CAC Minutes 12/06/2001 RDecember 6, 2001
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COASTAL AREA ADVISORY COMMITTEE Naples, Florida,
December 6, 2001
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Coastal Area
Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 1:45 p.m. In
REGULAR SESSION in the Supervisor of Elections Boardroom of
the Government Complex, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
VICE CHAIRMAN:
Gary Galleberg
David Roellig
John Strapponi
Robert Gray
William Kroeschell
Ashley Lupo
James Snediker
Anthony Pires
OTHERS PRESENT:
Ron Hovell, Roy Anderson,
Jon Staiger, Ph.D., Ken Humiston,
Colin Kelly, Nori Horton,
Allen Madsen, Steve Keehn,
Tom Campbell
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE COASTAL
ADVISORY COMMITTEE AT THE BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS MEETING ROOM, ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE
HARMON TURNER BUILDING, 3301 TAMIAMI TRAIL EAST, NAPLES, FL 34112
AT 1:30 P.M. ON DECEMBER 1~ 2001.
AGENDA
o
Roll Call
Additions to Agenda
Old Business
a. Approval of Minutes for November 1, 2001
b. Tropical Storm Gabrielle Beach Recovery Update (10507)
c. TDC Category 'A' project status report / budget / reserves
d. Rock Removal Plan for Naples and Vanderbilt
e. Tigertail Beach / Sand Dollar Island
f. Wiggins Pass Dredging Update (10508)
g. Clam Pass Dredging Update (10268)
New Business
a. 10-year Plan Development
b. TDC Grant Application Annual Cycle
c. Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association membership solicitation
Audience Participation
Schedule next meeting
Adjournment
ADDITIONALLY, THIS NOTICE ADVISED THAT, IF A PERSON DECIDES TO
APPEAL ANY DECISION MADE BY THE COASTAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE,
WITH RESPECT TO ANY MATTER CONSIDERED AT THIS MEETING, HE WILL
NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS AND THAT FOR SUCH PURPOSE, HE
MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS
IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE
UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED.
December 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Good afternoon. We'll call to
order the December 6th, 2001, meeting of the Coastal Advisory
Committee. My name is Gary Galleberg. I'll note for the record that
we have in attendance Vice Chairman Roellig, Mr. Strapponi,
Mr. Snediker, Mr. Kroeschell, Mr. Gray, Mr. Pires, Ms. Lupo. Mr.
Stakich is absent as we begin.
Are there any additions to the agenda?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I had a question, and that is --
Mr. Snediker, you're going to give us a report on that Tigertail Beach
meeting?
MR. SNEDIKER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Is that intended to fall under 3-B?
MR. SNEDIKER: Yes, it is.
MR. ANDERSON: That will be fine.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Thank you. Then we'll move on
to old business. The first item is the approval of our November 2001
minutes. Are there any changes or corrections? (No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Do we have a motion for
approval?
MR. ROELLIG: So moved.
MR. GRAY: Second.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Mr. Roellig moved. It was
seconded by Mr. Gray.
All in favor?
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It passes unanimously.
Item 3-B, Mr. Hovell and Mr. Anderson about the stop-gap
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December 6, 2001
measures.
MR. ANDERSON: Yes. Thank you. We're in the process now
of, basically, awaiting for approvals of our rock removal and beach
renourishment plans from the DEP. Specifically we're waiting for
approval of the use of the Big Island sand and approval of the rock
plan. So I would like to ask Ron Hovell to go into some more detail
on the status and some of the issues that we're dealing with at this
time.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Before Mr. Hovell starts, I just
want to make sure -- can everyone hear okay? We're in this
temporary facility. We have a mike here, but we thought we might
just do it by voice if there isn't any problem hearing us.
MR. HOVELL: Let me start with, I guess, the update part. I
think I included in your agenda packet a copy of the memo that I sent
to the county manager indicating that we were not able to work out a
specific work order with the debris-removal contractor to begin
trucking sand, so at this point we were not doing any work to restore
the beaches.
I think the reason we moved this up to the first thing on the
agenda is there's a number of options that face us, and I think the idea
is to kind of kick some of those around and talk about the pros and
cons and some of the potential costs. And before I start getting into
some of the specifics, I would like to point out some of the members
in the audience, because I think they're all here related to this issue
and could potentially all play-- depending on which way we go -- a
key role in how this might work out.
I think we all know Ken Humiston down on the far right -- or
your far left -- from Humiston & Moore Engineers. We also have
Tom Campbell and Steve Keehn here today from Coastal Planning &
Engineering. We don't have a contract with either one of them, but
I'm told it should be signed any day now.
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December 6, 2001
Then we have Colin Kelly in the back with the Parker sand web
system. I know we've all tended to kick that idea around as one of
the potential options.
I think -- you know, as far as what the really basic options are, I
think I could boil it down into four basic things, and then you can
piece them together or, you know, go a hundred percent with one
method or whatever. The four basic things are: Do nothing, which is
sort of what we've been doing for about the past two months; do
some type of upland sand placement, which typically involves trucks;
do some type of offshore sand placement, which typically involves
some type of dredging rig; or use some alternative much like the
Parker sand web system.
I think the main question boils down to what extent do we want
to use any or all of those to try and recover our beaches. I guess the
second part of that would be to what degree do we want to recover
the beaches. These are in no way meant to be, you know, specific
quantities or budget figures but more just something to give you
some notes to prompt discussion on how some of these things might
work out.
Basically, what I put down in the first block there is to strictly
do a trucking evolution and do the 400,000 cubic yards. We've
previously used a budget of about $8 million for that, and I think the
issue that comes up is what will the timing be to try and do that. I
think at this point it's pretty clear that unless we begin work here
pretty soon and work through tourist season that we will not be able
to complete it prior to the turtle season.
The second option I put down was to do trucking of some initial
quantity. I've gone down to 50,000 cubic yards but some quantity
that would, in essence, be used to hit the priority areas, whether those
are dunes or whether those are particular hot spots or whatever, and
immediately begin the process of doing sand search-and-permitting
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December 6, 2001
issues with the goal being perhaps next year doing some type of
dredging evolution.
The third one I put down is similar. It just shows you what a
higher quantity of sand being trucked in might look like using those
same total quantities. The third and fourth ones are, again, a mixture
of trucking and dredging but tend to have a much larger quantity,
indicating that we would determine what the actual quantity needed
to restore the beaches to the original design template back from the
winter of'95 and '96, you know, and just get that major restoration
out of the way. As you can see, the price goes up significantly.
In all of those, I indicated what our current guesstimate is of
FEMA and state cost-shares would be based on the applications we
filed for public assistance. One thing I think I need to specifically
point out is, I received a draft contract from the state. The state has
signed an agreement with FEMA, and then they turn around and
administer those funds. The current draft agreement indicates that the
state will, in fact, pay their half of the local share.
So, in essence, if all goes well, we're going to get the 75 percent
from FEMA that we all thought we were going to get, 12 1/2 percent
from the state, and the remaining 12 1/2 percent will be down to the
county to pay. So that's, I think, good news.
The last thing that I've included, although I didn't put any kind
of quantities or budget figures, is, you know, to include the sand web
system in that mix as a possible tool to help us do all of this.
You know, all my other comments there on the right are just
thoughts about which might be more expensive or which might be
harder to do or some of the potential complications, the biggest one
being if we were to try and contemplate doing some type of dredging
event -- you know, when you bring in that kind of equipment, you
basically want to do all of the beaches because of the mobilization
costs.
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December 6, 2001
The problem we have with that is we're still under the consent
order to remove the rocks from Naples and Vanderbilt Beach. So
until we get an approved plan and execute that plan, we would be
kind of on thin ice trying to plan to do a major restoration when we
haven't even dug up the beach and removed the rocks yet.
So I guess I would like to have it open for comments and
questions at this point.
MR. GRAY: Yeah, I have a question. At the last meeting, I
think there was some confusion in your mind or in the county's mind
as to how effective we were going to be in getting reimbursement
from FEMA. I know that was discussed quite a bit because we've
probably never done that before. We talked about maybe doing the
40,000, 50,000 and using that as a trial balloon to see what kind of
reactions we get from FEMA. Do we know any more about FEMA
today than we did a month ago insofar as the application for
reimbursement and what hoops we have to jump through?
MR. HOVELL: Well, I think the one thing I would tend to say
we've learned is -- having received that -- I forget the exact term they
used. I'm trying to remember. Actually, I think I did bring a copy of
the first couple -- oh, no, that's the wrong one.
MR. GRAY: The reason I bring that up is I think that is a big
item insofar as us looking at the options and how much money we
want to spend.
MR. HOVELL: Well, I think in the past we talked about it as if
we were dealing directly with FEMA. What I've come to learn having
received that disaster -- I think they call it a disaster public assistance
agreement, or something like that, is that the agreement is with the
state. The state would then be in the middle of getting the money
from FEMA and to us.
As far as timeliness, you know, we do have the horror stories of
it's taken up to three years to receive reimbursement. But I think
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December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL:
yards --
MR. ROELLIG:
MR. HOVELL:
we've also learned that there are other places where things have gone
relatively smoothly and they've gotten a relatively quick
reimbursement.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Does the state prefund, or does
the state wait until it gets the federal money?
MR. HOVELL: I know what they define as large products, over
a million dollars, we can request, I think, about 25 percent up front to
kind of kick start the project.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: In addition to the 12 1/27
MR. HOVELL: No. It would be against, I think, the FEMA
share. I'm not sure whose share. But, in essence, it would be 25
percent of the approved project total that they would front to allow us
to help finance the work, and then the remainder, I believe, would be
paid after we've completed the work and filed the bills with them.
MR. ROELLIG: Tell me what the status is of the land-source
contracts, both sand and trucking.
If you mean in relation to trying to do 400,000
Any size. Start with fifty even.
Okay. We do have two sand contracts in place
with E. R. Jahna Sand Pit out in Ortona, which is about 75 miles
away, and Big Island Excavating, which is out on Immokalee Road
almost out in Immokalee, so about 25 or 30 miles away.
MR. ROELLIG: What's the cost of those if you know?
MR. HOVELL: Uh--
MR. ROELLIG: Approximately.
MR. HOVELL: I forget if they're in cubic yards or tons, and I'd
hate to guess. It's in the neighborhood of $5 a yard, let's say,
probably to be safe. One is more than the other, but it's in that
general vicinity. I mean, the bigger cost is trucking.
MR. ROELLIG: Right.
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December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: Those current contracts that were solicited back
in the summer and signed maybe in September or October have a
max cap on them. You can only order up to, I think, maybe in the
neighborhood of 50,000 a year. MR. ROELLIG: Okay.
MR. HOVELL: We started a process to solicit for a more
flexible open-ended contract that doesn't have a maximum, and the
selection committee meets next week. I think by the time the
contractor gets in place I would tend to guess it's going to be more or
less the first of February, and that one would have no cap restriction
on it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: How many different sources
would we hope to have?
MR. HOVELL: Well, we received four proposals. I'm not sure
that we would like to do contracting with all four, but we did receive
four proposals; two of which are the same two companies that
already have contracts with us.
MR. SNEDIKER: You're talking about the sand portion.
Trucking is not--
MR. HOVELL: Well, I hope that kind of answers where we are
with sand.
MR. ROELLIG: We can get 50,000, more or less, anytime.
MR. HOVELL: Yes. Now, the second part is where are we on
the trucking. That's one of the longer sagas, but I'm going to attempt
to describe it.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, we read about it in the paper.
MR. HOVELL: That's some of what I tried to tell you in that
memo I sent out. Back when this first happened -- as you'll recall,
the first thing we tried to do was waive formal competition. Then
when we found out that might jeopardize our potential
reimbursement, we shifted gears. Then we said, "Well, let's put it out
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December 6, 2001
for contract," which we have continued to pursue, but the selection
committee meeting is next week on that.
In the interim or for the short-term period, what we had hoped to
do -- we looked at all the existing contracts in the county to see if we
could use any of those as a stop-gap measure. What we found is that
there is a debris-removal contract related to recovering from storms
that could potentially be used. We actually went on the 13th of
November to the Board of County Commissioners and received
approval to do a modification for the price structuring of the contract.
Then once we had that in hand, we specifically asked them for a
proposal to do this initial work on Park Shore realizing that the E. R.
Jahna Sand Pit out in Ortona with roughly 50,000 cubic yards and
putting it on Park Shore is the exact work we just did in April. We
knew what it cost us in April. We asked them for a proposal, and it
turns out that we had just paid $585,000 back in April, and they
proposed over $1 million. So our initial reaction was, you know,
"This is going to be hard. We need to talk a lot about what you're
assuming and what we're assuming."
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: That was for 50,000 in quantity?
MR. HOVELL' Right. After a lot of back and forth -- and this
does not include buying the sand. This is just trucking it in place and
grading it. After a lot of discussions, we got it down to the point
where their proposal was just over $700,000, but it was still more
than 22 percent higher than what we had just paid. So we sort of
agreed to disagree, and that's when I put out that memo saying we
weren't able to work anything out.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, why don't you go out for a low-bid
contract? You know, I mean, normally for trucking that would be the
way to get a contractor. You go out and solicit bids to the low bidder.
MR. HOVELL: Well, what we have in the works is a request
for proposal for a multi-year contract for trucking, placing, and
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December 6, 2001
grading. Once we go to contract on that, it will be a long-term
contract so that any time we want to recover from a storm we have
that as a tool that's available to us. In the short term, though, even if I
decided today, "Let's go out for low bid," when you're talking over
$500,000, you've got to be out on the street for almost a month.
By the time you go to the Board of County Commissioners and
get the contract signed, it's going to be March. I already have
something in place that will get me a contract, so I don't really need
to go out for low bid.
MR. ROELLIG: You may have something.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: And we have a situation --
MR. ROELLIG: Excuse me. I would really prefer kind of a
dual track because, you know, tTucking is such a nonprofessional type
of arrangement. Negotiating for trucking contracts is a little foreign
to me. Something like that would normally--
MR. HOVELL: Well, see, it's not just a trucking contract. It's
trucking, placing, and grading.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, I understand that.
MR. HOVELL: Historically we spend three to four months
every time we decide we want to do this going through the same
process. We know where our beaches are. There's only so many
sand pits. Once we go through this one time -- and, hopefully, we're
going to get more than one contractor under contract. The process
would then be -- let's say we hire two or three firms and we have
them under contract, then we specifically go to them and ask for
quotes for the specific work we want done. In a matter of two to
three weeks we have worked out the details, and we just move
forward.
MR. ROELLIG: I have a problem with that. I think you should
go out for low bid. If you select somebody and that's negotiated, I
think you've got a problem as far as what would be your best price.
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December 6, 2001
MR. SNEDIKER: The bids are in for the sand. They're being
reviewed now. The trucking bids are due in next Thursday, I think.
MR. ROELLIG: But they're not bids.
MR. HOVELL: They're proposals. Both the sand and the
trucking is proposals, not bids.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: But the problem is --
MR. SNEDIKER: Cost.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: There will be -- as I understand
this, there will be perhaps -- certainly there will be a low-bid process
which will serve us in the future. We've got needs which go beyond
aesthetics, at least in the case of Park Shore, and they go into -- we
think-- I don't know if this has been confirmed by engineers, but
we're afraid it goes into threats to substantial seawalls, which then
could threaten foundations of high-rise condos, and all of that. So
there will by definition be a dual-track process.
I think one is RFPs for low bids as you go forward, but then
we've also got to figure out something to do now. We may have to
do more than we'd like, but we may also simply have to do it. If you
have a house that's burning, you don't say, "Where do I get an alarm
system?" First you need the fire company. You also would get an
alarm system over a longer period of time. I think that's kind of
where we are.
MR. PIRES: Ron, maybe I missed it, I guess, from the
perspective of how you're going down this whole chart here. The
first discussion item there is trucking at 400,000. Does that cover all
of Park Shore, or is that Park Shore plus other areas?
MR. HOVELL: Park Shore is roughly 50,000 cubic yards, so
the 400,000 is more or less the damage estimate from Tropical Storm
Gabrielle.
MR. PIRES: The total?
MR. HOVELL: The total; Marco, Naples, Park Shore, and
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December 6, 2001
Vanderbilt.
MR. PIRES: And the priority areas would be -- like Gary was
indicating you have situations of possible structural failures and other
property issues --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I don't know that that's been
confirmed, but I know that we spent a fair amount of time on it in the
city. At least we have that fear. Among reasonable people on the
staff, they're fearful that we could have a significant structural issue
there. It's beyond "how wide is the beach?" And there may be other
areas that I'm not aware of yet that are not within the city limits.
But that's the Park Shore area we're talking about. We just really --
given our state of knowledge now, we don't think we can wait until
April. We have too much invested.
MR. PIRES: If we can somehow split this out as to what aspects
from the city's perspective and the staffs perspective require higher
priority.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It's not even so much -- I realize
I'm, in a sense, the city representative. It's not really the city saying,
you know, "me first" or whatever. It happens to be in the city. It's
the most significant structural issue that we're aware of.
MR. STRAPPONI: It may be approaching an emergency
situation or could be if we --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It could be. I don't think we've
confirmed it. Maybe Dr. Staiger will have a little more for us, but the
concern is there. I don't want to overstate it.
MR. PIRES: Ron, also, the trucking -- I noticed that's the only
box, I'll call it, that doesn't say, "More in line with FEMA and state
expectations."
MR. HOVELL: That's a fact. The disaster folks, when they --
as you'll recall, one of the criteria for receiving reimbursement is that
it's an engineered and maintained beach. Well, their idea of
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December 6, 2001
maintenance is -- unless you're just going out and doing a really small
hot spot -- but then, in general, if you're going to do any amount of,
you know, what I'll call major renourishment, which 400,000 yards
probably meets that definition, their impression or their expectation
would be that you're going to restore it to the design template.
Ken Humiston handed me just before the meeting -- you know,
we're talking about putting 400,000 cubic yards of sand on the beach.
With some initial calculations, though, we can probably restore all
the beaches to the design template for maybe 700,000. I put 900,000
as my guess before I got Ken's input, but it's maybe 700,000 cubic
yards.
If you back up for a second and look at the prices -- you know, if
you go to a dredging event, the cost per cubic yard will drop
significantly from the $20 a yard we've been talking about for our
budget for upland sand.
But you don't have a sand source; right?
Well, when you say a "sand source," you're
MR. ROELLIG:
MR. HOVELL:
talking offshore.
MR. ROELLIG:
MR. HOVELL:
Right.
I will tell you that in the last go-around -- and
this is what's in everybody's mind, and I know it's an education thing
to kind of get over it, but the last go-around we restricted the sand
search to relatively close to shore. We used a method that was --
although not directly as it tums out, but, in essence, pumping sand
directly from the bottom up onto the beach. The only difference was
they didn't quite do that. They pumped it into sealed barges where
you couldn't see it and moved the barge and then pumped it directly
underneath, but they never looked at what they had.
There are other dredging methods, making use of a hopper
barge, for instance, and I pulled this out of the report that Coastal
Planning & Engineering had done related to our failed project
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December 6, 2001
describing what those differences are. But the gist of it is, if you go,
let's say, 15 or 20 miles offshore and find some really good sand, you
can use a hopper dredge -- there's an opportunity to screen that
material and specifically exclude anything that might be
objectionable. So your risks go down. Your likelihood of finding
quality sand goes up because you've expanded the search
tremendously.
As a matter of fact, Coastal Planning & Engineering has done
some work for Lee County and has found some sand in the
southwesterly direction from Lee County which puts it kind of
northwest of Collier County that would probably be very acceptable
to use and more than enough quantity to cover what we need to do.
So I won't disagree that we have not specifically done it for
ourselves, but I don't think it would take that much to go to them and
say, "We want you to make use of the already-known data, start the
permitting process, and make plans to do this."
MR. ROELLIG: Have they given you a preliminary cost
estimate of what that would be?
MR. HOVELL: Not in the sense that I have asked for a
proposal, because we don't even have them under contract.
MR. ROELLIG: You know, I'm not sure it's going to be a lot
cheaper than combined trucking.
MR. HOVELL: With your permission I'll ask them to answer
directly because they're here today.
MR. ROELLIG: I'm not asking you to give a final price, but I'm
not sure that the trucking -- you know, the one that you couldn't come
to an agreement on, you ended up with probably 12.50 a yard; is that
MR. HOVELL:
MR. ROELLIG:
it?
No. The total price is -- Oh, I know. What was the price per yard?
maybe you don't have it offhand.
Or
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December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: I do somewhere. Let's see. It was in terms of
per ton, and it was coming out to $11 a ton just for the trucking and
placing, and another -- per ton I think it was more in the
neighborhood of $6 or $7 a ton to buy the sand. And then when you
add the engineering on top of it, it was coming out to more than $20 a
cubic yard.
MR. KEEHN: It probably works out to be about 2500 pounds a
cubic yard. It depends on how dry it is.
THE COURT REPORTER: State your name, please.
MR. KEEHN: Steve Keehn. I think 2,500 a cubic yard is the
lower-end value. There's an upper-end value also. That's part of the
reason it's difficult to convert tons to cubic yards.
MR. PIRES: Ron, is it possible -- I guess I'm intrigued by the
idea of the predictability aspect with regard to property in the Park
Shore area. The first option where it talks about trucking, is that
something you can split out even more refined? Like if they have a
certain component, would it be more FEMA eligible if you're talking
about preserving property? I think that's one of their missions.
They're looking at the beach alone as one aspect.
MR. HOVELL: If we thought there was an emergency
situation, then that clearly falls within the guidelines to be reimbursed
for. However, back when this first happened, and again probably at
least once or twice in between and as recently as probably a couple
days ago, I've talked to people like Ken Humiston in the business of
coastal structures. And not that we've reviewed specific plans and
specifications or drawings for the buildings along the beach, but we
don't feel that there's as much concern as perhaps other folks might
have intimated or believe there to be. But I think it comes down to
somebody needs to do the actual review, and I think somebody in the
city is attempting to do that.
DR. STAIGER: Yeah. We talked about -- Ron was at the City
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December 6, 2001
Council workshop on Monday and briefed council rather extensively.
Council asked the manager to get some more information. The city
engineer sent some guys out, and I haven't seen the memo yet, but I
just talked to my secretary, and she said, basically, he said, "Okay.
We've looked at the beach from Vidado Way to Horizon Way, which
is the most vulnerable area, and the seawalls are two to four feet more
exposed now than they were before." This is just based on where the
sand level, obviously, used to be.
His memo essentially says, without knowing how deep those
walls are -- if they're 10 foot or 12 foot slabs versus something like 8
or 9 -- and we don't know, because they were put in a long time ago,
and we don't know the condition of the tie-back system behind them.
So his recommendation was that we get out there and do some
excavating, you know, and see. I mean, you can jet probe down the
face of a seawall and determine how deep it is if you know what
you're doing. You basically use a pipe with a hook on the end, and
you run it down the wall until you hook it under the wall and then
back it out. We may be doing that, and I don't know if we've started
that or not.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I think -- not to you personally,
but I think City Council gave direction to get that done.
DR. STAIGER: Well, yeah. That's something that I think
engineering is undertaking. They took a look at it, just a visual
observation, and said, "All right, two to four feet" -- which in the case
of a wall that's already exposed, three to four feet is as much as seven
or eight feet of exposure. If it's only a 12-foot section, then two-
thirds of that wall is above, and it should have at least, I would think,
50 percent burial in front of it.
The walls look fine. There's no obvious heaving or cracking or
anything like that. I know Ken looked at them. But the engineer's
suggestion was we might want to get out there and start grading some
Page 16
December 6, 2001
sand from the berm that has come in. The recovery -- the post-storm
recovery has built a berm that's out there away and distant from the
seawalls, and it would be to start pushing that berm sand up against
the walls to build up some sand in front of them. We discussed on
Monday, also, perhaps trucking a certain quantity of sand to Park
Shore that we could spread and basically pack against those seawalls
to give them a little more stability. Whether we can accomplish that
in a way that is reimbursable by FEMA or not, I don't know.
The city indicated that they would be willing to do the spreading
and grading if the county would truck sand to Horizon Way and
dump it there, which was one of the alternatives. But we have not
completed an engineering analysis of the thing. The city engineering
guys were doing that. But all I know at this point was that they took
a look at it and said, "Yeah. If those walls are of minimal" -- you
know, "if the wall slabs are of minimal length, they could be
vulnerable."
MR. SNEDIKER: How much seawall exposure is there now
compared to last February or before we did the renourishment last
spring?
DR. STAIGER: Well, I think in most of those places, before we
did the renourishment last spring, there was perhaps four to six feet
of wall exposed in some areas. After the renourishment it was up to
two or three feet.
MR. SNEDIKER: Is there more exposed now than before?
DR. STAIGER: There's more exposed now, probably a foot
more than there was last spring in places.
But it's awfully variable. You know, there's some hot spots there that
have a lot more exposure than before. It's basically between Horizon
Way and Vidado Way, which is the next access to the south. That's
probably 1,000 -- maybe 1,000 feet or less of beach. From Horizon
Way north it's a little better. But that's the section that I believe is the
Page 17
December 6, 2001
southernmost part of Park Shore. Once you get below there, you're in
the Moorings. That was the part that was built first by the Lutgerts,
and it was in the county at the time, so we don't have much in the line
of city records on that.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Just to go back, a couple of
weeks ago we got a report from the city manager that was alarming,
and he's not an alarmist. We could see that there was a significant
portion exposed. We're trying to figure that out. The way it relates
to this primarily is, I think we're going to need some kind of
hierarchy or schematic eventually because we've got timing issues,
scope issues, funding issues, and methodology issues, at least those
four major areas. Part of what we're talking about is the 50,000-
cubic-yard permit that we've got in hand right now, and how can we
facilitate the use of that sooner rather than later.
MR. HOVELL: Actually, that was the other piece of news I
forgot to say. Last week we received a notice to proceed for the other
seven beach segments. Because of the way they modified the permit,
it was -- they changed the words 50,000 cubic yards "annually" to
50,000 cubic yards "periodically." So we've gone back in and said,
"Okay. Let's see. If we want to do 400,000 yards and we already
have 50,000 approved, we need 7 more segments at 50,000 each, and
they gave us approval to do that.
MR. GRAY: As far as --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Pardon me. That's the DEP that
does that; right?
MR. HOVELL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: FEMA is the funding mechanism,
but they don't actually get involved in permitting.
MR. GRAY: I'm getting the sense that we don't have enough
information yet to make any decisions about dredging. You folks, if
I'm understanding this right, when you're contracted this will be part
Page 18
December 6, 2001
of your job; is that right? MR. KEEHN: Yes.
MR. HOVELL: Well, it could be. At this point we don't have a
project unless we're willing to make it part of this beach recovery
project and specifically ask them to explore dredging. If we decide
we're only going to truck, then, no, I'm not going to ask them to do
that work.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, we need to do the alternative so you can
balance it. I mean, if you can't talk about the possibility of dredging
it without looking at it -- because when you go for reimbursement, if
you show them how much it will cost by dredging and what the time
frame will be as opposed to why you had to do it by trucking, I think
you'll have a much stronger argument. MR. HOVELL: Well--
MR. ROELLIG: My other view is, if you have an emergency
declaration and we're talking to FEMA, we can't sit around for a year
wondering whether or not it's an emergency or not. You either do it
or you don't if you want to maximize your opportunity for
reimbursement.
MR. HOVELL: If I could clarify that. The emergency
declaration was -- Florida declared the emergency, and that period is
over. From a FEMA point of view, recovering the beach is not an
emergency issue. If it takes -- most other counties who don't have a
permit to do upland trucking are, in fact, pursuing dredging projects.
If it takes them two or three years, that's perfectly acceptable to all
parties involved.
MR. ROELLIG: I thought you said there was an 18-month limit
of time as far as getting FEMA reimbursements.
MR. HOVELL: As long as you're diligently pursuing --
MR. ROELLIG: So this--
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Wait a minute.
Page 19
December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: There's an 18-month limit that will be extended
as long as you're diligently pursuing the project.
DR. STAIGER: Coastal Engineering Consultants, Incorporated,
had a contract with the county to do a sand-source search. They did
part of it back when the previous beach committee was Stakage, Bob
Gray, and Dave Roellig. They produced a report on that search. As
that whole process wound down, they were in litigation with the
county, and they were no longer working for the county, but they did
look at offshore sources.
They found what they felt was a perfectly reasonable quantity of
sand down off of the south end of Key Island in the Big Marco/Capri
Pass ebb-shoal system. Part of that is bottom that is actually under
the jurisdiction of the Rookery Bay Preserve area, but there is a
significant amount of it that isn't. Also, south of Marco on the Cape
Romano shoal, there is another huge amount of sand that is available.
It's some of that is part of the Ten Thousand Islands Preserve, but a
good bit of it isn't. So those sources were located. The difficulty
there is it's a pretty long haul to have to do something comparable to
what we did in the restoration here, which was to dredge it into
barges and then tow the barges to where you need it and then suck it
out.
You can either dump it and then redredge it and pump it to
shore, or you can suck it out of the barge, which is what happened the
last time. Those sources are fairly remote. They're not that remote
for Marco Island. But if you're looking at something like Vanderbilt
Beach -- if there is a source up off of the Lee/Collier area, that's a hell
of a lot closer than Cape Romano. At any rate, that data was
obtained, and it was not -- it was a preliminary search, I think,
looking at existing data and a bunch of other stuff. I don't know that
they got into any seismic profiling or coring and all of that.
MR. ROELLIG: They did. They had samples.
Page 20
December 6, 2001
DR. STAIGER: They had some samples, I guess. They may
have just jet probed. But the next stage or phase they recommended
was a much more extensive search with the seismic work that was
needed. I mean, that was one of the criticisms that was in the report
actually done by CPE of the original work. There wasn't an adequate
amount of coring and seismic work done to locate appropriate sand
and to define the thickness.
So you could start with the work that you guys have already
done plus the work that was done by Coastal. I mean, that's work the
county paid for. It was preliminary, but it's there. I mean, I've got a
copy of the report. I'm sure Ron does too. So there is more than one
sand source out there. It might be that for something like Marco and
the south end of Naples, one of these southern sources would be
appropriate. And if you get to Park Shore and Vanderbilt, you can
look somewhere else. But it might be worth getting involved and
looking for an offshore sand source, because sooner or later you're
probably going to need it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: You know, I perhaps am
simplifying it or maybe just not remembering it correctly, but I
thought a policy decision had been made after the difficulties of the
other big beach renourishment to go with land sourcing. Colonel
Mudd and his staff-- I think before you joined the staff, Mr. Hovell --
had done quite a bit of work on that and presented us different
samples of potential sources and that type of thing.
MR. HOVELL: I don't think that was meant to cover the next
major restoration. I think that was meant to cover the interim 50,000
cubic yards a year to kind of continue to maintain the beaches and
hopefully defer that big project out there.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Things that might be termed
maintained as opposed to renourishment.
MR. HOVELL: Right.
Page 21
December 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Perhaps so.
MR. GRAY: As I look at the options here, and based on what I
have heard so far, it appears to me that Option 2 probably comes
closer to meeting what we need than any of the others.
MR. HOVELL: Well, anything except pure trucking -- you
know, trucking we can get done the quickest. But even trucking on --
and it would be an area to be defined, I guess. You know, we kind of
have a feel for it. Those areas where we're going to have to execute
the rock-removal plan, even under the trucking scenario, are not
going to get done for probably more than a year. I think under the
current state of things, it's going to be probably this time next year
before we're really executing the rock-removal plan. It would have to
be after that before we could renourish the area.
MR. GRAY: That's my point. The 50,000 that we're going to
do in trucking in Option 2 is just about what we need for Park Shore
beach, and we don't have the rock issue there as I recall. MR. HOVELL: Right.
MR. GRAY: Whereas the other areas, the 350,000, we do have
rock issues in a couple of places. So that could be addressed before
we got to the point of dredging, which would get us to the total of
400,000 which is, I think, what FEMA -- wasn't that their number?
MR. HOVELL: Actually, FEMA does some kind of
discounting. The project light from the '95-'96 event is about 10
years. Ken's on the hook to try to do this. But, in essence, with the
original design template and then the theoretical last point of retreat
10 years later, FEMA attempts to say, "Well, how long ago did you
do that job? Where should you theoretically have been? And where
did the storm put you?" They'll only pay to restore us to that
intermediate point, but they expect that since we're going to mobilize
and go through the effort of repairing the beaches that we're going to
restore it to the design template. All the rest of that is going to be on
Page 22
December 6, 2001
our shoulders to prepare for financial responsibility.
MR. GRAY: Which then could take you into one of the other
options. That's what you're saying.
MR. HOVELL: Yes. I would certainly say that whenever we
get around to maintaining the beach in whatever we do -- I mean, let's
say we were somehow able to go out and do the 400,000 yards over
the next four months. If we then got hit with a storm during the next
hurricane cycle, all of that would not play into FEMA's review of
what's eligible for reimbursement. They would still be looking at
what was the original design template and where should you have
been and not what did you just repair it to. Therefore, you know, it
would be a lesser amount that we would get. Whereas, if we restored
all the way to the design template and then said, "We're less than a
year into our useful life of this project," we would increase the
amount of restoration that FEMA would pay for.
MR. PIRES' Ron, with regard to the phrase in the second one
where it says, "dune restoration only," where is that anticipated to
occur?
MR. HOVELL: Well, to me there's kind of two ways to
approach doing something less than the whole 400,000 yards in the
trucking mode. One would be to just do the whole 50,000 on Park
Shore, and then Park Shore is taken care of, but we haven't done
anything anywhere else. The other way would be to go around and
take a look at all the beaches and attempt to describe how much
would be needed to put it up against the seawalls to restore the dunes
in those areas where they got flattened out, but to hit all the beaches.
MR. PIRES' That's more like Option No. 3, which has 100,000
for dune restoration and 50,000 for Park Shore and --
MR. HOVELL' I was just throwing those numbers out as sort
of my guess. What Ken had given me here was -- if I'm reading this
right -- do you have a copy of this, Ken?
Page 23
December 6, 2001
Is it fair to say that between 30,000 and 40,000 yards for the
whole county would restore the dunes, or am I missing the way this
was written?
MR. HUMISTON: That's right. Just doing restoration though.
That wouldn't do anything with the flat beach berm part of it.
MR. HOVELL: Right. When you say "dune," you're not doing
the ten-to-one slope then either.
MR. HUMISTON: Right. The beaches typically have a flat
berm that's at an elevation of plus five, and then on land you have a
dune that increases the elevation by several feet. We lost a lot of that
dune during the storm. So just to restore that part of the dune that
was lost it would be in the neighborhood of 30,000 or 40,000 cubic
yards.
MR. PIRES: And the agencies look very favorably upon the
dune-restoration aspect?
MR. HOVELL: I think, again, they're just into a mathematical
exercise, if you will. They're going to calculate a quantity of sand
that they're going to pay us for.
MR. PIRES' I guess what I'm getting at is priorities to sort of
try and see what the highest priorities are. If it's Park Shore for fifty
thousand, dune restoration at thirty or forty -- because that way you
have that particular aspect of the beach that's been restored, which
from an engineering standpoint, I guess, or beach engineering
standpoint or coastal standpoint it's sort of second in priority it seems
like.
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. I think most everybody would agree that
doing the storm protection should be the first priority. Then raising
the height of the beaches should be the second priority because it
does provide storm protection, but the dunes, I think, are probably
more important.
MR. PIRES: It's kind of like a blend.
Page 24
December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: When you did those calculations and when we
say the word "dune," were you looking at areas where there's
seawalls and excluding those from meaning dunes, or were you
including piling some up in front of those?
MR. HUMISTON: It just includes the Vanderbilt, Park Shore,
and Naples area. It doesn't include Marco Island because there really
was no dune issue on Marco Island. It's just within those project
limits. Where there's a seawall with no dune, we did allow for a
certain amount of fill in front of the seawall to establish the small
dune.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Funding of these alternatives
varies. We have been talking about 75 percent coming back to
FEMA and then the state picking up half of the remaining 25 which
leaves 12 1/2 percent for the county.
MR. HOVELL' Well, of the quantity that they approved as
related or, you know, due to the storm damage.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I was going to follow up and note
that every scenario that you assume for the sake of this spreadsheet is
a 250,000 cubic yard quantity that FEMA and the state would
participate in.
MR. HOVELL: Right. So out of that 250,000 cubic yards, we
would only have to pay 12 1/2 percent of the cost of that quantity.
Anything beyond that is for us to pay for.
MR. STRAPPONI: Ron, I have a question. The 400,000 that
we lost to Gabrielle, have we at any time since then reassessed it to
determine if it's still 400,000? Does nature put some back?
MR. HOVELL: Ken, am I reading this right to say that maybe
the total quantity is only 250,000 or thereabouts? MR. HUMISTON: That's right.
MR. HOVELL: So it's not as high as 400,000.
MR. STRAPPONI: So what we really need is around two fifty.
Page 25
December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: It looks like it.
MR. STRAPPONI: Now, my next question is, you presented
this committee with five options, and based on the limited amount of
information that I heard today, I tend to agree with Mr. Gray that No.
2 seems to be the most attractive. What I would like to know is
which option you and the public utilities engineering department
would recommend and why.
MR. GRAY: I was going to say the same thing.
Do you-all have a strong recommendation?
MR. HOVELL: I would say, you know, anything I would tell
you at this point would be my personal recommendation. It's not
something that I have had a chance to brief anybody on or get even
the Coastal engineers to give me their opinion on.
MR. STRAPPONI: We'll let you share that with us.
MR. GRAY: You're the closest person to it.
MR. HOVELL: Well, I appreciate that, so I'll tell you my
limited thinking on it. I keep getting told this a lot when people
disagree with what I say. You know, I'm the new guy, so I'll just tell
you what I think as the new guy.
I tend to think that doing some amount of trucking to hit more or
less the whole county to restore at least the dunes to some degree and
maybe even including at the face of the dunes some kind of ten-to-
one slope, so maybe a higher quantity than what Ken threw out, but
some amount of trucking for all the beaches in the short term, and
that might even include next winter as something we should probably
pursue.
I think rather than expend the rest of the FEMA money on
continued trucking efforts, I would tend to say to put us in the best
situation possible for another storm recovery, we should make plans
and probably based on the rock-removal issues, maybe at least two
years down the road, do the major renourishment which might be
Page 26
December 6, 2001
more in the neighborhood of seven hundred thousand cubic yards,
less whatever we do by truck, so maybe it would be five or six
hundred thousand cubic yards. You know, make that our plan and
then go about trying to execute it.
The problem I tend to have is, when you've got a million options
and you, in essence, want to keep all your options open and pursue
them all at once, there's just not enough resources to attack all of
them.
MR. GRAY: Is that Option 2 or Option 3 what you just said?
MR. KROESCHELL: It's not an option.
MR. GRAY: In between.
MR. PIRES: A modified 3.
MR. HOVELL: It's probably somewhere between 4 and 5.
MR. GRAY: Really?
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. Some amount of trucking, but the total
quantity would be more in the neighborhood of 700,000 cubic yards.
MR. GRAY: Okay.
MR. HOVELL: The bigger number, not just staying with
400,000.
MR. STRAPPONI: That's dredge numbers? Seven hundred
thousand in dredge numbers?
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. If you take those bottom two -- actually,
that adds up to nine fifty. If you take those two that right now say
nine fifty and change that to about seven hundred total, based on
what Ken gave me, I think that's what I'm talking about.
MR. STRAPPONI: Well, from a timing standpoint, if we were
going to do hydraulic restoration, these April predictions seem a little
optimistic to me.
MR. HOVELL: Oh, the April 2002 you mean?
MR. STRAPPONI: Yeah.
MR. GRAY: That's just for dune restoration.
Page 27
December 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Each method or each alternative
has an element of trucking in it. The first line item on each is
trucking.
MR. HOVELL: They all involve a certain amount of trucking.
If we were trying to do 100,000 yards, could we complete it by April
2002? I think we could choose to complete it by 2002. I kind of
doubt that we will choose it just because of tourist season, but we
could choose to do it.
MR. STRAPPONI: What can we do, if anything, and how
quickly could we start to have any impact on tourist season -- I
mean --
MR. HOVELL: The only option I know of right now is --
MR. STRAPPONI: We've missed that window of opportunity;
is that correct?
MR. HOVELL: Well, before Monday I would have said yes
without saying anything else. As of Monday morning when I went to
the Naples City Council workshop, they, in essence, offered-- and
this is the piece I didn't get into the details about. The proposal that
we received from that debris-removal contractor was made up of two
parts, the trucking part and the placing and grading. The total price
was more than 22 percent higher than what we previously paid. In
the breakdown trucking was much more in line. It was the placing
and grading that was driving the price through the roof.
City Council offered that they have equipment that they could
potentially use on the beaches to do the placing and grading, and
would the county consider, in essence, hiring them as that part of the
contract and reimburse them for their efforts. So we're kind of
exploring that right now.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: At cost plus the average staff
rates.
MR. PIRES: For county or city?
Page 28
December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL:
MR. ROELLIG:
MR. HOVELL:
MR. ROELLIG:
Just pick a unit.
MR. HOVELL:
MR. ROELLIG: You guys should give us a--
THE COURT REPORTER: One at a time, please.
On the contract proposal?
Right.
Their final proposal was about $500,000 just
Can't you give it to us by quantity or yard?
Okay. I'm using tons because the only sand pit
that's approved right now sells by the tons. Their final proposal was
$7.48 a ton for the trucking, which was just under 10 percent more
than we paid back in April. Their final placing and grading price was
$3.14 a ton, which was almost 70 percent more than we paid in April.
MR. ROELLIG: It sounds to me like what we should do is
accept their trucking and either have the city do placing and grading
or go out and find a contractor to do the placing and grading. That's
certainly not a high-tech thing. I don't understand why they're
charging so much for it. Pushing sand around is not --
MR. HOVELL: Again, if we want to go out for contract, now
we're talking -- what are we going to do in April? I already have
something in the works to give us a contract to do something in April.
I think the question is, what can we do in December? The only thing
we can do in December is potentially make use of the city. MR. STRAPPONI: Truck.
MR. ROELLIG: That sounds like a good option.
MR. HOVELL: Well, assuming we can all work it out. There's
some issues about -- you know, if it was a contractor, we would have
a contract. Typically when we do interagency agreements with the
city we, in fact, do have a contract. If we were going to go through
those bureaucratic hoops, it would probably be February 1 st before
we had a contract in place with the city.
Page 29
December 6, 2001
MR. SNEDIKER: Can that be accelerated some way?
THE COURT REPORTER: One at a time, please.
MR. HOVELL: It's not the city's fault. It's the fact that
Christmas is coming. The only Board of County Commissioners
meeting between now and February is next week, December 11 th,
and then next one is not until January 8th, and we've long since
missed the window for next Tuesday.
MR. ANDERSON: We can probably arrange, you know, with a
priority item, a special meeting. Sometimes they have workshops or
special meetings. They meet frequently, so we probably can work on
that.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Dr. Staiger, first of all, for the
engineering firms, are you here listening today, or is there a
presentation that you intended to make?
DR. STAIGER: Well, considering--
MR. ANDERSON: Ken's got a presentation later on.
MR. HUMISTON: Mostly listening.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I mean, instead of the board
going around and around -- with all the pros sitting out there, so to
speak, for this presentation unless we just want to go on forever --
MR. HUMISTON: I provided Ron some information, and I just
came in case there was any questions about it. CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Great.
MR. HUMISTON: I would be glad to answer any questions
about it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Dr. Staiger, we had broached the
idea of simply moving sand on the beach in some areas for dune
restoration. That last -- to a nonengineer and somebody who doesn't
have to go through the permitting process personally, that has a
certain appeal. Does that have any practical application?
DR. STAIGER: Yeah. That's what we've been talking about.
Page 30
December 6, 2001
Basically, if we can get some of our equipment that we already have
and maybe rent another front-end loader, which the city can do, they
could dump the sand at Horizon Way, and we could truck it down the
beach.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I mean, we had talked about
different areas that a berm had build up --
DR. STAIGER: Oh, yeah. We could--
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: -- and to move the berm back
to--
DR. STAIGER: We could do that--
THE COURT REPORTER: Wait, wait. One at a time.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: -- more of a dune position.
DR. STAIGER: We could do that independent of bringing any
sand in. We have to get a permit for that from the state. That's called
beach scraping, which they tend to not be terribly in favor of. They
don't like scraping the beach because they think people tend to scrape
a little too much.
We might be able to get a permit for something, but it's difficult
to tell. I haven't broached the subject with DEP. If we truck in some
sand and place it up against the walls -- if we do it all above the
mean-high water line, it's a little easier to do. It's when you're putting
it out in the water that it gets tricky.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Well, if the city has the
equipment and can facilitate it, that sounds like the best short-term
solution.
DR. STAIGER: That's something I think we can --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: But I wasn't saying -- maybe this
is in addition and not an either/or, but the idea that we had talked
about not grading and trucking sand but moving the sand that's there.
DR. STAIGER: What the question was, and I think that's what
Ron alluded to, was if the city did this and provided that service to
Page 31
December 6, 2001
the county for spreading and grading the material, then the city would
want to get reimbursed, and could we do this in a way that didn't
require working out formal interlocal agreement between the two
governments which would be -- you know, that has Council action
and Board of County Commissioners action, our attorneys and their
attorneys, and by the time you get all that worked out, we're in
March.
MR. PIRES: Which year?
DR. STAIGER: If we can do something more informal and
still --
MR. ANDERSON: Like a sole source kind of arrangement.
DR. STAIGER: We haven't got to that point yet, but that's one
of the things in this mix of alternatives. If they bring the sand down
there, can we work out a way that we can move it around and get
some reimbursement for that effort, and I don't know the answer to
that.
MR. PIRES: Ron--
MR. ROELLIG: I think there's a different way to do this. My
understanding and from my experience there's no reason why the city
couldn't go in for reimbursement for the movement from FEMA and
the county go in for purchasing and bringing the sand to them. We'd
have two -- why are you shaking your head no? MR. HOVELL: Well--
MR. ROELLIG: I see it happen.
MR. HOVELL: Well, but the problem is --
MR. ROELLIG: I've got a problem because I hear a lot of ifs
and buts and so forth, but I think we need to move this along. If the
city is willing to do that, then I don't know why the city can't go in for
reimbursement separate from the county.
MR. HOVELL: FEMA would reimburse the city or the county
for placing sand on the beach, but for moving sand around on the
Page 32
December 6, 2001
beach -- MR. ROELLIG: No, I'm not talking about that. I mean trucking
it in and having the city --
MR. HOVELL: Oh, yeah.
MR. ROELLIG: Rather than have the county go into a
procurement contract with the city for the placement, just have the
city do the placement and then seek reimbursement from FEMA for
that, particularly for the Park Shore segment.
MR. GRAY: I'm almost afraid to say this because it sounds too
simple, but I'm going to say it anyway. Why can't the county move
the sand around on a city beach? Even though it's theoretically in the
city, it's still part of the county. Why does the city have to
participate?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Al, does the county have graders
and front-end loaders and stuff to do that? MR. MADSEN: We have--
THE COURT REPORTER: Your name, sir?
MR. MADSEN: My name is Allen Madsen. The road and
bridge department has graders, loaders, etc.
That equipment is scheduled well in advance. I think that they're
probably going to see that they're overloaded with work as far as
keeping the roads open and passable. So they'll say they have an
equipment problem or manpower shortage.
MR. GRAY: But is that worth a try? I mean, it sounds like
that's a stumbling block. Having the city and county involved --
basically the beaches are a county situation, so why should we even
talk about having the city involved with their equipment? MR. HOVELL: I think we can certainly ask.
MR. PIRES: I guess, Ron, I'd like to get a sense from this
committee on the east end -- I think we would like to have -- is there
some way to give some direction to you or to give something to the
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December 6, 2001
County Commission that we think it's a high-priority item to take
care of these two aspects, the Park Shore and the dune restoration
aspect, as soon as possible through a trucking mechanism and
through a cooperative venture with the city on an expedited basis
and/or to mobilize to the extent they can without taking away from
other critical county projects the county's resources that they have in
heavy equipment. I mean, I recognize the board is meeting next
Tuesday, and we can't be on that agenda. They don't meet again until
January. They meet again -- I know January 8th is a County
Commission date. January 22nd is the next county commission
meeting date.
MR. HOVELL: Yes.
MR. PIRES: So perhaps at least, if nothing else, get a sense on
January 8th of-- get some direction or guidance then. I think that the
city would be happy to send a representative to that. If we can get
something that we can send to the county commission to let them
know of our concerns and what we think is an urgent issue to help
you get that space on the agenda -- I know sometimes every-other-
week agendas don't -- they get filled up pretty quickly. I mean, is
that something we can help you on as well as help the city and help
the county overall?
MR. ROELLIG: Maybe another question is, can the city do it
for less than $3.147
MR. HOVELL: I think that is a good question. It's one that I
had to ask because, from my point of view, I'm managing the project
and the budget. I had to ask the city, "Well, amongst all the other
things we have to work out, I think you have to give me your cost
estimate for doing this."
MR. ROELLIG: Sure. Well, why don't we do that? ! don't quite
see what the problem is. In fact, I make a motion that we proceed
with the 50,000 yards or whatever the quantity is for Park Shore with
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December 6, 2001
the stipulation of to use your existing contract or a combination of
sand and trucking along with the city, whichever is most economical,
just to get the project moving.
MS. LUPO: Can I add something?
MR. SNEDIKER: Go ahead.
MS. LUPO: I was under the impression that the priority was
first putting the thirty to forty that you needed on the dunes and
seawalls, not fifty for the Park Shore. If we're going to do fifty for
trucking -- I thought that first fifty should be used for the dunes and
seawalls, not Park Shore. If we're going to do a hundred for trucking,
then we have the thirty to forty plus the extra fifty for Park Shore.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Maybe facts have changed. I've
understood that Park Shore was the highest. There's a lot we want to
do. Maybe that's not the actual case anymore, but that's my
understanding.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, Park Shore is the emergency situation;
right?
MR. GRAY: That's a dune situation there too.
MS. LUPO: Well, I thought Park Shore was the place we didn't
have to worry about the rock situation, but if you were going to do
the prioritization of what's best for the county as a whole as far as
what needs the sand, the dunes need the sand first with the seawalls,
and that was the thirty to forty quantity.
MR. ROELLIG: I think it's the Park Shore seawalls. Are we
talking about two different locations?
MR. HOVELL: Yes, I think we are a little bit.
I mean, I think all the options would include some amount of
trucking, but I think the two basic options for expending or, you
know, using those trucking resources is either to just focus on Park
Shore or review the whole county and focus on dune restoration, you
know, in front of seawalls so Park Shore would be part of that
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December 6, 2001
equation, but using that same sand budget in one of two ways: Either
completely restoring Park Shore beach and leaving everything else
alone or spreading that out amongst the whole county. I would tend
to think that the dune height restoration for storm protection would be
a higher priority than restoring 100 percent of Park Shore beach.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Well, in some cases there is a
threat to the seawall, and I understand we're not sure of that now, but
how much -- can you estimate at least for discussion purposes now
how much quantity that would require? MR. HOVELL: For Park Shore?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Not the entire restoration, but to
bring the dune level at the seawall back to where it was before the
storm.
MR. HOVELL: Something like ten to twenty thousand yards
instead of the whole fifty thousand yards.
MR. SNEDIKER: We only put 35,000 there last spring. Now
I'm not sure if all of the 35,000 got there. Did it? DR. STAIGER: Last spring?
MR. GRAY: We put 38,000 there.
MR. SNEDIKER: Did it all get there, though?
MR. GRAY: Yeah.
DR. STAIGER: Yeah.
MR. HOVELL: Well, it was meant to be fifty, so yes.
MR. GRAY: No, 12,000 went to Marco Island.
MR. SNEDIKER: Fifteen went to Marco Island.
MR. HOVELL: Ken probably remembers because he had to
write the report.
MR. HUMISTON: Those numbers were in tons, because that's
how the quantity was figured. But as we talked about before, a ton is
less than a cubic yard. It takes about 1 1/4 tons to make a cubic yard,
so the actual quantities were a little bit less. There was about 28,000
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December 6, 2001
yards, I think, that ended up on Park Shore.
MR. SNEDIKER: So what we really need is ten to twenty
thousand yards to take care of Park Shore's immediate needs; is that
accurate?
MR. HOVELL: I think so.
MR. SNEDIKER: Why don't we just focus on getting that
done?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We're also talking -- because
none of us are experts in this, we're still lacking quite a bit of
technical data. We have a feeling about things, and we can look with
our eyes and say this is what we think. On the other hand, it's
December. If we're going to do anything, we really don't have much
time.
MR. HOVELL: That is the big handicap for this area. Between
turtle season and then choosing not to -- and to a certain extent it's
just the practicality of trying to drive all those trucks during the
tourist season. But when you block out January, February, and
March, it doesn't leave you a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of
work over the winter.
MR. PIRES: Ron, following up on what Ashley was saying, if
it's ten to twenty thousand for Park Shore and thirty to forty thousand
for dune restoration in a fifty thousand budget, you can do both is
what you're saying or what it appears?
MS. LUPO: The initial 50,000 trucking, can you do both?
MR. HOVELL: If we put the first 30,000 yards towards dune
restoration, we would probably restore most of the dunes in the
county. Then the remaining 20,000, if you want to call that a budget,
you know, then maybe you could start saying, "Well, now out of all
the beach segments, which one is the most free of other
encumbrances and in most need of sand?" Then I would tend to go
back and say, "Yeah, let's finish Park Shore," because both Naples
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December 6, 2001
and Vanderbilt have some complications with rocks and Marco really
doesn't need it that bad. Plus, as we'll discuss in awhile, when you
dredge Caxambas Pass, the sand goes right to where we're talking
about trucking it to this year, so how much do we really need to
truck, you know.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Two questions. If we have the
trucking permit now for 400,000 cubic yards and if we as a
community were to recommend leaning in the longer term more
towards a focus on dredging probably, then what happens to those
permits? Can they be converted? Do they become useless?
MR. HOVELL: Well, technically they're not --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Can they serve or last as long as
eight years to serve for our expected 50,000 cubic yards maintenance
needs?
MR. HOVELL: The upland sand permit doesn't expire until
2006, but the notices to proceed for the 400,000 yards do have
expiration dates, and I would have to go back and reread them, but it
only gives us about a year or maybe two at the most to truck the
400,000 yards.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: So even if in the intermediate
term we go more towards a dredging focus, then we've accomplished
something. We've got permits in place that will make the annual
maintenance needs easier to accomplish. Is that a correct statement?
MR. HOVELL: What we got was a permit modification from
50,000 cubic yards annually to 50,000 cubic yards periodically.
Under that permit I had asked for the notices to proceed for all those
beach segments which happens to add up to the 400,000 yards.
Those notices to proceed will expire, but they're also not overly hard
to get. I mean, certainly within a month you could get it.
MR. KROESCHELL: Mr. Chairman, there was a motion on the
floor. If he still wants to make it, I'll second it.
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December 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Before we take a vote on that, we
have members of the public here, and we may want to hear from the
members of the public. Does anyone wish to address us?
Mr. Kelly, it's a make-shift setup here, obviously. Maybe you
can just come up towards the front row so more people can be closer
to you.
MR. PIRES: Is it possible to have the motion restated also since
we've had so much discussion?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We'll do that before we vote. I
want to make sure we have all the input before we actually start
voting on motions.
MR. KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Colin
Kelly with Parker Beach Restoration. I'd just like to ask, have any of
you members gone down and looked at the sand web project? (Mr. Kroeschell and Mr. Snediker raised their hands.)
MR. KF. LLY: We think that in three weeks time -- although the
weather has not been conducive because we were looking for a
westerly blow instead of a northeastern, but preliminary indications
say that it's accumulated quite a bit of sand. I'd just like to -- we
haven't discussed it, but there has been a major change with DEP as
you know. Mr. Devereau (phonetic) is no longer-- he's resigning
after this month. Our sources say that we're going to find a more
benevolent DEP towards the permitting process and the use of
innovative technology such as the sand web system. Our sources tell
us that there's money available for this should Collier County decide
to apply for it. The contributing factor is somewhat negotiable.
So I would like in the midst of this -- I know we're coming down
to, it seems like, between trucking and dredging, and I'm not saying
that's a wrong decision for you people, but I would like you to keep
an open mind of what's being done right now in Collier County and
go take a look at it. I think you'll see a nice, natural wide beach being
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December 6, 2001
formed in less than three weeks time, and we haven't even hit the
coldfront season where we'll get wave action out of the west.
Please consider this. We're a country in war, and dollars are
going to matter. No matter whose dollars they are, they're going to
matter. I think that when you look and see that we're talking about
three times as much beach using the sand web system, and we're
willing to contract with the county at $8 a cubic yard finished on the
beach in place -- and we only get paid for performance. If we don't
perform, we don't get paid. That's still not bad for the county to
consider.
MR. GRAY: I have a question. Your system has been around
for a short period of time. I'm sorry, but I haven't seen the results. I
will take your word for it, or if some of the people here have seen it,
maybe they can tell us. When could we expect to see, let's say, some
real good results or exactly what we could expect?
MR. KELLY: That's a good question. Preliminarily from our
surveys and what indications I've gotten from talking to the surveyor,
we are looking at an accumulation now of anywhere from a foot plus
on each of the station markers. Just in rough figures, I don't know,
but it's going to come in somewhere maybe between 10,000 cubic --
we don't know, but I think we're going to be impressed. We're going
to be impressed one way or another, either in a bad direction or a
positive direction.
Visually I think we've got a beautiful beach, and I invite each
and every one of you -- we'll make our equipment available. We
have a mule down there to take you the full length of the growing
field and let you see. Then go take a look at the north side of the pier
and the rest of Collier County. I think you would be hard-pressed to
deny that it's the most beautiful beach in Collier County. Take a
look. That's all we ask.
MR. GRAY: You mean right now we --
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December 6, 2001
MR. KELLY: Right now.
MR. GRAY: Well, my question was, is there some point in the
future when we maybe could even know more than what we know
now? Is this a continual thing?
MR. KELLY: I wish I could say this to you, but we're
contracted to go to May. We don't know. We're going to have a
westerly blow this Saturday, so the weatherman says. We would like
to invite you next week to come down. I invite you today to go look
at it. Right now we've had very limited wave energy.
Go take a look at the beach. I encourage you to.
You're the beach committee. You're the Coastal Area Advisory
Committee. I implore you to go take a look with your own eyes.
MR. GRAY: I agree.
MR. STRAPPONI: Mr. Kelly, we certainly appreciate your
input. In reference to Mr. Hovell's memo to the county manager, he
states that the web system placement for next winter is something
that they were going to have to take a hard look at. I think the motion
that's before us right now, is something that we need to talk about
because it has to do with the sand dunes, and I'm not so sure the web
system is having much impact on the sand dunes.
MR. KELLY: Well, I don't disagree with you, but I'll say that
we've accumulated in two or three weeks time a two-foot vertical of
sand. With the existing permitting you have -- there's some serious
eroded beaches in Collier County right now, like 30th Avenue South
towards Gordon Pass. I'm not saying you don't have erosion
problems elsewhere. If you want to see at high tide no beach, take a
look at 30th Avenue South. You're going to see water in the yards.
Now, we believe that in two or three weeks' time if we put two
foot of sand on the beach or a foot of sand on the beach -- there's a
point that maybe as we talked about scraping and grading that we can
take some original sand, some natural sand, and push up and see sand
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December 6, 2001
dunes with it at the county's discretion. We feel like if we have the
success in the next five months as we had in the first month, which is
the lowest wave energy month we'll have, you'll have sand there, and
you've already paid for it.
MR. GRAY: How much sand are you talking about potentially?
MR. KELLY: Well, if we're talking about 30,000 cubic yards
for the whole coastline of Collier County, it certainly bears to reason
that we would have enough sand within our project area -- say a mile
if Collier County did it in mile increments -- we would have enough
sand there, we feel, to build it with sand dunes. That's not impossible
that we can build the dunes with sand that you've already paid for at
$8 a cubic yard.
MR. ROELLIG: Excuse me. Is it the city or the county
monitoring it?
MR. KELLY: The city is.
MR. ROELLIG: Will we be getting reports on how much has
accumulated from your surveys?
DR. STAIGER: Yeah. I was going to give a report on it later.
MR. ROELLIG: Okay. Fine.
MR. KELLY: I'm sorry, Jon. I didn't mean to jump ahead.
DR. STAIGER: No problem.
MR. GRAY: I think it's pertinent now.
DR. STAIGER: Well, the project started at the beginning of
November. They got all of the nets installed by mid November. We
are doing the first monthly performance monitoring this week. The
sea systems will be here next week to carry the monitoring. They're
doing wave-depth profiles, and we have a guy coming in with depth-
sounding equipment, and they will go out an additional couple
thousand feet into the Gulf. That data should be compiled in some
kind of, you know, understandable format, I would think, probably
within two weeks. Then we'll have, essentially, the first of the
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December 6, 2001
monthly monitoring reports available.
From just looking at the system, it appears where the nets are we
have moved the mean-high water line gulfward probably 30 to 40
feet. I mean, you have a berm where the net started and, you know,
you've got a little bit of a depression, and then there's another berm
out there that wasn't there before.
Probably as Colin said, you've got a vertical accumulation of
one to two feet of sand. It depends. Some of the nets -- the nets are
six feet high in some places. After this little bit of weather we had a
week or two ago, there was two or three feet of net buried, but that's
not an even layer. It undulates. So if you even it all off, it's probably
a foot to two feet of sand added in that area. There does not appear to
be perceptible loss of sand either upgrading or downgrading, that is
north or south of the net installation.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: You mean loss from the Parker
web system or loss from mother nature?
DR. STAIGER: No. Loss from the beach on either side of it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: But due to just weather patterns
are you referring to --
MR. KELLY: Erosion.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: -- or due to the web system
gathering sand and therefore perhaps --
DR. STAIGER: Yeah, the web system. That's our concern. If
you build a growing field that's too permeable, you are going to catch
sand which will then starve the beach elsewhere. It doesn't appear to
be happening, but these are very subtle changes. We're only talking
about the first month, so we need to monitor it. That's part of the
whole experiment, to monitor this thing in detail on both sides of it
and within it throughout the duration of the experiment and then for, I
don't know, a year or two afterwards. At any rate, the thing appears
to be working.
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December 6, 2001
The area just immediately up from the net installation, which is
just between 15th Avenue South and the pier, is an area that has been
kind of a hot spot for awhile. Like, 13th or 14th is a highly erosive
area or at least one that has a little beach, and that doesn't seem to be
any worse than it always was.
So, you know, things are looking good. It's difficult to look at it
and try to quantify it because you really need the survey data because
we don't know what's going on offshore. I mean, there's some
topographic changes. You can see some sand bar system changes
when you get -- if you get on the pier, there's kind of a crescent-
shaped bar between the northern nets and the pier that didn't used to
be there. Now, what that's all about, we don't know.
At any rate, we'll have a better idea probably within the next
week and a half or two weeks. I know that Crawford --
MR. KELLY: Well, I talked to Todd Rhodes (phonetic)
yesterday. We had a conference. Essentially every survey line they
took is a cut bigger, so that accumulated sand -- what they were
telling me --
DR. STAIGER: Fill.
MR. KELLY: Well, it's fill, meaning it's higher than what it was
is what he was saying. To bring it back to grade, we would have to
cut each -- I guess -- and I'm not trying to muddy the waters, but I'm
just asking you to go down and take a look and use your own eyes
and your own judgment, and that way it improves your knowledge of
what's going on. Take a look. And, again, take a look at the quality
of the sand. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful.
MR. GRAY: There was another question I had, Jon. The
quality of the sand, it's native sand, and I'm sure it's --
DR. STAIGER: Well, basically the system is intercepting the
sand that's moving, you know, in the wave action which tends to be
finer, medium course and finer sand, and not a lot of rock or anything
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December 6, 2001
like that. So even if there was rock in the system, it tends to not get
trapped so, you know, it's very nice material. It's what was there.
That is an area that has been -- that had some rock problems that
were excavated and sifted two or three times. So I think as far as the
rock removal effort in that part of the beach goes, it's been
accomplished. So the sand that's down there is good sand, and this
system is bringing in that material, which is nice material.
MR. KELLY: Again, not to confuse things, but if you want to
see -- Collier County has serious problems with 30th Street South and
those homes. The water is at the seawall. We believe or we have
reason to believe that the DEP and the permitting and the funding of
the sand web system would be more favorably received than ever.
We're not seeing it as a panacea for Collier County's problems,
absolutely not, but we certainly deserve to be in another area in your
group of instruments you use to put Collier County beaches back so
that the tourists and the residents can enjoy them.
We certainly encourage you to come down. If you would like to
give me a call at Parker Beach Restoration, I'll make available to any
member here our vehicle to take you the whole length and let you see
it for yourself. Kick the tires and see what you think.
MR. ROELLIG: It's only a half mile, so it's not too hard to
walk.
MR. KELLY: It's not too hard, but then again, I think Dr.
Staiger brought out a good point. The greatest fear for the
intelligencia of this industry is that we're going to erode the downside
drill. See for yourself if that's true.
MR. KROESCHELL: Mr. Chairman, I believe we should move
on. We'll look at the report the next time.
MR. KELLY: Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Will do.
MR. SNEDIKER: Can we get a copy of the report with our
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December 6, 2001
minutes next time or at least have the meeting itself-- MR. HOVELL: When they're available, yes.
MR. GRAY: I just have one question. This was something that
the city started, this sand web thing? MR. HOVELL: Yes.
MR. GRAY: Does the county have any problem with this or
any comments about it?
MR. HOVELL: I think the only thing we have to keep in mind
is, you know -- yes, we'll get the monthly reports. We'll get the --
when they pull the nets out in late April, I imagine there will be some
kind of report at that point. But I think -- as Jon said, I think from a
state point of view, I think the monitoring requirements go on for a
year or even two. Certainly today I would tend to guess that planning
on using the sand web system either this year or next year anywhere
other than where it's currently permitted is probably not very likely to
happen.
Now, longer term -- two or three or four years down the road as
thing change with DEP and the experiment is finished and the reports
are done, yes, it may become more and more possible to make use of
it, but in the short term I would tend to say it's not very likely.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I was going to say that, too,
because it's enough to peek one's interest with the early results. I
don't know if the correct term is "experimental," but it's basically an
experimental permit. They're going to, I assume, want to see
certainly the data for the project when it's in place and then follow up
to see if the sand stays there in the same fashion and that type of
thing. So it's just something for us to keep in mind as we take the
intermediate and long-term approach.
MR. HOVELL: I was wandering through the Florida State
Statutes related to the beach erosion control program, and this one--
161.09, I think, it's more related to what they spent their money on.
Page 46
December 6, 2001
But nevertheless, it's interesting that the goals of their program
include maximizing the infusion of beach-quality sand into the
system, not moving around what's there. So, you know, either
something like this is going to have to change if they really are going
to be make longer-term use based on experimental results, or you're
really not going to see them going out on a limb to spend money on
something that --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: This is sort of--
MR. HOVELL: -- the statute says doesn't meet the goals.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It's sort of cutting edge. We'll
know in several years if this is going to be easily done or not.
MR. ANDERSON: The other thing I would like to mention is
that there is a change in the administration underway of the DEP in
Tallahassee as far as the beach program is concerned. So we may see
some less conservatism coming from the state down the line, but
we'll watch that closely.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Dr. Staiger.
DR. STAIGER: Yeah. Just amplifying on what you just said,
we got a pretty strong reading from DEP in this year-long effort we
went through to get the permits for this experiment. They didn't want
to see any more experiments until they saw how this one worked.
But Kerby Green is no longer the deputy director of DEP. A1
Devereau is out as the director of beaches and coastal systems. The
beaches and coastal systems program has been placed into water
resources -- I think it's water resources and DEP, so they're
reorganizing things.
As Colin said there may be a different level of scrutiny, and
there may be more sympathy for the project in the new administration
up there. It certainly wouldn't hurt when the contracts are signed
with the coastal engineering firms for the county to have one of those
firms tasked with looking at, you know, could they get a permit
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December 6, 2001
elsewhere for another project using the Parker system. I mean, six
months ago I would have said, you know, based on what we went
through to get our permit, no way, but it's a different regime, and it
may well be something that's now feasible.
So at least it might be worth looking at because if they say,
"Okay. We'll wait and see how the data from the Naples beach goes,
but you can try it again somewhere else," the big stumbling block is
the monitoring that we have to do which is horribly expensive.
We've got to have somebody out there looking at those nets all day,
every day, around the clock. They have to be inspected every two
hours, and in order to do that with 36 nets you've got one person
basically walking the nets. By the time they get done at one end,
they're back at the other starting over again.
That cost is very expensive. If you subtract that out of the
project, then it becomes much more competitive because it's -- you
know, the sand -- the cost per cubic yard for the sand or just for the
netting is not that bad; it's all this other stuff you have to do along
with it. So it might be worth pursuing, you know, can they do it
again somewhere else with less monitoring. They may say -- the
state may say no, the state may say yes, but it's probably worth
looking at.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We're not going to,
Mr. Kelly, go through that whole thing. I wanted you to have the
opportunity to introduce the experiment and introduce the system to
the committee today because I didn't know if everyone was familiar
with it. We'll have plenty of opportunities to watch it develop and to
hear presentations. But I did want to consider all these options fully,
because there are a lot of them, and there are different layers here to
consider.
Mr. Roellig, you had a motion on the table.
MR. ROELLIG: Would it be possible to get that from the court
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December 6, 2001
reporter?
THE
MR.
THE
I'm going
COURT REPORTER: I have no idea where it is.
ROELLIG: Okay. No problem.
COURT REPORTER: It's not in English. I'm sorry.
to need to change my paper soon.
And
MR. ROELLIG: It's probably simpler to start over.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: You don't have to repeat it from
memory, but maybe the content --
MR. PIRES: Mr. Chairman, the court reporter may need a paper
break soon, so I don't know if you want to do that now or --
THE COURT REPORTER: I've got about six more minutes of
paper.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We'll finish this item and then
take a five-minute break, so if you want to restate the motion.
MR. ROELLIG: I move that we proceed with the 50,000-cubic-
yard placement as soon as possible for material from the upland
source with the distribution or locations to be decided. I'm looking at
involving the city, if financially feasible, as far as the placement goes
so that we can have construction started in the near future and
completed before we start turtle season. I think that was the gist of
my motion.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Would you add to that
encouragement to the county -- we talked earlier about the increased
price per unit, and the commission is concerned about that. With
over a 400,000-cubic-yard allotment, that would be a lot of money.
With 50,000, which we're deeming almost emergency type of
activity, I would hope -- you know, it's a little more than 10 percent
of the project and a little bit more than a 2 percent cost increase if
you look at the whole project -- to encourage them as part of that
motion to get it done before the turtle season.
MR. ROELLIG: I was looking at maybe getting the 50,000
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December 6, 2001
started. We've got to do other contracting work. You've got
contracts basically in place and negotiated to do the 50,000; is that
correct?
MR. HOVELL: Well, we have a proposal from the one
company.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I'm saying -- if there's a majority
-- to impress on the commission that after our discussions we believe
even though the price might not be very attractive on that first
50,000, the need to hit some dunes and to hit Park Shore with that
50,000 means that we may have to spend a little more per unit in the
short run.
MR. HOVELL: Correct.
MR. PIRES: I'm ready to second the motion. My understanding
of the motion --
MR. KROESCHELL: I seconded it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Mr. Kroeschell has seconded it.
MR. PIRES: The 50,000 from the upland source is focused on
the dune restoration which has as a component of it the Park Shore
aspect as well as the overall county dune restoration.
MR. ROELLIG: Right.
MR. PIRES: Okay.
MR. SNEDIKER: The dune restoration is over the entire county
where needed. MR. HOVELL:
MR. ROELLIG:
Right.
We're not specifying all the locations, right.
MR. STRAPPONI: My understanding is it's about 30,000 cubic
yards that we need for the dune restoration, and the rest go to the
Park Shore area.
MR. ROELLIG: That's my understanding.
MR. KROESCHELL: So 20,000 for Park Shore.
MR. PIRES: When the Board of County Commission sees that
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December 6, 2001
on January 8th, they'll understand that.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Some of that really needs to
remain flexible. I think the point Mr. Roellig is making in this
motion is to impress upon county commission that we believe the
50,000 cubic yards have to be placed as soon as possible. And if the
unit cost is higher in this case than we've spent before or that we hope
to spend in the future, the need for the fifty thousand -- whether it's
thirty and twenty or whatever the mix is, we need to do it.
MR. PIRES: Okay. That would be communicated, I guess, to
the TDC for January 7th and to the BCC for the January 8th meeting?
MR. ROELLIG: Why do we need to go back to them?
MR. PIRES: I'm just looking at the memo from the county
manager to Ron. It talks about the four points that they're looking for
direction, I guess; is that correct?
MR. ROELLIG: I don't think this needs to go back to the TDC,
does it?
MR. GRAY: I was thinking this is something that can be done
post-haste.
MR. PIRES: I just want to get clarification. The last paragraph
of the memorandum talks about alternatives that will be reviewed for
how to restore the beaches and includes, one, dune restoration prior
to the next turtle season. There's four points.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Well, this is funded by TDC.
The question is, will the county step up to pay them the higher unit
costs. That's why we're trying to put on record what our feelings are.
MR. HOVELL: Well, ultimately, if there's a project overrun,
we would have to go back to the TDC as well. But as you point
out --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We're just doing a tiny segment
of the entire project.
MR. HOVELL: Right. I guess the second point is -- you know,
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December 6, 2001
I figured we were going to do some trucking. All the options have
some amount of trucking in them. I mean, it focuses on which way to
do the trucking. It doesn't-- I guess what I was anticipating is, if
we're going to change the whole 400,000 yards worth of trucking to
potentially dredging or sand web or something other than trucking, I
think that would probably need to go back through that.
MR. PIRES: Okay. So that last paragraph of the
memorandum --
MR. HOVELL: That's what I was looking at.
MR. PIRES: -- doesn't really apply to this discussion?
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. I mean, if we want to say, "Let's do
what we can ASAP" -- whether that's through the city or a contractor
-- and, I mean, "I think I'm going to do that in advance of January
8th" -- whereas, if you say, "Let's change to do -- you know, next
winter or two winters from now let's do a dredge project to some
degree," then I think that is something that both the TDC and the
Board of County Commissioners would expect to hear because we're,
in essence, changing the plan.
Right now the plan is to do the 400,000 yards, I guess, by
trucking only, but certainly as soon as possible. Whereas, if we
change to dredging we're probably making a conscious decision to do
it two years from now because of the rock-removal issue and
permitting issues and whatnot.
MR. GRAY: And inherent in this -- well, not inherent, but if
this motion were to pass and if it were to be approved by the other
bodies, this would take place, you think, by the end of January? We
can get this done by the end of January?
MR. HOVELL: I think that would be one of the questions, and I
think the city is probably the major player in agreeing or disagreeing
with the timing of when we do the work. I got the impression from
City Council that, you know, they would like to snap their fingers, as
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December 6, 2001
all of us would, and start tomorrow, but I didn't hear them say, "Go
ahead and work through tourist season to get it done." I think that's
going to be something they're going to have to allow us to do,
because there's obviously a lot of traffic.
MR. GRAY: I would like personally to see that happen, you
know, real quick right after it's approved and, hopefully, be done by
the end of January.
MR. SNEDIKER: Gary, what's the city's point of view on that?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We didn't take a formal position,
at least not that I recall on that aspect of it, but the sense of the
discussion I will say was that we would be willing to -- not just
willing, but even encouraged to work through tourist season.
Understand again, however, we have been working under the
assumption that we have not just aesthetics at issue here from the
width of the beach but some structural risks. That has been our
working assumption.
MR. SNEDIKER: Could Naples City Council give a motion or
encouragement to the county to work through -- let the county know
that you are willing to have them work through tourist season to get it
done?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I think we probably should take
that action.
MR. SNEDIKER: Yeah. Maybe instead of a formal action--
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Even though it's a county project
-- since the city borders so much of the beach and it would be a new
break from the past precedence to do that, you would probably want
some resolution or a letter from the mayor or something.
MR. HOVELL: I don't remember the exact details, but I had
written a letter to the city manager back when we thought we were
going to start on December 1st asking which beach accesses am I
allowed to use, what times of the day, what days of the week, and I
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December 6, 2001
don't remember if I specifically asked if we could work into tourist
season, but perhaps it was implied that we wouldn't be. Certainly
now because of the late start date, I think that is something that --
whether it's the City Council or the city manager, I think somebody at
Naples has to tell us --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I agree. My sense is we will. I
guess we're also saying, "Let's get our ducks in a row." We spent a
month with consternation over the pricing. Today's point is to
encourage the commissioners to go forward on that 50,000 even with
a higher unit price, as I understand it.
MR. ROELLIG: I call for the question.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. We've had a member call
for the question which we will do. As to
Mr. Roellig's motion, all in favor. (Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Opposed.'?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It passes unanimously.
MR. ROELLIG: I'd like to make another motion.
I move that the county be encouraged as well to work on items with
our new -- I'm not going to define this word -- but prepare a
reconnaissance report on the estimated cost of doing dredging, using
a sand source such as Fort Myers or Romano shoals, because I think
it's important. That's the motion. I think it's important that -- MR. PIRES: I'll second the motion for discussion.
MR. ROELLIG: Okay. Thank you. I think it's important that
we get some specific numbers here so we know what we're
comparing it against. We have a pretty good idea what the trucking
is and so forth, but when you start talking about hopper dredges and
rehandling and sand source searches and all that sort of thing, the
numbers can get pretty substantial. I'm not sure that it would
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December 6, 2001
necessarily be a lot cheaper to do it that way, but I would like to find
out.
MR. GRAY: I agree. I think that what we just passed, the one
that we just passed, takes care of our immediate needs. MR. ROELLIG: Right.
MR. GRAY: I think this group needs more input to be able to
make a decision that's what I'm going to call longer range which
would then also allow us to look at the Parker sand web project along
with them. We might have more data than -- although that might be a
little further down the road.
MR. PIRES: I think that's what the Chairman, Gary, was
indicating before. There's some other items that we need, I think,
from the standpoint in order to make, I think, an articulate, good
recommendation to the county commission with regard to ranking
methodology and those kind of issues. There's a lot of information
here, but I think there's a lot that we still need. Unfortunately, you're
on a short fuse, it looks like, under this memo. I'm going back to that
memo.
MR. HOVELL: Believe me, every day I pull my hair out.
MR. PIRES: Stop doing that, Ron.
MR. HOVELL: Whatever kind of contract agreement, or
whatever it's called, with the state to reimburse us for beach-related
work includes as one of their line items that they agree that they will
cost-share with us 50 percent to do a sand search, and they don't care
if we don't use it until the year 2008 or next year.
So I think perhaps in order to get that going, though, since it
doesn't really fit into any particular project -- I don't know. I'm kind
of talking out loud here. Maybe it does fit into this beach-recovery
project if you take a second step and say, "Let's explore all the
options including sand searches and potential dredging, and maybe I
could do it under that project number and go and start that sand-
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December 6, 2001
search process and get the state to pay their 50 percent. Or I could
write up a grant application, and we could review it on the 3rd of
January and at the TDC on the 7th and the Board of County
Commissioners on the 8th and have it be a separate project to go do a
sand search.
MR. ROELLIG: My view is I want to see what -- I'm going to
assume that the sand is in these locations, and I want to see what the
costs are we're looking at for hopper dredges. Hopper dredges are
extremely expensive. There's a big mobilization cost, rehandling,
and all of that sort of thing. I think we need to get sort of an order of
magnitude and number of what we're talking about.
MR. KROESCHELL: Well, you do it the way you feel, Ron.
MR. ROELLIG: I think, you know, going for another-- that
would be a separate step to go out and actually do the sand search.
But I think, you know, it's kind of-- when I said "reconnaissance," I
meant a simplified study to get sort of an order of magnitude of the
actual dredging costs and rehandling costs. Because we're not
looking at just one spot on the beach; we're looking over many miles,
so there's a lot of variability in costs depending on where you put the
sand.
MR. SNEDIKER: With the same situation we have now. But
with the quarter-million-dollar project we just finished last spring, we
got some pretty good ideas of where sand travels there. MR. ROELLIG: Right.
MR. SNEDIKER: We don't want to duplicate any of that cost
and time, so maybe the new engineers or whoever is involved could
look at those or take those reports and study them very carefully to
see what options we have to go to them and then come up with some
cost figures as to how to get the sand out of the beach from there.
MR. KROESCHELL: You do it the way you feel, but I would
say this is a very integral part of the overall project and, therefore,
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December 6, 2001
you should go ahead with it under the current project of beach
restoration.
MR. HOVELL: I think in some preliminary discussions I've had
with various folks, like engineers who may know something about
dredging, I certainly had the impression that dredging is going to be
less expensive than trucking. Now, to what degree -- is it half, or is it
75 percent, or even 80 or 90 percent? You know, like you said, it's
going to depend on the specific location and where we want them --
which beaches exactly we want them to go to, but I certainly have to
feel that it's less than trucking it.
MR. ROELLIG: Well, that's fine. My feeling is there has been
-- I'm not aware of any specific location, but I'm sure there's been
some hopper dredging and projects of this type somewhere in the
Florida area or the Carolinas or something. So I'm not looking to
spend a lot of money on -- I'm just trying to get some recent
experience of what kind of order of magnitude we're talking about.
MR. GRAY: I call for the question.
MR. HOVELL: Did you happen to have a number?
MR. HUMISTON: Yeah. In fact, Tom worked on the Captiva
project, and we were working in the City of Sanibel and used the
same dredge at the same time to put sand on the beach. I think
Sanibel's overall cost was somewhere around $12 a yard. Do you
know what Captiva was?
MR. KEEHN: Yeah. Ours was ten or in that range.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG:
so we'll take our vote. All in favor.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG:
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG:
MR. HOVELL:
Mr. Gray has called the question,
Opposed?
It passes unanimously 8-0.
I'm sorry. Just so I know in advance of two
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December 6, 2001
weeks from now when the minutes come out, what exactly am I
trying to do? Just come up with budgetary figures?
MR. GRAY: A guesstimate of what it would cost for --
MR. HOVELL: Based on specific quantities and hopper
dredging as opposed to a general guess without knowing quantities or
the method; is that right?
MR. GRAY: You can use their study, the Humiston, Moore
study, as a resource and get these people involved to whatever extent
you feel like you need to.
MR. ROELLIG: Did they use a hopper dredge at
Sanibel/Captiva?
MR. KEEHN: Yes.
MS. LUPO: I think earlier you also mentioned the difference
between finding a place 10 or 15 miles offshore versus Rookery Bay
on the south end and Lee County on the higher end, so I think that's
another alternative.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Right.
MR. SNEDIKER: It would be different.
MR. GRAY: I know this is down the road, but I just want to say
it for the record. Personally, if we can get the quality of sand that we
know is out there and not go through this problem we had in 1996, I
would personally like to see it dredged and brought in. I think it's
cheaper. It's less invasive.
You can work pretty much throughout the year, I think, doing
that except maybe during the storm season in the summer. It gets a
little tough then because of the storms. But I just think it's a much
more efficient way to get it done. We just made a big mistake in
1996 with what we all know happened, and that doesn't necessarily
mean that has to happen again.
MR. HOVELL: Absolutely. I think other than turtle season,
you know, I think it is less invasive. Certainly traffic isn't there. You
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December 6, 2001
only have to close the segment of beach that you're actually filling,
you know, because you're not blocking traffic. You're not closing
down Horizon Way. You don't have --
MR. GRAY: Interference, much less with traffic on the beach.
MR. HOVELL: I tend to think so.
MR. PIRES: Mr. Chairman, are there any other items you think
you may have want to have staff sort of prepare more detailed
analysis or review to help us in making the recommendations?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Well, this will take time. My own
view is this will take time to evolve. We're going to need engineers
with contracts to give us some advice. We don't want to duplicate
work that's already been done or request funding that's already there.
It will by necessity be a work in progress, I think. I think what we
needed to accomplish today, and we did, is to emphasize the need for
the short-term actions on the beach and then get the proper
professional data and the proper staff study in which to make
coherent decisions on the longer-term goals.
MR. PIRES: I guess what I'm reading from this memo, though,
is that you plan on having the county commission make some
decisions on longer term sort of utilization or renourishment? That's
why I keep going back to this January 8th memo. It seems to tie back
into this, which goes out a couple of years it seems like.
MR. HOVELL: Well, if we were going to change the long-term
project then, yes, I think we need to go back through that process.
I'm not sure how to say it other than to just be blunt. I think we've
made a short-term decision, and I think what I'm hearing is we don't
have enough information to make a long-term decision. MR. PIRES: Okay.
MR. HOVELL: But, in essence, if we don't do it, you know,
this go around, then we're not going to make January 8th, and it just
continues to kick down the road.
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December 6, 2001
MR. PIRES: Why was the January 8th day a critical date? Any
particular reason?
MR. HOVELL: Only because the TDC only meets once a
quarter, and January 7th is the TDC meeting. Beyond that it's not
until April.
MR. PIRES: But can they maybe have a special meeting
because of the -- I think the sense you get from this whole committee
is we need to have as much data as possible. I'm sure the TDC would
wish to have that also.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We're not going to get done.
What we're talking about is not for 2002. MR. PIRES: Right.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It might be the fall of 2002, but
it's not for the spring, so it's a false emergency. It's better to have a
good database in which to make a decision.
MR. PIRES: Oh, I agree, but I get the sense that they want to
make some decisions in January. MR. GRAY: No.
MR. STRAPPONI: Mr. Chairman, four of these options make
reference to approximately $350,000 for the search for sand. I
assume that's sand offshore.
MR. HOVELL: Uh-huh.
MR. STRAPPONI: I have one question real quick, Ron. If we
find it and where we find it and if it's of suitable quality, with the
dynamics that exist out there, how long is it going to be there? If we
locate suitable sand -- do you know what I'm asking? If we locate
suitable sand and we say, "Well, it's reasonable to expect it to be
there for the season, and then it's subject to move" -- is it pretty
stable?
MR. HOVELL: It's pretty stable.
MR. STRAPPONI: Okay. My next question would be, if we're
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December 6, 2001
looking at four or five options here, and all but pure trucking involves
searching for that sand, I would like to think that this body could
make a decision today to just say, "Let's spend the $350,000 and find
it, locate it, identify where it is, and then and only then we make
some decision as to whether or not on a long-term basis we want to,
you know, look at hydraulic restoration versus trucking.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We're starting to talk about it so
much that we're doubling over and doubling up, but a 350,000-cubic-
yard permit is for upland sand, isn't it?
MR. STRAPPONI: I'm talking about $350,000.
MR. GRAY: For the sand search?
MR. STRAPPONI: For the sand search. So three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars on an eight or nine million dollar decision, I
think we should just go ahead and do it.
MR. GRAY: I agree with you, but I think I would prefer to wait
until the next meeting when these people are on board, No. 1, and
you've been able to do your research, and then we'll see, "Do we
really need to look further?" And if we do, then let's make that
decision at that time.
MR. SNEDIKER: Don't we --
MR. STRAPPONI: What I'm saying is that we should be
looking, you know, at whether we already have the information in
place or we need to look further. We need to look before we can pass
any judgment on hydraulic.
MR. GRAY: Yeah, I agree. I think that is what's in the motion
too.
MR. SNEDIKER: Don't we have a lot of that information
already? Maybe not 100 percent, but 85 percent out of the way? We
spent a quarter million dollars last winter.
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. I don't remember where that number
came from. That may have been an old number before we did any
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December 6, 2001
work. You know, a lot of work had been done, and so that's just a
number. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. I think, you know, I'll
talk to Roy and Tom Wides and Jim Mudd, and we'll figure out
which way to go. I would tend to think that I'll probably end up
doing a grant application for-- an out-of-cycle grant application for
the current fiscal year, because the state's willing to cost-share it to do
the full-blown sand search.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I'm going to suggest-- I think
we've accomplished what we need to accomplish today. Let's take it
up January 8th. We'll be taking it up February 6th. We'll be taking it
up every month. This is what the committee does. This is what we'll
be meeting about month after month. I think we have accomplished
our needs. It's a big topic, an important topic, but we also have about
eight or ten other items here.
We'll move on now to 3-C, which is the TDC category update.
MR. ANDERSON: This is part of our regular monthly financial
report, so we'll pass that out to you right now. There aren't any real
significant changes. I think you'll see that the one major item is the
Lake Trafford work. There was a transfer made there for that
purpose.
MR. GRAY: Is there some way we can get that with our packet
next month?
MR. HOVELL: Only if you want it a month old. Basically I
have to do this, more or less, on the first Tuesday of each month, and
this meeting is on the first Thursday of each month. So if I was to
have sent you this packet a week and a half ago, it would have been
the November packet, and it would be, you know, three or four weeks
old.
MR. GRAY: I think it's hard to comprehend. You know, there's
a lot of data here. To make it meaningful for our meeting, I would
almost rather have it a month old than be able to study it beforehand.
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December 6, 2001
MR. ANDERSON: Then we can tell you the updates at the
meeting.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We can do it either way, because
if there's something significant that --
Mr. Gray is right. Of course we can't absorb all of this in a minute or
two, but you as staff would know if there's a significant departure or
a significant event that occurred which required an expenditure, but
this is really a budget update. These are summaries of what's already
been authorized. So it's really more in the nature of an update which,
I believe, is what it's called on our agenda.
MR. HOVELL: It is, and as Roy pointed out and I think you did
too, we know what the big changes were between last time and this
time, and we'll summarize those for you as we hand these things out.
But as far as getting them to you, I'll do it whichever way you prefer.
The only change between the November 1st report and the December
1st report -- the only major change is that we did a budget
amendment for the Lake Trafford restoration operation.
There was a big ribbon-cutting ceremony and whatnot about two
weeks ago. That project was approved by the TDC back in about
1998, I think, or maybe '97, but because of the problem of not signing
any kind of interagency agreement, somehow it got dropped out of
the budget. So as we enter this year-- and they finally signed it in
maybe late October, early November. It calls for up to $500,000 this
fiscal year, a million next year, and $500,000 the year after. Since it
wasn't in the budget, I had to do a budget amendment to come up
with that $500,000. Since we had already taken everything there was
to take out of the reserve, I had to pick a project. So I did pick a
project. You'll find it in there someplace.
MR. ROELLIG: Can you give us a clue?
MR. HOVELL: Page 5 -- oh, no, that's Lake Trafford.
MR. PIRES: Where did it go?
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December 6, 2001
MR. HOVELL: There it is. On page 2 a little more than
halfway down, you'll see the minus $500,000 came out of the Marco
Island Breakwater modifications. And since we weren't going to get
to do the construction on that this year anyway, from executing that
project point of view, it doesn't matter. Then as we build up reserves
and whatnot, we'll just restore that project to its full amount. But I
had to play that shell game.
I can say now that I've been here a couple of months that I've
reviewed all the old records, both TDC and various advisory
committees and the Board of County Commissioners, and I think
that's the only project that managed to fall through the cracks as far as
being approved but not having a budget to back it up. So as long as
we keep on that track, we shouldn't have that problem again.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Mr. Gray, on your point, if we
lose a month in terms of the currency of the data by getting it in our
packet -- I guess I suggest we do it this way: That we get it at the
meeting, we hear a summary of highlights, and then we can review it
at our leisure. After the meeting if we have questions -- this will be
on the agenda every time. We can bring up questions at that point.
MR. GRAY: That's fine.
MR. HOVELL: You know, if you see something -- if you go
home tonight and you read it and see something, you're certainly free
to call me up and ask me in the interim. You know, you don't have to
wait until the next meeting. MR. GRAY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Item D --
MR. SNEDIKER: Could I ask a question?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Oh, yeah. Sorry.
MR. SNEDIKER: Many of these items are engineering
assignments. When does the county expect to have the engineers on
board with these official assignments and have them beginning to
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December 6, 2001
work? Do we have any dates on that?
MR. HOVELL: Well, anything that's specific work that requires
engineering and ultimately project execution, I would like to think--
I picked out what those projects are and sort of penciled in
assignments pending having signed contracts, and I'll ask for
proposals to get on with doing it. But the ones that related to annual
monitoring, if the monitoring isn't needed to be done until May or
June, then I haven't worried about those yet.
MR. SNEDIKER: Right. How about those that you need to do
the proposals and so on? When do you expect to have those?
MR. HOVELL: Things like the Marco Island Breakwaters
and -- what else is in here that's specific? -- Hideaway Beach
renourishment, Hideaway Beach access improvement; things that if
we had somebody available to start working on it, they could start
working on it as opposed to monitoring where we just get the
paperwork lined up, but they wouldn't do it until May or June.
Yeah. I think I pretty much pencilled all those things in, and
I've been having conversations with the three firms. I've even been
telling them to start thinking along these lines, but until I have signed
contracts I'm not officially asking for proposals.
MR. SNEDIKER: Let me further my question then. When do
you expect to have signed contracts and the proposals and the
proposals accepted and assigned to the engineers? Are we talking 30
days, 60 days, or -- I'm not trying to pinpoint you down, or maybe I
am.
MR. HOVELL: This is my first time with the county. I mean,
this is -- I was with the federal government, and everything else in the
federal government took a lot longer. This is the part about the
county that takes longer than the federal government. In the federal
government, they delegate the authority to a contracting officer, and
when you get the right kind of proposal in, you can sit down and sign
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December 6, 2001
it back to them, and you're done.
In the county I have to get the Board of County Commissioners
to sign it. For some reason, even though they approved these
contracts on November 13th, I still don't have signed contracts. I'm
told every time I call "any day," but here it is December 6th, and I
don't have signed contracts. I've been told, you know, other people
have had experiences where it typically takes about a month to end
up with a signed contract.
MR. SNEDIKF. R: Then you go to the individual engineering
firms -- basically the three you selected -- to have proposals on
individual projects?
MR. HOVELL: Right.
MR. SNEDIKER: Then roughly how long after you get a
contract would you expect the proposal back and you award the
proposal -- the contract -- the job assignment for the proposal?
MR. HOVELL: I don't know. That usually takes a week or two
or three depending on if there's any questions and whatnot. That's
why I try to give them a heads-up of what's coming, so hopefully we
can talk about some of those issues a little bit. So with the holidays
coming up, I mean, it might be the first or second week of January
but, you know, fairly soon.
MR. SNEDIKER: Thank you.
(Mr. Anderson left.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Any other questions on the TDC
report?
Okay. Now, rock-removal plan, Item 3-D. That's going to be
the status of the consent order and so forth.
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. I just put it on there because I know it's
a hot topic, you know, to remind me to provide any updates.
I still have not gotten any feedback from the state. The only
thing I can add is that -- Roy had to leave, but he apparently went to
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December 6, 2001
school with and/or knows the ombudsman for the Florida DEP who
helps, you know, resolve conflicts. So he called him and asked him
to help stir the pot on getting some things broken free.
I don't know if it's as a result of that or what, but the first sign
I've seen that they've actually given any thought to our plan was that I
was asked to present them an electronic copy so that they could just
make the changes that they would like to see done and hand it back to
us as a draft type of thing. So maybe in the next week or two I'll get
something out of that.
Beyond that, I think the other issue that came up at Monday
morning's workshop, which might be where -- both you and I are
trying to get back to those various folks that it was said in front of,
but, you know, it's been my impression that unless you're specifically
authorized to do something, you don't have the authority to do it. So
when we were discussing whether or not we could go out into the
surf and pick up rocks, I was using the normal project procedures and
saying, "Well, no, you have to describe what you're going to do even
under an existing permit and go get a notice to proceed from the
state."
I've been trying to research that because Mr. Boggess takes
exception with that interpretation, and most of the people that I've
talked to tend to agree with him that, in fact, since we've been
ordered to remove rocks and the rocks are there or were placed there
under the existing permit or under an existing project -- it seems that
the project is held an open status and that we may, in fact, be able to
just go get rocks anytime we want and pretty much do it any way we
want as long as it's within the boundaries of the permit, i.e., not
during turtle season and, you know, watching out for water-quality
standards such as turbidity and whatnot.
But it's interesting that even people at DEP have given me
different answers depending on which section I've spoken to, so I'm
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December 6, 2001
trying to finish that discussion. But the end result may be that we
don't really have to go get specific authority to do any type of rock
removal.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: That would be the hand picking
of rocks?
MR. HOVELL: Well, it could be hand picking or even with
machinery. As long as it's within all the various permit conditions, I
don't think it requires a separate notice to proceed. They're just
expecting that we're going to do it. But the consent order kind of
complicates that.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: But the consent order, you know,
until that's finalized, you don't have a truly final resolution on the size
limitation and a sample on that, do we?
MR. HOVELL: Well, the consent order is final. It's just the
rock-removal plan that's not final.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay.
MR. HOVELL: I got the impression when they called me the
other day and asked me to send that to them electronically that their
vision of how this was going to work from here on out is that they'll
either approve the rock-removal plan in its entirety, or -- and we
talked about it a little -- what they may very well do is approve the
first phase, which was more of the "go find where the rocks are" and
then require us to turn in plans and specifications to execute it. Then
they would approve those plans and specifications before we could
go do that part.
I guess the main thing I wanted to point out about the whole
rock-removal issue is, I tend to doubt we'll be doing much of
anything this winter. It will probably be starting in November. I'm
hoping -- you know, if things go well, we might do the sampling side
of things and maybe find where the rocks are, but we certainly won't
get a chance to remove the rocks until next winter.
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December 6, 2001
MR. STRAPPONI: How can we replenish without removing
rocks?
MR. HOVELL: That's exactly my point. We can't. That's why
even though -- all other things being equal except for that issue, I
would have said, "Oh, yeah, clearly, let's truck what we can this
winter, and let's dredge next winter." But if you bring in big
equipment like that, they want to do everything. Well, we can't do
everything because we have this rock issue. So maybe the answer is
truck enough to do the storm protection, do the rock removal next
winter, and plan on doing the dredging the winter after that. MR. STRAPPONI: That's what I see.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: As long as we can stipulate -- it's
already way delayed from what we had hoped.
MR. GRAY: Either that or put an ad in the paper and ask
everyone in the city or in Collier County to go down and get one rock
and take it home.
MR. ROELLIG: Put a bounty on it.
MR. STRAPPONI: A rock bounty.
MR. ROELLIG: Don't put that on there.
THE COURT REPORTER: It's too late.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Do we have any other questions
on rock removal?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Very good. Please keep us
updated, obviously, and let's hope, like so many things, this doesn't
move from season to season.
Item 3-E, Tigertail Beach and Sand Dollar Island. Mr. Snediker,
I know that you had attended a meeting on that, and you're going to
report on it.
MR. SNEDIKER: Yes. Let me draw a little picture up here if I
may. I'll pass these photographs around too. I was planning to do
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December 6, 2001
this in the other room where we have more room. Let me just sort of
draw it out a little bit here.
What we have up here -- this is what was Sand Dollar Island. It
used to be purely an island. It used to be what is now called a lagoon.
There's a tremendous amount of wash rushing through there; actually,
a very strong current to the extent that there have been a number of
drownings in that area.
This is basically the parking area which includes a bathroom
facility and a brand-new concession stand that is being built at
Tigertail now. This is basically the area here that most people use as
the beach.
The lagoon itself now is -- the area here closed off now a
number of years ago, and as it gets up to the north end -- this being
the north end and this being the south end -- the north end at low tide
is basically closed off now. So we have a closed-in lagoon. Whereas
it used to have a flushing action keeping it a very nice beach, that is
now a reasonably stagnant area. It's been filling in as the sand drifts
south.
The lagoon itself you can walk across here. It's about waist
deep. When we have our meeting out there -- I think we're planning
on meeting out there about a month from now at our January
meeting. We will be out there about at average tide, about 1.2 on that
day according to the calculations I can see, and you'll probably be
seeing people walking across there.
It used to be a very nice beach. It's closing in now. If you go up
the -- where are those pictures? Are they around? Thanks. Those
two pictures were taken right about here looking north. One is
looking right up along the island and the other looking towards --
overlooking the lagoon towards the main area of the beach parking
itself.
As one walks up from the main part of Marco Island and walks
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December 6, 2001
up along here, you would never know you're on an island. Nobody
ever knows when they go to this area. Although there is a trash can
here, there is the limit of where people are allowed to go as far as
vehicles are concerned.
The island itself goes out just about two miles of beautiful,
beautiful beach. It's just a gorgeous beach out there except right now
people -- if you come in here and you park your car there, you've got
your cooler, you've got your children, you've got your chairs or your
blanket or something, then you have to walk all the way down here
and get out to here which is very a long walk. There is over a
quarter-of-a-mile walk here. So by the time you get out there with
everything, it's very difficult to do it.
Let me take another color. This area here has a lot of
vegetation. I'll call it weeds or vegetation as such. At lot of it is
roped off. This is basically a critical wildlife habitat-- if I'm using
the right words here. This area here -- a lot of it is roped off for
nesting birds, etc. The idea is to see that people can get from here
over to the other side of the beach.
What is thought of and was proposed by some people is to put a
bridge over here going from here across the lagoon, across the area
that is the wildlife area, and maybe a couple lookout areas or
something of that nature on it. This apparently -- this meeting that
was had on November 8, which was attended by Ron and Al, his
beach inspector. Marla Ramsey, who is our director of parks and
recreation, was there with our beach superintendent and two of their
rangers. The Conservancy was there. Ron was able to bring Phil
Flood from the state DEP there from Tallahassee. We were very
happy to have him there.
The idea is that we're trying to get some communication going.
! guess we're having a hard time between parks and recreation and
Phil Flood. I guess Phil Flood is not answering phone calls or
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December 6, 2001
something like that. We're trying to get this done. This would not
affect us at all. It not be involved in our -- it would be involving
TDC funds, but not the Coastal Advisory Committee building this
bridge.
The only thing we can really do to enhance this, as we'll see
when we get out there -- this beach area here is very hard, a hard-
panned area there, but I guess from what I'm told from A1 Madsen we
cannot do anything about that.
MR. MADSEN: I know we cannot till the beach or anything
because it is a source of food for the wildlife.
MR. SNEDIKER: Parks and recreation would like to have that
done to have a much nicer beach for the beach-goers, but that cannot
be done. So, basically, there's nothing we can do, but we will see this
beach next month. If this bridge can go across, this whole park area
would become much better for the beach-goers. Right now it's the
county's most popular park that we have. So things are very
important that keep the -- we assist in our area to keep this as a very
good beach.
MR. MADSEN: Mr. Snediker, as a point of information, we
can do anything we choose to the mean-high water line. The mud
flaps -- the dark area that is below mean-high water is where we
cannot do any work. We continually clean the beach in the high
areas or above the mean-high water. We maintain that on a regular
basis. But in the dark mud, flat hard areas, we're not allowed to go
into that area.
MR. SNEDIKER: That's a very, very shallow slope. It's about a
30-to-1 slope or something going on out there. I'm not exactly sure
where the mean-high water line comes in.
Another problem that currently is somewhat solvable right now
is -- for example, A1 mentioned our beach inspector cannot take his
vehicle and drive out -- give or take the two miles out. It's a mile and
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December 6, 2001
a half or two miles. He can't drive out there. The city police cannot
go out there. Apparently the sheriff has gone out there, and he says
he's going to go out there when he wants to. In an emergency case,
they can go out there. Trash cans cannot be put out there.
Now, apparently there is a permit that can be obtained -- Nancy
Richie from the City of Marco Island tells me -- from the DEP to
allow A1 to go out there. I thought A1 ought to be able to go out there
and inspect that beach just like he inspects any other beach. I would
also like to see trash cans put out there and trash cans removed.
Again, that's a parks and recreation project, not our project. Right
now the rangers cannot go out there unless they walk the entire area.
MR. ROELLIG: How long would the bridge be?
MR. SNEDIKER: Just about a thousand feet the way I
measured it.
Any questions at all? We'll see you-all next week. Actually, we
will be right here when you look out there.
MR. KROESCHELL: The lagoon is completely closed at the
south end, and the north end is open at high tide; is that right?
MR. SNEDIKF. R: Well, it's closed at low tide. You get a little
bit for low tide, maybe half of a foot or something, and then it starts
opening again. You get a trickle of water where it used to be just, you
know, flow right through there.
MR. ROELLIG: Wading at high tide more or less? I mean, you
can wade in it at high tide?
MR. SNEDIKER: You can walk across it. At high tide, yes,
you can walk across it, but the lagoon is getting kind of dirty. There's
a lot of birds around there, and it gets kind of smelly and stagnant in
there. Now, there have been people who thought about the idea of
filling in the lagoon. That would never happen. There's too much of
a critical wildlife area. People who are thinking about that, you
know, should not waste their time doing that.
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December 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: How permanent -- can anyone
advise on how permanent that is? It hasn't been there all the time. It
seems like it might be a transient condition.
MR. HOVELL: One of the things I have found-- actually, one
of the first things I found in the files when I got here was an article
about Little Estero Island just off of Fort Myers. It has a very similar
history to this one. And since then I've also found some of the
reports. Maura Kraus has been telling me that we had this same
condition in 1989 or 1990.
You know, once again, that finger became part of the beach, and
the next wave of sand coming in got named Sand Dollar Island. I
mean, over the long term, maybe 10, 15, 20 years, it's a repetitious
cycle down there. I'm not even so sure that maybe the whole idea of
a boardwalk wasn't brought up 10 or 15 years ago as an idea of what
to do back then too. Maura is shaking her head yes.
In looking at the records, that's just the way that part of Marco
Island has historically formed, and I imagine it's always going to
continue. So, you know, I think the folks that were there that
remember some of those long term -- "there" being at that meeting
that day when we were standing there talking about it, you know,
tended to say that this might be very transient boardwork. It might
only be there 5 or 10 years, and then depending on how thing change,
we'll maybe have to rip it up and/or relocate it or reorient it or
whatever.
But in the meantime, I mean, I think the main point is that's one
of the few public county parks for beach access, and yet when you
get out to what you would think of as the beach, what you're really
staring at is a very hard-packed brown slimy, slippery -- you can slip
and fall down very easily -- mud flap, and it's just becoming less and
less of an enjoyable place to go.
MR. SNEDIKER: I've got an aerial photograph going back to
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December 6, 2001
1940 and 1952, and the area does move. With one big hurricane, you
know, who knows what would happen. It could be drastically
different.
DR. STAIGER: If you had a storm event of reasonable
magnitude from the right direction, what you do is overwash the
sand, and it fills into the lagoon. Well, eventually if you got either a
big storm or a succession of lesser storms, the lagoon basically gets
totally filled in. What Ron just alluded to is the next sandbar comes
ashore and becomes Sand Dollar Island, the next iteration, and starts
the whole process again.
It might be -- something to look at would be to figure out, based
on some of these historical aerials, where a logical location for a
boardwalk-type structure might be. You put the damn thing in there,
and it functions for a period of time, and then the boardwalk is
basically going over dry land for a period of time, and then maybe 15
years from now the boardwalk starts to function again. Of course,
boardwalks don't last that long unless you make it out of something
that's highly resistant to rot.
That was an idea that was tossed around with the previous beach
committee. It was how do you get people out there without filling the
lagoon in, which is -- you'll never get a permit for it. But the other
concern is, if you access the critical wildlife area, maybe it's too easy
to get to. Then you've got the concerns of the Fish & Wildlife
Conservation Commission, the fish and wildlife services, as to how
you keep people from disturbing the birds and everything that make
that a reason for the critical wildlife area.
MS. HORTON: I'm sure all of the emerged lands there is
critical wildlife area, not just the roped off part, but pretty much the
whole island or peninsula, as you call it, is a critical wildlife area. So
any kind of boardwalk has to not only be, I guess, approved by the
DEP, but you would have to consult the Fish & Wildlife
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December 6, 2001
Conservation Commission because they have jurisdiction over that
area as well.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Could you state your name,
please, and affiliation.
MS. HORTON: Nori Horton for The Conservancy of Southwest
Florida.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Thank you.
MR. KROESCHELL: Mr. Snediker reminded us that at one
time there were wild currents going there, and several people
drowned. The bridge would alleviate that problem.
MR. SNEDIKER: Well, it would be difficult to drown out there
now because it's not very deep. There's no current at all.
MR. KROESCHELL: If it came about again where we had the
currents again, then the people would not have to get across that area,
and they could walk, so that would alleviate that problem because
that was the time that there was a discussion of filling it in because
there were people drowning.
MR. SNEDIKER: Yes. I think we'll see a great deal next
month.
MR. GRAY: I think that's the next step.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I would agree. Mr. Hovell, do
you have anything to add to that?
MR. HOVELL: No. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. Great. Thank you, Mr.
Snediker.
THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Chairman, can we take five
minutes?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Yes. I was just going to suggest
it. We've done five, including our hugest item, and we have five left.
Why don't we take five minutes. Let's try to keep it short so we are
not here into people's dinner hour. We'll be back in five minutes.
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December 6, 2001
(A short break was held from 4:01 p.m. To 4:09 p.m.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I just want to note for the record
that during our short break Miss Lupo had to leave. Mr. Pires is still
with us, but not in attendance this minute. We'll go now to Item 3-F
which is an update on the Wiggins Pass project.
MS. HORTON: Could I ask one more question about patrolling
off Sand Dollar Island?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Yes, certainly.
MS. HORTON: I just didn't know -- could you clarify the
reason for the need for someone to patrol out there in a truck?
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I'm not sure that we established
the need. Mr. Roellig or Al.
MR. MADSEN: I don't--
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Pardon me. Mr. Snediker.
MR. SNEDIKER: There were two reasons that I would think.
One, our beach inspector patrols all the other county -- all the
beaches within the county that we -- no, he doesn't?
MR. HOVELL: I'm sorry to interrupt, but, no, we only patrol
the beaches that we maintain. Since we don't maintain Sand Dollar
Island, we wouldn't have any typical reasons to patrol it.
MR. SNEDIKER: Okay. I guess -- from Al's point of view, I
guess we don't need to then. From the county -- and I'll let the county
parks and recreation speak for themselves, but if they're going to
need more people out there, they may want to have their rangers out
there patrolling from -- call it an overall safety point of view, but I'll
let parks and recreation speak for themselves on that.
MS. HORTON: Since it is state land, I wanted to reiterate that
not only would you have to get a permit from DEP, but you would
have to consult with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation
Commission. I think the regional biologist is -- what's his last? His
name is Zembrano (phonetic), and he's in West Palm Beach, but I
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December 6, 2001
recommend you consult with him.
MR. SNEDIKER: Well, that would be park and recreation to do
that, not our operation.
MS. HORTON: Okay.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Thank you for that clarification.
MR. SNEDIKER: They're the ones that would like to have
more influence, shall we say, and keep the beach nicer. The biggest
thing is trash cans out there. There's a lot of Coke cans and beer cans
and plastic bags around that people don't want to carry back. If
there's trash cans out there, then they have to have some means of
picking up the trash or cleaning out the trash cans periodically. That
would be part of their paroling.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Thank you.
Okay. Now we move on to Item 3-F, the Wiggins Pass dredging
update.
MR. HOVELL: Very briefly, the plans and specifications are
out for bid. I believe they're due about the 19th of December. So I
would anticipate taking that to the board on the 8th of January and
having a contract maybe by, you know, the first of February. So I
would anticipate that late February, early March we'll be out dredging
Wiggins Pass.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Any questions? Okay. Update on
Clam Pass.
MR. HOVELL: That one was or still is a Pelican Bay services
division project, but we're paying close attention because it, in
essence, will restore the dunes on Clam Pass Park. The contract has
been awarded. The pre-construction meeting is scheduled for
Monday the 10th, this coming Monday, and I believe the contractor
intends to start immediately thereafter, maybe Tuesday or
Wednesday. So we ought to see somebody out there dredging.
As I recall, the quantities anticipated to be pulled out happen to
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December 6, 2001
more or less match up with exactly what we need to restore all the
dunes pretty much the entire length of the park, so it works out pretty
well.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: What is the anticipated time
frame, not starting, but the length of the project?
MR. HOVELL: I think they've estimated that unless there's
some bad weather, it will only take them about two to three weeks.
MR. KROESCHELL: I have a question. There was a meeting,
and I wonder if anybody -- the whole thing was about the mangroves
and everything about a week or so ago, and I wonder if anybody in
this group attended.
MR. ROELLIG: I happen to be chairman of that subcommittee.
MR. KROESCHELL: Oh, you are? Okay.
MR. ROELLIG: To make a short comment on the Clam Pass
dredging, I was out there two or three days ago, and they were out
doing surveying already. So it looks like they're ready to -- you
know, I didn't see any equipment in the vicinity, but they're doing
surveying, so that's ready to go.
I'll give you a very short update on the mangroves. We've spent
a lot of money, and the short answer is that we believe we've stopped
the decline. We've had some areas that we were starting to get some
rejuvenation.
(Mr. Pires entered the room.)
MR. ROELLIG: We have very much increased the
effectiveness of the hydraulic tidal flushing. We've dug some canals
back into the stressed mangroves, and they're getting sea water back
in there, and we're hopeful that we've turned the corner a little bit
going into more of a maintenance situation there.
The main reason I'm sort of hopeful is because when Gabrielle
came through, the whole area was kind of overwashed, and all the
mangroves -- the whole area got initially about two feet of water.
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December 6, 2001
Within about 24 to 36 hours, that water drained out of the system.
Prior to that, a couple of years ago, we would get a heavy rain, and
water would stand there for long periods of time, and it seemed to kill
off the mangroves.
So I'm optimistic that we're making some progress now. We've
gone through -- we had a lot of revegetation. We've had some
mangroves start growing. We have kind of a ground cover called
betus (phonetic) that's growing up in the area. The problem in the
past -- years ago when that happened, the summer rains would come,
and water would stand there and, of course, it would get very hot and
kill everything off. We've gone through the whole summer now, and
there has been no significant dying off of what was there when the
rainy season started.
We have some optimism that the mangrove situation is at least --
what's a good word? It's stabilized. We've had some additional die-
off, but we've had some rejuvenation, and we think we're on the road
to more rejuvenation.
MR. KROESCHELL: At the meeting we had up there two
meetings ago, the representative from Pelican Bay said that they
really weren't encouraging the dredging of Clam Pass because
Gabrielle had kept it open, but we're going to do it anyhow. So that's
got to help things rather than hinder.
MR. ROELLIG: It will help somewhat. Basically Gabrielle
was a -- by doing the channel workup in the mangrove area, as I said,
it drained out in 24 to 36 hours, so the cross-section of Clam Pass as
it comes into the Gulf of Mexico was basically flushed out to where it
had been dredged before the cross-sectional area.
What you're looking at now is we're going to get some sand out
of there, and we're going to do some additional dredging a little bit
further up where there is beach-quality material. This will help to
keep a good flow of tidal water in there. While I don't think it's going
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December 6, 2001
to make a great difference as far as tidal flow, it is beneficial to use
that beach-quality material for the Clam Pass Park.
It's something -- it's the kind of maintenance that would have to
be done over a period of time because when you have a tidal situation
like that, every time the tide comes in, it flows in, but it drops some
sand back in a ways, and then when it goes out, it goes offshore. So
eventually it does need to be cleaned out. We normally wouldn't
have cleaned. We might have done it a couple of years ago, but it's
just an advance maintenance thing to provide beach material for
Clam Pass Park.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Very good. Are there any other
questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. We move on to new
business, Item 4-A, the ten-year plan development. Mr. Hovell, I
think you're going to brief us today on what -- this is one of our
annual duties. This is a new committee in the process, and it's the
timing it will undertake over the next several months.
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. The gist of this is I just wanted to open
the discussions on -- well, actually, if you look at one of your
handouts, it's the first two pages of the ordinance that created the
committee. If you breeze through it, either now or later on, you'll
find that one of the main purposes of this committee -- some of you
have asked that at various meetings -- is how does this affect the ten-
year plan. That's because this committee's main charter is to have a
ten-year plan.
I've also handed out to you a three-page handout, lots of
spreadsheet-looking things. Not to go over them now, but just to give
you an idea, the front page is the ten-year plan from about a year ago.
All the budget numbers were developed by Coastal Engineering
Consultants, so I think that's going to be one of the issues; do we go
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December 6, 2001
to the three new consultants and ask them for budget predictions and
whatnot?
The following two pages are, in essence, a initial attempt just to
update the old plan with some current information and some
formatting changes. Again, just to share some thought on how we
would like to approach this in the future, one of the things that we'll
have to flush into the bottom of this will be what do we really think
the revenue is going to be this year because of the decline in tourism,
how are we going to account for the revenues that we previously
never had to consider, and that's the third handout. There's a contract
with the state to cost-share a number of these projects as well as the
FEMA reimbursement.
So, anyway, the bottom line is, we're going to need a ten-year
plan to submit to the state for continuing to keep our fingers in the
pot for future projects by the end of March. I would like to suggest
that perhaps -- since there's so many details on something like this,
that perhaps just trying to do it at the next two meetings between
January and February really isn't going to cover it to the degree that it
probably needs to be covered -- so maybe having a special workshop
just to work on the ten-year in late January, middle of February, or
something like that might be the way to approach it.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I think that might be valuable.
Also, in addition to the additional time, we might need to have a day
in which that's the one topic we have to address instead of having 6
or 8 or 10 different things on our agenda.
So this is just done for our review at this stage. This is what we
review when we're a new committee and also have new staff. We
didn't really generate it last year. It was the beach renourishment
committee's work, but now we have our turn to do it our way.
DR. STAIGER: The state in their previous request for this
annual update of this plan have looked at, I think, the first four or five
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December 6, 2001
years of it as the annual presentation, and then the last five or so as
just one lump. Now, they may be looking now at more details.
They're in this dilemma with $30 million a year to go to beach
management, and they're very concerned that if they don't have
projects for that money, if they don't spend it appropriately in a
reasonable period of time, the legislature is going to take it back
because the legislature is always looking for a source of funds. This
is a big pot.
One of the problems -- and, hopefully, this new regime in
Tallahassee is going to help it -- is there are projects out there, and
our consultants are very well aware of it -- the projects are designed.
It's getting the damn permits is what takes forever, and that's DEP
itself. So they're sort of part of the problem.
But it's important that this be done accurately and timely so the
state knows what we need because they've got the money to give it to
local government if we get our ducks in a row, so to speak.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Very good. At this stage it's
more or less informational, but does anyone have any questions at
this point?
MR. PIRES: Just one quick question, Dr. Staiger, on that issue.
With regard to how the state allocates to the county once you do your
plan and your program, compliance with prior consent orders and
your track record on that, does that factor into their determination as
to how many dollars to give a particular county?
DR. STAIGER: I don't think so. They've been arguing
internally in the permitting end of DEP for awhile over, you know, if
they're going to penalize people who have consistently been flagrant
violators of permit conditions about, you know, new permits and that
sort of thing. They haven't dealt with that on the beach end. It's been
more in wetlands, filling, and that kind of stuff.
MR. PIRES: Okay. Thanks.
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December 6, 2001
DR. STAIGER: I don't think they're going there because every
time they do the attorneys go ballistic. MR. PIRES: Thank you.
MR. HOVELL: The only other thing I wanted to specifically
point out was, as you'll see on the front of that first spreadsheet in the
FY02 column down at the bottom under tourist tax, it shows, you
know, the 1 cent tax and 50 percent of the 2 cent tax both being
$3,220,000. So, in essence, $6.4 million is what we originally
budgeted for revenues this year.
On the 27th of November, I guess it's the office of management
and budget who turned in an executive summary, you know, sort of
with a worst-case scenario and lowered that in the worst case to $4.4
million instead of $6.4 million. So they're basically taking a third of
the revenue away from projections. The impact was that they
specifically called out the Vanderbilt Beach parking garage project
for budget deferral. So it's not really an impact to the beach program,
but it's something to be aware of.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Thank you. Anything else from
the members of the committee on that? (No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. Next on the list of new
business is Item 4-B, the TDC grant application annual cycle.
MR. HOVELL: I just wanted to give the committee a heads-up
that historically the Tourist Development Council had reviewed grant
applications at their April meeting, and that seems to fit fairly well
with the county's budget cycle and whatnot. Therefore, I would
anticipate that, you know, January and February would be the project
development months. Then by maybe the February and March
meetings I would expect to be having you review the grant
applications so that we can pack them together and give them to the
Tourist Development Council in early April. Then they would go to
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December 6, 2001
the Board of County Commissioners in late April or early May. So
that would be for the projects listed as FY03. So that's another
reason why we need to have a ten-year plan kind of fairly far along
by the end of March.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: So we really have our work cut
out for us in January, February, and March. MR. HOVELL: Yes.
MR. GRAY: Should we be -- should this group be thinking
about things that we might specifically want to do to get into their
basket now?
MR. HOVELL: If you already have something in mind or think
you might have something in mind, I would ask you to look at the
ten-year plan and see if you think it's in there or ask me if it's in there
some place. Because the sooner we can get somebody started on
developing the grant application, the better off we are. I mean, I
don't want to wait until March 15th and find out, oops, somebody's
pet project isn't in there for consideration.
MR. GRAY: Is there anything that we should be thinking
about? I'm just now starting to think about it myself, I guess. Maybe
at the January meeting if any of us have anything that we think needs
to be done that isn't covered, maybe we should bring that back to the
January meeting.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I think that's a good suggestion.
MR. HOVELL: I would also like to point out that, you know, I
don't know how other people in the past have done things. I would
almost hazard a guess that for the most part the block of projects has
kind of been -- I hate to say rubber stamped -- but for the most part, it
seems like most of them just kind of go through the process, and
there's not, like, a whole range of things to pick from, and some are
picked and others are not.
But for those things that have come up that perhaps I or staff
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December 6, 2001
might not think are appropriate for TDC funds, I've still encouraged
them to submit a grant application and go through the formal process
and let the Board of County Commissioners tell them whether it's an
appropriate project or not. So you'll see things that will probably
have a negative recommendation, from at least me, but it will still be
reviewed. Those will include some interesting canal projects. I
called for improvements to the Goodland Canal and, you know, other
things that fit that category.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. Any other questions or
comments?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Item 4-C, we had in our packet a
letter from the Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association.
They're asking for Collier County to -- is it to be a member or renew
its membership?
DR. STAIGER: To be a member.
MR. HOVELL: To be a member, I guess. I think perhaps
maybe some number of years ago Collier County may have been a
member for one or two years, but my impression is we've never really
been a long-term member.
You know, if you flip to the last page, the $5,000 invoice is kind
of what made me think it isn't something that staff should just choose
internally. It's not an insignificant amount of money. I don't know if
-- Jon being the chair, I believe, might want to tell you a little bit
more than I could ever do about what value there might be to Collier
County for being a member. I don't know how many of you took the
time to read the whole thing and if you have any questions, but
certainly Jon as the chairman could address it.
MR. KROESCHELL: Is the city a member then?
DR. STAIGER: Yeah. The City of Naples has been a member
for a long time. I've been a member personally for about 15 years.
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December 6, 2001
DR. STAIGER:
Naples is a member.
member as well.
The city -- I think we got involved maybe eight or ten years ago. The
membership fee has graduated depending on the size of the
organization. I think Metro Dade may pay significantly more than
Collier does. I don't remember for sure.
At any rate, in a nutshell it is a league of cities and counties that
are coastal that function to protect the beach interests in Tallahassee
and with the Corps of Engineers in Washington. They have a
separate lobbying effort called Beachwatch, which is another thing
that you can join, that involves major funding projects in Tallahassee
and in Washington.
It's a worthwhile thing. Collier County has not been a member,
and I encourage the county to be a member. A lot of organizations
have joined when they were pursuing the beach restoration project.
Once they got the project completed, they sort of let their
membership lapse. But with the ongoing beach management
programs here, I think it's a worthy thing for the county to be a
member of. It is a significant amount of money, so it's not just
something that Ron can approve a purchase order for.
MR. GRAY: Jon, I have a question. Has the City of Naples
paid the annual dues in the past? DR. STAIGER: Yes.
MR. GRAY: Are they still paying it?
DR. STAIGER: Yes.
MR. GRAY: Would this be in lieu of or in addition to?
No. This would be in addition to. The City of
Collier County, you know, we feel ought to be a
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Is the City of Marco Island a
member?
DR. STAIGER: I don't think so at this point.
MR. PIRES: Ron, does Collier County have a contract that
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December 6, 2001
lobbies for $50,000 a year or something like that for county interests?
MR. HOVELL: I'm really not sure.
MR. PIRES: I think the Board of County Commissioners has a
separate contract for the lobbyists for county issues.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: They do. I'm not sure if it's
signed yet. I think it might be, but they certainly have a contract.
MR. PIRES: This can dovetail with that so they make sure
they're not working on cross purposes.
MR. HOVELL: From what little I know about it, you know,
besides being a professional organization, if you will, I would
probably wind up attending a lot of their annual meetings anyway
just because the items are of interest. But from trying to listen to
what people have said both here and when I've been to the conference
and whatnot, I think the main focus perhaps a number of years ago
included lobbying both Washington for the federal projects, which
we don't have any, but also at the state level. It used to be the
legislature that specifically approved projects for the various counties
and cities. As you know, Collier County never really got any state
money.
Now, the program as of'96 shifted to where the legislature isn't
the one who specifically approves the project. The state has been a
little more willing to make sure the wealth gets spread around. But I
think there's still kind of a perception, if you will -- if you look at the
list of ex officio directors or whatever, they've got some DEP
representation on the committee, and I don't know if being a member
helps or not in getting additional state funds. Tom Campbell is also
listed on there.
MR. CAMPBELL: Yeah. I'm one of the ex officio members of
the organization. About two years ago the organization was
legislatively included in a review of the projects and ranking of the
projects, so SFBPA, as a committee, has advised the state on which
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December 6, 2001
projects are in and not in. So they're very active. They keep bad
legislation out of the program which would kill funding or create
insurmountable environmental obstacles having to do with the
program.
So it's a very good organization if you have an active beach
program, which you do. So I would encourage you to join and be an
active member of the organization, because they really are the leader
in the state and somewhat on a national level now in beach issues.
Where it dovetails with your own lobbying actions is your lobbyists
in Tallahassee probably follow many, many issues. If you're a
member of this organization, he has direct access to SFBPA and their
lobbyist, Debbie Flagg, to see how the issues would affect your
county and be able to work in concert with that lobbying effort. So I
think, you know, from that perspective, a lot of the counties and cities
have found it very beneficial.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Is there also an informational
component or kind of a professional association component to this, or
is it strictly lobbying?
DR. STAIGER: No. They have -- the membership is primarily
government people involved in beach programs and the coastal
engineering community, and there's a lot of information transfer. I
mean, the technical conference that they have every winter is highly
detailed. I think David has been to a number of them. I go to all of
them.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: And that would go beyond
pending legislation and into some of the areas of technical
competence and so forth?
MR. HOVELL: Yeah. The thing that the organization did,
which was a major effort for a long time, was to find this source of
funds for a dedicated beach management program. The state
legislature created the Florida beach management program in the
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December 6, 2001
early '80s, and it wasn't until '95 or '96 or so that they came up with a
funding source for it. Now that the funding source is there -- it was
$10 million the first year, $20 million the second, and $30 million the
third. Now it's 30 million a year for the beaches. It's to protect that
money, and now that it's there we're getting some of it.
We've got a grant right now for three hundred and some
thousand dollars from the state out of that sum of money to do the
work we need to do on the Gordon Pass jetty. The county has grants
for state support. So part of it now is that since they came up with
that dedicated funding source and we are now eligible for that and we
can get the money, the more participation that the city and the county
have in it I think the better chance we have of continuing to get state
funding support. They wanted to spend that money on good projects,
and they're looking for places to put it, or the legislature will take it
back.
MR. GRAY: I would move that we join the organization.
MR. ROELLIG: I'll second that.
MR. STRAPPONI: Second.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. We'll give that to Mr.
Roellig. He got it in first. Motion itself was by Mr. Gray. I suppose
our motion would be to advise the commissioners that we would
support joining the organization for the benefits outlined in this
conversation.
MR. ROELLIG: What would the source of funds be for the
$5,000.9
DR. STAIGER:
MR. ROELLIG:
It's a trust fund -- I'm sorry.
For the county?
MR. SNEDIKER: Project management or something.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: It would probably be out of the
general fund, so it isn't really part of our mandate. Since it would
assist the staff, we need it to rely on in order to do our thing, I would
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December 6, 2001
just encourage them to allow them to join or have the county join.
MR. HOVELL: They may very well -- somebody might say
that it should come out of Fund 195, the beach fund. I don't know. I
would have to ask.
MR. GRAY: With a budget as big as ours, I think we can find
$5,000.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We have a motion, and we have a
second. All in favor?
MR. STRAPPONI: Aye.
MR. GRAY: Aye.
MR. KROESCHELL: Aye.
MR. ROELLIG: Aye.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Aye.
MR. SNEDIKER: Aye.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Opposed?
MR. PIRES: Aye.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Mr. Pires. It passes 6-1 if I'm
doing my counting right. Mr. Pires descended. MR. PIRES: I'll talk to Burt.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: That ends our new business. We
do have a provision for audience participation.
If anyone in the audience would like to comment on something we
may not have covered today, now is your time. (No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Not seeing any volunteers, let's
talk about our next meeting. What is the first Thursday in January?
MR. HOVELL: The 3rd.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: I'm not saying we need to decide
this today, but I want everybody to think about it. We do meet in
January, and the 3rd -- we'll talk about that in a second, if it's too
close to New Year's or not. We need to consider at least that we have
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December 6, 2001
two meetings a month in January and February and then in March --
we happen not to meet for some reason in March. It seems to me
between the long-term renourishment plan and our ten-year plan in
addition to other things that happened to come up, which are of a less
recurring nature, we have a lot to do. Why don't we think of that.
We can discuss that more in January.
I think during that first quarter of the year, we probably do need
to meet for more than one meeting a month. How does everyone feel
about January 3rd? Well, we're going to be on Marco. Is that our
plan, to be on Marco?
MR. HOVELL: I believe that's --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: So we're not as restricted as we
would be if we needed to use the county commission boardroom.
MR. HOVELL: If it means anything, I believe the Tourist
Development Council's meeting on the 7th and the Board of County
Commissioners on 8th, so if we wanted to review something --
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Then we almost have to meet the
3rd. I was thinking we could meet the 10th, but that doesn't really
work.
MR. KROESCHELL: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: We will meet then, as has
become our regular schedule, January 3rd at 1:30 p.m. We'll receive
details. We're going to be assembling on Marco Island and hopefully
we'll get to see the sites this time. At that time -- and maybe you can
make a notation on the agenda to make sure we remember to discuss
it -- we want to consider meeting twice a month for the next three
months.
MR. KROESCHELL: Consider the possibility of meeting
someplace other than Mackle Park -- everything is going to be at the
north end of Marco Island and then ending up at Mackle Park --
rather than go all the way to Mackle and then back out again. I don't
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December 6, 2001
know where we can meet.
MR. SNEDIKER: Tigertail Beach. Maybe it will be our first
field trip stop.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: There's plenty of capacity there
where we could find each other there, I assume.
MR. SNEDIKER: Oh, yeah. It's not that big.
MR. HOVELL: How about tentatively we'll say 1:30 at
Tigertail Park. We'll just call the meeting to order for the field trip
part. But then for calling in the reporter and whatnot, we'll pick a
time certain, maybe 3:30, if that seems like enough time, or 4:00,
whatever seems right.
MR. SNEDIKER: We just have two stops.
MR. GRAY: I would say earlier.
MR. KROESCHELL: Okay. So 3 or 3:30 at Mackle Park
where we have the facilities to have a room and whatnot.
MR. HOVELL: Okay. I'll work with Mr. Snediker on timing,
because I think the biggest issue will be getting in and out of
Hideaway and transportation, parking, and that kind of stuff. We've
already been to the south end, so I'm assuming all we need to do is
Tigertail and Hideaway this go-around? MR. KROESCHELL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: Okay. Very good. Does anyone
on the committee have anything else? (No response.)
CHAIRMAN GALLEBERG: If not, we stand adjourned.
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December 6, 2001
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:40 p.m.
COASTAL AREA ADVISORY COMMITTEE
GARY GALLEBERG, CHAIRMAN
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY MARGARET A. SMITH, RPR
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