2001 have an irrigation-based reclaimed water system, when it's raining, people don't want to use it, what do you do with it? And that's where, you know, the ASR well that you're proposing would play a major role in using this -- more of this water efficiently. I'm going to talk to you today -- my name's Mark Eisner. I'm the Project Manager for the Lower West Coast Water Supply Plan, This presentation may look familiar to some of you. I gave a similar one almost a year ago, March of last year, prior to the approval of this document by our governing board. As Scott indicated, this is a -- this effort is getting closer to linking land use planning with water supply planning, and I'll get into it; but for simplistic's sake, it's projecting out future demands and identifying sufficient water to meet those needs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This, this is the most exciting thing that's been done in a long time in this part of the country, frankly. This Lower West Coast Water Supply Plan is going to be the water bible, and that's how we're going to know. I hope it lives up to my expectation that it will be the measuring stick against which we can measure when we've maxed out for development. MR. ELSNER: Yeah, and we will get -- not going to say, "maxed out," because it's not a growth-limiting pool; it's about how much you want to pay for water. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. ELSNER: Ultimately you can go to the Gulf of Mexico -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Desalinate. MR. ELSNER: -- desalinate it and pump it. Now, that's a decision you'll have to take into account when you're approving growth of -- you know, is that something that we want to incur or not? As Scott Indicated, the plan that we completed was, we looked at water demands in 1995 and 2020 based on growth rates that you guys have experienced over here, local comprehensive plans and taking all the local factors into account and looking at what the future is going to look like. This isn't the first plan that we completed here. Back in 1994 was the first Lower West Coast Water Supply Plan. At that time there was no statutory requirement for the water Page 28 February 6, 2001 management district to do it, but it was a good thing to do. We know that people are moving here; let's get ahead of the eight ball; let's start planning so that the water is here when they, when they arrive. Then subsequently in 1997, there was legislation passed that required the water management district to do water supply planning and use the lower west coast process as an example of the things that ought to be done as part of that planning process. So that first plan went a long way in the way of establishing what is currently the framework in this state for doing water supply planning, and when you look at that plan, a lot of the recommendations in there are still the recommendations that are in the current plan. And if you go back 20 years, a lot of the things we talked about then are still concepts of what we're talking about today. We just need to act on them and implement them. And this, this plan was approved by our governing board in April of 2000. We do have copies for you here that we'll distribute later on. Well, what is a water supply plan? As I indicated, it's a proactive approach towards water supply planning. Project out population and agricultural acreage, associate a demand with it, and identify sufficient resources to meet that need. As Scott indicated, the planning level of services is a one-in-ten level of certainty. We're planning for a drought that statistically occurs one in every ten years. These plans are not prescriptive. They're menu drive and allows that control at the local level. The utility apartment, this commission knows best what is good for Collier County. We'll identify the potential options; we'll quantify those options; we'll provide costs for each of those options. The conservation may be more effective here than in Everglades City or reclaimed water is more appropriate here than Immokalee. Very important concept here is, this is not a master permit. It's a regional look at water demands versus water resources. You need to go to the next level, both utility level as well as our consumptive use permitting level, to really determine if an allocation could be issued for a specific use. And these plans aren't fixed in time; they're required to be Page 29 February 6, 2001 updated every five years to stay current with your plans. We know those change over time so that this will be updated in 2005. Lower West Coast Planning Area, Incorporated, Lee, Hendry, and Collier Counties, I'm going to focus on Collier County today. A couple things about Collier County is, it's not connected to Lake Okeechobee or any other regional surface water. This area is dependent on rainfall, as Scott indicated. You know, when it's raining, and I have to say, you know, prior to the last couple years there were no water shortages here for the last seven or eight years. When we go beyond that one-in-ten level of certainty, then you may start seeing the water restrictions. This area receives about over 50 inches of rainfall on average a year, so without any surface water features for storage, a lot of that is discharged to tide and lost from our water supply inventory. And this system works very well as a drainage system to prevent flooding, the balancing system that we're constantly working with to try to keep in the system as much fresh water, but also keep that level of service for flooding also. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just, at the risk of, you know, being too rudimentary, but it was helpful to me when somebody was willing to be this rudimentary with me and show me that on this map, on what you have there, those lines that are going out from Lake O to the east coast. Those are canals that are used when the, the level of Lake O gets too high; they, they send fresh water out to tide, and it gets too high in the rainy season, and likewise the same thing going west on the Caloosahatchee, and then if -- you know, that's why it's fundamentally a good drainage system but not a very good recharge system or a very good drinking water system, because it's really there -- it's well-built for sending water away, but not well-built for holding water. MR. ELSNER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, and in Golden Gate, if you, if you look -- and the Collier County part, can you show us what part of that is, is proposed for restoration? I mean, how much of those canals -- I think it's about the bottom half of them -- are proposed to be ripped out and filled in? Page 30 February 6, 2001 MR. ELSNER: Clarence, Clarence would have to talk more specifically about that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. ELSNER: Before we, before we leave your point though, and I think it's a very good point, for Lake Okeechobee, it has two major outlets right now, the Caloosahatchee River, a C-43 canal, and the St. Lucie Canal, which is a C-44. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Basically we live on an island down here. MR. ELSNER: Yeah. Those are the two major outlets, so when the lake comes up, we send a lot of water out there. We have very little -- we do have some conveyance capacity to the south, but not at the magnitude that we have up in Caloosahatchee or St. Lucie. However, in dry times we do send water down those canals to replenish those coastal canal systems -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Where do you get the water that you send down? MR. ELSNER: From Lake Okeechobee. We also have huge storage areas called water conservation areas where we store water, and those are as backup to those urban canal systems. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And could you tell us what those two -- there's a boundary there that I think is a watershed. MR. ELSNER: This here? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. That -- I know what that is, but coming -- it's hard to show you. Is there a watershed boundary on there that you could show us? MR. ELSNER: Yeah. The point I didn't make at the beginning was that all these -- the water -- we have four water supply planning regions. They're based on this -- surface water divides or watersheds. You know, basically this area here flows to the west and southwest and, you know, to the east of this all flows to the east or south. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I believe you're asking where the Big Cypress Basin is, because that's our watershed. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you -- yeah. Okay. I'm jumping ahead. I'll hush. COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is good, because -- with us who Page 31 February 6, 2001 haven't sat in this before. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right, and if it wouldn't have been for Mary Ellen Hawkins, we wouldn't have our own basin and watershed, so that's kind of the history to all of this, and that's -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not only this, in the governor's commission, and it was just so helpful to me to understand how it works, and -- MR. ELSNER: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- I want us to get it. MR. ELSNER: And this, this map that Clarence just put up here, this is the Big Cypress area that basically -- and here's a line here that you can see, and all this flows through to the southwest. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And it's an independent system of water, more or less. MR. ELSNER: Yes. Yes. And of course this area here is the Caloosahatchee Basin which flows into the Caloosahatchee River in the C-43 canal and out into the gulf. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But if John Albion was here this morning and talked about their area and what happened to the release of water out of the Okeechobee, he -- you would get a 15-minute -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's horrible. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- dissertation about management decisions made that were not good decisions in terms of what happened in that situation. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, and that's part of the irony that it helps to get the big picture here is, is, we have to store this storm water somewhere, because right now what we're doing is, when Lake O gets too high, they send the water, fresh water, out to tide down the Caloosahatchee, which has a name, a C-something canal -- MR. ELSNER: C-43. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- or to the east out to, to tide, and think what happens when that fresh storm water hits the estuary, hits this -- the salt system. It's a disaster environmentally. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think the preservation, Everglades pres -- restoration is going to be addressing that through the ASR. Page 32 February 6, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We hope so. Created 33 of them. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We hope we can get to the public hearings in time to get in it in our lifetime. MR. ELSNER.' Well, the -- not to belabor the point, 'cause we need to move on, but it was designed as a drainage system so that we can live here. Now we realize that this is a valuable resource and somehow we need to save it and keep it in the system, and the $8 billion Everglades Preservation Project is a lot about that. Okay. Within the lower west coast region -- and I'm going to focus in on Collier County -- what's happening within this area based on what we know about Collier County. We estimated that population is going to increase 58 percent, or you're going to have 220,000 new people in here from 1995 to 2020 to a total population of about 600,000. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We're all using the same numbers, Tom? I mean, these are the same numbers that are used for MPO and the same numbers -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, no, that's -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't think so. MR. ELSNER: What -- what, what we got our information is, your comprehensive plan doesn't go out to 2020; it goes out to 2010 or 2015, so what we used is BEBR, which is the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, which a lot of the comp plans MR. OLLIFF: It's just the same basis for our long-range planning numbers. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we're doing 2025 planning on roads now-- MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- and we ought to be able to be using the same number for roads and water for long-range planning. I'd just throw that out there. MR. OLLIFF: Jim and I have already talked about long-range utility planning and the fact that we don't map out as far as we think we need to go. We agree with that. MR. ELSNER: And then to carry that one further is, we used BEBR, but then we used the MPO traffic analysis zones and then Page 33 February 6, 2001 distribute that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. ELSNER: -- population -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I got you. MR. ELSNER: -- throughout the area. Agriculture, not as much increase. We're projecting about a 15-percent increase in agriculture, another additional 10,000 acres. That's primarily in citrus. We're seeing vegetables acreage decrease primarily because that's where development is occurring at this point. As development moves east -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: NAFTA. MR. ELSNER: -- they're replacing the vegetables. Over all, we're seeing a 56-percent increase in total demands within this area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sixty-six? MR. ELSNER: Fifty-six percent. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Fifty-six. MR. ELSNER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: By 2025? MR. ELSNER: Right, by 2020-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: By 2020. MR. ELSNER: -- which is a need for an additional 140 million gallons a day between agriculture and urban. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Do you want to run that by me again? I got-- MR. ELSNER: Yes. Fifty-six-percent increase. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In water needs. MR. ELSNER: Of water needs, which is an additional 140 million gallons a day. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: By 2020. MR. ELSNER: By 2020. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See how anxious we are for information? MR. ELSNER: And these do change. You know, in the next five years we'll go through the same process, because development may have slowed down. Actually, you know, we're still booming, but it's not as fast as what we were experiencing in the late '80s. Page 34 February 6, 2001 And, you know, while we're looking at urban and agency demands, we've also got to consider the environment too and make sure that while we develop sufficient sources to meet our needs we're not harming those environment systems. And as Scott indicated, within the wetland areas, that is a primary limiting factor of development of some aquifer systems in this area. But we didn't do it alone. We formed an advisory committee to assist us and provide public input throughout development of this plan that consisted of roughly 40 representatives from different agencies and organizations that were either affected or had an interest in water supply in this area. Paul Mattausch with Collier County was -- represented this area and was a -- was there all the time. And the process we used was a consensus-based process, and it was very -- very effective, and I think we've laid out some really good recommendations to ensure the water needs in this area will be met. What are some of the issues? A lot of this has already been talked about today. The historically used source of water in this area, what we call the water table at the Lower Tamiami, is severely limited for future expansion due to wetlands and salt water intrusion, depending on where you're at within the County. As was mentioned earlier, the fresh water discharges to the estuarine system is another concern of -- you know, one, for the health of the estuarine system; but, two, that's valuable water that we're discharging to tide that if we were able to store that could be used at a later date. As was indicated earlier, irrigation in urban areas is a, is a big concern. With these large increases in population, they're going to bring a thirst for potable water as well as irrigation water, and how are we going to meet those irrigation needs? I've heard that Collier can't -- Collier County has a list of 50 waiting for reclaimed water to become available. Now we'll talk about it later, but we're looking to somehow supplement that reclaimed water with ground water and surface water that would be stored appropriately. And surface water availability. Again, this system was designed as a drainage system. You know, what could we do to retain more water within the system? Page 35 February 6, 2001 When we looked at -- we identified many different options as part of our planning effort from continuing to use the fresh ground water system to developing the Floridan Aquifer, or what we call the Lower Hawthorn, which is a saline aquifer. Water conservation. Tap in the Gulf of Mexico in desalinating it. And what we did with each of these options is develop a set of recommendations which had regional as well as local responsibilities. When I speak "regional," we're talking about the water management district taking responsibility in the lead for that. The local would be the local government and local utilities. But we have to work together if we're going to develop these things regionally and realize their total benefit. Going through just some of the examples, there's a lot of talk about irrigation water. One of the recommendations that we talked about is a regional irrigation system. We have utilities that line the coastal areas in Lee and Collier County that have waiting lists for reclaimed water, and we continue to approve growth that's going to have irrigation needs associated with it. We need to develop a system to supplement that reclaimed water with other sources, as I indicated, ground water and surface water. But to do that -- and, you know, we can just talk about today -- those systems are also severely limited. But if we were able to capture that water from last summer's rain and store it in ASR wells or reservoirs, that would -- we could be using that now instead of having it lost to tide. And in fact we have a meeting this afternoon with our advisory committee. We've developed a statement of water to move forward with your regional irrigation system. In the way of a feasibility study, it may be working with individual utilities, cooperative agreements between utilities or one big pipeline down 1-75 that individual entities could pull from and distribute from -- distribute to their local users. That will be decided as we work through this process, and you guys will have an input in there. As Scott indicated, we do -- the good news is, you guys have done a very good job of diversifying. Your reclaimed water system, you're number one in the state in the amount of reclaimed water that's being used per person. Page 36 February 6, 2001 You have ASR for your potable system. You've tapped the Floridan Aquifer, the Lower Hawthorn, to meet your potable needs. That's the good news. The bad news is, we need to continue doing it; we need to do a lot more to make sure the needs of this area are going to be met. Some of the storage options that are recommended, the plan is Aquifer Storage and Recovery for potable systems, but also surface water. Let's capture this water and store it when it's available. Another thing that we're looking at and Clarence may speak to it is, let's look at our surface water system, and where could we put structures in to retain more water, keep the water table higher during certain times of the year? And as a -- the water management district, we even provide -- we've provided cost-share moneys to local governments and local drainage entities to do this, 'cause it is -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I, I can't waste the opportunity to, to say to Ms. Williams and to you to please, please, please continue to work with us as we fight for our ASR well that we don't lose our grant; because it's, it's been a difficult public process, but it's an education curve, and when you're out front, as we are, it's going to take longer. Please help us hang onto that grant. MR. ELSNER'- From a development standpoint, you know, looking towards the future, if we're going to provide a source of irrigation water, we need to put the infrastructure in now in what we call dual water distribution systems during the time of development in anticipation of this reclaimed water becoming available. It's four to five times as costly to go in a retrofitting area as installing it when the development is being built. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's, that's, that's really interesting. Now, I just wonder why we couldn't, in future developments, just request that they lay the dual system in even if we don't have the water yet for it. At least at the time of construction put those into that management plan. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Don't we do that? I think we do. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Do we? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. Page 37 February 6, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Make sure that it's there, because that's, that's good. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It makes them, it makes them grouchy, because you make them lay lines for water that we cannot supply to them. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we're going to get there. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We'll get there. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that in our growth management plan? MR. OLLIFF: Actually it's part of our Land Development Code; I believe. Is that right? Yeah. MR. MISSIMER: It's a very important thing, and we're molding that or encouraging that on both coasts. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah, we just really have to PR that better, Tom. We got to let people know that we do that, because most of the public doesn't know it. I wasn't even sure we were doing it. Just as long as they know that we are preparing to use that water when we have it -- when we can find the way to do it, we're moving down that path to get it done as fast as we can. MR. MISSIMER: It's a very practical approach. It needs to be done elsewhere. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But our second question will be, how do we retrofit some of the old communities? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You got it. MR. ELSNER: And as part of our regional irrigation system, the consultant will be meeting with your folks to determine, you know, if there are appropriate places to go back in and retrofit, you know, how to proceed forward. The plan contains 29 recommendations regarding implementation of these, these options, with a total price tag of $150 million over five to ten years. With everything on our plate, we are not budgeting for the 100-percent share of this. We -- in a lot of cases we are budgeting for 50 percent, and we're asking local governments, local utilities, to assist us in these endeavors. For example, the regional irrigation system, we've budgeted about half of what we think we're going to need, and we're looking towards the local governments and utilities to cost-share with us the investigation of this option. Page 38 February 6, 2001 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: excuse me. COMMISSIONER COLETTA COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Question? I understand the analysis -- Go ahead. The analysis for us will be, as we look down the road and, and see how much it will cost us if we get to the point that we're sucking water out of the Gulf of Mexico to desalinize, we, we will have to compare the cost of that to the cost of partnering with you; and if we find that partnering with you is cheaper than eventual options that will be, you know, all that's left to us, then that's the kind of choice for us to make. COMMISSIONER COLETTA.' What I understand is, the present system is adequate for what we're doing; it's the future system that we need to be improved upon. We're costing -- we're talking about major costs. Instead of a -- the present taxpayer carrying the burden, do we have an impact fee on water use that we could apply or put in there that would be adequate to be able to take care of this future need? Do we? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that's what we need to be looking at. MR. MISSIMER: I would look toward your folks to answer that question. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We do. The question is, is it high enough? MR. OLLIFF: We, we currently have both water and wastewater impact fees. We review those at least on an every-three-year basis to make sure that they are, frankly, as legally high as, as we can make them, but I think you would have to ask a legal question as to whether or not we can charge beyond what is that current user's actual impact on our water and our wastewater system. What you're talking about is actually trying to charge them for future construction or resource needs. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Two more questions then. One, when would this come up for review again; and, two, can we come up with some sort of schedule that would be an impact fee that would grow as times goes along and the cost comes greater and greater so we're not trying to saddle the first Page 39 February 6, 2001 couple of people to move down here with the whole burden? MR. OLLIFF: I'll get you a schedule. I know that that's part of the ordinance amendment that's coming. Your second meeting of February, you will see the updates for EMS and library and several of your other impact fees. I don't know the schedule off the top of my head for water and wastewater, but we'll get you that schedule. And you're not allowed to be able to just put a schedule of rate increases in; you actually have to do a review so that you're actually basing any increases that you have on factual increases in both constituent users and the cost of your actual system improvements, so you actually have to have what they call a nexus that shows that the fee that you're charging has a legal basis. So we are doing everything legally we can to as often as we can update your fee for you, but we'll provide you that schedule. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I appreciate that, Mr. Olliff. One more questions, if I may. Is there a possibility that if it's two years out that we might be able to get a move forward again for review? MR. OLLIFF: The schedule, the schedule for August this year, okay, for our water and sewer?. The one piece that you're missing is, is the well side of the house when you get into the water use. Okay? The -- we have no way to gauge that process, okay, to impact fee that, so we're only talking about those things that are hooked into county, water, and sewer, but it's -- the schedule's for August this year to -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, it would be my suggestion that that impact fee should apply across the board to anyone that puts a hole in the ground and draws water out, 'cause they're going to be affecting the end results of what happens, if it's legally possible. I, I would like to see us direct staff to bring it to us as soon as possible. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's your constituents. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's my future constituents, and they have to accept the responsibility for what -- what's going to be taking place. I don't think that the present Page 40 February 6, 2001 constituents who have already paid and they're there very comfortably and entrenched paid their dues, that they should have to carry the burden of future growth. It's just not fair. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think there's a number of resources and ways to work through that. You don't want to put the burden on every new home that goes in, or you drive those people out of your, out of your marketplace; so there has to be a balance, and I think you're right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, no intention of doing that. What I'm saying is, is until we bring it back for review, we don't know what we got. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's true. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I'd like to see us direct staff to do so. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And what, what I'm trying to say is, the people at Golden Gate Estates, those are the first-time home buyers, and that's the only reason I -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sure everything would be according to what the impact would be, but we all have to accept the responsibility for roads, for schools or whatever it is there. Now we're talking about something that we're trying to bring under control; we're talking major costs that's going to be passed on to the consumer, and you're going to be asking the consumer that's been here and paid for the original infrastructure to pay for the new infrastructure, and that's what impact fees are all about. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I agree, but I'm just looking at work-force housing that you keep -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sure that when that comes, I -- we're going to address that as separate issues. That's a very big concern, impact fees in, in place for work-force housing; and I'm sure we can come up with something that will make that very affordable, 'cause that's one of my primary drives too. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, 'cause this is a workshop, we don't actually take motions and votes and direction, but I'm trying to keep a list of things that are coming up as discussion items, and then they would need to be placed on a regular Board agenda at a future date, let the Board actually vote and decide Page 41 February 6, 2001 whether it wants to provide some direction to staff to go pursue some of these, so maybe when we get done, we can summarize all the -- at the end of the workshop -- and decide what it is the Board wants to see on -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: And these are all important points and issues that need to be worked into our agenda. It's a, it's a great comment, Commissioner Coletta, and I think that that's -- you know, it's a part of the puzzle to work that in. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: So Tom's making a list, and at the end we'll get it summarized. MR. ELSNER: Okay. And one other point on the slide is water conservation. There's a lot of emphasis within our committee of promoting and using water conservation to the utmost. You know, it's -- it doesn't necessarily change our water habits; it's just while we're, while we're using water, we just use less of it. And you'll hear from Bruce Adams, who's our water conservation coordinator, and once we get through the water shortage, he's going to be working a lot with your utility department in the way of identifying effective conservation techniques that could bring your per capita use down even further. CHAIRMAN CARTER: How's our recorder doing? Does she need a break? THE REPORTER: That would be nice. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That would be nice. That tells me we need to take five. MR. ELSNER: Okay. I have two, two slides left. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay, okay. Two slides. I'm sorry. Okay. MR. ELSNER: In closing, or what we concluded is that there is sufficient water in this region to meet the needs, the projected needs, with appropriate management diversification, and I have to emphasize appropriate management and diversification. It's the only way we're going to be able to, to meet the water needs of this region. We cannot continue doing things the way we have done in the past. It's going to be innovative thinking. What I want to Page 42 February 6, 2001 mention on funding is, we're trying to be as creative as possible. We're applying for federal money to assist us in these endeavors up to a 50-percent match. We're trying to be creative in that way, and I think in just meeting our needs, we're just going to have to make sure that we manage the resources properly, store what we can, and diversify to less drought susceptible sources, such as the Floridan Aquifer reclaimed water. And what's next? We continue to hold state quota meetings or advisory committee meetings to update them on the progress that we're making with implementation of the plan. We continue to make presentations like this to elected bodies within the region periodically. And as I indicated, this plan will be updated every fives years to keep it current with local conditions. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the irrigation plan, the timing on that, when, when might we hear something back about those recommendations? MR. ELSNER: We have a meeting this afternoon with our advisory committee to discuss the statement of work. We have to identify sufficient funding to carry out that study, and hopefully within three to four months, if all those fall in line, we will it have out to a consultant moving forward, study it by year, and then we'll be able to make a decision on what we do have, you know, what direction -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I guess we'd really like to know when you'll have input back to us so that you can put this into our decision-making process. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: About a year and a half. MR. ELSNER: I would say. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. ELSNER'- Till we get a consultant on-board to really indicate how, how long this is going to take, we're guesstimating about a year. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. And now we will take five for our recorder. (Brief recess taken.) CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. We are back in session, and, Mr, Mudd, we're ready to roll again. MR. MUDD: Sir, Trudy Williams is -- has got to break loose, Page 43 February 6, 2001 but she wanted to say a couple of words about representative capacity in the South Florida Water Management Board before she had to leave. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Trudy, and -- MS. WILLIAMS: Good morning. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- thank you for being here. MS. WILLIAMS: Well, thank you for having me. And to answer Ms. McKay's -- Ms. Mac'Kie's question about the ASR, that is coming to the governing board, the funding for that match itself, and I believe that's coming up either next week or four weeks from now at the March governing board, so -- Also on alternative water supplies, last year during the governor's direction to cut for the 50 percent of our budget or -- which would probably be closer to 25 percent of our budget, a lot of the alternative water supply funding grants were removed; and during our budget, budget process this fiscal year, which begins in about three weeks from now, several of us are really, really pushing to get the alternative water supply funding reinstated at a much larger dollar value, because the only thing that works -- it's just money well-spent on all -- And I have to also give you the kudos for your proactive position on your alternative water supplies and your reclaimed water. I was at the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners two weeks ago tomorrow discussing alternative water supplies and water conservation issues, and for a population of 2.2 million people, they have less than 5 percent reclaimed or re-used water in the entire Miami-Dade system. So what you're doing is commended and should be the example for the rest of southwest -- the rest of the 16 counties that the South Florida Water Management District represents. And I represent Southwest Florida on the governing board. Clarence Tears, of course, is the director for the Big Cypress Basin board. I'd like to meet with you individually and have an opportunity to talk to you about what your issues are, and I left business cards on your, on your desk. My office is in Fort Myers. Please use me as a resource, or if you want to bounce questions off, can't got ahold of Clarence or just want to talk to me about issues and other parts of the, of the water Page 44 February 6, 2001 management district, I'd just love to hear from you. And I have to excuse myself, and thanks for letting me speak to you. Yes, ma'am? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Last question: Five Percent that Miami-Dade used, what is our percentage? MS. WILLIAMS: Huge, by comparison, so -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Seventy-five to 100 percent, depends on the time of the year. MS. WILLIAMS: I heard earlier that they were number one in the state of Florida for -- I mean, that's, that's exemplary; that's wonderful, so thank you so much. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you, Trudy, for being here. Perhaps, if commissioners have an interest, individual commissions, in meeting with her, you might coordinate that through Tom or through Jim Mudd so that if Trudy comes, comes here, she could spend a productive day and -- rather than run back and forth from Fort Myers four or five times, I think -- MR. OLLIFF: That would be-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- it would be some way we could, could help her and help ourselves. MR. TEARS: Yes, for the record, Clarence Tears, Director of Big Cypress Basin. I was told to be brief, brilliant, and be gone. I'll be brief, and I'll be gone. I don't know about the brilliant. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Two out of three. We'll take it. MR. TEARS: I want to applaud Collier County for meeting the complex challenges and leading the water resources of the region. Alternative water supply sources are important. The Tamiami Aquifer is a good source, and we need not use that for irrigation. Currently I, I -- some of the statistics I've seen, 60 percent of our water supply is being used for irrigation. This is drinking water, already been treated. To me that's a waste if we can try to come up with alternative sources. We lose as much as 300 million gallons a day on an average out -- some of the outfalls in our system, 300 millions a gallon a day on the average. Just Page 45 February 6, 2001 think about that. Our -- looking right now, our potable demand is maybe 40 to 50 million gallons a day. So, I mean, we have the resources, just trying to manage it. Tom Missimer stated that, you know, 20 years of data from a hydrogeological standpoint, we look at the different aquifers, we, we have a storage facility underground. I mean, the infrastructure's there; the geology is there. If we take advantage of that and take this resource we're losing, we can meet our future demeans -- future needs and demands, and we can minimize the impacts on our good water source and use that for drinking water. I -- I've heard some thoughts about the County possibly joining forces with the Basin and the City and maybe try to create a master plan. I mean, your staff is meeting with me on a daily basis, and they're being extremely creative. They're going beyond initial boxing; they're saying, well, what if we do this? What if we tap into the Golden Gate main canal when we build Livingstone Road across the bridge? I mean, they're saying, what if. And I thank Tom Olliff for allowing them to work outside the box. I think you're going to see a lot of creative solutions coming to you in the near future. Getting the water right. The Big Cypress Basin board, the system that we took over was a drainage system, so our capital construction program is gearing trying to replace structures, trying to prevent overdrainage, trying to improve the system to provide flood protection. And it's a balance. I mean, four months a year, we get all the rain; 80 percent of our rain, 60 to 80 percent is in a four-month period. Well, during that period I have to provide flood protection, and all that water's lost; so it's trying to store it, manipulate the system, restoration of southern Golden Gate Estates, a 94-square-mile area down here. If we can improve the ground water levels down there, natural recharge, it's going to help the well fields to the north. We're doing everything possible. We have a capital construction program for the next five years, and all our improvements are based on water supply, water quality, and environmental enhancement, and that's the direction we're moving in. Page 46 February 6, 2001 We do have a cooperative water resource program. Last year it was funded at a level of 500,000, you know, based on my budgeting and experience of projected millage rates, that will still be available for alternative sources. So we're doing everything possible to move in the right direction and meet the water resource demands of the region. A statement Mr. Mudd made, I think it was at one of the City presentations I thought was great, is, use it; don't lose it. And, you know, I think that would be a great County slogan. You know, everything we do, use it; don't lose it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Be our poster child. MR. TEARS: With that I just want to thank you. I meet with you on a regular basis, so I'm not going to go in great detail, but we're moving in the right direction, and the County's doing the right thing, and we just have to bring everybody up to the same comfort level as your staff. And with that, thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Tears -- MR. TEARS: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- tell us how many acres that you're talking about water storage and when are you going to -- MR. TEARS: It's 55,000 acres, or approximately 94 square miles. The acquisition, based on the state's projection, will be completed by December of 2002. We'll take a budget management plan to Congress in 2002 and hopefully start construction in 2003. This project management plan will go before the Basin board in these chambers, I think at the end of this month. It's -- I'm going to say February 28 at seven p.m.; it will be a workshop on the Southern Golden Gate Estates Project Management Plan that the Corps of Engineers is developing with the district. CHAIRMAN CARTER: The date again? I'm sorry. MR. TEARS: February 28 at seven p.m. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And how is this going to affect the Ten Thousand Islands, what you're doing? MR. TEARS: From a water-quality point, as we know, water in itself, when it's forced through a canal system at, at -- we call it point discharge, you're taking a voluminous amount of water and discharging it at a single point, it's considered a Page 47 February 6, 2001 water-quality issues. It's -- water in itself can be a contaminant in large amounts, and what it does, it disrupts that fresh water and salt water interface which we call the brackish water. So by redistributing this over 18 linear miles, we get that fresh water and salt water interface, and we really improve the estuaries, which is where all the aquatic life breeds; it's the nursery of our aquatic system. And also, economically, there's a lot of people that come here to sport fish, see the wading birds in the coastal area, so, I mean, economically, it's a good thing to do. And also, by spreading out the water, you get the water quality component because you're allowing it to filter through a natural system. You're getting recharge and you're getting flood attenuation from just the natural movement of water across that area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The same amount of water gets to its eventual destination; it just gets there slowly and it trickles through the system -- MR. TEARS: And it doesn't get -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- instead of just shooting down a canal. MR. TEARS: And it doesn't get through a single point. And what we're trying to do is, in that system, like the Union Canal at the outfall site, we can average in the wet season, peak of the wet season, 600 million gallons a day. And what we're trying to do is reduce the discharge from on the average about 180 to 200 million gallons a day to one million. So from that single point discharge source, it will be reduced from 200 million to one million gallons a day. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's at the end of the, of the restoration that starts January 2003. MR. TEARS: That's what we're hoping for, yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So what I hear you're saying is, the Big Cypress Basin is offering to help recharge the aquifer at a, at a better rate, plus be better -- friendlier to the estuaries in -- MR. TEARS: Exactly. COMMISSIONER= -- in the Ten Thousand Islands. MR. TEARS: This is one of the last remaining large pieces of land that I believe we can restore, and it's going to be beneficial Page 48 February 6, 2001 to our communities for now and in years to come. And I look at the well fields to the north. The recharge value, the ground water levels adjacent to the canals in southern Golden Gate Estates have been dropped as much as 5 to 10 feet close to the canal over the years since it's been drained in the early '60s. We live in a swamp, and the more we drain that swamp, there is significant impacts to the recharge values of the region. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, thank you, Clarence. I, I had the privilege of seeing, from the air after very heavy rains, what happens as that flows out into the Ten Thousand Islands, and it is not a pretty picture. It really just -- it's horrible. And if everyone could see that, then they would understand the value of what we're trying to do to, like you -- to get down to a trickle flow out there and get it dissipated through a large-mass area, so -- COMMISSIONER FIALA.' When did you get to see that? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it rained and it rained and it rained, and -- COMMISSIONER FIALA.' Did you go with Clarence or something? CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. I, I -- it was the Conservancy. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I see. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But I bet we can arrange such a CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right, and I had a chance to see that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'. -- viewing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. You can, you can see that. MR. TEARS: I will offer -- if any of the commissioners would like to go out for an aerial flight, we can try to arrange that for you and take a look at the whole area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wait till it's rainy season. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah, you really need to see it after you've had a lot of rain, and when you see one of these tremendous outflows, boy, it's not pretty. You wish everybody could see it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I, I didn't even know that you could see it, so that's what I'm saying, it's interesting that you, you could actually watch it descend and gush out. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, there's, there's ways, and Tom Page 49 February 6, 2001 can arrange or Big Cypress can arrange that so you can see it so you understand what's happened. MR. MUDD: We're now going to go from what was below what we can store on top, and now we're going to get into a little bit of how we do with that water that we take out of the aquifers, and we'll -- Paul Mattausch will talk to you about the potable water system that we have for Collier County. MR. MATTAUSCH: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Paul Mattausch, director of your water department, and I'm, I'm going to, in, in light of the time that we have, I'm going to fly through this presentation for, for the benefit of the general public more than for your benefit, because we've had the opportunity over, over the last couple weeks to meet individually, and you've gotten to see a lot of our water system and I've gotten to answer a lot of these questions directly to you. So I, I first want to talk a little bit about the Golden Gate well field. Tom has already talked about it this morning. In the Lower Tamiami Aquifer, we have 27 wells in this particular well field. Those wells are cased from 50 to 90 feet deep. A lot of, a lot of the bore holes are closer to 140 to 150 feet deep total depth, and the capacity of this particular well field which provides, again, like, like Tom said, fresh water to our system, is about 28.6 million gallons of water a day. This is a picture of a typical well vault that we find out in our well fields. The Vanderbilt well field is a little bit different. This is in the Lower Hawthorn Aquifer, and you've heard this morning and we've gotten the opportunity to talk about our, our use of brackish water and pursuing alternative water supplies for Collier County. We have currently ten wells in that well field. They are considerably deeper from the graphics that you've seen earlier this morning. They are in the range of 700 to a thousand feet deep, and we have a capacity in that well field of approximately 19 million gallons of water a day. And this is a typical well house that we find in the, in the well fields. Difference between a vault and a well house is, the well houses like this generally have generators in them so that we can run this system, provide water for our system, on our own Page 50 February 6, 2001 emergency power. Talk briefly about the South County Regional Water Treatment facility. That, that plant was constructed in 1984, and the first construction was four million gallons of water a day. It was expanded about four years later to 12 million gallons of water a day, utilizes lime softening water treatment where we add calcium oxide, excess calcium, in order to provided the softening process through precipitation. And one of our neighborhood friendly things that we've done at -- actually at both water treatment facilities is odor control following degassification. A lot of the ground water in Collier County has hydrogen sulfide gas in it, that familiar rotten-egg smell; and in order to make our water plants a little more friendly to the neighborhoods, we've added odor control to those facilities. This is a picture of that South Water Treatment Plant, the administration portion of the building. North County Regional Water Treatment Plant was constructed in 1993 with a capacity of 12 million gallons of water a day, expanded in 1999 to a total capacity of 20 million gallons of water a day. That first 12 MGD is membrane softening, and the last MGD that was completed in 1999 is reverse osmosis utilizing that brackish water from the Hawthorn. That's that alternative water supply that, that you've received congratulations on this morning from the South Florida Water Management District for your foresight in pursuing that alternative water supply. And again, degassification and odor control, a picture of the North Water Treatment Plant. Manatee ASR, you're, you're all very familiar with the term now, Aquifer Storage and Recovery. This is well number 1. Yeah, that, that means that there is most likely intent to add additional wells in that well field. We have the land in order to do that. What, what we're doing is running well number 1, has a capacity of about a million and a half gallons a day, injection and recovery. We normally run a little bit lower than that. And again in -- the, the injection happens during that period of time during the year when our demand from our customers is down, and we have additional water treatment capacity to be able to store away Page 51 February 6, 2001 part of that water on a daily basis, recover it this time of year; and I am -- you know, I'm glad to say to you that, that well is running today. We began recovery from that well for this year about a week and a half ago and are recovering some of that potable water that we stored away during the summertime. That well is a total of 528 feet deep. There's about 63 feet between confining layers, and those confining layers down there make the infrastructure for us to be able to create that large bubble of potable water that we recover, bring it back out of the ground, and with the addition of a little bit of chlorine to the water for disinfection purposes, we don't need to retreat that water. It was potable water when we put it in there; it's potable water when we bring it back out, and we pump it directly into the system. And this is a picture of the well site on the left-hand side. Enclosed in the chainlink fence is where the well itself is. There's a facility in the -- near the right middle of the picture that's the chemical feed facility, and then that is, on the right-hand side, the pipe running up the outside of the tank at Manatee Road where we are injecting the recovered water back into the system. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tell us about the colors. You say those pipes have colors. Blue is potable. That pinkish purple is effluent; is that right? MR. MATTAUSCH: Yeah. Yeah, we have -- actually, the visible pipes that you see out in the system, and most of them are aerial crossings over canals, three colors: purple for reclaimed water, the blue color for potable water, and green is for sanitary sewer. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A question on the water that you retrieve from the well, is the sodium content higher than when it went down? MR. MATTAUSCH: No. Very little change, very little change. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What's your percentage of recovery? Do you think -- what do you estimate it's going to be, or don't you know yet? MR. MATTAUSCH: Over -- a number of cycles over a number of years use, we're looking at probably close to 90 percent recovery from, from the studies that, that we've had done, and Page 52 February 6, 2001 Tom was a major contributor in that study. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that -- you've been recovering water from that well for how long? MR. MATTAUSCH: This is the second year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. And last year -- MR. MATTAUSCH: Now, it went through a number of test cycles, but this is actually the second year of recovering potable water and putting it back in the system. COMMISSIONER COI. ETTA: What is the difference between this well and the waste recovery well we're looking to put out, out in Vanderbilt? MR. MATTAUSCH.' The, the biggest difference is -- COMMISSIONER COI. ETTA: The Pelican Bay well field. MR. MATTAUSCH: Yeah. The biggest difference is, we're taking your drinking water, the excess drinking water capacity from the water treatment plant, and putting it down the well. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Is this at the same level that we're going to also be doing it down over there at the Pelican Bay field? MR. MATTAUSCH.' Approximately, yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And it's been stable here, so doesn't this constitute a test in itself? MR. MATTAUSCH.' It would seem. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, why are we spending so much money for a test well if we already have done it one time? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Trying to be ultra careful. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Ultra careful. It's about safety. MR. MATTAUSCH.' Well, and geology -- hydrogeology does differ a little bit. I think you've heard everybody talk about that. It does differ from spot to spot, location to location, in Collier County; and so it's, it's wise, it's prudent to, to -- in fact, before we put down a well that we intend to use for potable water, we put a test hole in the ground first to make sure that, that the hydrogeology is what we expect it to be. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would bet that the water use is safer than the food chain, and I also would bet that the water that you get back is safer than in any restaurant that you eat in; so to put it in perspective, that would be my guess what those things are. Commissioner, I agree with you, but we have to be super conservative and safe -- safety issues, health issues, to make Page 53 February 6, 2001 sure that someone doesn't come back and say, well, you did this to us. And we can say, no, we didn't do it to anybody. We did all these, and we constantly monitored. But I'm like you; I would like to move it forward. MR. MATTAUSCH: It's, it's prudent of us to do that. Talk briefly about water operations, take you through the water department as it exists today, a staff 36. Their, their charge is the operation of the two well fields, operation and maintenance of the two water treatment plants, and operation of the remote pumping facilities. And this is a picture to go along with operations. This is our degassification and odor control process. This particular site is the North Water Treatment Plant degassification. Water distribution, we have a staff of 52, and they're responsible for all of the underground infrastructure getting, getting the water as soon as it leaves the water treatment plant to your faucet and all of our remote pumping facilities. They're also responsible for meter installation and testing and our cross-connection control program whereby we, we protect the public water supply from potential for contamination at individual locations. And one of our ground storage tanks, this one happens to be in Goodland, and I picked this picture because I, I like the mural on this tank. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Where is this? MR. MATTAUSCH: That is just off -- the bridge that you see, the bridge that you see in the background is 92 going down south to Goodland. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gotcha. MR. MATTAUSCH: Yes. And our laboratory, we have a staff of five. Those people work hard. They do compliance sampling and analysis for us, process control sampling and analysis to make sure that the water treatment plants are operating efficiently. And our Consumer Confidence Report that we produce annually to send to all of our customers, I, I agree with the American Water Works Association when, when EPA and the federal legislature named this the Consumer Confidence Report, actually, what it is, is a water quality report, and hopefully if you Page 54 February 6, 2001 read the water quality report, you have confidence in the product that we are delivering to you. Some 2000 -- year 2000 -- actually these are calendar year 2000 water system statistics, about 190-square-mile service area, just shy of 600 miles of water main; in fact, we surpass 600 miles now. And at the end of 2000, 38,102 service connections, and we, we processed 8,142 million gallons. If you, if you move the decimal points and change that to billion, that's 8.1 billion gallons of water that, that met all drinking water quality standards, state, local, federal standards. That averages 22.2 million gallons of water a day that we produced. Our maximum day happened on February 28 of 2000 at 28.3 million gallons of water in one day, and our peak hour which we need to provide for, we need to have the facilities to provide this water, was 53.8 million gallons a day that if, if that was sustained pumpage over 24 hours, it would be equivalent to almost 54 million gallons of water a day. That happened at five a.m. on June 7 in the year 2000. This is something that I had to get used to when I came to Southwest Florida. Our peak demand in Southwest Florida is an irrigation demand. As you've heard people say, it can be up to 50 to 60 percent of our water goes on the lawns. Drinking water, quality water goes on the lawns. And that, that happened at five a.m. when the irrigation systems were running, so you can see when the peak demand is, is when those irrigation systems are running. System growth, I'd like to have you take a look at three, three graphs that I have. If you take a look there, our eight-year growth and number of service connections has been 77.3 percent, and if you take a look, we started out at, back in 1993, around 23,000 service connections. You heard me say just a couple minutes ago, we passed 38,100 service connections at the end of, at the end of year. That's, that's a growth on a per-year basis, you take a look, we're running 6 to 7 percent per year on the average. As far as growth of service connections, take a look at growth of miles of water main, seven year. Actually that should read eight year. I, I apologize for that mistake there. I just caught that. Page 55 February 6, 2001 40.4 percent in number of miles of water main. And if you take a look, we started out about 420 miles in 1993, and we're currently at just shy of 600 miles of water main. And if you take a look at the annualized growth on that, we're again in the range of 6 percent or so, 7 percent last year. And again on system growth, if you take a look at million gallons per day, you take a look at that percentage; that's a big percentage. In ten years, from 1991 through the year 2000, if you talk about million gallons of water a day, we started just below ten million gallons of water a day ten years ago, and you just heard me talk about 22.3 million gallons of water a day this past year. So if you take a look at percentage of growth, it's 227 percent or about two and a quarter times as much water, drinking water, that we're producing now as we were just ten years ago. As far as future water supply, we -- we've talked and you've heard representatives from South Florida Water Management District talk about these alternative water supplies. If, if our potable water ASR continues to operate successfully the way that it has for two years, we, we mostly likely will expand potable water ASR to allow us to save that extra capacity that we have during the summertime for this time of year and also further development of the Hawthorn Aquifer, the brackish aquifer, to get us away from the stressed Tamiami or surficial aquifer. South Plant expansion is currently out to bid. We've talked about this expansion individually. It's -- it will be the first phase, eight million gallons a day reverse osmosis. We expect construction to begin this year and be completed in early 2003, and we're looking towards the future on this facility. This facility is being constructed so that we can expand it from the initial 8 to 20 million gallons of water a day. And this is what the inside of a reverse osmosis or membrane facility water treatment plant looks like. It's different than a lime softening plant. One of the things you see in a lime softening plant is, you actually see water flowing through the plant when you take a tour of the plant, and you can tell it's a water treatment plant. In a high-tech facility like this, you don't see water flowing Page 56 February 6, 2001 anywhere. It's all inside these, and these are the membranes where we are forcing the water under pressure through membranes to remove what we, what we have set to, to remove hardness in some cases and salt in other cases as far as desalinization of the brackish water. And that's the end of my presentation. We, we, I think, are looking for your direction, and we will be coming back to you later. You're going to hear Bruce Adams talk about conservation. We're, we're looking for your direction on where we need to go as far as water conservation, and I guess one of my recommendations to you that I would like to have you consider would be a much more comprehensive irrigation ordinance that, that we can actually begin conserving our potable water supply for what it needs to be conserved for, and that's drinking water and fire fighting capabilities and, and, and serving water in restaurants and fixing food and, and those kinds of things that we need to use the high-quality drinking water for, that potable water supply. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And a lot of things that we need to be doing is education of the use of -- Q And we will be doing -- we have done some things, and we will be doing some additional things. We're planning a mailing that will go out to all of our customers talking about ways that they conserve in their homes, ways that they can conserve in their businesses. And, and we need to, we need to continue to do a better job to educate the public about the current water restrictions and, and the use of irrigation water. I got wet this morning, literally. I walked up to somebody's front door on my way here to work, because Tuesday is not an irrigation day, and I dropped off on their front door a Phase II Restrictions, little, little piece of information. Knocked on the door. Nobody was home, but I left that, because, you know, they are using our drinking water for something that we need to conserve right now. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Those are the people that call us, Paul, and tell us they don't know anything about restrictions, never heard of it. MR. MATTAUSCH: That's right. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Never been notified. Page 57 February 6, 2001 MR. MATTAUSCH: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: water restrictions? That's right. They live in a vacuum. How could you not know about MR. OLLIFF: Jim, while, while Paul's undoing his equipment and things there, I have to take the opportunity to talk a little bit about, about Paul's staff. Jim, if you could, could you just give the Board -- Mr. Mudd? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. MR. OLLIFF: Would you give the Board a little update on our new membrane that we ended up just swapping out recently and, and what a good job Paul's staff did in not only replacing it in terms of time, but, but how long those membranes lasted us? MR. MUDD: The, the nanomembrane on the, on the North Plant, there was -- first of all, there was an editorial in the paper that says, we need to get smart and we need to do desalinization in Collier County. I hope that person that wrote the editorial is watching today, 'cause we've been there for a while. The North Plant is considered a desalinization plant if you, if you look at the different terms that they use, but the nanomembrane that we're using, that 12-million-gallon capacity that we've got up on that plant, normally the nanomembranes only last about five years. Because of Paul's folks, some expert folks that we've got up there and the maintenance that they do and the flushing that they do with their systems, and we, we have a pre-treat filter, they change that out pretty well, and they've done that; and what they were able to do was to extend the life of that nanomembrane another additional year on, on the process. Now, when we pass that across to the Board, that's a million-dollar purchase, okay, to change those out, and we got another, we got another year out of it, so they basically saved us about a quarter of a million dollars, okay, as far as an opportunity cost that was avoided. The really neat news is, because these folks are so professional at what they do and the maintenance that they do, when, when we issued the contract, the contractor came in and Page 58 February 6, 2001 delivered the filters, and they do them by section, A through F. When they did the first one at A, the contractor basically says average time to replace and exchange out is two weeks. Our folks were done in less than four days, and the, and the gentleman said, we've never seen anything like this before. Just truly exceptional folks working at the North Plant. Some real good news stories about the qualities of people that we have working in our plants for water are super. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you for sharing that. MR. OLLIFF: Thanks, Jim. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's wonderful to hear. MR. MUDD: Now that we've got the water from the subsurface, now we've got it to your tap, now Joe's going to talk about it, what happens when it hits the drain and hits that toilet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Somebody's got to be in charge of what happens when we flush. MR. CHEATHAM: Commissioners, for the record, my name is Joe Cheatham, West Florida director for Collier County. I've been with the County now for almost 18 months. This is my first opportunity to be in front of you as a presentation, so I'm honored to be here. I also have my staff here with me. Although we look awful young, we have over a hundred years' worth of experience in West Florida treatment. Can our staff just kind of stand up for me? Dennis Bernard from the North Plant; Millie Kelly, the laboratory manager; John Pratt, South County Plant manager; and Bob Casey, reclaimed water manager. And those folks really are the ones that do the work -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. CHEATHAM: -- and their staffs in the County for us. I want to give you an overview of our department, a little bit about what we do, some of what's going on in the system, also some of the challenges for the future for the West Florida department. We have 120 full-time employees in five divisions. Those divisions are the South County Water Information facility, the North County Plant, Wastewater Collections, Laboratory, and Reclaimed Water Department. We're a regional wastewater treatment system. We actually Page 59 February 6, 2001 started out many years ago with a bunch of package plants in Collier County. Actually, there was probably tons of them around this County many years ago, and over the years, those package plants have been phased out into more reliable wastewater treatment plants. They're higher-- higher technology, and they also are more reliable for us in meeting the FDEP permits. We have 17.5 of capacity on-line at present, which we have 8.5 MGD at North Plant, 8 MGD at the South, and one MGD at Pelican Bay. We have 9 MGD of capacity either under design or under construction. The North County Regional Plant is under construction and will be finished and go on-line with another 5 MGD of capacity January 2002. We also have four MGD of capacity right now designed for the South County Plant. It is right at 30 percent design right now. We anticipate that design to be completed this summer, start construction time around August, September of this year, and be completed in January 2003. So that's where our system lies. We have 750 miles of pipelines of forced mains and gravity mains in the County. We cover 75 square miles. One thing when I came down from Gainesville, I, I thought I had a lot of pump stations in Gainesville; I had 150. And I came down here and they told me in my interview I had over 600, and I was kind of flabbergasted, but we have 640 pump stations that are located all over the County. Due to the flatness of the area, we have to pump the majority of our wastewater, which means we're prone to have a lot of hard and sulfide production due to the kind of clays in that pipe under pressure with no oxygen supply available. We have a $10.5 million O&M budget, and we have 32 reclaimed water customers or contracts, and we are right now distributing 3.2 billion gallons per year of reclaimed water. And as was mentioned this morning, I'm glad everybody realized that Collier County was, was rated number one in the state as far as gallons per capita of reclaimed water delivered. We have a good neighbor policy in the community. Reducing odors. If I had my way, I'd have zero odor tolerance for the County. Page 60 February 6, 2001 That is hard to do in wastewater. It's not a rose garden, and wastewater does have -- are prone to have odors, and it's very difficult at all times to have no odor. I cannot stand in front of you and say we'll never have an odor in Collier County, but we're doing our best to combat those right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Don't feel bad, Joe. We have the same problem at the landfill. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Couldn't resist that; could you? MR. CHEATHAM: And in the last couple of years, the neighbors from the County are concerned about chlorine gas at our, at our facilities. We've got one plant with chlorine gas was located only about 100 feet away from a home, and so the County has gone to a more expensive way of disinfecting our effluent using liquid bleach instead of chlorine gas, which is much more safer for the community. We've reduced lighting at the plants to help us with the neighbors who live so close to the plant worried about lighting. Also, we've gone to the extremes of, of also covering pumps to reduce noise for the neighborhoods. We also do a good job of landscaping around the plants and lift stations with the customer satisfaction program. We try to keep lines of communication open with our, with our, with our customers. These are our goals for the year: 5 MGD expansion at the North County Plant, 4 MGD expansion of the South County Plant, which now is under design. The South County Plant we did a little bit different on construction management. We hired a second consultant; they do quality control, quality assurance, Value Engineering, who actually, actually manage and construct the South County expansion. Watson was the engineer we selected; they're a national firm. We expect that this will help us stay under budget, get this project done on time, and also there will be some cost-savings incentives in the contract in case we do come in under budget with the contractor and the County. Right now we're finishing up a water resources master plan to try to plan ahead for the next 20 years for reclaimed water in the County. We also have a supplemental water re-use project going on Page 61 February 6, 2001 right now called -- it's called the Immokalee Road Water -- Supplemental Water Project. It's located near Mule Pen Quarry. This project will give us another 3.5 million gallons per day of additional capacity in our reclaimed water system to help us meet our existing contracts that we're a little short on right now. As you're aware, I think you're probably the most experienced and educated on ASR Board in probably the state of Florida. We have an ASR test well going in hopefully one day that -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I know more about that than I ever wanted to know. MR. CHEATHAM: We, we heard this morning how ASR really is part of the plan for conserving water in this part of the state, and we want to do our part to be on the forefront of the -- we feel it's safe technology, we feel that what we're doing is not going to impact the public health and that it is a minimal risk to the, to the area. With the Lift Station/Reuse SCADA Project right now, with our reuse system, all our pump stations, you would, you think they would be automated, but they're not. We have around 70 pump stations that's automated right now. We want to automate every single one of the, the rest of the 640. It's about a five-year project. SCADA is a changing technology. We want to make sure and make the right decisions on this project. It's about a $4 million project over about four years to make sure that all of our pump stations are automated and monitored around the clock. When we have a failure, the alarm system will notify somebody right away instead of having to wait for a bell to ring or a light to go off from a pump station. CHAIRMAN CARTER: What do we do when we lose power? Do we have a backup generator system that -- MR. CHEATHAM: Yes, we do. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- will protect all of that? MR. CHEATHAM: Every single master pump station has a backup generator on site. We also have portable generators that we purchased about two years ago when we was concerned about hurricane preparedness. We have approximately seven generators that we can use, pull behind trucks to go to the smaller pump stations, so we feel like we have plenty of capacity Page 62 February 6, 2001 to handle a major storm event. In the event of a Hurricane Andrew, we'd probably need a bunch more generators, but so would everybody else in the state too. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, not many people would be flushing if you hand an Andrew, so I guess we'd be all right. MR. CHEATHAM: True. Energy conservation, you may have heard in the news about energy pricing going up recently. Florida Power & Light gave us a hefty rate increase in November of 17 percent, and they expect another rate increase in April, another 13 percent for commercial customers. This is due to the price of natural gas and the price of fuel oil going up due to the cold weather in the north and deregulation going on out west, so we need to do our part to conserve energy. Our department spends over $1 million a year in electricity to treat water and pump water, so it's a big part of our budget, and we're very concerned about what's going on in the energy market these days. We want to work on treatment plant automation as far as making sure our plants are automated. This will help us be more efficient and more reliable, maybe could one day help us offset some staffing increases. We have a system-wide odor control study going on right ROW, We've hired a consultant, one of the best ones in the nation, to come down and do a six-month study of Collier County's wastewater system to actually determine where the order's coming from, what kind of odor it is, and what's the best technology used that we can combat that odor. Many years ago we put in a lot of odor control systems here, and it really was not engineered, we think, correctly, and with the new technology on the market today, we want to have the best that we can to make sure the odors are variously -- greatly reduced in our area. Another project we have is a I and I restoration project. This project is repairing pipes and restoring wet wells and manholes. Our system is fairly young, but some of the systems we took over many years ago like Naples Park, like in the Lakewood area and Riviera area, a lot of clay pipe in the ground, Page 63 February 6, 2001 and clay pipe tends to break. It tends to have problems with trees and roots, and it's prone to have leaks. So our goal is, is to restore that pipe with a technology use called no-dig technology where the pipes are actually lined and sealed without digging anything up out of the ground or replacing pipes. This is something we started about two years ago. We started in Naples Park, and we've worked at Bonita Shores, and we've been into Riviera, and then next year we're going into Lakewood. And our goal is, is to reduce the amount of impact to our plants for future expansions. For every gallon of water that we can save out of our system, we can save two to three dollars of our treatment costs and construction costs to treat excess storm water. So it's a very, very impressive project we're working on. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What does I and I mean, please? MR. CHEATHAM: Inflow and infiltration. Okay? Our system mainly has inflow. Infiltration is where you have leaky pipes. Inflow is where it comes in through big leaks; it's like, like manholes, clean-outs. We had a storm in Collier County in 1999, a major flood due to a low pressure over the air for a number of days, and our plants' flows hit 18 million gallons a day apiece, and that was due to inflow to our system, mainly from clean-outs, leaking manholes, leaking wet wells. Part of this program will be to repair those wet wells, reline those manholes that have been, have been literally destroyed from hydrogen sulfide gas. That's been mainly the big problem with concrete. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Which is going to be part of the smell problem, too; isn't it? MR. CHEATHAM: Well, the smell is, from sulfide, yes, ma'am, but the, the gas produces an acid that gets into the concrete and actually corrodes the concrete and dissolves it. MR. OLLIFF: Just in basic terms, what we're trying to do is prevent the amount of rainwater that ends up going into your wastewater system, because every gallon of rainwater that ends up in your wastewater system, you end up treating that gallon just like you would water that came from a residential home; so the, the -- any effort that we can have to minimize that and pretty Page 64 February 6, 2001 much isolate the system so that it is wastewater only means that we are running a more efficient system, so I think they're being very proactive in this regard. MR. CHEATHAM: We have started an industrial pre-treatment program in Collier County. We don't have a lot of industry in this areas. The biggest problem that we have in Collier County is restaurants, in the sewer system, and mainly due to grease that comes in through the sewer. It's a very, very large problem. We're hiring staff right now to go out and inspect grease traps -- that's never been done before in the County -- to make sure these restaurant owners are actually pumping this out on a regular basis. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What about the program the city of Naples is doing about creating diesel fuel from that? MR. CHEATHAM: We have a field trip planned in the next week to visit Orlando. Orange County has a facility like that where you take grease to the -- to your facility and make biodiesel fuel. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. CHEATHAM: We are looking into that just -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I've heard that -- I swear somebody told me this with a straight face -- that, that the fumes from that smell like french fries instead of diesel. I don't know. Let us know. MR. CHEATHAM: Okay. Actually, in Orange County-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are you trying to reduce the sales of french fries? Is that what you're trying to tell me? MR. CHEATHAM: Actually, in Orange County last year, which they have probably a lot move restaurants than Collier County has, but they, through this industrial program, had over $1 million in fees of excess charges they collected due to grease being in the sewer system. So our goal is, is to enforce these restaurants on their grease traps. If they don't want to pump them out, then there will be a fee attached to their bill for the treating of that grease in our sewer system. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's fair. MR. CHEATHAM: And that's really the best way to go about it to make sure that they are pumped out. Page 65 February 6, 2001 And that will be part of our -- an ordinance change we're going to bring to you in about a month from now to share with you this program. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, please give the restaurant industry heads up and don't let them be surprised by that. MR. CHEATHAM: We will have a meeting with the restaurant association members before we actually put that into practice. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. CHEATHAM: Craft training programs, we're trying to go out in the forefront of, of improving our craft training, improving department communications, and we have a GIS mapping project we're working on this year. This is the North County Plant in 1991. You see it was -- started out with a -- the circular tank, and the, and the lower bottom was the treatment plant, a package plant. Now it's a digester, and then we put in some oxidation ditches with clarifiers and filters and chlorine contact chambers. And this is the facility today, the North County facility right now. It has a capacity of eight million gallons per day. As you can see, it's grown quite a bit in the last ten years. And this is as it is a few months ago under construction for another 5 MGD. We appreciated the time you spent with the South County. We look forward to bringing you out to the North County plant whenever we're finished, and we have a ribbon cutting or whatever, have you come out and take a look at it, as well. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll add that to my list of ribbon cuttings, opening a sewer treatment plant. MR. CHEATHAM: One thing that we did at the north plant, we had a problem with sludge odors. We've -- we're enclosing the sludge processing building, and we're scrubbing that with a high technology type scrubber to make sure that the surrounding neighborhoods do not have this sludge odor which have been complained about for a number of years around the North County Plant, especially in the Pelican Marsh area. CHAIRMAN CARTER: We did have some private funds -- MR. CHEATHAM: Yes, we did. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- contributed to that, so that was another example of a public-private partnership. Right. MR. CHEATHAM: This is a shot of the aeration tank under Page 66 February 6, 2001 construction which is really where all the treatment takes place. As in the South County Plant, we're going to chlorine bleach for disinfection to be a good neighbor to make sure there's no problem with, with safety in the neighborhood. There's more construction shots of the plants. This is our re-use pump station that was put on-line a little over a year ago at the facility. This is where the, the North County re-use pumps are located for our reclaimed water system. This is our, our motor control center which uses variable speed, the latest technology design of pumping. In our collection system, I mentioned working on GIS. We also have a locate department that locates over 22,000 locates a year for water and wastewater. This is a guy going out in the field locating a pipe for a contractor, put some, some green paint on the ground. Couple years ago, the Board was worried about having pumper trucks available for hurricanes and other needs, and we bought a, a pumping truck for that purpose. This is a success story right here. This is lift station 302 on Rattlesnake Hammock, which was a very smelly lift station. Part of our odor control problem or, or odor control program of using a new technology, it's called an iron sponge. Actually what it is is wood chips impregnated with iron that absorbs hydrogen sulfide gas. Very cheap, but very effective. We had a lot of trouble at the Bonita Shores area on West Avenue, and we took this technology there two month ago, had a letter back in the mail actually yesterday from a homeowner thanking us on what a good job we have done and there is no more odor in the Bonita Shores area at this site. She did mention the -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. I appreciate that. They've been -- I think they've been very patient and cooperative, and thank you for a job well done. MR. CHEATHAM: Thank you. Although the Bonita Shores area is the worst area for sulfide, we do have a lot more work to do in that area. The Lely Barefoot Beach area is our biggest source of odor, coming a long ways and being repumped through the Bonita Shores neighborhoods, and that's the reason for the sulfide there, a lot of problems with gas there, a lot of problems with Page 67 February 6, 2001 manhole and wet well corrosion. We just purchased a new camera system for our sewer system. We actually videotape sewer pipes, and you will -- actually want to see exciting video at night, take home one of these video tapes and, you know, it will put you to sleep. But this is a very, very good tool for us. We see where the leaks are. We can go in and repair joints and cracks and know where we need to go to do our pipe relining and save the County lots of money. This is a private contractor that we've hired to come in and restore a wet well, and this is the one at Bonita Shores. I looked at it about a year ago. It was falling apart; it was very corroded. This is the way it is today, totally restored, almost like new, and about a tenth of the cost of a new, a new manhole or wet well. This is our control panel for our pump station. The little turquoise box there is a -- what we call a SCADA pack, and it has an RTU in it, our remote transmitting unit, and this is part of our automation program, and this is what we'll be doing at all of the pump stations to make sure they're fully monitored 24 hours a day. This is what it looks like. You see an antenna there to the, to the left. We're trying to find another way of trying to get that antenna height reduced, because the neighbors do not like antennas, and so we're working on a way to try to get a smaller antenna at a different frequency to make them lower to the ground. We also do a lot of pipe work in the collection department. We install laterals, gravity mains. We deliver the forced main work. I have to tell you right now the majority of our work is contracted out on our, on our large pipelines and repaired. We do have some housekeeping to do in our system. This is a vac truck we use for pumping out lift stations and wet wells, cleaning out debris. These guys here are having a fantastic fun job of pulling a pump. This is a submersible pump underground. It's made by a company called Flight, and it is our standard for our lift stations. We have our own pump repair shop. We repair over 1200 pumps a year -- not a year, but maintain 1200 pumps a year. This is our Pizza Hut design master pump station that -- this is our-- you can see in the, in the area here we have about two Page 68 February 6, 2001 different kinds of odor control use in this site. We're going to take this down to one in the near future. These are guys doing some dye testing in a trailer park to -- looking for I and I problems. This is a good shot here of a pump station, and you can see most of our pump stations are in people's front yards, and it's a real challenge to come in and maintain these things and make sure the customer is happy and there's no odor, there's no noise, and they're maintained properly. I'm going to skip through a couple of these, as you're aware of our reclaimed water system we've already talked about. We think that we have one of the best ones in the state, not the district, and this year we're applying for a state award and hope to come back to you in April or May with it, but we'll see. We're going to apply for awards called the David York Award, which is the most prestigious award in the state for reclaimed water systems. David York's the expert of reclaimed water, from Tallahassee; it's in his honor. And our laboratory handles all of our process and compliance monitoring sampling for all the plants. It's a regional laboratory, and we also have just received a certification from the Department of Health, one of the first ones in Collier County to get that certification. We're very proud of that. This is a pretty slide here of a septic tank truck backed up at the North County Plant dumping either septage or grease. We're working on this also, rebuilding this to make sure this is odor-controlled, as well. The is the South County Plant which you visited last month and are fully aware of the problems down there. We've come a long way with this facility over what it was two years ago. As you can see, the neighbors are located right next to the plant. This is our odor control system, the aeration basin, our head works, our chlorine gas facility -- no, excuse me -- chlorine bleach facility. And this is the berm located next to the homeowners that we put in a couple years ago to make sure that the plant is -- has a landscaping plan around it and buffered from the neighbors. They're very, very appreciative of what we've done down there with this landscaping project. We also maintain this at our cost. This is some of the grounds at the South County Plant, has Page 69 February 6, 2001 no construction going on, so it's in very, very -- very good shape right now. Some of the challenges for the future, system growth is a, is a buzzword that we're going to be talking about for a long time, expansion of the re-use program, biosolids disposal. Just wanted to mention this just for a second. I just wanted to mention this for -- just for a second. We've kind of tied this issue to -- with the landfill. The biosolids is where we dispose -- the landfill's where our biosolids is disposed of presently, and if the landfill is closed, we have to go somewhere else, and we're looking at options right now, We're having a study trying to determine where can we go at the best price and what's best for the environment. MR. OLLIFF.' Joe, the common name for biosolids? MR. CHEATHAM: Sludge. MR. OLLIFF: Thank you. MR. CHEATHAM: It is sludge when it's not treated. When it's treated it's called biosolids, because it has a beneficial reuse like reclaimed water. It's a fertilizer product high in nitrogen, high in phosphorus, high in potassium, and can be used for, for many purposes around the area for orange groves, for farms, for nurseries and compost and the whole bit. We're looking at options right now to determine what's best for the County, but it will come at a cost. Right now the landfill is our cheapest disposal method; it's about $125 a ton, and land application programs run about $200 per ton, so it would double our cost, but it would -- might -- something we might have to do. We need to operate like a business, be more competitive, we need to keep up our federal regulations. We want to maintain a high performance work force. Our work force right now is -- we have -- sometimes have a hard time getting people to work because of the shortage of operators in the state of Florida. There's a lot of training requirements going on right now for operators to be recertified at a higher level of more education and more CEU requirements, and it's our job to maintain those -- that training for our people. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Joe, back to the public-private partnership just for a moment, the, the private partner in that was Watermark Industries, old WCI, and it was through -- you Page 70 February 6, 2001 know how many times you've heard we've got all the retired CEOs and executives that live in this community. It was through their efforts working with Watermark that we were able to get a sizeable amount of money and do the treatment of that, of that operation there, so it again speaks well for those who are active in the private sector and those who are retired from it as they help us in the community, a great resource when you need to get something done. MR. OLLIFF: While they're getting set up, one of the things I want you to appreciate as you go through both that water and the wastewater side of things is, is this is big business, and I mean, you are running a very large corporation when it comes to your water and wastewater things, and then sometimes we have a tendency to just overlook that and say, that's, that fine. That's a utility; they make their own money. But take it very, very seriously, and then sometime when we go through the budget process, I want to slow down and let you look at the numbers that we're dealing with on this side and, and tell you that both in Paul and Joe and their staffs, you have some of the most professional water and wastewater systems anywhere in the state of Florida. And I'll tell you, a lot of the things that Joe flew through there are, are proactive things where right now we know we don't have a lot of tremendous odor issues. We have some pockets, but he's doing a system-wide odor evaluation, 'cause we know five years from now, ten years from now, our ability to expand plants and do wastewater plant expansions is going to be contingent on us being able to have a good odor-control system. So we're doing things today planning for when we know we need to do expansions five and ten years from now. These guys do great work for you every single day. MR. HENNING: I was quite impressed with -- in my orientation with Paul, his 52 employees, and the amount of money that goes through that operation is just unbelievable, so -- MR. OLLIFF: Joe? MR. MUDD: What Joe -- as he was going to finish up, and I knew he was going to say this, but I was pushing him to hurry up. He produces right now 16.5 million gallons a day of reclaimed water out of his two plants. We basically send those to 32 customers and they use it. Page 71 February 6, 2001 We have a requirement in those contracts for 19.5 million gallons. We have a three million gallon shortfall. That's why we talk about the Immokalee Road supplemental irrigation well near Mule Pen quarry. That's why we talk about ASR as the first step. And then when Joe was talking about five million gallons coming on at the north plant, that brings him up to 13.5. And then he's talking about four million gallons coming on board in 2003 at the south plant. So as we grow, our reclaimed water capability, okay, to supply it will increase. And having 48 customers on the wait list is not necessarily a bad thing. We are also going out and taking a look at that delta -- that increase and looking at the customers that we have on-line right now to see if they would come in and do a dual water system for the wet season. And so as we build into the capacities at both of those plants, the increases that we're putting in in the 2007, 2010 region, then those customers will already be there. So in the dry season we can bring them on board without having to wait or waste that water in the interim while they build their system. Now, we've taken you through the ground. We've taken you through the tap. We've taken you through the sewer side. Now, how do we collect the bills? John says he'll do this in five minutes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Mudd, before you do that, a question on the reclaimed water. The rate we're charging for it seems to be artificially low and it impacts the rest of the users on that utility system, I think, unfairly to -- they're subsidizing basically golf courses. Is there some way we might be able to revisit that so it pays for itself? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're going to do that in the August time frame when we do the water, sewer, wastewater rates. We're going to get with those customers here in the May time frame and talk to them about what that impact is going to be. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Mudd. You're doing a wonderful job. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Yonkosky, I promised them we'd teach them everything they needed to know by noon. So you've got about four minutes. And then we'll allow the Board to stay as long as you want to ask any questions you want. But in terms of Page 72 February 6, 2001 presentation and things -- MR. YONKOSKY: I will go very fast. But not too fast, okay. The first thing that I wanted to really hit on was what -- a little bit of the background of the district. And in the district -- you first issued ordinances for water and sewer in 1977, but it became a district in 1978 when the Special Act was passed by the Florida legislature and created and defined the water/sewer district. That first one was necessary because in order to issue debt we had to have a validation proceeding, which you couldn't have without being a special -- created by a Special Act at that time. It was retooled in 1988. The water and sewer district was. And at that time special assessments -- the major portion of that allowed special assessments to go on the tax roll so that the money could be collected in the most efficient manner for special assessments. Just a couple of the milestones. And if you look at that first one, you didn't have any customers, you weren't in existence as a water and sewer district. The very first ordinance that the Board of County Commissioners passed was a lawn sprinkling rule because in 1977 the problem was just as bad as it is today. And you issued sewer rates in 1977, but you really didn't start collecting until a couple of years later. It was mandatory collections up in the -- Naples Park. That was the first place that we put in sewers. In 1978 the City of Naples granted you 1,500 customers; Naples Manor and Naples Park. And that's the first -- why the first sewer rates. In 1978 system development charges came into existence for the first time for water and sewer impact fees. In 1981 you levied ad valorem taxes for water and sewer. You collected that money or levied it through 1984. And just a couple of years ago you gave all that money back. MR. OLLIFF: I'm going to back up a little bit just so that you understand the terminology is the same. '78 when he says system development charges, that's the institution of impact fees for water and wastewater. System development charges in their terminology is an impact fee. MR. YONKOSKY: Special assessments in water. The very first special assessment in 1980 was Kelly Road. That's now Bayshore. It was 500 and some customers. It cost about Page 73 February 6, 2001 $349,000 to put in those water lines down there. In 1981 you levied special assessments. You put water -- and as you can see in the next slide -- sewer in Willoughby Acres. In 1983 was Goodland. In 1985 was County Regional, which was about four and a half million dollars for County Regional. On special assessments and sewer, sewer is a lot more active. In 1980, as we said, the very first ones in Naples Park. You made it mandatory to connect as soon as the lines were there. '81, Willoughby Acres. In 1982 you did phase one of Marco. And, I believe, there were about 20 phases set up for Marco and we did end up going through two phases; one in '82 and one in '88. In 1992, the east and south, which was a major project. That special assessment was only for $25 million, but it was a $50 million project. And of that $50 million, $17 million was Federal EPA money. So we have gotten some very large amounts of grant money into Collier County. Customer growth. In 1978 you had the 1,500 customers that the City of Naples gave to us. My figures show 37,000 for 2000, but Paul said to you 38. Mine is on a fiscal year basis and his is on a calendar year basis. Major acquisitions. And as Joe was telling you about some of the different little package treatment plants were out there -- and there has been about 50 of them. But I listed some of the major ones. In '85 with Fox Fire and Kings Lake. And, I believe, that package treatment plant is now running the City of Everglades City wastewater treatment plant. It was donated by the Board to Everglades City. East and south in 1986. That was the Hubschmann's acquisition. And that was a major, major acquisition. And you can see the dates right on down through the one last year that the Board approved was in Rookery Bay. Revenues. It's $45 million a year. That does not include impact fees. Impact fees this year and last year were approximately $11 million. Cumulatively since 1978 we've collected $251 million in impact fees. In debt you have $87 million in bond, $24 million in State revolving fund loans, and $111 million total debt outstanding right now. And the annual debt service is ten and a half million dollars. Page 74 February 6, 2001 Under assets, your restricted assets is 76.5. So you've got cash and special assessments in there that are restricted either for debt service or to build future facilities. So 76 and a half million. And your property plant and equipment, the at-cost value in the system is $469 million. And, I think, I told most of you these statistics in the individual meetings, so I will just go ahead. I do want to show you what our challenges are. We know you know about the billing system. We need a customer relationship management system. Our billing system is antiquated and it just cannot handle the volume. We'll be coming to you later on this year with a request for a new billing system. Customer information and customer service are one of our major issues. There is -- I've got some brochures here. I won't hand them out to you now, but we hand out to all the new customers. We also hand out South Florida Water Management District information to customers. We give new customers rain gauges and try to -- the challenge of the information is the biggest challenge for us. MR. OLLIFF: He sort of flew past the radio meter reading program. And I'm making sure that the Board is aware of that. I mean, we are in the process of installing some radio -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm aware. The new Commissioners may not be. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That came up. I think it was in orientation. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. As long as the Board has had that as part of their orientation, that's fine. Jim. MR. MUDD: Last, but not least, to finish it up, exactly what are the restrictions for watering. And Bruce Adams from the South Florida Water Management District will give us that little tidbit. In keeping with the four-minute rule, you've got it, Bruce. MR. ADAMS: Never be before lunch. Commissioners, I've had the pleasure of working with various of your staffs for the last 23 years bringing down the water use, the demands in this County. About 20 some years ago the per capita consumption rate in this County was about 225 -- 224 gallons per person per day. Page 75 February 6, 2001 Right now, in talking to Paul, it's about 190. This is because of several things that have happened over time. One, we've been through a major water shortage back in the early '90s. Two, we have rules on the book now, ordinances, that you and your predecessors had passed already on ultra-low volume plumbing codes, Xeriscape codes and landscape codes that actually reduced the amount of water that people waste. Another thing is that we're back into another water shortage at this time. This is the time to bring awareness to people that we are using too much water. We use as much water in this County and throughout south Florida as they use in Phoenix, Arizona. And when they get five to ten inches of rainfall and we get 55 inches of rainfall, it's ludicrous to think why we use so much water. Fifty to sixty percent of the water is used for irrigation. I'd just like to throw a little device that we use. This is a lawn watering guide. And basically what this lawn watering guide tells you is that there is probably about 120 times a year you need to water your lawn if it didn't rain at all. If we receive 52 to 55 inches of rainfall, the University of Florida shows us that we only need to water between 5 and 20 times a year. Yet, the average person in your County waters at least 180 times a year. That's approximately -- at one-half an inch of application per event, that's a waste of seven feet of water put on a lawn. Seven feet of excess water put on that lawn that is not necessary for the growth of that grass. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Will you be sure that we get one of those before we -- MR. ADAMS: I'm going to leave this with Paul. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. ADAMS: So what have we come to? We've come to this. Replacing good education with having to write tickets. And, like I said, we're in a period right now where we can gain back that awareness on the part of the public so that we don't have to write these. To tell you about working with your County staff, there was a lieutenant on your Sheriff's Department about ten years ago that helped me to design this ticket book so that police officers could write this as they would a traffic citation, reminding ourselves that violation of the water shortage rule is a criminal Page 76 February 6, 2001 offense and you can go to jail for 60 days. And that's what the legislature felt when they wrote the -- Chapter 373 of the Florida statutes, our enabling legislation. Is that the threat to the water resource through saltwater intrusion, the destruction of our well fields and our aquifers is so horrendous that we need to make sure that we have people comply with water shortage restrictions. Now, that two days a week that we're talking about in phase two of the water shortage is really more than is necessary. In fact, on that little slide rule we only need to be watering without rain about every four days in February, every five days in January. How have we been doing on that? This is a simple graph that shows since about the beginning of December when we declared water shortage restrictions how we've done as a district as a whole. We're down about ten percent overall. Collier County is down about seven percent. We all need to do more in reducing our water waste. The upper line on this graph shows January of 2000 average. So we are trending in the right direction and it's going to take more and more compliance with the water shortage and more and more enforcement on the part of local governments. A number of years ago when I started working with your staffs we didn't have a set of what we called best management practices for water conservation in line. In 1993 we passed that. It's part of our regulatory process and there are eight things that you are required to do for your water supply permit. You are required to have a rain sensor device ordinance, which you do. You're required to have a nine to five daytime watering ordinance, which you do. A leak detection program if you have unaccounted water lost over ten percent. You have that. Ultra-low volume plumbing code, which you have. A Xeriscape landscape ordinance, a water conservation-based rate structure, public education program and -- and I've told your story all over this country in presentations to associations, the AWWA and other districts. You lead -- I think you lead the nation in your effort towards wastewater reuse. And that's -- the eighth requirement is wastewater reuse. This County, together with the City, has done an excellent job in that. What I would like to do is lay some challenges down for you. Page 77 February 6, 2001 If you look in page 97 later on in this book, it gives you a breakdown of the cost of supplying water; ASR, wastewater reuse, the different aquifer treatment and delivery. And you'll notice that at the lower end of cost for new water supply is water conservation. And I think that the key in this County, as many counties across south Florida, the key is in reducing this eight feet of wasted water that goes on our lawns each year. And so I would suggest that the two things that we work on together with your utility department and with the County Attorney and the like is to implement two things; one, a more beefed up, a more stringent, a more effective daytime watering ordinance, which includes all users within the County, not just those on the public water supply under your utility system. This is en vogue and is the same thing in every county in south Florida that has the nine to five ordinance. It pertains to all water users within the County. And then, I guess, the second thing we would like to see you focus on is a rain switch retrofit program that we would like to work with you on in the future. Because that seems to be the most cost effective at about three cents per thousand gallons for a new found water supply. Let's turn off these irrigation systems when it's raining. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What does it -- what does it cost to do that for a home? MR. ADAMS: Our figure in here is $68 per residence. That's the cost of both the purchase and installation of the rain switch. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We already do that with businesses. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We don't retro. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No retros? MR. ADAMS: It is required -- you have an ordinance that is required on all new installations of automatic systems. But if we got into retrofit, the amount of water, several million gallons a year, and the amount of cost -- the return is high and the cost is low. Let's attack landscape irrigation first before we start getting into toilet retrofits or showerheads or things like that that return less. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' 68 bucks a household? $68 a household? Page 78 February 6, 2001 MR. ADAMS: $68 a household. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Pretty darn reasonable. MR. ADAMS: And that comes out over the life of the equipment to about a cost of three cents per thousand gallons of water saved. Now, when you compare that to wastewater reuse, you compare that to ASR, you compare that to any other, I think your first priority should be in working on retrofitting, getting this water reduction. One of the things that Ms. Williams had mentioned in our water supply contingency plan that we have is a possibility of a program with an advanced level or, as I said, a beefed up water conservation ordinance. Not only nine to five, but looking at cutting back the number of days a week that you actually have to irrigate and bring some -- because what this does for the utility -- your utility people is it gives them the water to plan for the future with and not waste it on the present or in the future. So, I guess, the bottom line is many years ago when I spoke before your predecessors, many years ago when I worked with your utility staff it was on a very cooperative program. I've since been reassigned in my position at the agency and now I work for Mr. Burns in the regulatory department. And I've come as a part of the package of your permit requirements now to work specifically with you and your staff to implement effective water conservation programs that will achieve a reduction in our water use demand down to a practical level so that we'll no longer be compared to Phoenix, Arizona where it only rains five inches a year. I'll be glad to answer any questions. We're at that point. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Kind of an interesting thought. At $68 per household for new home construction, maybe that just needs to be part of the package. MR. ADAMS: It is required for new homes with an automatic system. CHAIRMAN CARTER: For new home you're okay. MR. ADAMS: So that's embedded in the cost of an irrigation system. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's my house, you know, where it has been there for 20 years and I've got an irrigation system, but I don't have a rain sensor. 68 bucks. Page 79 February 6, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: I have one of those gizmos on the roof that's supposed to work, but sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. It all depends when it rained last. So you're saying that yours is a more sophisticated system than -- MR. ADAMS: Well, it might be, in essence, the same system or it might be a different -- there are a number of products on the market that do meet the State statute. And it is a State statute since 1991. And, of course, anything is only effective if it's maintained and operated correctly. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How would that operate in an older development where all of the -- all of the sprinkler system for the entire development, say, 1,000 homes is managed by one company and it goes on during rainy season? There is no rain gauge because the development was built back in the '70s. How do you monitor something like that or change that? MR. ADAMS: That's a beautiful situation if you've got one rain switch that can affect 1,000 homes, instead of 1,000 rain switches. So your cost, as I said before, are three cents per thousand gallons is -- you won't even see a cost anymore when it gets to that level. COMMISSIONER FIALA.' How do you make the change? I mean, how do you bring them into compliance with this? COMMISSIONER HENNING: We do. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' The fact is they're in compliance because they're not required to do that. What he's suggesting that is on my list to be sure is on Tom's list is a retrofit ordinance in this County. We need to put -- this sounds like the cheapest, best idea that I've heard that maybe we give people five years to spend 70 bucks to get their houses -- to get this installed. You know, some amount of time. Maybe a year is enough for 70 bucks. MR. ADAMS: There is all kinds of effective ways. I can sit down with your staff and we can work this out. You could do it through a rebate to show, you know, a $70 installation can be repaid in the savings on their water bill probably in a couple of months. So even an outlay on their part can be repaid to them in their Page 80 February 6, 2001 water savings over a couple of months. And with -- there are two main parts to water conservation. It is the mechanical and the behavioral. Too often the behavioral we backslide after the water shortage is over. We're not thinking about our -- or are conscious about our water use. But the mechanical remains installed and gives us the opportunity for the utility people to count on that reduction in the long-term and start counting those thousands and millions of gallons that build up over the years and integrate that in their planning so that they don't have a revenue loss. That's one thing that you -- in the past you never saw utility directors stand up and ask for conservation because they saw it as a challenge to revenue flow. But if it's well done, if it's well planned, it becomes part of an integrated resources plan for your future water supply and managing your present. Let me give you an example. In 1989 through '91 we had a major water shortage in south Florida. We had 6 million people on water restrictions. The total demand for water at that time was about 650 million gallons a day coming out of the utilities. We had to cut back by 105 million gallons a day to protect the water resource. If we had these comprehensive conservation programs installed, the Xeriscape, the rain switches, we would have used on an average basis 100 million gallons less than we had to cut back to. So we could have had a major water shortage without any effective restrictions on the people of this district just through conservation because we were drought hardened. Drought does not necessarily have to mean water shortage. Water shortage is society's inability to deal with natural things like drought. And you've got it within your hands. I wanted to wax a little poetic about this. They say a committee never wrote a poem. Well, the book that you're writing as authors can be a success story in the future because you are doing a lot of good things together with reuse and integrated resources planning, conjunctive sourcing. And if conversation is a part of that program, you've got a bright future. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just have one question for Mr. Mudd. Is there any plans for acquisition of private utilities in Collier Page 81 February 6, 2001 County in the future? MR. MUDD: We have -- the one that I know about, the private utility is -- I think it's Applegate. MR. OLLIFF: Orange Tree. MR. MUDD.' Orange Tree. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'- Orange, apple. MR. MUDD.' Orange Tree is the one that I know that's coming. It's supposed to come our way around 2011. And there is some talk that they might have to come to us a little bit sooner based on some of the problems that they're having. MR. OLLIFF: My understanding is we have taken out most, if not all, of the major package plants that are or were in existence. There's a few. But, I mean, in terms of major package plants, we've taken them out. Outside of Orange Tree, there is no other utility that I'm aware of that we're aggressively pursuing. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tom, if you could kind of summarize where we are and then there will be some Board direction, I think, in policy that we would like staff to explore and come back to us. MR. OLLIFF.' I'll try and wrap this up by first telling you how much I appreciate you taking the time. In our opinion, I think water is probably the most important natural resource to the southwest Florida area and probably the least understood resource that we have to work with. But we believe that by getting you to sit down for three or four hours and understanding where it comes from, who uses it and all the details about water that you will be able to make better decisions for our community in the future. I really appreciate you taking the time. The second thing we wanted to make sure that you got out of this workshop is some understanding of how to answer that question that we started this workshop with. And I would appreciate at least some nod from you that let's me know that when you go out to those speaking engagements over the course of the next months that you do have a fairly good handle on why it is that we have water restrictions at the same time development is allowed to continue to occur. Yes? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Fair. Page 82 February 6, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: Fair? Hammer it. MR. MUDD: Here we go. You have a plan going out to 2025 that South Florida Water Management District has got on the board. And it handles a one and ten-year drought. They've looked at the resource and the aquifers that are available. They monitor the wells that are going in and the people that are going to consume the water for the aquifers. And they've got it and they monitor it and they've got that part under control, as far as that acquisition is concerned. What we basically have at this County is a wet season and a dry season. You have a weather issue. In the wet season you get plenty of water. Now, how you bring that water to the dry season and use it maybe for irrigation or whatever is part of that plan that's on the books. We have grown in this County lax in our discipline as how we use water. On the books people -- 50 gallons per person is not too far off, but when you're into the 190, 200 -- and 50 percent of what I'm producing in the plants is going to a lawn right now and it's not going to a glass of water or whatnot. So you have the water. It's there. There's a program. And when you take it and you put all the ingredients together, conservation, unique ways to store the water in the wet season through ASR or holding lagoons, ponds, whatever, the things that Clarence talked about in the South Estates where he's going to put that thousands of acres under water -- when you take all of that stuff in unison, this part -- this neck of the woods in Florida has got a bright future and you've got lots of people watching it. And I -- personally, in our facilities, I watch to make sure that I don't issue a permit or a connection that I don't have capacity to bring on. So in my piece of the world, I sign every one of those to make sure that we don't exceed it. Did that help you a little bit? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think I got -- I think I'm going to say it like this. That we don't have a water issue. We have a weather issue. We have tons of water. We have plenty of water. We need to store it during the wet season so that it's available during the dry season. But it's not a question of having enough water, it's having enough water at the right amount -- at the right point in time. MR. OLLIFF: We don't have a capacity issue. We have a Page 83 February 6, 2001 timing issue. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's weather, instead of water. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And we have a conservation issue. MR. OLLIFF: Exactly. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I mean, everyone can be a player in using less water and here is how you can do it. And we're looking at ways to even enhance that conservation because we're going to look at ways to ensure that you follow conservation to the best of our abilities. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I hope so. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And we need to be using our reclaimed water and not our potable water. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. OLLIFF: I think the point is that we, as a utility, we, as a policy-making board, are being very aggressive on our side. I think if there is one thing that you consistently heard is that we probably do not do a very good job in terms of telling the story and educating the public. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. OL. LIFF: And if there were some -- some improvement efforts that we need to make, along with Clarence and the Big Cypress Basin Board, is probably better public education about this resource and why we need to manage and conserve it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just -- I know everybody is hungry. I want to -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Take us out to lunch? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. Sure. When we're done. The question that I have here though -- I mean, just to be devil's advocate for a moment -- is some people see the conservation of water -- if we need to conserve water, then we must have over developed because we would like never to have water conservation rules. We would like to only be functioning within the system that works naturally. So couldn't we -- I mean, I think I know part of the answer to this, but couldn't we stop development so that we don't have water shortages? I mean, wouldn't that be a logical thing to do? Somebody take that one. That's the kind of questions we get. MR. OLLIFF: I will tell you -- I get that a lot. And to go back to the way things occur naturally, you need to recognize that we Page 84 February 6, 2001 have taken this environment and we have made it something very unnatural to begin with. If you look at who uses the water -- and that was one of the points of this whole workshop is to get you to understand not only where it comes from, but who uses it. People who irrigate are who uses this water. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So shouldn't we stop building golf courses? CHAIRMAN CARTER: They're the least invasive is what I heard throughout the whole presentation. They conserve the utilization of water better than the homeowner does. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Come on up. MR. OLLIFF: Answer that one, Scott. MR. ADAMS: We've done some research to show that golf courses use one-fifth of water per acre than homeowners do. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What he said, just so it can get out on TV, is that research shows that golf courses use one-fifth of the water per acre as a residence. MR. BURNS: And also I would like to add to that is that a golf course has a much higher impervious surface and recedes and recharges the groundwater system far more than the equivalent area of moderate density to high density urban areas with driveways, rooftops and the drainage that's associated with that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So instead of not building golf courses, we should stop building houses and things with rooftops. MR. BURNS: I'm not going that far, but I was intrigued by the term of -- you used the term natural. And I think that that is a very interesting parallel. In nature, nature deals with the droughts that south Florida hands it by going into periods of dormancy. You will see -- if you have an opportunity to drive out in the Everglades across Alligator Alley, you will see vast brown expanses. You will see sometimes terrible fires. You will see what looks to be a dead landscape. Nature reduces its water and conserves water naturally. It pulls in its green grass and turns brown, but keeps the water in its root system and it regenerates. And the next time when the water comes back, there is a green, lush Everglades system Page 85 February 6, 2001 again. And I think that that sort of concept is very relevant here to what we're looking at. It's not that you stop men from continuing to grow or be in this area. It's just that the growth that you bring into this area needs to be flexible to deal with the environment upon which it's working on or working through. When the droughts come, the use needs to be curtailed like nature does and the system needs to sustain that period of time. When there is ample water, you store that and you utilize that water for those dry periods of time. But I think that the -- if we model our use practices the same way that nature does, we can deal with the peaks and valleys of the hydrological cycle very effectively like nature does, as well. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think it's key what he said in flexible growth because I was thinking, "Wait a minute." If you approve a PUD and it has a lot of surface to store water, holding ponds, et cetera, that is not the negative impact. It is perhaps even more positive at times because we get rid of the invasive vegetation there that just -- the Melaleuca and stuff that really suck the water right up and we never get to use it again. So if it's a flexible growth, putting all those criteria in and then the burden, as was told here earlier, is up to the developer of that, if there is not enough water there, you have to go and find that water and get it supplied to the area to accommodate the needs of that area because there may be another area that doesn't need as much. So it's a balancing of where the water is and how it is used into the flexible process, getting back again one more time -- the biggest concern here, it seems to me, is conservation to get us through all periods. But the minute we have a lot of rain and there is -- we get the flooding issue or if we've got that under control, nobody cares. But it is when you hear that word drought to look at -- this is a suggestion. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Crisis driven. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- everybody says, "Stop it." COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Crisis driven is the name for it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Crisis driven. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One of the things we may want It's not a question of the fact Page 86 February 6, 2001 that the water is not there. It is. We know it is. We know that the usage is high. We seen that at Southwest Florida Regional Planning Commission. They gave us a chart. It showed Naples at the very top occupying a space going across that far. Marco Island was like that. And everybody else was down there like this. The usage is very high in this area. Possibly we should come up with a rate structure that would not penalize those people that are conserving. Where the rate structure would increase with the amount for homeowners. In other words, you would pay -- give an amount that would be very realistic for your regular household needs, then it would start to go up slightly for irrigation that would take place once a week. And then anyone that is going to be blatantly using this resource to the point of being ridiculous, then the -- it would escalate even farther and faster. It may be a way. People are usually motivated by monetary savings to drop back. And this may be the ticket to be able to still have our green yards and be able to conserve water and not have to go to a very aggressive program to try to provide water and keep going at the rate we're going at for its usage. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And if we got into a retrofit operation that really forced that -- because it's my feeling that affluent communities, the people that have the most dollars really don't pay much attention to paying more for their water or even being fined. They just don't get it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's true. Well, they can afford it. CHAIRMAN CARTER: They can afford it. So why should the rest of us be penalized is what -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We could use their money that they're paying for it to be able to increase the system for the benefit of everyone else, too. So there's paybacks all the way around. I'm sure that there's no one answer, but a combination of all I'm very confident with what staff is doing. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, staff direction here would be to bring us the options for-- MR. OLLIFF: Let me try-- Page 87 February 6, 2001 CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- bringing ordinances. MR. OLLIFF: Let me try, if I can, and just wrap up by going through our list. One point I needed to back up to was the issue about the land development code and to let you know that we did a little research and found out that there actually is nothing in your land development code requiring dual water systems, but there are some languages within your utility ordinances that talk about how to and what are the requirements for our installation of dual water systems. But there are no requirements of any kind. So if that is something, whether it be incentive-based or requirement-based -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think you'll get five heads nodding here. COMMISSIONER FIALA.' Oh, yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Requirement. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: By all means, yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's great that you researched that. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. The second issue that came up was private well type impact fees. I'm not sure if you -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's only fair. I mean, it's only fair. We're talking about impact on the system. MR. OLLIFF: That's something that I will tell you I don't know of another community in the State of Florida that has anything like that, but we will certainly do the research and bring something back at least for you on a regular Board agenda to discuss and give us some specific direction on that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, maybe you'll do the research and tell us that there is no net impact, but it's hard to imagine how that would be the case. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, you're talking about a well -- a single user, single residence. We might want to look at communities as a community well as an impact and not the single residence. We have communities out there that tap in for their irrigation. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. Exactly. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think it is one, Tom, we would like to know what is the impact, what do we need to do, what are some suggestions back from staff of the way we might deal with that issue I think is what I am hearing Commissioners Coletta Page 88 February 6, 2001 and Henning say. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Commissioner Henning has got a good idea there. These irrigation wells that even the farmers use, maybe there shouldn't be an impact fee so much as a user's fee that would be realistic. Is there something that's being done now in this direction, Clarence? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They pay a fortune for consumptive use permits. I know that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Somebody needs to get on the microphone and be for the record. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I mean, this is where a good portion of the water goes. And it goes for a very good reason, but let's find out what the impact is. MR. BURNS: Scott Burns, once again, from South Florida Water Management District. There were a couple of questions. The one that caught me most was the permit fee for agriculture. I just wanted to mention that the fee is $1,000 and the permit durations have been averaging about ten years. And considering the cost of energy of maybe three cents a gallon, I think that overall, considering the amount of water they use, it's extremely inexpensive. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not a fortune. MR. BURNS: That being set aside, the issue of user fees is something that reached -- has come up before the legislature on about three separate occasions. It has been about four years or so, as memory serves, that it came up as a method to potentially fund the comprehensive Everglades restoration program statewide. There's periodically this view of looking at this. Obviously everybody needs water and it's an opportunity to derive revenue and impose some sort of water conservation. However, in all three cases it has not been able to gender a sufficient support for a bill to go through. And, I guess, that's the best answer that I can give to you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But nothing prohibits a local ordinance. MR. BURNS: MR. OLLIFF: I don't -- I'm really not qualified to speak on the I've just got it as a note that you, as a Board, Page 89 February 6, 2001 would like to see us do the research and bring an item back. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And whatever we end up with, please, let's get it management driven versus ordinance driven because that becomes a collection of things that you have to enforce, which may be difficult to enforce. But if it's management driven in a water plan, those who are developing or building understand what they have to do before they put up the structure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I like that. Because I think in agriculture during the wet season they store the water and when they get the plant -- get ready to go to plant they drain the water. If we could have -- somehow develop a management plan for them to store that water that they drain off and reuse it -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, the citrus farmers do that. They'll pump on and then they will pump off during the rainy season. So they are probably -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But they pump off into the canals, Jim. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Some are holding ponds. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I see what Mr. Henning is saying. I think he's talking about the storage wells that they could have to hold their own resources. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Send it to Clarence Tiers and let him store it and then he'll send it back. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I know some of the citrus fields do have holding ponds where they take it on and off to do that. But that's probably only a small part of this and I don't want to belabor this. It just says we have a lot of options. MR. OLLIFF: The next item on my list was just the review of the rates and the impact fee issues. Just for the Board's information, six months from now that's coming. It's already underway. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had a question on that issue. Is it a true statement to say -- I'm still on this question of: Should we slow down growth because of water? And is it a true statement to say that the more users, the higher the rates as we continue because the cost of processing RO, for example, is so much more expensive than the cost of pulling water out of the Tamiami? MR. OLLIFF: Actually, what you heard was that that cost Page 90 February 6, 2001 differential has shrunk significantly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It has shrunk significantly. So is it true anymore to say that more users equals higher rates for current users? MR. OLLIFF: It shouldn't mean that if our impact fees are appropriately set. Because your impact fees are paying for the capital costs that are necessary in order to build for plant expansions and your line expansions. What should be an operating cost issue should only be whatever -- our naturally occurring increases in operating costs is like your FP&L cost increases. That has nothing to do with growth. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a big -- that's a big issue to rebut because I think people really think that we're all going to pay more because of the -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Absolutely. Whether you've lived here 20 years or you just moved here, what we're saying is under the rate structure you're pretty much the same and the capital part is getting delivered to the other stream, so -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Please, please. MR. ADAMS: When I spoke -- Bruce Adams again from the Water Management District. When I spoke recently about the integrated resources planning effort, conjunctive sourcing, including new sources and conservation, research by AWWA members has shown that it's not so much the constant demand -- the base level demand that costs you the money. It's that marginal demand for peaking that costs you the money. If you look at that, some of the research has shown that some of this water is 20 times more expensive than your average daily base demand. So when you do your conservation rate structures, you want to use your rate structure to do two things. One, control demand by price elasticity of demand pricing so that the more you use in a user class the more you pay. Therefore, as Commissioner Coletta was saying, pay the freight for the conservation program. And then the second thing a rate needs to do is reflect the adjustments in the revenue stream so that you get a balanced flow. Keep in mind that if you can cut off those peaks, if you can guarantee through the mechanical means, say, this retrofit program, that you will not have those peaks, then you eliminate Page 91 February 6, 2001 the most expensive portion of your utility costs, which are the peek demand facilities that all those sizings of pumps and lines and storage and things like that that you only use once in awhile. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the point is if -- through conservation, again, that's our best opportunity to reduce overall costs because we won't have to build such a huge system for the peaks. MR. ADAMS: That's right. And you can count -- with mechanical conservation installed, you can count on a consistency of your demand over time even during times of drought because you've installed the mechanisms to control that peaking. MR. OLLIFF: The item that Commissioner Coletta brought up in that same regard was sort of an incentive-based rate system. If that's something the Board would like to see us pursue and at least see as an option when we bring that back in August -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that -- I'm sorry. The gentleman who just spoke, but the conservation-based rate system. That's what I would like to see. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Basically the same thing. MR. OLLIFF: Right. I've also got a note here that for those of you who have not met with Ms. Williams -- Trudy Williams of Big Cypress and of the South Florida Water Management Board that I'm going to try and facilitate a series of meetings for both Clarence and Ms. Williams to come visit with each of you just to know what it is that Big Cypress is currently doing, what they have got on the books in terms of future plans and what they are doing with us, in terms of joint ventures. And, lastly, I'm going to work with Clarence in terms of Big Cypress issues to talk about wet season aerial tours for those of you who have not seen that because I do think -- not only does it have an impact, but it is important for you to understand exactly what that freshwater single point discharge does to some of your estuaries. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can I bring my fishing tackle? MR. OLLIFF: It better be long. Improved irrigation ordinance is something that, I believe, I saw enough nodding heads that I think that I can take as some direction that you would like to see us bring back as proposed amendments. Page 92 February 6, 200t COMMISSIONER FIALA: Absolutely. MR. OLLIFF: Rain sensor regulations. I seemed to get some nods for that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the $68 retrofit. MR. OLLIFF.' That seems to be the most bang for your buck. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I love that. MR. OLLIFF: Retrofit. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: In that lines, we might want to consider even issuing the retrofit and then charging them on their bills over a two or three-month period. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ditto. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. And then the last thing that I had -- this actually didn't come from any of you, but, just as a suggestion, a written summary in a condensed form and an easy to understand form from this workshop I think might be something that would be helpful for not only you, but for public distribution. And, I believe, that Mr. Mudd already has that as a note of his to try and work on. And then using a little Channel 54 and a little joint cooperation perhaps with Big Cypress Basin Board to try and do a little better job of public education is something that we want to take from this workshop. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Please. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Absolutely. And then that summary -- I had spoken to Mr. Mudd. There is a number of publications, at least throughout District Two, where I want to make that available in a format so that everybody has an opportunity to see that. MR. OLLIFF.' Mr. Chairman, we're done with our presentation, unless you have any other questions. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any other questions from members of the Board? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not a question, but a comment, if I may. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: As big as this water issue is, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of public participation. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I announced it on WNOG last night on the "Rich King Show" if anybody didn't have anything else to do this morning they ought to come down here and participate in the water workshop. I see we filled the room. So, Page 93 February 6, 2001 again, it's situational. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: TV. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: replay this, I assume. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: there, please call Pam Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, maybe they're watching on Let's hope so. And they will because we will Right. If you're listening out And I can't -- despite that comment, I can't pass the opportunity to say in my six years of service on the Board I have begged them every year, "Please, let's do a water overview," and no Board was ever willing to sit down for a half a day and do it until this one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's right. We always had two votes to go there, but now we have a majority. And that's what I keep telling the community. You have a new Board and a new direction. We focus on today and the future. And that's where we're going. Thank you, Mr. Olliff. We stand adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:39 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTRO~~ JA-~-~ ~.. ~ P-~.-.-.~., ~AIRMAN ~'.:ATTEST~ DW~.IG~T ~E, BROCK, CLERK Attest as to $1g.ature Page 94 February 6, 2001 These minutes approved by the Board on ~//~'?//a/ presented / or as corrected . as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES BY: Sandra Brown and Kelley Marie Blecha Page 95