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Floodplain Management Committee Minutes 06/04/2012 R Floodplain Management Planning Committee Chairman—vacant Vice-chairman--vacant Phillip Brougham Joseph Gagnier Brooke Hollander Christine Sutherland Clarence Tears Duke Vasey Jerry Kurtz Mike Sheffield Dan Summers Christa Carrera(Naples) Bob Mahar(Marco I.) Terry Smallwood (Everglades City) Meeting Minutes for 6-4-12 Regular Meeting Start: 9:00 a.m. End: 10:30 a.m. Location: 2800 N Horseshoe Dr, Room 610 Meeting Attendance:Christine Sutherland, Clarence Tears, Duke Vasey, Joseph Gagnier, Phillip Brougham, Jerry Kurtz, Mike Sheffield, Rick Zyvoloski (alternate for Dan Summers), Raquel Pines(Alternate for Terry Smallwood), and Robert Wiley, Absent: Brooke Hollander (Excused), Christa Carrera(Excused),and Bob Mahar There were four (4) additional staff members in attendance. Meeting called to order by Robert Wiley as Staff Coordinator. Robert announced that Ray Smith had resigned as Chairman. Until a new Chair is appointed by the County Manager,Robert Wiley will run the meeting. Mike Sheffield has been designated by the County Manager to replace John Tone. Mike is the Interim Director of Collier County Communications and Customer Relations. Congratulations were offered. OLD BUSINESS: I. Approval of minutes for the 4-2-12 Regular Meeting- Robert Wiley asked if there were any needed changes to the minutes. None-motion made for approval and seconded. The vote passed unanimously. Phillip Brougham and Mike Sheffield abstained as they were not at last meeting. 2. Follow-up discussion on the 2011 flooding technical assistance single point of contact calls. Robert Wiley shared an email communication from Travis Gossard regarding questions from the previous meeting. The questions were • Where were the areas of the 19 received calls? Were they grouped? Were they from the same flooding event? • What is the response time to address the received calls and complete needed work? The answer was that there were no specific locations—they were scattered all over and in different time periods throughout the rainy season. They also respond to all calls within 24 hours and if it is an emergency or something small in nature,they handle it immediately. If it is larger, it will be scheduled and can take up to six months for digging issues and large repair solutions. Page 1 of 8 Usually this is culvert cleanouts etc. If there is something like a big plug, they will take care of it quickly. Duke Vasey is concerned that we don't staff for emergencies. We do all the work with the existing staff His question is—how do you budget for this type of activity, since it is irregular'? Emergency calls add to the workload. Phil Brougham had a question—does anybody track how many calls are made that don't go to this single point of contact number? Are they getting calls at other phone numbers? Answer is we're not sure. Jerry Kurtz' division will get some flooding calls but he directs them right to Road Maintenance. Jerry says that compared to previous years,the number of phone calls have gone way down. Phil feels like if this is still a problem, perhaps we need more publicity, especially during rainy season. Suggested to Mike Sheffield that he might want to put a reminder on the county TV line "For flooding issues, Call....." Duke Vasey to Clarence Tears: How do we integrate the actual maintenance program of the primary canals with the secondary and the tertiary canals? Clarence: The departments talk to each other all the time. This way there is no duplication-they can see in each other's systems. Duke: Whatever happened to the tertiary canals that created problems down in Lely area a couple of years ago? Jerry Kurtz: Old Lely—we've rebuilt primary and secondary canals and this is resulted in such a reduction of issues. This was the worst flooding area 15-20 years ago and now is very good. Wouldn't be surprised if all issues are gone in the next 2 or 3 years when they finish. He considers these at least secondary. Some of the canals are so big that they tried to give them to SFWMD but they would not take them. Most of the problems in Lely were secondary/primary. Not too many tertiary in Lely. Christine Sutherland: Questioning publicity—she thinks that only 19 calls in a year are low. She wonders if people in City of Naples call City of Naples. Says there is a lot of flooding in that area. Jerry responded that it is highly variable year to year. It's totally dependent on the type of rainy season we get. Some summers you may only get 10 calls, other you may get hundreds of calls. Clarence: Last summer was not a big flooding issue—extremely site specific and self-inflicted by scraping their properties and making changes didn't allow the water to flow off their property. Majority was ponding—water accumulating in low laying areas that people are calling flooding. Duke: Following that up—how do we, in the permit process, get them to maintain the footprint so that you don't cause accidental water damage to adjacent or downstream property? He has Page 2 of 8 heard that some of the permits being approved would actually allow water drainage onto adjacent properties. Thought this was a Code Enforcement issue. Clarence: It is and thinks that all the reviewing agencies need to speak up though the permitting process and say we have concerns with this application. Jerry: We did implement an ordinance to deal with the maximum amount of imperviousness the larger houses can construct. There are also some rules about downspouts and roof gutters and think it has gotten a lot better. Robert: Any more discussion?If we are satisfied with what we have, can we have a consensus or vote that we can present this to the board as part of our annual progress report? It was moved that we close it. NEW BUSINESS: 1. Best Management Practices Outreach Program—presented by Steve Preston. This is one of our Action Plan items. He will be presenting 2 years—2011 and 2012. Steve: NPDES program is a federal program. 2012 will be just about like 2011 we have a steady program.NPDES is a federal permit—the feds require the county to have this permit to operate their stormwater system and it's water quality related. It's stormwater pollution prevention related. It's not technically part of the flooding program, but they do a lot of outreach. Most of what he reports on is stormwater related. There was a fertilizer ordinance that was passed last year on July 26th, so quite a bit of their outreach was geared towards that. There was an education taskforce led by pollution control, there was a webpage that was initiated-www.dontoverfeed.com-that provides information about the ordinance and is updated as needed. There was an in house video made by our IPO that is still waiting to be run. There were 60,000 bill stuffers that were put into utility bills this past April that went to all county water and sewer customers. There was a letter that went out to 670 contractors that have an occupational licensed titled "Landscape Maintenance"and applies to contractors that apply fertilizer and the fact that they need to be certified under this training program. The same letter went out to 1,920 contractors a couple of weeks ago for people with occupational licenses for"Service Maintenance". Article in Naples Daily News was published informing the public about the fertilizer ordinance—it is only for commercial application-people can still fertilize their own yards. Phil Brougham had a question. Of all the contractor letters sent out—What is the follow up to these letters?How will it be enforced? Steve: They have to go to one day training. It can be done online or done at Rookery Bay. Rookery Bay also offers the class in Spanish.As far as enforcement-it will be tough to enforce. Phil: Requiring certification? Is there a feedback loop in certification-saying"I have received certification"? Showing they have taken the required course? Page 3 of 8 Steve: Yes—when licenses expire at the end of September,they must present their certificate showing they have taken the course. If they do not present this, they will have something printed on their license saying something like"No Fertilizer". There were also 338 letters sent out to Homeowners Associations to make them aware of this issue and for them to know who they are hiring and what is required. Since the ordinance was adopted,they have certified 250 landscape people. The Outreach Program also gives CEU's—Continuing Education Units. There are several offered but he wants to focus on Urban Pond Management. Gives info on plants that are non- invasive and that clean up the water. Steve offers a presentation to the landscapers (and it's open to the public) about their stormwater systems,the maintenance and components of them. Many people don't really know what these landscape features are. They are working on a stormwater maintenance manual right now. Big Cypress Basin took the lead on a stormwater management system guide and the county printed some out for distribution to interested parties. These activities will continue in 2012 with more emphasis on stormwater system education for the homeowners. Robert wanted to know if there was any monitoring to see if this education is helping. Steve said the county does an ambient water quality monitoring program—as far as he knows,they haven't reported any improvement. Clarence and Duke discussed Lantern Lake and the improvements there through use of aeration system and floating mats to reduce nutrients in the water. There has been great improvement and the lake is clear. Clarence asked if Longshore Lakes had created a video for their homeowners to educate them on the importance of water quality retention systems. [NOTE: At the 9-10-12 FMPC meeting Duke Vasey clarified that it was Island Walk that had made the video and requested that the 6-4-12 FMPC meeting minutes be revised to include this clarification.] Many HOA's are concerned and they try to educate them. Steve said there's some technology that's been used for a long time using bacteria in waste water. The bacteria out competes the algae for the nutrients. It seems to clarify the water fairly well. Duke says ecological pond management takes a whole host of initiatives. Steve also wanted to mention that the canal atlas is available online for the public through ARCGis maps. The website is www.colliergov.net/stormwatermanagementmaps. You can see primary and secondary canals and detention ponds. Bill Lorenz wanted to add a couple of things. Each fall we conduct a workshop with the presidents of the HOA's about stormwater and other environmental items we relate to them in this meeting. We're looking to work with the Sierra Club and having a greater degree of outreach to these HOA's. Also, he's been working with Jerry and Steve about breaking the watershed management plans down into an implementation strategy. There are 12 or 13 different initiatives, one of which is a water sampling program, so he will be working with the water pollution department to create a course of action to prepare for the 2014 budget. Page 4 of 8 Duke wants to point out that when he approached the DEP about water quality standards, there really aren't any in Collier County, and so we've accepted City of Naples standards. DEP doesn't plan on having any standards for this area for another 4 or 5 years. Bill: EAC has established a subcommittee and they are looking at various counties land development regulations with regards to stormwater. At some point, we may want to have a joint meeting of this committee with EAC before launching into some specific course of action. We can consolidate and review activities and utilize staff resources more efficiently. 2. Required Amendment to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance—presented by Robert Wiley Robert: We received last minute communication from FEMA that the Collier County Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance (FDPO) is not in compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). May 16th was the deadline—we were notified on April 9th that our FDPO was not sufficient. We sent the ordinance to FEMA 11 months prior and they had not looked at it until this late date. Robert feels most of the changes requested are "wordsmithing". FEMA realizes that we went through the state but they say they need to talk to the state about their reviews. They will not back down,but we have been granted a 90 days extension to come into compliance. This gives us until 8/16/12 to get them a revised ordinance. Attachment 4 shows the amendments we must make to our document. Robert has sent this out to FEMA for one more review on their part. The county attorney does not want to go to the board until we get word from FEMA that if we do this, they will approve it. We have one comment(item (h)) on page 7 of attachment 4 that we are hoping to hear clarification from FEMA today. FEMA assured us that they would get back to us this week. This is important as we need to get this on the BCC agenda. If necessary, we can remove this from the draft without causing too many changes. It would remove the conflict and we could fight this battle later. Another issue for the near future is the fact that the Florida Building Code changed on 3/15/12. With this new code, it incorporates all of the flood provisions of the international code. Previously, they did not do this. This produces some conflict on how to regulate the flood plain, as FBC is the leading and deciding document. So-after getting the FEMA approval, we will be going back and use a new Florida model ordinance and bring it through this committee, do the public vetting process and bring it in front of the board this fall. Phil asked if the FBC vetted this through FEMA. The answer is that supposedly this is a 2 year coordinated effort between FEMA and FBC to produce this model ordinance. One big thing we did was delete the de minimus criteria(see page 5 of attachment 4). Our canal systems still will be AE Zoned. If there is any head loss at all, they have to do a flood plain impact analysis. If you're putting in a new weir, changing or meandering or widening a channel,the analysis must be done. The county will also have to take into account any impacts for fill placement within those AE zones that are outside the top of the bank but are immediately adjacent to the canals. FEMA feels this is a serious issue so there is no bypassing it. Clarence Page 5 of 8 asked which model can be used for crossings? Does it have to be a model we used?Robert said they would have to use a model that is on FEMA's approved list that is submitted to them for review and approval. Robert wanted the nod that it was okay to go with this to the Board of County Commissioners. Duke thinks we have no choice. There was more general discussion about FEMA and the head loss issue,but consensus that it will have to done to FEMA's specifications. Christine Sutherland questions changes made on page 8 regarding the historic homes. She wants to know why they made us take out the definition of historic homes? Robert said they are just taking out the definition, not the listing or determination. Another case of wordsmithing. Phil made a motion to go ahead with the presentation of attachment 4 to the Commission. Seconded by Christine Sutherland. No discussion—voted on and all were in favor. Rick from Emergency Management questioned whether the temporary housing was either changed, altered or deleted under the definitions? Robert said not changed yet but they raised lots of questions and want us to not have it in the ordinance. But it was not one of the changes on their"must do" list for us to get approval. 3. Progress Report for 2011 —presented by Robert Wiley Report created for previous year, we take it to the county commissioners and,submit it as part of our CRS annual recertification in September. We go through and identify parts of our action plan how we succeeded or didn't succeed and create a new action plan for the coming year. You've had the plan for the last couple of months for review and are now looking for comments. Duke made a motion to accept the approved action plan for 2012. Seconded by Phil Brougham. Mike Sheffield wondered if the plan was read and approved by staff or management? In Sire, on the agenda? Robert responded that it does get put in as an attachment in the consent agenda to head to the board. Discussion? Phil wondered when Robert anticipates bringing an updated flood management plan to the board? Robert said that we have the document prepared about a year and a half ago—we need to have it through this committee by October in order to get it to the BCC meeting either in November or December. Then we can submit it ISO. Duke thought there wasn't too much could be done differently, unless you're willing to change the format. Voted on motion—vote was passed unanimously. 4. Updating Floodplain Management Plan-presented by Robert Wiley There is a new CRS coordinators manual that is not even final yet. It is still considered a draft as it needs to be reviewed by some other branch of the federal government. Robert said that next year 2013 is when we have our next ISO cycle visit. This is when they come in and look at everything, how you're doing it. Once you get that visit that is when you start being under the requirements of the 2012 CRS coordinators manual. Our plan is due for renewal at the end of this year. Robert feels like we should plan it using the 2012 manual as opposed to the current 2007 manual. Phil thinks we should update as to the current CRS manual. Then we Page 6 of 8 would have 5 years to update in accordance with the final 2012 manual. He is not comfortable with basing our plan on the draft manual, which may or may not be adopted. He thinks we should get a plan in place based on what we know is fact. Duke realizes that we would like to improve our rating from CRS 6 to CRS 5 but thinks we probably don't have the staff hours at this point to devote to this project. After the CRS is approved,perhaps we could schedule the additional hours needed to change the plan. Perhaps we can highlight the major changes between CRS manual current and CRS manual proposed so we know what we will need to focus on in the future and see where the impact the FMP. No motion needed, we just agree to stick with the old guidelines at this point. 5. Committee Membership--presented by Robert Wiley Memo went out—we've lost Ray Smith, we've lost Pierre Bruno (due to work conflicts) and Lew Schmidt has resigned because he has moved to a different area of the county. Positions are being advertised for two positions. Mike Sheffield has been approved for John Torre's old position. We are waiting for official appointment for someone to replace Ray Smith. We are waiting for appointment of Chairman and Vice Chairman. Hopefully it will occur before the next meeting of July 2nd. Christa Carrera was planning on attending today but had a scheduling conflict with the city's flood damage ordinance. Hopefully the membership will be back up by the July meeting and we will be up and running. Are there any public comments? There are four employees in the audience. Robert introduced Valerie as note taking. Cindy Penney has passed away, which was shocking. This was part of the reason we did not have a meeting in May. Mike Sheffield had a question—does the governing resolution allow staff members to have designees? Robert says that every staff member can choose to pick an alternate. Usually that is somebody that works in close coordination with them. Citizen members usually will just have an excused absence. There are 12 committee members now and one from each city. Four staff members and 8 citizens. Duke Vasey motioned to adjourn the meeting. Motion passed unanimously at 10:30 a.m. Next Meeting: Monday, July 2"d, 2012 starting at 9:00 a.m. in Room 610 of the GMD-P&R building located at 2800 North Horseshoe Drive,Naples, FL 34104. The meeting in September will be the second.Monday, September 10th as the first Monday is a holiday. . , Jerry Kurtz, Chairman Robert Wiley, Staf oordinator Page 7 of 8 NOTE: A recording of the meeting is available for anyone desiring to hear it. Please contact Mr. Evy Ybaceta at the Growth Management Division—Planning and Regulation building (239- 252-2400)for access to the recording. Jerry Kurtz was appointed as Chairman by the County Manager on 6-4-12. Page 8 of 8