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BCC Minutes 05/10/1995 J (w/South Florida Water Management District) WORKSHOP MEETING OF HAY 10, 1995, OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT GOVERNING BOARD LET IT BE REHEHBERED, that the South Florida Water Hanagement District Governing Board having conducted business herein, met on this date at 1:13 p.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Bonita Springs Lions Club, Bonita Springs, Florida, with the following members present: William Graham Eugene Pettis A. Glenn Simpson Timothy L. Hancock Richard Hachek Claudia Davenport Andrew W. Coy Nathaniel Reed Ray Judah Miriam Singer Timothy J. Constantine Bill Hammond Bettye J. Matthews Valetie Boyd Joseph R. Spratt, Jr. Sonny Williamson Douglas R. St. Cerny Betsy Krant MS. BOYD: If everyone would have a seat, we need to go ahead and get started. We've got a -- a -- a busy schedule today, a very informative schedule, and we need to get going on time. Bill, there's your seat. I know. No. No. We already have a complaint. I do want to apologize for some of the -- some of the south Florida governing board members. We -- the plane was a little late, and they were not able to eat lunch. So if you see a few people up here eating out of box lunches, that's what it is. And if anybody wants to just go grab a piece, help yourself. MS. KRANT: I have an extra half a sandwich. If anybody is starving, come on right up. Going, going, gone. MS. BOYD: All right. We want to welcome everyone. Thank you all for coming. It's -- it's really a -- a special event for us, the governing board members, to come over to the west coast and to be able to meet with many of you who -- who have to come in and use our services sometimes whether you like them or don't like them. We try to -- we try to do a good job and be friendly, though. What I'd first like to do is introduce the -- the commission members who are here from the different counties. I know all of you have very busy schedules, and it's -- it's difficult to get a group like this together sometimes. But I think we've done a pretty good job. To my right is Chairman Bettye Matthews of the Collier County commission, and it's a real privilege to have you here, Bettye, and the Collier County commission. And I might mention as well Bettye serves as the treasurer for the Crew trust which, as all of you know, is a Lee and Collier County land acquisition trust. And we're very proud to have Bettye serve in that capacity. Also here today is Tim Constantine, and Tim is down to the right, and I think Tim Hancock is supposed to be joining us shortly. I don't see him here yet, but I think that he will be here later on today. County manager Neil Dotrill is with us. Neil is over there. Thank you, Neil, for your assistance in working on this and getting this together. Lee County commissioners Doug St. Cerny, the vice chairman, and Doug is down on the left. Ray Judah is here. And is John Manning here? I don't know -- has John Manning arrived? Okay. I think he will be coming, though. And county manager Donald Stillwell, and we welcome you. Hendry County, we have the chairman of the Hendry County commission, Joe Spratt. Oh, I'm sorry. Andy Coy. Andy, I apologize. Andy Coy. Thank you, Bettye. We have Joe Spratt, and Joe Spratt, not only is he serving as Hendry County commission and the chairman of that board, he's also on the Governor's commission for sustainable Florida which I sit on, and I've enjoyed getting to know Joe and working together on some of the issues for sustainability in all of south Florida which, of course, includes our west coast area. County manager Lionel Beatty, Mr. Beatty or Beatty, I don't -- Beatty, I don't know where you are. And we have several Big Cypress Basin Board members here that you'll see up here. Yes, I think Glenn Simpson is here. And who else is here from the Big Cypress today? A VOICE: Claudia Davenport. MS. BOYD: Claudia Davenport. Claudia's over here. And, Carey, you're supposed to be sitting up there here. Carey, are you out in the audience? Carey, we have a seat. We have a special seat for you. So when you're ready, you just come up and sit down; okay? All right. And we want to give a special thanks to Lee County commissioners. I know that you adjusted your workshop or your board meeting today to get here on time, and we appreciate that. Thank you very much. And I know that logistically it was probably hard for the Hendry County commissioner to get here, but we appreciate the long drive that you made. But Joe was telling me, he says, well, Valetie, it's much better than driving all the way to West Palm Beach, so -- so he didn't feel bad about that at all. One of the things that we're going to be hearing about today is the service centers. South Florida Water Management District has been working over the last actually couple of years to come up with a plan of service centers, and we'll be having a presentation on those. And our goal is to have a one-stop shop so -- so people in this area, the people on the west coast, they'll be able to do all of -- all the services from South Florida Water Management District will be able to be done through the Fort Myers service center. And at this time I want to introduce Chip Herriam. Chip, where are you? Chip heads up that service center, and he is doing an excellent job. And any of you who don't know Chip get to know him because he's -- he's going to be very valuable and very instrumental in what we're doing on this coast over the next few years. Since our last visit here in April of '93, a lot has happened. There's been a lot of changes. Our Governor has been reelected. Governor Chiles is back in the seat. And he has -- his next four years he is committed to economic development, to job creation while maintaining a healthy environment. He -- he really wants to put common sense back into government. He wants to reduce rules and regulations. And being South Florida Water Management District under his auspices, we're working towards that goal with him. Also we have new board members since the last time we were here in Collier County. We have Bill Graham from -- from Dade County. We also have Miriam Singer from Dade County. Miriam I think is down this way. And we have Richard Hachek, and Richard is over here. In addition, Bill Hammond was reappointed. And all of you know Bill from Fort Myers, and Sonny Williamson from Okeechobee was reappointed. I had the honor to be reelected by my peers as chair. And let's see. We also have a new executive director on board since we were here before, Sam Poole. Meet Sam Poole. And then all of you know Mike Slayton, and I don't know. They took him away from us over here in Collier County. We were fortunate to have Mike as executive director, administrator of the Big Cypress Basin, but we're very fortunate to have him now as deputy director over the district. And I think it's good for all of us on the west coast that he is here because he's so familiar with the west coast. He's familiar with our needs, so I think that it really has been a positive for us that he is there. Today we're going to be hearing -- getting a briefing of the lower west coast water supply plan. Many of you have been briefed on that before but to kind of give you an update where we are on that and how it affects the local governments. Also we'll be giving you a briefing on the lower east coast water supply plan because the lower west coast water supply plan and the lower east coast water supply plan, they're very integrated. And I think that it's important for us all to know how they relate to one another. Also it's really important because we really have to start looking at land use planning and water use planning and how we integrate those together and how we work together on land and water planning. And that's very much where counties and local governments come in working with us at the district. I'm proud to say our new university is permitted, as you know. South Florida Water Management District at our last governing board meeting issued the permit. Following that the Army Corps and EPA issued their permit. So we're on our way, and we're going to be having a discussion on that. Before we get started -- and we will get started in a moment -- one of the things that I wanted to let all of you know that -- that South Florida Water Management District, we are working hard on a -- on a -- I hate to say a corporate culture change because I would like to think we've always been that way. But we realize that we need for -- for local governments and for the people of this county and this whole southwest regional area, we need to be a resource agency. We need to set the goals, and we need to set the guidelines, and we need to come to you and say, help us determine how we get there. You as industry, you as a business sector, local government, you tell us the best way to get there. You're in a much better position to know that than we are. So we look forward to working with you in that direction, and -- and we're committed to it, and we need your help on it. And so I think today is going to be good for -- for all of you to learn a little more about us and what we're doing and for us to learn more about what you're doing and where we can work together and how we can work together very fruitfully in the future. So with that, I am going to get right down to our very, very busy schedule and start with -- I think Chairman Matthews is going to start off. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MS. BOYD: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think what -- what I -- is it picking me up? MS. BOYD: Here. Let's move that over. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What I've been asked to comment on are some of the plans and ideas that -- that we feel are necessary as we move forward into the future and then try to determine our water sources, water supply, what we're going to do with it and where it's going to come from. Some of the things that we're working toward are determining where we're going to get our water from. Most of us know that we get roughly 55 inches a year in annual rain water and that most of that drains -- drains out of the canals lost to the salt water condition of the Gulf and the Florida Bay. We're trying to discover and study ways that we can capture that water and put it into storage in the -- in the wet season and draw it back out in the dry -- in the dry season when we need the water. Two methods that we're investigating are the aquifer storage and recovery methods, and we're also looking into above-ground storage reservoirs and trying to stay in touch with whatever innovative technology is coming forward for long-term water supply. Other things that we're interested in are water quality, how it gets -- what the water quality is when it's finally delivered to -- to -- to the estuaries. There -- there seems to be a lot -- there is a lot of study going on in that area, but we need to preserve the estuarine systems that we do have so they continue to function. Other areas are inland wetland systems as well, the Crew trust even being one of those. It's a fairly widespread area that we're looking to acquire land that's wetlands and high -- high recharge for the aquifers. We're also looking to add or hoping to add to the timely acquisition of sensitive properties such as the Crew trust -- and I'm happy to say that Collier County did agree yesterday at our meeting to purchase 400 plus acres in the Crew trust area as a mitigation project for -- for road development. Other -- other areas that were -- finally, huh? MS. BOYD: I'm glad you said that, not me, Bettye. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Other -- other areas that -- that we're -- we're looking at or I'm -- I for one and I think other commissioners are trying to speed up also is -- is the purchase of land in southern Golden Gate Estates. It's been on an acquisition list for a number of years, and there's -- there's plans to reinstate the sheet flow, but we -- we need to get the land purchased, and we need to get the people who own that property off of an acquisition list so they can move on with their lives. Another area that we began to talk about last fall is education and conservation. We need to educate our people moving here from the north about what the water environment in Collier County and southwest Florida or all of south Florida is like, and that conservation has to become a way of life. To do that we have to educate, and we have to begin it in school and develop a very intensive educational process so that those little water saver devices don't get taken out of the showers and toilet tanks and so forth as they often do. And one of the last things that our water management department and the county tells me that we need to work more on and -- and get it completed is the aerial topographical mapping, that we can use that for future planning purposes and -- and to investigate sheet flows a little further and try to identify them with better geography. I guess that's a long list that we're interested in from south -- south Florida so '- MS. BOYD: Thank you, Bettye, and I hope that we'll be able to answer some of those questions today or at least tell you where we are or how we can work together to find the answers. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That sounds good. MS. BOYD: All right. Commissioner Doug St. Cerny. Doug. COHMISSIONER ST. CERNY: Thank you, Valetie. Is this on? Can you hear me? Okay. Well, I found out yesterday that I was going to be filling in for our chairman, John Albion. And so he saw that I got a four-page speech that I was supposed to read today, but I think I'll dispense with that in the essence of time. Lee County has been very fortunate to have a very solid working relationship with South Florida Water Management. We have for some time. And it's only strengthened over the years. Through joint land participation we have bought and acquired a lot of land in the Crew trust, in the Flint Pen Strand, and we've had ongoing land -- environmentally land -- sensitive land acquisition programs that we have been partners on for years, and it's worked very well. I think the important thing that needs to come out of this meeting is that each individual government entity, of course, has its own issues and concerns, and we need to deal with those head on and work together with them. But I'd like to compliment South Florida Water Management District's governing board, their chairman, and their executive director for getting out into this community to let the citizens and the constituents know that there are people who are running South Florida Water Management District. All too often the district is in West Palm, and the normal voter, the normal constituent in Lee County and throughout southwest Florida, really don't know what you do. And we usually catch the blame every time you take a millage increase on -- on our tax bills. They blame the local county commission for their taxes going up when they don't realize that there's another governing body who has taxing authority. So I think it's brave of you to come out into the community and -- and talk to the citizens like we do every week and the constituents and share the responsibility. I have three areas of concern that I can only speak for myself, and I'm not speaking for the entire board because we never had an opportunity to review what we were going to discuss today. But I think we need more support, continued support, from South Florida Water Management with regards to the Caloosahatchee River and the withdrawals for Lee County and for the city of Fort Myers. And we need to know that you're going to stay involved and be an active participant and supporter of Lee County. I think the district needs to take a hard look at their roles as it pertains to water issues versus land planning issues. And especially in Lee County I think we have done a good job of that, and I think we're getting some mixed signals on whose role it is to do what phases of land planning. So I think there needs to be a redefinition of who's doing what and who's in charge. And I'd like to see South Florida Water Management District take a larger role as it pertains to our regional water supply authority. We're trying to embark on a path for the future to protect our water resources and plan for generations to come. And your agency has the expertise, the talent, and the knowledge and the bank account to work with us. And we welcome that support and help, and I would only encourage you to get involved more with us as a local government and help us as much as you can. And I don't know if any of my fellow commissioners have any comments. Ray's back at the cookie table. I don't know if Ray's got any -- any comments he'd like to make. And I don't presume to speak for Andy. But I think from my point of view, Valetie, those are our main concerns. And again, in closing, I'd just like to say that we have been fortunate, and our relationship is strong and working very well. And through the whole process with the university, South Florida Water Management is in the middle of everything, their attorneys, their field people working with us hand in hand to see that this comes to fruition which is going to benefit all the people. So for that again I applaud you, and I thank you very much for that. Thank you for your time. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Doug. We appreciate that. Any comments, Ray or -- or Andrew? And I'd say Tim Hancock has joined us now. Tim, welcome. It's nice to have you here. You know what, Tim? If you want to move down, I understand Commissioner Hac'Kie is not going to be there today. You might get a little closer to the action. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Actually this will be just fine then. MS. BOYD: Oh, no, no, no. Come on, Tim. Move down. All right. Next we'll here from Joe Spratt, chairman of the Hendry County commission. Joe. CHAIRPERSON SPRATT: Thank you, Valetie. I guess our major concerns in Hendry County, as you all are well aware, is our periodic flooding of areas -- MR. REED: I'm having trouble with that mike. MS. BOYD: You know, you have to really get close to these. You just have to like put it right in your mouth. CHAIRPERSON SPRATT: Is that better? These major problem areas -- and the Fort Myers office is very familiar with them, as is Palm Beach -- are the four corners and the Helms Road, south of the G Road area, the Felda area, the Pioneer Plantation and in these areas where we constantly have in any wet summer severe flooding that covers yards and prevents in the early part of the summer the school buses from still running or even later the summer school buses. It limits our emergency management vehicles, fire and EHS, from being -- being a small county we I think have one four-wheel drive in both of those departments. And it impacts the well and septic systems which seems to create the potential of health hazards. And we realize that the solutions to these problems are not simple, although we feel the biggest inadequacy is in proper size drainage canals and retention areas to accommodate this excessive flooding and this excessive water where necessary. Of course, we all realize that the permitting, planning, construction of these facilities is extremely costly and time consuming. And we in rural Hendry County simply do not have the funding or the staff to acquire or provide for these much needed improvements. In the areas that I referred to as critical, the county has created the six municipal service benefit units for drainage. And these districts annually collectively bring in around $235,000. And that's to maintain, clean, and service 67,000 acres within those -- those 6 districts. Our ad valorem budget, which we are now at 8.9 mills, brings in a total of $9,159,724, and that is it. Of those dollars, the sheriff's budget alone takes 52 percent or approximately 5 million dollars. This leaves an amount that is very small to run the remainder of the county and all the government operations and simply does not leave the funds for major capital improvements such as drainage. And with the help of Chip Herriam in the Fort Myers office, the district has been most helpful in providing some of the funding for the four corners master drainage plan. However, we must request additional funding or assistance in obtaining such to create the master plan for Hendry County and, in particular, to help from start to finish with physical dirt moving. I've talked about drainage and would like to address the water supply issue. In these same areas that experience severe flooding, we flipped a coin from time to time -- and this is where we have our droughts -- to the extent that potable household wells go dry. We realized that saving the water from its excessive flooding is extremely necessary, and we have been adamant in our directions to the consultants and the engineers and our planners that any of their designs must include a weir-type holding structures in these canals and retention ponds so that we can. Of course, the C-43 canal, Caloosahatchee River, is -- and its future will always be important to us. It's a major source of agricultural water supply for us today, and we foresee in the future that it will also be the supply for our urban water. We do know that our aquifers that have supplied the potable water in the past have been severely drained at times of drought to the extent that it did cause household wells to dry up in the Felda area, the south LaBella area, and the Pioneer Plantation area. I believe that the district can better serve us by strengthening the decision-making positions of the Fort Myers office with which we now work and communicate with. It can help by simplifying the permit -- permitting and regulatory process and by providing funding, help in obtaining funding from other grants or agencies and staff help in developing the plans that we need to continue with our construction work on drainage in Hendry County. In closing, let me express Hendry County's appreciation to Chip and to this board for the cooperation and help we've received with some of these problems over the past few years just so you will know we've only begun, and we will be back time and time to seek your help in the future. I look forward to this continuing cooperation. Thank you. MS. BOYD: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Spratt. All right. I think that gives us a lot of food for thought, and I -- hopefully I think that some of the areas that have come up will be discussed in the lower west coast water supply planning issues and some of the other topics. But we'll make sure that we try to get to all of them before the -- the workshop is over. Before we go on to our water supply planning item, what I'd like to do is introduce -- we have a very distinguished gentleman in our midst, a former chairman of the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board and as he's looking around the room and certainly not a stranger to anyone in Collier or Lee County or I'm sure Hendry County either. Stanley Hole is here. And, Stanley, would you like to say something to the group? You are never at a loss for words, and I'm sure there's something you would like to say. MR. HOLE: Madam Chairman, I appreciate this, and I got something to bring to you. MS. BOYD: Oh. MR. HOLE: Got a minute? MS. BOYD: That sounds good. What? Do you have to run out to your car or what? MR. HOLE: Obviously I did this all by myself. MS. BOYD: Of course. Of course. MR. HOLE: And as -- as is normal, your staff got involved and did a far better job than I could have done. And -- but I want to make a couple of presentations and a couple of comments. I want Bill Hammond to be very involved, and I want to do this. MS. BOYD: Do you need a microphone, Stanley? MR. HOLE: No, ma'am, I don't think so. MS. BOYD: Well, this is being recorded. MR. HOLE: For posterity? MS. BOYD: Yeah. MR. HOLE: Madam Chairman -- if I had known he was here, I would have done this to start with. MR. REED: It's not on. MR. HOLE: Madam Chairman, since you've been -- in fact, before you became involved with the district, you were a strong supporter of this thing called the Crew trust, and in -- not to say remembrance but in grateful thanks, we want to give you this. It sits on a lighted thing. And at night you can turn it on, and you can remember what you spent your days doing. MS. BOYD: Oh, thank you. MR. HOLE: Thank you so much. I want to go back not too far but go back a little bit in history to Nat Reed. MR. REED: Uh-oh. MR. HOLE: I didn't ask them to bring you water because I knew you'd probably throw it all over me. I'd like -- I'd like -- Bill, I'd like you to present this because you signed it, present this to Nat, and then I got something I want to give him. MR. HAMMOND: Nat, this is a -- this is a resolution in recognition and appreciation of your work, and I won't read the whole resolution. MR. REED: Good. Thank you. MR. HAMMOND: It is four pages long. But Nat -- Nat is the person that among many but in the leadership of getting the Save Our Rivers program and P 2,000 fund started, but it was his kind of visionary spark that led to looking at the Crew project as a piece of that bigger vision and getting Joel Koopeberg aligned and -- and in the process through the water management district and through his -- his many, many connections throughout the state of Florida. He is really largely responsible for helping all of us get -- get this Crew project taken off as well as the impact it's had all over the state of Florida. So the Crew trust would like to recognize Nat Reed for his wonderful contribution, and I won't call you one of the elders but one of our mentors. Stanley Hole and the executive committee of Crew would like to present this to you. And Stanley has a little more for you. MR. REED: Thank you. MS. BOYD: Stanley. MR. REED: Thank you, Joe and Stanley. Listen, I just want you to know that it's been a labor of love. You don't need to give me citations. I love this state, and I love the people in this state, and this is really a wonderful honor. I gotta look back over the many years, and I am so happy to see so many younger people especially on this board that are carrying on the baton from us old, old, old characters who are still kicking around. But I would like to say that I've been in touch with Joel recently because we are going to have a -- a special -- special affair which I think will be important for the older members of this part of the world. The Fakahatchee was brought in by an extraordinary man named Mel Finn who in many ways was the guide and counselor for the Fakahatchee, a lawyer from Miami. And we are having a bronze tablet made in his memory, and I'm hoping this board and many members from this community will join us in the Fakahatchee sometime in the fall. We're going to put this monument up in a good place for us to remember that Mel Finn was one of the original people interested in preserving the fantastic ecosystems that are over here on the west coast. Thank yOU. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Nat. Congratulations. Stanley? MR. HOLE: Nat, I want to from the Crew trust present this to you, and I want to say a couple of things. MR. REED: Oh, that's beautiful. That is just so beautiful. MR. HOLE: As Nat said, it's important that the -- I won't use the older members but senior members who had this major interest recognize not only Nat's creation of it but Valerie's continuation of it. You know, you could have all these wonderful ideas, all these marvelous thoughts, and some of them are going to go by the wayside unless you have somebody who is willing to continue it even when it's not easy. Valetie, this whole area owes you a tremendous amount. I just wanted to mention that. MS. BOYD: Thank you. MR. HOLE: I do want to say something about Nat, and this goes back to -- well, it goes back to Joel. It goes back to south Dade County and the enormous role he played not only in getting things done but keeping the district on an even keel. That was important, Nat, and I can remember, you know, a number of meetings when you would say, we're going too far. Back off. And we all thought when you came on the board that you were going to be the one who said no, no, no, no. You're the one who said yes, yes, yes, but do it right. Get it done right. I can remember an aqueduct meeting, eleven o'clock at night, and we're all going crazy and trying to -- to walk the tight rope between considering out loud things upon which we would later take -- take action or not. And I can remember Nat a couple of times saying, you're getting close. So he was the conscience of the board. He was one who kept us straight. And I remember Pedegrew when he decided that they ought to lower the water level in the conservation areas to save the deer not recognizing it would have taken a month and a half to get the water level down four inches and he -- you know, he called up, and he was -- he was President Carter's man. He called down and said, drop that water level. Open those gates. I want that water level down. And Nat said, well, let's see what Secretary of the Army says. And he called, and he said, look, you can do it -- maybe it was Secretary of War. I don't know. He said, maybe you can do it, but we'll have you in court the next day. That water stays. It's that kind of willingness to -- to make our decisions and to make tough decisions that caused the district to become the force it was. And, Nat, we owe you a hell of a lot. And I just want you to know that. MR. REED: Thank you. MS. BOYD: Thank you. Thank you, Stanley. It's nice to see you. Congratulations. All right. Now I think we'll try to keep on schedule here and play a little catch-up. So now we'll hear from our director of planning, Dan Cary. And he's going to be talking about the lower west coast water supply planning, lower east coast water supply planning, just our water planning mission overall. And, board members, any time any of you have any questions, please just interrupt and ask. We'll try to get them answered or comments or whatever. MR. CARY: First off I'd like to say it really is a pleasure for me in particular to come over here. I spent a lot of my college years tromping around in the Fakahatchee with Ed Carlson over at Corkscrew. And we had some wonderful times exploring the wilderness on the west coast. What I'd like to do today are three things really: First, to describe where we are in the lower west coast planning process with regard to water supply planning in particular; to also give you an update on where we are in the lower east coast water supply planning process, particularly as it relates to the west coast and even more particularly with regard to the Caloosahatchee which was raised as an issue by several of you this morning. I'm going to try to be reasonably brief not only to keep us on schedule but because I think one of the best reasons to meet like this -- and this really is a unique opportunity for some of us to really hear from you as you have done already what you think some of the issues are and what your priorities are so that we can work really as partners on some of these tough problems. We really do in planning understand that our responsibility is water planning and that local government's responsibility is land use planning and that -- but we know that the two can interact and that the best way to deal with those things I think is by working as partners, working closely together on these issues. The real purpose obviously of water supply planning as we're dealing with it is to develop sustainable strategies and plans, to meet demands through the year 2010. Our planning process is really twofold right now. What we're doing is is focusing on getting us through the year 2010 with sustainable supply and meeting the demands that your local government land use plans and your people suggest are going to be there. We're also involved in some longer range planning processes to deal with things farther out. I don't think the world's going to stop growing down here in 2010, so we're beginning to worry about those sorts of things as well. With regard to the -- where we are in the lower west coast process, we've finished that plan. Can I have that slide projector turned on? I'll see if I can handle pushing a button and talking at the same time. The lower west coast water supply plan was, in fact, the first plan that we completed. We completed that fairly recently, in February of 1994. The area included within the lower west coast planning division is shown here. MS. BOYD: And you know what, Dan? I just want to interrupt one second. And I'm sure all the commissioners remember, but there was an advisory committee made up of residents, citizens, from Lee, Collier, Hendry County who did serve as an advisory committee and still is in effect on this plan. So we got a lot of citizenry input on that. I think it was about a 26-member, person, committee made up of all different interests, whether it was utilities or agriculture or business development, conservation. So we have a lot of public input on that. MR. CARY: In fact -- in fact, all of our water supply planning is being done that way in close partnership with not only local governments but affected parties. And as I'll -- as I'll get to a little bit later, on our lower east coast planning effort, in fact, recognizing that some of the decisions that are going to need to be addressed in that planning process could potentially have effects on the lower west coast, particularly the Caloosahatchee and parts of Hendry County. We're making sure that we have representation of those affected parties on that committee, and I would welcome all of you that have the time to join us in those discussions. The lower west coast plan as you will recall -- I'm sure many of you are familiar with it -- the water supply issues are actually fairly straightforward. It rains. That rainfall to some extent recharges into the ground. Some of it collects in wetlands. And much of it, as was noted this morning, is lost to tide because of overdrainage in some cases. One of the problems really in the lower west coast from a water supply perspective is there are not great opportunities naturally occurring for surface water storage. We are, in fact, though, recommending -- have recommended in that plan and are looking continually at new supplies that may involve some of that storage. One type was, again, mentioned, for example, in Collier County where we're looking at opportunities to, in fact, adjust weirs and hold water in some of the existing canal systems to get better recharge and availability of water. That's a concept that was also mentioned with regard to Hendry County, and I think there may be opportunities that we will be anxious to work with Hendry on in terms of getting some of that water that's causing flooding right now and, in fact, putting it somewhere and storing it so that it can be used to deal with drought situations here in the dry season. The -- as I mentioned, one of the problems in the lower west coast is that there is not a lot of naturally occurring surface storage. Therefore, the main source of water has been the surficial aquifer, actually a series of fresh water aquifers, and then secondarily the Floridan aquifer system which, of course, requires RO to access. Although in this planning effort there did not appear to be at least for average rainfall years serious areawide problems in terms of needing water supply through the year 2010, clearly there are local problems. Bonita Springs has problems. Some of those problems are -- are caused by well fields and the potential for salt water intrusion. Another major issue in this area that we recognize is the interplay of well field withdrawal and surface water wells as is depicted in this slide. We are right now looking at withdrawal rules to try to assure that, in fact, withdrawal can occur but without significant impact to any of these wetland systems. Other problems besides specific area problems that -- like Bonita Springs are -- are -- are general problems that occur during drought years. One -- one of the positive things -- and, in fact, if you look at the recommendations that came out of this planning process to deal with water supply, what you see is a list of solutions including tense. And I was impressed to learn that 62 percent of the waste water in this region is, in fact, already tense, and there are plans to up that. I mean, that is an excellent job. RO is being used already in some cases such as Cape Coral. And, in fact, in a meeting I had over here on the west coast just a couple of weeks ago, we heard good news that, in fact, there may be some new very low pressure technology that is coming available for RO that'll really get the cost down. I think that will -- that's actually exciting because one of the biggest inhibitions on RO has been the great energetic expenses associated with pushing that water through a filter. Other non-technical solutions have included things like water conservation. That's somewhat technical. And again, I think the west coast is by far leaders in terms of citrus irrigation, water conservation in that area and, in fact, in research in terms of optimizing the delivery of water exactly when it's needed and exactly the right amounts on citrus I think probably -- perhaps in part because of when citrus -- when citrus came in over here, but it's -- it's -- it's dealing with the situation very well. Other areas of opportunity including -- include decreasing the amount of water that we lose to tide. ASR is something that we have been in partnerships with and the district is very interested in studying further. There are, as you all know, with ASR, aquifer storage, and retrieval systems some questions that have been raised by permitting agencies like DEP that have to do with water quality within the Floridan. I think that we've got to get some of these facilities, more of them, operating, monitored so that we can begin to work out those problems because I think this is a very promising technology that, frankly, in some of our modeling in terms of trying to solve future problems, we're tending to rely on ASR quite a bit. And I've talked to the staff about this. And if we, in fact, are going to rely so much of it -- on it in our planning, I think we have to get out there, get the data, and work out the problems with DEP that may exist or -- or if we can't, find different solutions. Other programs that were recommended and have been implemented here, in fact, include xeriscape and other things. One of the -- as I say, right now in the planning process where we are is the plan's completed and we're moving into various forms of implementation including developing the rules for well field withdrawal in terms of their relationship to surface water wetlands. And we're going through that process working with affected parties. And that -- those rules I believe should be out for review and be near completion I think sometime in the fall. One of the things, though, that we've begun talking about is that rule making as a strategy for dealing with problems is not a perfect process at regulation basically and that it works fine where you don't have a lot of competition to contend with. But there's some places where not only do you have to deal with wetland problems that the rules are okay at addressing, but you also have to deal with onerous problems of competing well fields and competing uses. I think one of the things we're beginning to talk about and -- and move forward on is rather than try to -- try to make a regulatory process deal with those kind of problems, we need to begin dealing with much more fine tuned plans, come in, work with the local governments, with the local jurisdiction, with the landowners to try to see if there's a planning solution to make sure that the water demands in a particular area, in fact, are met rather than have to deal with limitations that are really not based on shortages of water but, in fact, on limitations of the permitting process. So that's an area that we're trying to break some new ground on I think that will be positive. During the development of the -- this -- this is just a summary of where we are today in green in terms of water demands relative to where we'll be in the year 2010 based on that plan. The biggest projected future use of water in terms of volume in the region is agriculture, a very important industry in this area. And second is public water supply. Public water supply demands are expected to almost double actually with populations going from about half a million to a million by the year 2010. Agriculture is expected to increase something in the order of 40, 44 percent. We're checking some of these numbers. We've been talking directly to some of the agricultural producers, and they've suggested that perhaps we're overestimating demands on agriculture, that, in fact, maybe citrus production is going to start leveling out here. But we are working closely with IFAS and the industry people to make sure the things we've loaded in those plans continue to be accurate under changing conditions. MS. BOYD: And, Dan, one thing is that's showing total water consumption. That is not showing net water use. As in the case of agriculture, they may consume that much, but it's going back into the aquifer, whereas maybe public water supply it's not going back in. MR. CARY: Right. MS. BOYD: So it's really hard to see a chart like that and get a -- MR. CARY: As I said, the good news from my perspective is that on a regional level the water seems to be there. And so what we're dealing with is trying to deal with local problems. And -- and -- and the one big area that was set aside in that planning process at the lower west coast was, in fact, how to deal with surface water withdrawals and -- and water supplies dependent upon those withdrawals within the Caloosahatchee basin which is shown up here in red. And if you look at that area, there are two main users: One is agriculture, and the other is urban. City of Fort Myers and other urban areas have pretemporal lines on that fresh water source that really is available to the extent that the lake -- Lake Okeechobee has been connected to the Caloosahatchee River. That connection has created a lot of positive opportunities but -- in terms of water supply, but it's also created some interesting problems. One of them is the potential for salt water intrusion depending upon how we manage water in that -- in that river in -- in terms of our releases. Another one is estuary impacts. How water is managed by the district and the Corps in terms of regulatory releases has clearly a very big impact on the estuary over on the west coast as it does the St. Lucie estuary on the east coast. And we're concerned about that. And there's two issues here that have been discussed. One of them is assurance that minimum flows of some appropriate level that's right for the estuary are maintained. And the other one is how to deal with the most onerous problem, and that is the necessary regulatory releases that currently have to occur when we get huge amounts of water like we did this year. Nobody likes those. They're very damaging to the estuary. The district is very concerned about them. And we're anxious to find somewhere else to put that water, some other source of storage where, in fact, we could hopefully put it to good use during dry periods. Not an easy problem to solve. Other issues that we do recognize in the lower east coast planning process relative to this is the dependence of agriculture, a lot of agriculture, and urban on this water supply. Our and my attitude on this is that the planning process will not be finished until we do a good job of addressing not only environmental water supply needs but also agricultural water supply needs and urban water supply needs. It isn't going to be a good solution to drop the ball in any of those three areas. That's just the way it's going to be. I mean, I'll tell you the worse thing we could do is try to cut anybody out of the game because none of us would win I don't think. So I think we just gotta be creative, work hard, and we are moving forward. Now, I won't tell you that in our modeling to date we've solved all those problems. We haven't. We are having difficulties meeting all three of those at optimal levels. But we -- we think we have some ideas on how these problems can be addressed including things like ASR which are not so generally approved by DEP that we can count on them yet but that look promising in terms of being able to meet our needs. Also we'll be in partnership with the Corps taking a much longer term view and -- and -- and -- to see how structural changes to the system, not just regulatory changes and operational changes, could, in fact, allow us to store more water. So we're I think moving forward. There is no consideration I don't think on -- certainly on my part and on the planning staff's part to stop until we solve all these problems. And we're making progress in doing that. Just to address a couple of things that I jotted down here, and it's -- these kinds of meetings are great opportunities, so I'm going to be quiet in a couple of seconds and give you all a chance to maybe give me some more direction on things you'd like to see particularly the planning department and district in general do. But we are beginning to do work on this issue of pollutant load reduction with regard to both the Caloosahatchee and Estero. We have in the budget this year some money to begin looking at those kinds of problems with Estero Bay and also the Caloosahatchee estuary. We are addressing the Hendry County situation, beginning to do that as part of the lower east coast plan both in terms of flooding and in terms of water supply. The way we're doing it -- and we want to start working very closely with you all on this; we're really gearing up on this right now -- is the first approach is to look at regulation, is looking to see where the problems are in terms of withdrawals. Then what we're going to do is once we've identified where the real problem areas are in terms of matching supply and demand is we're going to focus in on those areas and try to, you know, really perfect solutions working with the landowners in those particular areas as kind of a tailored focused approach. It's a tough area, and we recognize some problems in there and are anxious to try to resolve those. That's -- I was very sensitive to all the comments you made. We're anxious, in fact, to work with you all. We can't solve these problems obviously without local government and municipal help. We're a team on this. And so I thank you for the opportunity to give you a little bit of an update, and I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I'd love to hear any ideas you have on priorities. MS. BOYD: Commissioner Matthews. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The lower west coast plan that you've been working on, I'm interested in how that plan works with and supplements the planning that's being done not only by Collier County environmental services but also by the Big Cypress Basin. Is -- is all of this planning dovetailing? We're not duplicating and we're -- we're -- we're all working together so that we -- we come up with a viable supply plan? MR. CARY: Yeah. In fact, we are working very closely with Big Cypress Basin obviously and others working on projects like reservoir storage and things there. The water supply planning was a problem identification and sort of proposed solution plan. Right now what we're doing is actually getting into the implementation and checking out much more closely with some of the projects you mentioned that we are working together on to -- to actually solve those problems like -- like the idea of storage in some of the canals with some weirs to prevent some of that loss of water to tide; also the idea of finding places to, in fact, store water. So I think -- I think there's pretty good coordination actually. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good. I'm glad to hear that. MS. BOYD: Commissioner Judah. COHMISSIONER JUDAH: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Cary, Lee County has a raw water supply authority. It's struggling right now. And we, of course, have proceeded with the pilot program of aquifer storage and recovery, and we hope certainly that that monitoring data will be of some assistance, and we appreciate your cooperative joint venture with Lee County in on that program. What I wanted to ask you is one of the reasons the regional water supply authority is -- is struggling is because the failure of the Lee County -- of the private utilities within Lee County to buy in on the system and on the program. One of the carrots that had been provided to the private utilities was that the district would be in a position to extend the consumptive use permit time frame that would be an incentive for private utilities to be in on the raw water supply authority because it was a comprehensive approach to managing water supplies as opposed to stressing out an area where well fields are potentially impacting wetlands and, in fact, they could, you know, tie into another utility. Where is the district with regards to the consumptive use permits and the duration that -- that such a permit would -- would reflect in regards to a water authority being able to receive those consumptive use permits versus a private utility? MR. CARY: I'm going to let Scott Burns answer the question on where we are with the permitting on that. I'd just make this comment, that that is a very progressive approach, that authority, to, in fact, dealing with complex water problems and one that the district continues to support and -- and will want to support in the future. And I'll be happy with planning -- I'm not an expert on this particular thing except I really like the concept to work with Scott in regulation on doing what we can to continue to support that. But I'll let Scott answer the specific question. COHMISSIONER JUDAH: Thank you. MS. BOYD: This is Scott Burns. MR. BURNS: Good afternoon. Scott Burns, director of water use for the South Florida Water Management District. To answer your first question, we are currently under rule development process for the lower west coast to implement that portion of the lower west coast water supply plan through regulation. One of the goals that came out of the planning process was a one-in-ten level of certainty allocation based. And as a result of that, we are working on changes in rules which will change the allocations and the assurances required. In many cases the amount of water that would be allocated would be somewhat larger in many cases than what was the -- the case before. And as a result of the detailed planning and the looking forward through a long time period to look at the future demands, we feel that we're presently comfortable being able to issue permits for a ten-year duration. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: This is for the authority? MR. BURNS: This is for all public water supplies and agricultural type uses, irrigation uses. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: And for individual -- I apologize. And for individual private utilities? MR. BURNS: Yes. Currently in Lee County public water supply utilities by rule can only get a five-year permit. We're looking to change that rule and expand that now because we have a better understanding of the resource pictures, and we feel much more comfortable in granting the longer permit duration. The other issue, as I understand your questions, are we able to issue permits to an authority as well as to an individual utility. Yes, we have that ability. There are procedures in our rules today that allow for an applicant to demonstrate legal control over activities and come in and get a permit representing a utility, cooperative, or a water supply authority. So yes, we'd be happy to be able to work with you if that's the direction you were looking to go. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: What really my question focused on was where is the incentive for the private utilities to work together with the authority if you're going to be providing water consumptive use permits of even a longer duration for the individual private utilities versus a attractive reason for being part of the authority to obtain those longer duration consumptive use permits? MR. BURNS: I -- the best way I can answer that is, again, within the formulation of the rules in setting this program up, the intent was to issue permits based on the availability of the resource. We did not consider at the time of putting together the rules any other factors outside of the resource protection and trying to provide an equitable level of certainty for all use classes. So we feel that the concept of providing everybody with a ten-year permit was something that we were hearing back that everybody in the regulated community was looking for as a goal of the water supply planning process. We felt that that goal has been met because of the resources that are available in the projected demands. To the degree that we can consider other alternatives of extending for longer permits would be something that would be certainly good direction that could come to us from the governing board through continued public workshops on the rule making process. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: Okay. This -- I don't mean to take up much more time, Madam Chairman, but this really does concern me. With what I'm hearing, it completely distorts and undermines the entire effort. I had thought of taking a comprehensive regional approach, not to take away from the efforts the private utilities are doing on their own. I certainly applaud their efforts. But it was my understanding it was the intent to try to reduce the stress in the environment versus -- due to the consumptive use of various private utilities. And we have, in fact, an opportunity through the raw water supply authority to bring all the parties together and better manage our raw -- raw -- raw water supplies. One of the incentives was the longer term for the consumptive use permits. MR. CARY: What -- what I will do is -- is I'd like to get with you, and I'll get with regulation as well. And like I say, I'm not totally up to speed on that part of it. I'm relatively new. But I think I like the idea of some sort of a incentive to encourage good regional management of water. And so I'd like to talk about and explore some ways to -- to -- to facilitate that, the completion of this authority. MS. BOYD: Good point, Ray. COHMISSIONER JUDAH: Thank you. MR. WILLIAMSON: Let -- let -- let me '- MS. BOYD: Mr. Williamson. MR. WILLIAMSON: -- kind of add there. Commissioner Judah's made a good point here. I guess what I'm hearing from Scott is that there's no mechanism in permitting right now to recognize the advantages of a regional utility authority so that we can take -- say you get a ten-year permit if you do certain things, and one of those would be conservation that comes out of being a member of a regional utility authority. That's a -- we assume that that's good to have happen because of conservation and efficiencies and -- and other kinds of things. So why couldn't we put that as a part? I think that's what you're aiming at, Commissioner, so -- COHMISSIONER JUDAH: Yes. MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we not have that mechanism already in there as a condition? Or could we not put it? MR. BURNS: I think that there are a number of opportunities to provide incentives. One of the things that we have worked with the board on and with the public in the past is develop an equitable requirement for water conservation interconnects back-up alternatives as a normal condition of issuance for permits, and we've been implementing that since 1993 through some rule changes that occurred back in that time. So we -- we have looked at the resource. We have looked at the water conservation issues, and we've tried to administer that through the regulatory program. Now, to work towards other goals of -- of establishing a utility and the like, I think that there are opportunities here, and we certainly would welcome the opportunity to look at those as well as other incentives that may facilitate this. It's certainly within the realms of possibility. The lower west coast plan is not completed at this point. We're still under revisions and -- and development of that. So there's still time to incorporate those concepts in this current rule making process that's going on. So this is a good time to raise the issues. MS. BOYD: Commissioner St. Cerny, then Hiss Krant. Or you were pointing out -- Hiss Krant. MS. KRANT: It may be that there's an opportunity to explore delegation. Once the criteria that the district works out has been met, then perhaps we could consider delegating to the authority for the final issuance of the permit so that they would have an opportunity to make sure that their initiatives were incorporated. MR. BURNS: Is Barbara Harkham in or around? MR. POOLE: Madam Chairman? MS. BOYD: Yeah, Mr. Poole. MR. POOLE: Rather than get too bogged down in this, I think what's happened is initially the incentive was to be the longer term permit for the water supply authority. But as we have evolved to extend permits because of the need for agriculture, for example, to have a -- a longer term of certainty for their capital investments that it has diminished that incentive, and we need to work with the authority to address that issue and rather than take up the time here to say that we are committed to work with you and will make some time very soon at your convenience to sit down and start working on it. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: Thank you. MS. BOYD: All right. Thank you, Ray. Good point. Well understood. Any other comments or questions to Mr. Cary? MR. CARY: Thank you very much. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Dan. Next item on the agenda is update on the district service center initiative. And Chip Merriamws going to be handling that. Chip. This is where youwre going to get all of your questions answered and all of your permitting done in one place and right here in your backyard this afternoon. MR. MERRIAM: With that Iill be entertaining questions. MS. BOYD: No. Hopefully this will bring -- itls an outreach effort on the districtls part to really get more involved with local government and be closer to the people that we serve. MR. MERRIAM: One of the things Iid also like to do to start off with is a lot of what is going on today was at the effort of the gentleman to my right whols going to be flipping the placards for us today, Craig Harkelroad. He has put most of this together. And one of the things that he slaved at very hard was making sure he got in here early enough this morning to make sure the decorations were just right. One of the major changes the district proposes this fiscal year involves the way that welre going to provide services to our customers. And those customers are the local governments and the taxpayers of the 16-county region we serve. This change involves the implementation of what we have in the past termed the service center concept or the service center initiative. And while welve had representation outside of West Palm Beach since the seventies, this proposal is to increase that level of service of representation so that we can get to the point of providing all the services you need in these local service center offices. During recent presentations to both Collier and Lee Counties, Sam Poole discussed and described the implementation as a district priority. He also discussed the desire to better ensure the quality of the service we provide so welre there for you when -- when you need us and we can provide the services that are appropriate. And while welve been evolving, as the chairman mentioned earlier, in this format for several years, welve truly committed to the implementation under the leadership of Sam Poole and Mike Slayton and the current governing board. As we analyze the concept and develop strategies, the Fort Myers service center fell into somewhat of a testing ground or a prototype if you will. And in many cases what it allowed us to do is prove the concept of this local service would not only be an asset for the district but would also be a very vital asset for the local governments and the public. It also allowed us to rethink our role in the community, and we started asking some interesting questions. And one of the questions we used locally is what is the value of customer retention to an agency such as ours. Whatls the publicls awareness of district initiatives? Do our customers recognize us as a resource for problem solving? And probably the most important question for us right now is if there are deficiencies, where are those deficiencies, and how can we recognize and fix those? The very simple answers to these questions are that yes, there are deficiencies, we're trying to locate those problems and fix them, we found solutions to some of those issues. But I believe so far we've done a better job on some of the customer awareness issues. And I used earlier the term customer retention. It's an unusual term for a government agency. And I think it is probably a good way to -- to measure the quality of service we provide, and I'll use an example. When you typical -- when you go out to shop for a product, you'll typically return to a vendor who provided you courteous and correct information and does it in a timely manner and someone who can stand behind their product. We need to reflect that in the day-to-day activities from these local offices. We also need to provide service in a manner which brings the customers back to the district so that they can take advantage of all the resources we have available. Now, even with permitting you can't go out and shop which agency you want to get your permits from, but we have to be careful in how we deal with this so that we don't reflect that attitude and we are there to help you get through some of the tough times. One method we've recently used to evaluate our quality of service was to take a very critical look internally and externally. And one of these evaluations was framed around a workshop utilizing local consultants. Last month approximately 30 members of the regulating community attended a workshop and provided input to us on what they thought we did well and what they thought we could do better. Their evaluations were constructive and actually evolved into a two-way discussion where we found there were resources they had that we could use to better apply what we were trying to accomplish. And in many cases we were trying to get to the same place going down the same road, but we still had separate directions. But another important key for improving local service opportunities is a perspective felt by the local district staff. Can they easily find the answers to your concerns and your questions so that our responses are appropriate and they're delivered to you in a timely manner? Our staff are the most -- are the greatest resource we have, and their inputting how we accomplish this mission is crucial. But quite frankly, one employee in the sea of sixteen hundred may feel somewhat intimidated and may truly not feel ownership in a project or product they're working on. And when you add the width of the state to that, it kind of adds compounding the problem. But if you reduce the sea to one in forty, you transfer some of the responsibility to those local staff members. The opportunity for ownership is increased. And with this increased ownership we found that we've had a much better product coming out. And one of the other things that's happened is our positive feedback has been much greater. This positive feedback has turned into a very substantial energy for looking for problem solving opportunities. Another point is that the district service center employees are not only here to carry out the mission but were residents and local taxpayers of our communities. And we've repeatedly proven I believe that we're committed to those communities by becoming community leaders, educators, and volunteers. And with this additional or increased opportunity with the communities, I believe that our staff has now been able to work more closely with your local government staff. And we recognize much quicker regionally important issues and understand the constraints that you're facing on a day-to-day basis. This has allowed us to provide additional technical resources when available and appropriate and also has allowed us to provide some financial assistance implementing some of your local priority projects. We also play a role as the eyes and ears of the district, and we not only share what the issues themselves are. But typically we can bring back a lot of the emotions surrounding some of those issues. And I know that my experience with most of you here today that when our decision-making process or our direction isn't consistent with your needs, you haven't hesitated to let us know that. And one of my favorites was that Hendry County allowed me the opportunity to a 15-minute headstart one time after a presentation out of LaBelle. The district is committed to the role of implementing the service centers. And again, the timing is going to be in concert with the next budget cycle beginning October 1, 1995. It will involve a total of eight locations. Already in place are offices in Naples, Fort Myers, Florida Keys, Hiami, Orlando, and Okeechobee. The new proposed service centers will be located in the Broward and the Martin, St. Lucie County areas. When we started to examine what we were going to do internally to make this work, what we looked at is how are we going to accomplish this implementation without becoming an additional burden on the district's budget. I think we can accomplish this in a couple forms, and one will be to reevaluate any vacant position that comes available. When those vacant positions are available, we'll look to redirect those to the service centers but only after the service center has demonstrated a need for the improved staffing. Another will be to utilize outside resources such as contracting for services when those opportunities present themselves. And a third opportunity will be the utilization of what we've termed circuit writers. Those people will be able to meet our needs from West Palm Beach on a once- or twice-a-week basis and hopefully meet the needs of the community also. With the implementation of the service centers, a greater level of accountability will now be shifted into the hands of the local service center managers that are responsible for meeting the needs of our customers and the district staff to make sure all the appropriate resources are in the right place at the right time. They'll also be responsible for meeting all these needs and resources without duplicating any steps along the way, and that's another key to keeping the budget in check. Full-time service center staff will report directly to the service center director where in the past primary supervision has been performed from the West Palm Beach office. This should improve the response of the district by moving the decision-making process closer to you, our customers. But care will be taken to maintain the consistency in interpretation of district policy and in interpretation of our statutory authority. An example of some of the issues that we are -- some of the services we're providing today from Fort Myers include community relations, local government assistance, permitting, construction land management services, and environmental education. We hope in the near future to provide additional services such as assistance in local government comprehensive review, regional planning initiatives such as the planning discussed earlier in the Caloosahatchee River and the Estero Bay, lower west coast water supply plan implementation, and district legal counsel services. And district legal counsel is a great example of how we can provide some services on a circuit writer basis. Our goal is to provide as much improvement as we can to make sure our partnership is -- is solid and continues to move forward. And I believe wewve come a long way so far in the first steps of this initiative, and wewve got a ways to go. And Iwd -- and Iwd accept any questions at this time. MS. BOYD: Questions? You know, one thing Iid like to ask Chip, when Commissioner Matthews asked the question about the lower west coast water supply planning, what welve done there, what welre doing in the Big Cypress Basin, and how welre dovetailing, how welre working with Collier County, with Bill Lorenz and his department and John Boldt, tell -- tell as an example -- tell us how welre doing -- how are we letting them know whatls in the lower kest -- lower west coast water supply plan, what are the needs and sources, what are some of the options that we feel would be available. Tell me how welre doing that. MR. MERRIAM: Thatls -- thatls -- you did a great job of allowing me to segue into Tom Thayer here in a minute. Hels going to do a presentation on -- an overview on the Big Cypress Basin. MS. BOYD: But thatls not going to answer my question. MR. MERRIAM: Part of the answer to your question is that we involve several of those people in the lower west coast technical advisory team, and they were -- they provided comments to us. In the past when -- when Mike and I were sharing the resource -- the responsibilities together, Mike headed up all the coordination in Collier County, and we shared our information back and forth. Base and position and administrative positionls in a bit of transition right now. And right now Tom Thayer and I are -- are -- are sharing that information. I donlt have as good a contact with the Collier County commissioners as I have with the other county commissioners because of the way the administration is set up with the Big Cypress Basin. MS. BOYD: Well, you know, I know that John Boldt attends our Big Cypress Basin Board meetings, and I know he stays very involved, and we appreciate that. And he knows whatls going on pretty much, and I know that Bill Lorenz comes in from time to time. And right now I would -- you just heard right now our Big Cypress Basin administrator -- we have an interim administrator who youlre going to hear from, Tom Thayer. I know many of you had just met Frank Meeker who replaced Mike Slayton, and Frank has decided to take another position in northern Florida, so welre in the process now of recruiting for a new Big Cypress Basin administrator. But, Tom, maybe you can -- you can come on up. And thank you, Chip. But I just -- I look forward to the day when -- when I really feel like all the people in Collier County and the people in the water management district, welre really kind of working together singing the same song and really know what each other are doing. MR. THAYER: Thank you. I am Tom Thayer. Iim the interim administrator for Big Cypress Basin. Iive only been on the scene now for about six weeks. And in that time I have gained valuable insight into truly what a full service center can do for a local community. Chip's office was the prototype. Big Cypress Basin has been in existence since 1977 and has been living a local community service organization since that time. To specifically address the question that you posed, Miss Boyd, I meet weekly with John Boldt. In fact, we last week formed a working group with Collier County HRS, state of Florida officials, and Big Cypress Basin to deal with an education and awareness outreach program on surface water -- water pollutants. Also I have a meeting scheduled with Commissioner Matthews for Friday to follow up on this particular thing so we can address all the opportunities. And as the interim administrator, I'm -- I'm deeply involved and we certainly are looking forward to hiring a full-time administrator so that we can move the program forward very quickly. I'd like to say that we were established in 1977. We do have our own basin board. And we -- we conduct all the services because we live there. Like Chip said, staff lives locally. They have a vested interest. They have the connections, and we have constant interaction with the various local government groups. The -- the population we service is approximately in excess of 180,000. And we cover about 2,000 square miles. Effectively if you see the drainage system that we operate, many of our canals were put in place by developers as a drainage system. And over the past 15 or so years, the basin staff have worked very hard to turn this into a true flood protection system and a source of recharge. The responsibilities of the Big Cypress Basin are laid out in the Florida statute. And as you see, its full range, very similar to the district in that we work on development of water resource issues. We are very involved in an overall basin plan and coordinating our plan with the county government and the various municipalities, preparation of an annual budget, consideration of construction projects to improve our system, administration of regulatory activities, real property. And, of course, we pay for what we do as we go through. Our mission statement is consistent with the initiative that the executive office has established to inform the public on water resource issues. Of course, we have our own operations department. In that regard we are different from the prototype service center in that we have colocated our administrative functions with our operations staff. We find that to be extremely effective and efficient, and we would like to see that expanded in other areas where possible. We are able to keep our staffing load down. We share our resources that way. The development of plans for conservation and preservation are extremely important to us. And we fund our basin works, and, of course, our assistance to other local government entities is a primary consideration. As I indicated, we are full service. Management of basin affairs is the administrative function. Hydromonitoring is our data collection. That's done in concert with the private sector and the public sector. Of course, the data that we capture then feeds into our planning process. Planning process dictates our acquisitions and constructions. Once we acquire or construct, of course, we operate it efficiently and our local government assistance program, constant interactions and cooperative agreements and, of course, our water conservation and education initiative. I'd like to apologize for this particular overhead. It uses the term problems. I'm not sure that we have problems, but we have significant opportunities over here in southwest Florida, and we're trying to deal with those in a cooperative fashion. Naturally, we want to increase our flood protection in southwest Florida. We are concerned about overdrainage. We certainly want to reduce draw-down and increase recharge. We are concerned about salt water intrusion. Degradation of the water quality is always a prime consideration in all of our planning and operational issues. Certainly reduction of the wetland hydroperiods has stressed the environment, and we work with local governments to -- to improve that. And we are now conducting a comprehensive western Collier County watershed plan which will deal with virtually all of Collier County and focus in on the urbanized areas. As part of that plan -- you can go to the next one, Craig. As part of that plan will include a very extensive -- no. While we get the overheads right, part of that plan will, of course, involve data collection, and part of that data will be an extensive environmental assessment. We're also plan to continue -- we also plan to continue our aerial mapping in such a fashion where the -- the gaps in the maps that exist we will fill in and ensure that the data is valid. Additionally, we're working on the southern Golden Gate Estates hydrorestoration plan at the request of the Governor, and we do support a position in Tallahassee to supplement their staff and to expedite the acquisition of those properties. We certainly appreciate your concerns about expediting that acquisition. I'm pleased to report that in the last 4 years 15,000 of the 41,000 acres have been acquired out there. So we're 35 percent of the way through, and we hope that we'll be able to encourage the state and DEP to move forward as expeditiously as possible. The last overhead here shows our -- our five-year plan. In the period between 1981 and 1993, Big Cypress Basin expended approximately 2.5 million to enhance the -- the system that we have here. In this particular 5-year plan between '94 and '99, we plan to expend approximately 7.5 million. We'll be raising the level of weirs -- we have been -- to increase time for recharge. We're certainly looking at excavation for additional capacity flow. And, of course, all of our system has been designed for ecological advantage, flood protection, and water supply. MS. BOYD: Commissioner Matthews, you have a question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: On your comment of raising the weirs and increasing the water recharge, I understand the concept that you're talking about. However, last -- last summer -- and I know it was somewhat wet -- in Golden Gate Estates along the Seventh Avenue and Ninth Avenue and up in that area, they sustained substantial flooding. And part of that was because -- at least I understand part of it was because weirs were not opened soon enough. I -- I guess my question is what are we doing to maintain this delicate balance -- and I realize that it's a very delicate balance -- of -- of protecting families and their homes from flooding yet still maintaining the highest level of recharge that we can? I mean, I -- I don't know whether you like getting phone calls, but I don't like getting phone calls from people who have been flooded for three weeks. MR. THAYER: I can certainly appreciate that. And no, I don't enjoy those phone calls either, but we do occasionally get them. We're constantly looking at our operating and maintenance schedule and optimizing the system using our sophisticated modeling to ensure that the system works as efficiently as is possible realizing that the system that is in place was originally designed simply as a drainage system and we are optimizing that. And, of course, we always look at how we control our gates and try to -- to play that timing so as to minimize any water rising in residential areas and to maximize the recharge. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I -- I guess my question more revolves around the idea that it seems like every summer in Golden Gate Estates it's a different area that's flooded this summer. It's almost like it rotates around, and -- and we give everybody a taste of it on a rotating cycle. And I'm sorry to make a comment like that, but it almost appears that it's that way. MR. SLAYTON: Part of the -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And I'm just questioning are we really watching the rain gauges as closely as we ought to along with the weather systems moving in. MR. SLAYTON: Part of the problems in Golden Gate Estates also are created from natural low lying depressional areas within the estates, the estates punctuated by low lying areas and higher, sandiet islands. It's also complicated by the fact of localized rainfall. Back in 1991 most of the rainfall in Golden Gate Estates occurred just to the east of Everglades Boulevard. In this past year we had high localized rainfall in that area; problems with maintaining the secondary system, the roadside swales that come into the primary system, as well as the design of the main structures that we operate and maintain within the canal. It's a -- it's a combination. What we're trying to do is switch the structures that we're building in the future, the fully gated structures, so that you've got the full cross-section of the canal to be able to handle flow through those canals. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I understand all that. It just seems like it's the same story. You know, I'm hearing -- MR. SLAYTON: It will be the same story. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- the same thing year after year after year, and it doesn't seem to improve. And I guess I'm just looking for what planning's being done to improve it. MR. SLAYTON: I guess from the past five years the -- the spacial coverage of the columns has improved. You still have small localized areas. In this past year it was on Seventh Avenue just to the south of Golden Gate -- Golden Gate Boulevard. Next year it will probably be in someplace else. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I know. MS. BOYD: Mr. Simpson who is, as a matter of fact, vice chair of the Big Cypress Basin. MR. SIMPSON: Hi. If I may, one thing that we have to keep in mind about the Golden Gate system is that it was initially designed as a drainage system, not a flood control system. In order for there to be a true flood control or management, we have to have the ability to move the water more rapidly from the areas that are prone to flooding than we currently can with the structure and system we have. Part of what's going to take place in the Big Cypress Basin, western Collier watershed plan, is that we'll be able to assess what changes are needed. It's much more complicated than just addressing weirs and weir levels because even when the weir levels were very low, we still had flooding problems. We have to be able to understand where the water needs to go and where we can put it in a very rapid fashion to provide for flood protection as opposed to drainage because drainage takes place over time. With a drainage system you'll still have periodic flooding, and that's what we have. But that's really the whole idea of that plus the water supply aspects of our basin plan is what really has brought that to the forefront as our number one project that we need to do for the county. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The -- the western Collier plan that you're talking about, is -- is that a subset of the lower west coast supply plan? MR. SIMPSON: Actually what that is doing is that's taking -- from a water supply standpoint, that's taking some of the ideas and principles that were incorporated into the lower west coast water supply plan and now taking those principles and developing an implementation strategy for them if you will. That's a good way to think of it. MS. BOYD: Mr. Hammond. MR. HAMMOND: I think it just behooves us to -- to keep in tune with -- this same problem exists throughout all of the 16 counties in south Florida. We're buying a frog pond now because of people who lived in a swamp didn't want to be wet, you know, and -- and -- and we can't maintain a control over all these things. I call it the Jurassic Park syndrome. I don't care how much money was spent or how much engineering we put into it. All we'll ever have is the illusion of the control. Nature always bats last, and somebody's going to get wet, and some of us are just going to have to take some phone calls now and then. But I think the effort is to make the best of what we can within a reasonable, you know, financially fiscal approach to dealing with these problems. And the other part is as you said, a lot of it's education of the people who move down here and don't know what to expect. They just aren't tuned into the south Florida environment and how it works. MS. BOYD: Any other comments or questions? Williamson. Yeah, Mr. Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: My question deals with exactly what Mr. Hammond alluded to as in public information. I'm not equipped to handle the questions of why did the South Florida Water Management District build a weir here. The water level rises a foot and a half. They get puddles in their front yard, and they call me. So yes, I'm happy to accept phone calls, Mr. Hammond. I'm just not happy not to have the answers. What I'd like to know is when a -- a significant project that the district is proposing is going into an area, is there a public information campaign that goes out to the affected property owners to explain to them the term impacts, short term and long term, that the project is going to have. I -- you know, Miss Boyd alluded earlier that there's a lack of communication or even cooperation between Collier County and the district. If that's the case, let's correct it by increasing the communication to the constituents that I represent because that's where the concern is coming from. So I guess I'd like to know a little bit more about the public information work that is done on all these millions of dollars of improvements that are being made. MR. SLAYTON: In the -- in the past, the commission has always been included in the five-year plan process. We -- we hold our basin board meetings in your chambers down the hall from your office. And when we are involved with capital improvements, we have been meeting with the homeowners' association. In the past I've met with Golden Gate property owners' group, Palm River property owners' associations, et cetera, as well as service entities and what have you. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So those staff members -- again, I tend -- you tend to field the complaints from a localized area. MR. SLAYTON: Sure. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So those staff members I assume are available for me to schedule and -- and to utilize? MR. SLAYTON: Yes, sir. MS. BOYD: Absolutely, Tim. And I think also when the service center concept really gets underway in a strong way in this area, hopefully that will be helpful in that outreach and education. But you should feel very comfortable any time calling the Big Cypress Basin Board administrator or the service administrator of the service office and having him come with you if you need to or address a group or whatever because that's what we're here for. And we need to offer you that. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You'll be hearing from me. MS. BOYD: Good. That's -- and that's a good point. I'm glad that came up because that dialogue will help. MR. WILLIAMSON: And in addition, when you get that call at night, refer it to Tom Thayer. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll be needing Tom's home phone number before we leave here but -- MR. WILLIAMSON: Because that is important, that -- that -- and -- and -- and tell that person, if you don't get a good answer, call me back because I want to be sure you do, but that's important. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, obviously I try not to pass the buck, and I'd rather, you know, try to control an organized effort to where answering questions in a certain neighborhood. But I -- I will be utilizing that link a little bit -- a little bit more than has been I would say. MR. THAYER: Well, information is the key so -- MS. BOYD: It is. MR. THAYER: -- you know, we need to keep the information flowing between each other and to the general public. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. MS. BOYD: Uh-huh. And we owe that to the commissioners, and we owe that to the public. So -- and, Tom, you're doing a great job, and we appreciate it. MR. WILLIAMSON: And don't think of it as passing the buck if you say those are the folks that know more about that than I, and, you know, I'll go with you or whatever. But use us. MS. BOYD: That's right. Put the monkey on our back. Any other questions or comments? Thank you, Tom. And thank you, Chip. Now we'll move onto the briefing of the private sector initiatives for Florida panther protection, and I believe we do have a panel that's going to be addressing us: David Maehr formerly with Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission who is now with -- partnering with Wilkinson and Simpson and Ed English representing American Farmland Trust Working Group and Jerry Schmoyer with Westinghouse Communities Incorporated. MR. WILLIAMSON: Madam Chair, since we're 15 minutes early, do you want to have a little break, or do you not? MS. BOYD: All right. Why don't we take about a five-minute break. She can change that paper in five minutes. (A short break was held.) MS. BOYD: If everyone would have a seat, we'll call the workshop back to order. We've got a time restraint, so we need to get going again. If everyone would have a seat, we're going to call the workshop back to order. Grab your Coke or your cookie or whatever and come sit down, and we'll start our panther discussion. All right. Shall we begin our panel discussion on Florida panther protection? If everyone would have a seat, we are going to start. One of the things that we have found out, that this afternoon we do need to be out of here by five, and I'm sure that all of us would like to be out of here by five. That sounds like a good time. There is a clogging group coming in at five o'clock. So unless you're interested in joining the clogging group, we do need to continue on. We have one vote for four. We might be able to go by then. All right. I'm going to turn it over to Terri Bates who's director of regulatory. And Terri is going to be telling you a little bit about the panel today, and then I think Chip Merriam is going to introduce the panelists. So, Terri, if you would begin. Thank you. MS. BATES: Thank you. I just wanted to offer a few brief remarks as part of the background on this issue. Certainly the consideration of the Florida panther and endangered and threatened species is -- is not a new one for our agency. As far as something that's considered in our permitting process and certainly with regulatory agencies around the state and local governments, trying to deal with endangered and threatened species issues is one of the most controversial items that we have to address. And certainly this governing board and the Lee County commission knows from their recent experience on the Florida Gulf Coast University how difficult those issues can be. By way of background for our governing board to let you know one of the ways that we coordinate on wildlife issues is in our Fort Myers service center we do have meetings every two weeks with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, and DEP to review pending permit applications so we can try and address those wildlife issues in a cooperative fashion. But to be frank, one of the issues that's very difficult for our staff because a lot of times we don't get comments from the wildlife agencies until very late in the process and that makes it very difficult both for us and the permit applicant to try and adequately address these issues. Certainly it's much easier to work cooperatively in the very initial stages, even preapplication stages, to try and address those issues. And that's not a criticism directed at the other agencies. It's a matter of staffing and funding for them. They don't have the level of staffing that they would need to keep up with our statutory time frames in many cases. And next just update our governing board on how the Florida panther fits in with the proposed environmental resource permit rules. You'll remember that that was one of the real key policy issues was how we -- how we addressed up on habitat in the proposed ERP rules. That was a very controversial issue. There were a number of options that were presented to not only this governing board but the other water management district governing boards and the environmental regulation commission was how far did you go in regulating upland habitat for wildlife purposes through the proposed ERP rules. After a lot of debate, discussion, and discussion at the state level with the water resources coordinating council, the ultimate decision of all those agencies was in our proposed rules that the limit of our review of upland habitat would be upland habitat used for nesting or denning by aquatic and wetland dependent listed species such as the Florida panther. Admittedly, this -- this is a relatively narrow scope of upland habitat review that would be carried out through our permitting process, but I think the governing boards and the ERC really struggled with trying to balance how far do we go on one hand for endangered and threatened species protection with property rights and all the other concerns on the other hand and -- and really try to strike a reasonable balance, especially when considering a species such as the Florida panther and the black bear. They had very wide range, home ranges, and would potentially impact significant areas of -- of property. And finally all that that I just kind of updated you on the ERP is still subject to the final order from the administrative hearing on the rule challenge to the ERP rules. That's what we had put forward and -- and went through the hearing on, but it still has yet to be determined based on the final order from the hearing officer whether or not those components of the proposed ERP rules will be upheld. And finally in summary, I think everyone would agree because of the piecemeal nature of trying to deal with some of these -- these very critical wildlife issues on a project-by-project basis that regulation is certainly not going to be in and of itself the most effective means for dealing with issues like the Florida panther. we're very interested in working cooperatively with the private landowners, and -- and I'm very interested to hear some of the private sector initiatives that are going forward. And with that, I'll turn it over to Chip for introduction of the panel. MR. HERRIAM: Thank you, Terri. We do have a rather distinguished group here today to provide us with some private -- some input. And they all have their own specialties, and -- and I look very much forward also to hearing what they're -- what they're going to say. First that will speak today will be Dave Haehr, then will be followed by Ed English, and then Jerry Schmoyer. And what we would like to do if possible is hold your questions until after they make their presentations. Then as a panel they can respond to your issues. First person I'd like to introduce is Dave Haehr. Dave is currently employed by Wilkinson Associates as a senior biologist, and his history with the district has pretty much been a resource every time we've needed to ask questions regarded to carnivores or, you know, the panthers or bears or whatever else we needed to ask questions about. He's also got another distinction with almost 14 years experience with game and fish -- fresh water fish commission, so he has the opportunity to provide us with two sides of the -- of the issue. Sitting next to him is Ed English. Ed is a tremendous resource. He sits on the ag -- the district's agriculture advisory committee. He has also been one we've turned to for leadership in answering questions in this region. Typically he is out in front. He is looking for answers to problems long before they become problems, and he is one of the first to implement new ideas. And plus Ed has been -- been part of this country some time, and I think he was born some time after the earth -- MR. ENGLISH: Late 1800s. MR. HERRIAM: Late 1800s. Next to Ed is Jerry Schmoyer who is the executive vice president and general manager of Pelican Landing. And Jerry is in charge of overseeing both the Pelican Landing and the Gateway projects for Westinghouse Corporation. He joined Westinghouse approximately, oh, gosh, 12 years ago. And prior to being part of Westinghouse, he was a professor of urban development at LSU. And what I'd like to do now is introduce the first presenter, Dave Haehr. MR. HAEHR: Chip, thanks a lot. I'd like to commend everyone here, in particular representatives of the water management district and the three counties represented here. I think this is a unique opportunity for sharing information. Someone made the observation that the information is key. I'd like to add to that that so is money. With that information, it doesn't matter how much money you got. Your decisions may be wrong. On the other hand, no matter how much money you have, if your information is wrong, you can see how -- how that goes. But I thought long and hard on the way coming up how I would try to meld panther issues with water. And about the only thing I could come up with was the fact like other higher terrestrial vertebrates, panthers are primarily 70 percent water themselves. But given -- given that challenge, we do know that south Florida is a wet and -- and watery landscape. They are found in wetland systems. And I think the important thing to keep in mind when viewing the panther in this landscape is that they tie together ecosystems. They move across wet prairies, fresh water marshes, cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks. They tie these things together. They need that matrix, that diversity of habitat types to do very well. And I think that in part explains why southwest Florida is the heart of the panther's range in Florida and indeed the southeastern United States. What I thought I'd do is as you may be able to tell from the slide is I may have a different perspective on the panther than a lot of people. But I'd just like to go over some -- some basics of panther biology and history, try to do this as briefly as possible. Many of the basics that we've all heard about have not changed over the years. Florida panthers have a very small population. It's interesting, though, that over the last decade that population estimate has not changed. We've heard 30 to 50 for at least the last 10 years. But it's interesting now we hear the estimate is 30 to 50 adults. It used to be 30 to 50, period. And that in part I think was based on a paper that I published with my former colleagues with game and fish that came up with an estimate for just southwest Florida as 70 to 80 individuals. And this was based on empirical data that looked at home range size and distribution and this sort of thing. So they are out there, and they seem to be holding their own which is counter to many of the basic opinions that are -- that are held by the public. The most obvious and the truest statement that can be said is that panthers have a much smaller range today than they did 100 to 200 years ago. But it's also interesting that despite the fact that they live in a very small island type area, traditionally Florida panthers were restricted almost to an island situation by virtue of the fact that a peninsula by definition is one side -- one side sort of being an island. So these animals have always been subject to a fairly high level of -- of inbreeding which is also a -- a common concern. I wish it was a little bit darker. This slide would be a little bit more meaningful. But this basically is the south peninsula of Florida. Focus in on the very dark green regions in the southwest part of the state. This is the heart of panther range. But it's not all equivalent. Panther habitat varies from southeast to northwest. The further north and west one goes, the better the panther habitat is, the more productive the panthers are, and the healthier they are. And those animals just so happen to spend a lot of their time on private lands. And in another paper that we published in conservation biology some years ago, we estimated that without the lands that are supporting panthers now on private lands, the public agencies would be forced into managing somewhere between 9 and 20 individual panthers. So we're talking about much more than half -- a loss of half of the population of all we have left are those poorer quality habitats that are found on -- on public lands. Contrary to popular belief, most of the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park are not good panther habitat. The better panther habitat is found up around the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and the tier of private ranches that -- that make that -- that good quality matrix of uplands and wetlands that I referenced to before. Let me just point out where I'm talking about here. Ninety percent of our panthers live in this very small area that includes the Fakahatchee Strand, the panther refuge, the Seminole Indian reservation, and the tier of private ranches in primarily Collier and Hendry County. It won't go off? It looks like a stick of dynamite. Yeah, right in here. So that -- that's the key area. It's a relatively small chunk of land relative to what we consider occupied panther habitat which is on the order of three to four million acres. We're actually talking about less than a million acres that's supporting most of the known reproduction that's going on out there today. Now, I'm not picking on Hendry County, but I just happen to have some good slides that -- that show some changes over time. The same sorts of things have happened to a lesser degree in Collier County and to a greater degree in Lee County. But this is an artist's rendition that was made back in the early 1970s of land use patterns in Hendry County. Yellow is primarily the agricultural lands, improved pastures, this sort of thing. Green represent various natural communities. If we contrast that with what it looked like in 1900, what is evident is a greater than 50 percent loss of native forest and plant communities in that part of the world. So things have changed dramatically. But despite that -- that matrix that still exists in -- Hendry County supports panthers. And the challenge for this -- for this group is to figure out ways of maintaining certain land uses that we know are compatible with panthers and these landscapes that are still relatively natural. And, again, contrary to popular belief, the panther is not a wilderness animal. And they're very capable of tolerating certain types of human disturbance as long as they're not at a level and at a time scale that is detrimental. There are many examples. If we had more time, we could get into some of those as well. A little bit more about the natural history, I don't know how well you can see this slide, but one of the things we have most often heard over the years is that panthers were succumbing to -- to highway mortality left and right. And certainly a Winnebago is going to be the death of the last panther on earth. In fact, road mortality is relatively insignificant relative to natural mortality in the population. Panthers kill each other more frequently than cars do. And their rate of reproduction is high enough that they -- they replace themselves readily. As a matter of fact, if you look at the last 10 years of -- of panther research that dates back -- actually back to 1981, there -- I think there's been 30 plus or minus couple documented deaths of panthers in that time period. Over the same time period, there have been close to 50 documented panther births. Panther survival is high. In all age classes there's a greater than 80 percent survival rate from kittens to adults. And once adult becomes established in a home range, they stay there for a long time. There's little turnover in those populations. They -- they do quite well once they found a range of their own. So the early impression if we went back to about 1985 when agencies were forced into making management decisions based on what little data they had, the image of the panther was that they were old, they were anemic, they were highly parasitized, they experienced high mortality, and there was no reproduction taking place. I mean, this is a very ominous sign for any population, no matter how big or small it is. If there's no reproduction and they're all old, something bad is go to happen. But in recent years in looking at this ten-year record and having that perspective and having the freedom of -- I'm also in graduate school at the University of Florida, and I get pounded on by my colleagues relentlessly up there to quit living in the past and look to the future. But the -- the accurate view of the panther today is that they exhibit high reproduction, there's high survival, they exhibit a variety of health conditions throughout their range, and primarily they're in pretty good health particularly on private lands, and they exhibit normal social ecology. And by that I mean the way they disburse themselves across a landscape as exhibited by this slide. There's a lot of overlap among individuals. An individual may require anywhere from 50 to 200 square miles on an individual basis, but they overlap with each other. And they need that social facilitation to maintain contact with each other and to maintain reproduction in that population. And that is happening -- that has -- that has continued to happen over the last decade. And there doesn't seem to be any suggestions that it's changing in any way. Things from a demographic perspective look very good for the panther, and this is in large part due to the high quality of habitat that's found in that transition from public to private lands especially in Collier and Hendry County. The agencies have done a remarkable job over the years of coming up with the basic biology, the natural history of these animals. They've done wonderful work given the -- the environment they have to work in, the challenges that are out there. It's -- it's incredible what has been learned about the animal. Unfortunately, the two wildlife agencies that are involved in managing and recovering the panther, relatively speaking compared with private property owners, compared with the water management district, are land-poor agencies. The game and fresh water fish commission does not own any panther habitat per se. The fish and wildlife service has a premiere management example on the panther refuge. It's a wonderful place, but it's relatively small. And so what happens is given that they don't have land based practice, their best management practices, they end up having to deal with symptoms. And you end up with extremes. You have examples like the habitat preservation plan which was an attempt at looking at the bigger picture. A certain -- a series of unfortunate communications resulted in a lot of alienation of private land owners, and I think there's a steeper hill to climb now as a result. The other extreme then is to deal with symptomatic problems like highway mortality, like inbreeding, and some of the other things that seem to be a problem. If we look at all the radio telemetry data that has been collected since 1981, it becomes apparent that the landscape is not used evenly by these animals. The higher density blue areas represent higher concentrations of -- of radio telemetry data. And we assume that means there's more panther use and more panthers there. You notice the further south and east you go, the deeper into the Everglades you get, the more scattered and sparse those -- those dots become. And it's no coincidence that panthers went extinct in the Everglades back around 1990, 1991. We all heard about the mercury connection. I think that population would have gone extinct. It was inevitable because the habitat quality was so poor. It's primarily a wetland herbaceous system. Panthers require forested systems and as much upland habitat as they can get. It would have happened with or without mercury. So back to the landscape issues. It's ironic that the -- the two agencies that -- that have potential to have the most beneficial impact on panther recovery are two agencies that were originally created to help drain Florida. We're talking about the Corps of Engineers and the south -- and all the water management districts for that matter. But in particular, the South Florida Water Management District has a real opportunity. They have the opportunity to create a -- a new paradigm relative to landscape management. They have the -- the foot in the door with the wetland landscapes and increasingly are working into the -- into the upland communities. I think this is wonderful for wildlife perhaps. It also is a cause for concern for -- for private property owners and developers. So the challenge for the district is to create partnerships where this sort of thing will work for everyone, and I think it's possible. I think the -- the tenth university has the potential to become this example to demonstrate where public and the private sectors can work together to create a -- an international example of where long-term planning and vision will create a landscape that's not only suitable for wildlife but suitable for people as well. And I'm real -- a paradigm, if you will, of what is possible. I think I should probably stop there and give my fellow panel members a chance to speak as well. Hold your questions for later, but -- but I think my -- my bottom line message is we've got a lot of time with the panther. It's not on this spiraling vortex of extinction that many of us have been led to believe. I think there's plenty of time to work with it, to work out landscape management plans, and to work out cooperative programs among the -- the public and the private sector to really make this thing work. And this is probably one of the few places in eastern North America that I know of that this would be possible. Thank you. MR. MERRIAM: Thanks, Dave. The next speaker again is Ed English, and Ed is going to provide us with a perspective from the farmland trust working group. MR. ENGLISH: My name is Ed English, and I participated in the landowner working group which developed a panther habitat preservation conceptual plan. Even though the game and fresh water fish commission has not issued its final report about the landowner group, I want to explain what the landowner working group wanted the conceptual plan to do when we developed it. The conceptual plan we developed provides a way for landowners to protect panthers and panther habitat on almost one million acres of private land in southwest Florida without destroying the region's economic viability. The landowner working group resulted from the interagency panther committee's announcement of a panther habitat preservation plan over two years ago. That plan as announced would have been very expensive. We were fortunate in this group to have as one of our members Dallas Townsend who is the county agent in Hendry County, and he has an economic background. And it wasn't very difficult to assume that if you had a million acres and some of it was in intensive farming, sugar cane, and citrus that you could be talking in excess of a billion dollars for this land purchased. Secondly, it would take more than $30 million annually to manage the land at levels and probably that would be inferior to current management. Dallas did some work, and I think Craig did some also on what different agencies were spending to manage public lands. And we came up with an average figure of about $30 for this type of land, and that's currently what's being expended. In addition to those expenses, the plan had indirect costs as well: If the land were purchased, the loss of one million acres from the tax rolls of local counties; and two, the loss of economic activity generated by agriculture on one million acres. Shortly after the interagency panthers committee's announcement, Florida Farm Bureau hosted a public meeting in Fort Myers regarding the interagency's preservation plan which generated considerable and vocal public participation. Consequently, the Florida Advisory Council on Environmental Education funded a grant through the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission to the American Farmland Trust to learn how to communicate with the landowners affected by the preservation plan. Unlike the South Florida Water Management District which is historical invited us -- invited the participation of agriculture, local government, and other interests through its advisory committees in developing its rules and policies. The interagency panther committee had no such input in developing its preservation plan. The landowner working group formed under the grant at the invitation of Craig Evans with American Farmland Trust was comprised of ten individuals, seven of whom are landowners or their representatives whose property is within the panther habitat preservation plan. Of those landowners involved, almost all participated in the district's lower west coast water supply plan. And two of the group participated on the district's agriculture advisory committee. I emphasize the fact that we landowners had no communication problem with the district as our participation with the district and its committees indicates. The proposed -- I want to say a few things about the proposed landowner plan. When the landowner group met for the first time in February of 1994, we knew from listening to the comments made at the Fort Myers public meeting regarding the panther habitat preservation plan that we had a number of concerns to keep in mind: One, protecting ad valorem tax revenues for counties whose tax roll included property within the preservation plan; two, protecting land values and development rights for property both inside and outside the preservation plan. Digress -- digress just a second. One suggestion that we made to game and fish was that if you have endangered species that are adequately protected by this one million acres, we felt like that we should see the agencies back off of filing objections to someone building a home or golf course or a university on land outside of the plan. Three, protecting the integrity of the district's permitting process which we understand and which works well. In addition to those concerns, we were told at the first meeting that the most healthiest panthers are found on private lands. Why? Because the mosaic pattern of development which -- which includes all of the wetlands, some uplands, and the food supply created by farming has greatly increased the spray base of the panther. We welcomed the opportunity to participate on this working group by volunteering to come to a second meeting where the proposal for the basis of a conceptual plan to protect panthers in their habitat on private lands. As we developed our conceptual plan, a review committee representing many other diverse interests from federal wildlife agencies to local property rights groups and the district provided ongoing commentary for the landowner's conceptual plan. While we received a lot of comments regarding issues related to the plan, to my knowledge never once during the review process did any member of the review committee express concern that the conceptual plan would not adequately protect the panther in its habitat during the life of the plan. The conceptual plan's primary objective is to protect the panther by offering incentives to the landowners to protect its habitat. The conceptual plan offers compensation to landowners in three different levels. The first level applies to all landowners within the habitat protection plan. At this level landowners would have the option to lease or if the landowner prefers to sell all non-agricultural development rights. The second level applies to all landowners who submit an application to the district to expand the use of their property for agricultural purposes. At this level landowners would be compensated at their request to expand their agricultural uses as otherwise permitable under current district rules, but the use is reduced or denied for habitat preservation reasons. And the third level applies to landowners whose property must be returned to its natural state. At this level landowners would be compensated both for the cost of restoration and for the economic impact associated with the loss of that farming activity. And this we're talking probably mostly wildlife garners. The conceptual plan we envision compensates landowners for leasing all non-agricultural development rights for a period of 25 years. In other words, landowners would lease all rights not related to or required for agricultural production for the duration of the lease in exchange for compensation. The leases would be held by a county land authority which would be responsible for the leases and keep local people and local agencies involved in the process. Leaving the land in private hands while leasing the development rights accomplishes two things: It keeps the property tax -- property on tax rolls for the involved counties, and it protects panther habitat. Further the county land authorities ensure local control of the development rights of the property leased under the plan. We recommend three different ways to compensate landowners for lease development rights in the loss of agricultural development rights: One, income tax and inheritance tax relief; two, pay property owners cash for the value of their rights if they so choose; three, provide other methods of payment including either cash or non-cash that are agreeable to both parties. We recommend that income and inheritance tax relief be used -- be used as a primary form of compensation because these taxes are the two biggest economic impacts on landowners from the federal government. It is important to remember that the panther's protected under the endangered species act which is a federal statute, and the federal government should bear most of the expense. I want to say a few things about what we commented on for the district's involvement. The involvement of the district is essential to the success of this conceptual plan. The district is responsible for the permitting water use and the management and storage of surface water. We landowners do not want this process changed or interfered with by other agencies which must be involved in the implementation of the conceptual plan. The district must not lose any of its regulatory authority. Further, it is essential that the district issue permits which extend through the duration of the landowner's lease of the lands -- extend through the duration of the landowners's lease of the land's development rights to allow the landowner to plan for the future and to protect the panther habitat. We suggest that the district coordinate with involved agencies so that those agencies may advise the district of their concerns without the disrupting and the statutory time limits of the district's permitting process and without imposing special conditions to the contrary. Further, we suggest that the district keep the agriculture advisory committee apprised of the progress of -- the district and the other agencies are making in implementing the permitting portion of the conceptual plan. We also suggest that the other agencies get together and select one individual to act as a liaison to the district for all of those agencies. The liaison would be responsible for looking out for all of the other agencies' interest and concerns in the district's permitting process. Those participating agencies must coordinate their permitting and regulatory requirements so the liaison has a clear understanding of the requirements that must be met when the liaison is reviewing a proposed permit. Finally, the district liaison's approval would act as an endorsement of the district's permit for the full term of the agreement. Under no circumstances do we want to see the district's efficient and effective permitting process turned into a permitting free-for-all by a group of agencies with inconsistent goals and regulations. If there is a desire to prevent development and maintain agriculture use of one million acres of private lands in southwest Florida, the conceptual plan offers a real opportunity which takes the needs of landowners, government agencies, and the panther all into consideration. Thank you for your time. MR. MERRIAM: Thank you very much, Ed. And our final speaker on the panel today is Ed -- or excuse me, Jerry Schmoyer who's going to provide you with a perspective from the development community. MR. SCHMOYER: I'm glad both parties took ten minutes. I think I owe the chairman five minutes, so hopefully we can cover this adequately. Our view is different. When Chip asked me to participate, I said I know very little about panthers, but what the real point was -- he said, you don't get it. I said, what do you mean? He said, your approach to land use planning and community development has application to the panther issue. So what I'm going to try to do briefly is walk you through a -- how our approach to dealing with environmental systems manifest themselves in our communities and show that progression with early stages of Pelican Bay through where we are today -- this will only take a couple minutes -- then talk about briefly the regulatory community that we deal with every day and the amount of regulatory steps we have to go through, and pull that together to show how we think there are certain recommendations that can be applied to the issue of habitat for the panthers. Woops. We'll get started in a minute. Ah. Okay. To begin with, as I said, the first part I wanted to touch on was environmental systems approach that we use in community planning and development. Typically what we did back in the early '70s, Pelican Bay became a prototype, a model, if you will, for protecting salt water wetlands. It has been used as a prototype in places such as Bonita Bay and other communities in the state. And what we did was -- essentially is integrated land uses with that system recognizing the necessity of protection of that important wetland. At the time you have to remember is that there was some very noble reasons why environmentalists came -- came into being with respect to preservation of coastal environments like that. This just shows additional slide of how the integration between residential to the right and the green wetland system which is over 560 acres eventually stayed in preservation, and then there was access. So there was interaction with this environment to move across it so the residents of the community could have access to the beach. Then we moved in the -- in the early eighties with some help of Bill Hammond to look at how we should approach this community. We did essentially the same thing except now we were dealing with a fresh water system. And the light blue areas are seasonal ponds, and the green areas are cypress heads. And the idea again was to take a system's approach to how we would integrate these environmentally sensitive areas into the community. Well, what we accomplished was the identification of those pieces or habitat, if you will, integrated them into an overall network of water management of park systems, upland habitat, and golf course. So we essentially developed a framework, and the white areas showing on the slide became the parts of the community where residential use could take place. What was important about this, it was a proactive position because the isolated wetlands act didn't come into being until after this process was started and completed. The wetlands act as you remember was in '86 that the Corps now implements. The types of habitat was created through that approach which, again, was proactive in working with the water management district, and the Regional Planning Council was creating these kinds of habitat which one would suggest may have panther quality to it. And then finally at Pelican Landing we integrated the two approaches that we had before; that is, a wetlands system to the far left of the slide which is in green which is salt water, a central fresh water system that runs through the center of the property which is shown in green and blue. And then additionally because we were dealing with regulations on upland wildlife, we set out a preserve of 80 acres to meet the mitigation requirements mainly for gopher tortoises. So what we did was we created three major systems, environmental systems, that no one had accomplished in one piece of property that we're aware of before where we had an 80-acre preserve for wildlife. We had a system for -- for the fresh water, and we had also a system of protecting the estuary to the -- to the left of the slide. We further went beyond that based upon discussions with a variety of people to increase the salt water wetland to the left again in green and the light green to the east which is part of the interface zone expanding the usability of the wetlands system for animals. So the evolution is -- is -- is growing if you -- if you look back to where we were back in the seventies and how these systems keep becoming additive and become models, I think, or we believe for application in dealing with the panther issue. The fact, though, is, as most of you know -- probably know, we are a highly regulated business. Some of the approaches we took were in response to regulations. Some of the approaches we took that went beyond the regulations, and they were proactive of working early on in the process with the water management district and other agencies and individuals to produce not a minimum plan but a plan that went beyond the minimum in many instances. You should be aware of, though, what we deal with on a consistent basis to produce one of those communities. There's over a hundred and some approvals to accomplish it. It's not one step -- stop shopping. It's a -- it's a process that continues on and integrates just a significant number of required approvals. So what's the point of all this? Well, I think the point of all this is applications of taking these systems approaches and applying them to current day problems with panther habitat areas is -- is currently an opportunity we have at hand. Number one, if there were recommendations to be made, that would be one of them. The second point would be to recognize that I don't think it's -- it's appropriate to suggest that all south Florida is panther habitat. What is important is to utilize the data that's at hand to truly identify habitat that will sustain the animal's growth, not to suggest as we saw briefly in the Gateway scenario that there maybe is habitat there for the panther that should be mitigated for. One could then argue that there is an additional habitat created by the wetlands we have produced already. So the point being to -- to -- to not take those things out of context. So the systems approach we think is there. We think it's important to recognize where habitat should be defined. And -- and thirdly, we don't think it appropriate to look at habitat that would occur within an urbanized area because there's an issue that we all struggle with is the compatibility between humans and the animal and integrating them within the kinds of communities that we create today. So we think there's some -- those kinds of inconsistencies that occur. It's difficult for us to figure out how one would plan for the animal within our community today to allow it to roam through our community and not have that incompatibility issue. We think that's a real issue that's not -- that's not far fetched. What's also important -- and I'll wrap this up. What's also important in looking at systems is not to piecemeal it by taking bits and pieces from a -- a Gateway or some other property owner but to -- again, to look at creating a system that truly identifies the real habitat that experts can identify with and truly will provide for sustaining the animal's future and not its further decline. Thank you. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Jerry. MR. MERRIAM: Madam Chairman, if we could turn it back over to you for questions. MS. BOYD: Right. Thank you, Chip. Are there any questions or comments? Commissioner Matthews, then Mr. Williamson. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I have a question for David Maehr, and that is the -- the recent capture of a panther that was about 200 miles outside the known range. And they're -- I understand they're examining that panther now to determine if it truly is a Florida panther. But what -- what is your view of the impact on the panther range? If indeed that panther is a Florida panther, is that -- is that an anomaly? Is it an indicator to you that the panther may be expanding its range or what? MR. MAEHR: I'd like just to say I don't know, but I know -- I know you won't be satisfied with that. But what I've read in the paper and what little I've talked to with the people that are involved in the -- in the work suggest several possibilities. One could be an animal that disbursed from south Florida. Highlands County, for example, just north of the Caloosahatchee River is an enigma. Here's an area where animals have been captured. They've been run over, but we don't know much about the status of the animals in that area. It's possible one could have left that area, and that wouldn't have been quite as long a jump as it would have if it came out of Collier or Hendry County. The other possibility that I saw suggested the animal was less than three years old. If one of the animals that was brought in from Texas for the experimental work that was going on in north Florida was pregnant when they let it loose, it could have given birth to an animal, and that -- that could be that -- that female's offspring. And this is the second iteration of releases. There was another experimental release done some years before. So I don't know how accurate their age estimate is going to be on that. But clearly the animal had been living in the wild for some time. I suspect it probably is an anomaly. If it came from south Florida, it's most definitely an anomaly. I don't think it's going to have a tremendous amount of impact one way or the other. The problems in north Florida are more related to people management than -- than anything else. MS. BOYD: Mr. Williamson. HR. WILLIAMSON: I guess, Ed, what next on the -- on the plan? Where is it, and what's happening next? I'm not sure how active a role we have, the South Florida Water Management District, in that plan. But where does it go now? What's happening? MS. EDWARDS: Well, our work is through, Sonny. The write-up is taking place, and I understand it's going to get published in June. Bill Hammond may know more about what comes next. I think maybe there's a second grant perhaps. Is that true? MR. HAMMOND: Well, we're hoping so. The legislature spared the -- the panther funds attached to the license plate which funded this. And I know everybody on Facie (phonetic) and the -- and the game commission has been really impressed of the work of the American Farmland Trust and the landowners. I think it's just a marvelous case of what can be done when people try an innovative approach. Now the question is how do we move from the conceptual plan to implementation. And I think that next phase grant would start to move us toward education of a wider base of the public that prepares the way for implementation with local governments, the water management districts, and -- and other agencies as well as start to come up with a strategy for how we deal with the amendments to the endangered species act and the IRS code to allow some of the incentives to be built into the process. MR. WILLIAMSON: Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking dollar signs, and -- and you need two things. You need an idea, information -- maybe three things -- and dollars. So where does that education start in the Washington area, Bill? How -- MR. HAMMOND: Well, I know our -- our local representatives, Congressman Goss and Senator Hack, are aware of this project and are tuned in, as is Senator Graham. It's expanded to the -- the bigger concept. From what my understand that on the national level there -- there is some interest here because it is a rather innovative approach, and it deals with private property rights in a -- in a different way than -- than anybody's thought of it before at the national level. So we're hoping that even with the different climate in Washington that this is part of a concept of revolutionizing the thinking in the endangered species act rethink that would be a positive -- positive direction. I think the implications for us are things like dealing with a 25-year water permit. You know, that's something we can deal with as an agency for local governments looking at locking in a land use, you know, set of criteria in their comp. planning process during the time of this lease so that the landowners are assured that they don't lose property right opportunities as a result of tying it up in a lease. So those are things that can be worked on. I would see a second grant helping to -- to let the American Farmland Trust be the mediator group or the communication group that would help bring those forward. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Bill. Mr. Machek. MR. MACHEK: I have a couple of questions. I guess maybe Mr. Maehr could maybe answer them. My concern is the range of the -- of the Florida panther. How is it determined? Is it -- is it food sources, or is it hereditary, or is it habitat? I mean, what I'm getting at, we've got a million or how ever many millions of acres it is that he is roaming now. But if his food supply diminishes or for some reason he moves to other areas, do we have to readjust and take in other parcels of land? Or can we have some way of keeping these animals in a -- in a -- what we feel is a pretty safe area by supplying better food supplies for them or something? Or -- or what makes them stay there basically? MR. HAEHR: I think there's probably two primary ingredients: One of them is food supply, nutrition. And the other is a forested landscape. And I use that in a very generic term. It could be cypress swamp. It could be a mixed hardwood swamp like the Fakahatchee. It could be hardwood hammocks and pine flatwoods, a combination of those things. Those two things together are most important. And then you can start adding other ingredients like human activities, human disturbances, and the -- and the levels of those activities. As I alluded to earlier, there are many examples of people and panthers coexisting very nicely. Bear Island, which is a unit of the Big Cypress National Preserve, is fairly heavily hunted. And yet we have successful reproduction of panthers going on in there during the hunting season. The Ford vehicle evaluation center has been in existence for ten years, and a fence was put up to keep panthers out. They still use it. And -- and vehicles go driving around the track at -- at 100 miles an hour, and they seem to be quite compatible. So it's a matter of -- of balancing your land uses and human activities. And then where mitigation occurs, true mitigation, is where land is actually added to replace land that's lost as opposed to land that's already occupied. And that's the kind of mitigation we see going on now. So, you know, there -- there are some challenges in that regard. And then if you look down the road four or five hundred years perhaps, we're talking about things like global warming. Whether you believe it -- believe in it or not, you may be sitting on oceanfront property here right now. So there are some that would argue you would need to have preserves that move across the landscape. And, of course, that's not our concern here at the moment but perhaps to allow that to take place into the future. But -- but the basics are -- I think you alluded to -- were the food requirements. And then the one I would add would be large forested landscapes. And they can include some of these intensively farmed areas if therews enough forest there. MR. MACHEK: Yeah. That was one of my concerns. I know a lot of citrus is moved into southwest Florida. And if -- and if -- if it was found that panthers used a particular grove or a particular piece of land for a travelway between habitats, would there be situations where that land would be locked up in some sort of containment for a number of years because of the use of the panther? Or could it continue at the present use before the animal was found to go using that property? MR. MAEHR: Well, Iwm not aware of any situations where the panther has -- has flat out stopped a development from going in. I think it has influenced the design of certain developments. And there are several that I can think of in Collier County where the design has been changed to protect corridors, for example, between areas that -- that are known to be used. So those kinds of strategies can take place on a -- on a permit-by-permit basis. But the real challenge is to look at that landscape and see whatws necessary regardless of the property boundaries and then work with all the people that are involved, the private property owners and the regulators, that are -- those groups are the bottom line I think. Once they can come to an agreement, I think we can make progress. MS. BOYD: Mr. Simpson. MR. SIMPSON: Recently I prepared a presentation for the Florida Farm Bureau discussing the panther and private lands and what can be done to encourage private landowners to maintain the habitat. If you look at much of the habitat thatls out there thatls currently occupied by the panthers, most of it is still in private ownership. The one fact that really stood out was one of the things that was discussed by Mr. English, and it -- it poses -- it posed the question really what is the single entity that has caused the greatest loss of habitat for the panther in the last 50 years? The answer to that question was the IRS. If you look at the southern Golden Gate Estates and that reacquisition program, the whole reason that was sold and divided was the result of having to pay state taxes. And the family that owned that land owned a lot of land, but they didnlt have the cash available to pay the tax at the time there was a debt. I question whether all of the work that we do and the things that we try to accomplish and finally just seeing what we can do on these lands, I wonder if itls really going to be successful if we donlt at a minimum reform our inheritance tax or our state taxes to where they would actually encourage or find a way to protect that land and keep it in private ownership. If it is truly in the interest of the health, safety, and welfare of the people of the United States and the people of Florida to protect the panther, to have panthers in a sustainable population in Florida, I think it would be in their best interests to try to reform the inheritance tax cuts. And I can go state by state, area by area where the habitat has been lost. And that has been the single motivation. MS. BOYD: Mr. Judah. COMMISSIONER JUDAH: If I may real quickly, Madam Chairman, what -- what really troubles me with all the discussion on Florida panther is I think with no fault of the panther we're as a -- as a governmental entities concentrating in the wrong area. We shouldn't be managing for a particular species but obviously managing for ecosystem wherein which we provide a diverse habitat for a wide range of species. And I think if we were to provide that approach, much of what I see with -- with Westinghouse to their credit -- I may disagree with maybe certain components of their overall land development plans, but they have recognized what governmental agencies need to really pursue, and that's ecosystem management. The ecotone that -- that Mr. Schmoyer talked about with regards to uplands separating urban development from the salt water wetlands, that's the type of diversity that we really need to -- to be champing and supporting. Where I'm troubled is that the difficulty I know locally where we've tried to discuss without angering private property owners is the need for wildlife corridors. You have to have contiguous habitats. It obviously doesn't matter if you have a great ecosystem in the Everglades and the panthers can't get, you know, from here to there to provide for a greater gene pool diversity. And that's really where I'm struggling. I'd certainly appreciate help from -- from the regulatory agencies, from the private sector. I think certainly Mr. English has his -- his finger on it from the standpoint of being able to work out conservation easements incentives because certainly agricultural farmlands adjacent to wildlands can provide that ecotone, provide that diversity for various types of animal species. But the key is to provide for contiguous habitats. And that's why I'm so pleased with the Save Our Rivers program and the effort that South Florida Water Management District has made with Lee and Collier County to provide one continuous habitat that provides home and -- and -- and food and what have you for a variety of species. But I'm hopeful that we can perhaps refocus instead of on the spotted owl in the Pacific northwest or the gray wolf in Minnesota or the Florida panther here in -- in -- in Florida is we get more involved in managing our ecosystems. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Ray. Any other comments? Great. I'd like to thank the panelists. Thank you all. That was very interesting. And we'll move on to our last item of the day. We're actually running a little ahead of schedule. Lee County Department of Environmental Education, their educational rivers program. MR. MERRIAM: Madam Chairman, I'd like to introduce Rick Tully from the environmental education department of Lee County school system. MS. BOYD: All right. Let's welcome Mr. Tully. Hello, Mr. Tully. MR. TULLY: Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to have a chance to speak with you and -- and -- and give you some insight into the program that we've got going in Lee County schools. It's a program that exists in large measure to the funding assistance that the South Florida Water Management District has given us over the last several years. We have a project in the school district that we basically call the Lee County Schools Rivers Project. And what we're attempting to do with that program is to get a -- a number of schools. Right now we have 18 schools in the district that are working to do surface water quality monitoring projects in the surface water systems in and around their own school sites. We have high school students, middle school, and elementary students that -- that are involved. We also are attempting to expand our program to involve students in other school districts. And tomorrow will be our first exchange where we will be also hosting students from Barton -- Barton Collier High School and Immokalee High School in our annual student congress. I'll speak a little bit more later about student congress and our -- our international and national connections with GREEN, the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network. But one of the things I'm most excited about and I think you'll be most interested in are the things that the students themselves are doing. We have students with us today from Three Oaks Middle School who have been working over the last two years to create a very strong program, very strong interdisciplinary program, stemming from one of their science classes. Jim Melvin -- Jim Melvin is their -- their teacher and coach, and he really wanted to sit in the background today while his students did the presentation. And they have a variety of video and multi-media programs that they'd like to share with you. I'd like to introduce the students first and then let them take the program. Gina D'Amelia will provide us with an overview of their program. Sharlene Jones will be speaking about their data and multi-media programs. And David Penn is their technical assistant, and he'll be managing all the media as the two ladies provide their presentations. So ladies. MS. D'AMELIA: Good afternoon. My name is Gina D'Amelia, and I'm a student at Three Oaks Middle School. I am heavily involved with water testing on the Estero River. This year's overall water testing went pretty well. Many tests were completed, and very accurate data was collected. The tests were conducted to see if the Estero River is in good shape. Fortunately it is. Even still I feel there are many things we can do to improve the condition of the river. First of all, we need to pick up trash that may be lying in or out of the water. Unfortunately, many people just take their trash and throw it on the ground. To solve this problem I think more trash cans and recycling bins need to be put around the river, especially in picnic areas. In the Estero River there is low dissolved oxygen results. Right there is a sign of pollution, and we need to act on it quick. Another problem I noticed with the river is that there is not enough aquatic life. When I went canoeing on the river, I didn't notice many fish. Sure, I may have seen two schools, but that is definitely not a normal amount. As you know, fish feed on algae. In some spots of the river, there are gigantic clumps of algae lying on the river. That is -- that is another sign that there's not a great deal of fish. Maybe there is not enough night shade, but some tests must be conducted to see whether the river may or may not be a great habitat. A suggestion of mine is to compare and contrast the Estero River with other rivers in the area. The river also has many positive aspects. There are many mangroves and other trees around the water, and they look very healthy. I thought the plant life and scenery was breath taking. And one of my major concerns is the destroying of them to build homes. The trees are important to the river and shows its beauty. They are home to many of the birds flying around the area. Some kids even spotted a bald eagle flying around. I was also very enthusiastic to see people of different cultures and backgrounds to interact with each other to study the science and the nature of the river. In the near future, I'd like to see the river become a reservation for wildlife and nature lovers. I'd like to help maintain the river's natural resources and keep the water clean and healthy. This river is important to many people and aquatic life. Someday someone might discover something in the river that was never discovered before. It may be a useful piece of information that will show us how to keep the area and river clean for years to come. People should work together to save all rivers from destruction. Do it for wildlife's sake. MS. JONES: Thank you. Good morning. Well, good evening. I am Sharlene Jones of Three Oaks Middle, and I can honestly say that I am proud to be an active member of the Estero River Crew and this project. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge water management for inviting us and for all contributions made to us. Without organizations such as these, our project may not exist. Thank you, water management. This project started at the head of the waters of the Estero River. The Estero River Crew, better known as ERC, realized how important it was for us to start our assigned tests quickly while at the river and be very precise. We were cooperative and helpful to our fellow students, and we worked well together as a team. Everyone present was immediately on task. The parents and the environmentalists that accompanied us on the trips to the Estero River were very impressed with the knowledge that we had gained and how well organized, intelligent, and responsible we were. We enjoyed being near nature and wanted to reap the health of the essential waterways. Also we were pleased to contribute to providing solutions and keeping the environment clean. We were excited to be surrounded by such beautiful green trees, fresh flowing water, and a host of organisms. However, many of us became saddened by signs of pollution, not only water pollution but land and air pollution also. We cleaned up whatever trash that we found and monitored the health of the Estero River through chemical testing, diversity index, and flow determination. We learned that water is a limited natural resource and essential to life processes. We collected data, charted and graphed the results, carefully studied the results and formed conclusions. Thus we applied many of the concepts that we had previously learned in science, math, and language arts while having fun being responsible and helping the environment, earth, and wildlife all at the same time. We learned about simple cells to complex organisms. Then we explored diversity and its importance to a healthy environment. But most importantly, we determined the interconnection between all plants, animals, and organisms. While performing many of chemical tests, we gained a better understanding of chemistry. Determining the river flow rates allowed us to apply many physic concepts previously learned in class. At the completion of the first stage of the project, we integrated lessons and gained and demonstrated the responsibility to the environment using a multi-media presentation and a computer game. We wrote words and music, choreographed, created illusions, used telecommunications, designed special effects, developed animation, organized the environmental story, and went to a professional studio where our story was then recorded. With the latest cutting edge technology, including the computer hardware and software, audio and video equipment, laser and compact disc, we created and organized an effective and clear environmental message. The message is to help prevent all destruction to our earth and contribute as much as we can to improve the earth's condition. Clearly this project demonstrates and highlights positive, creating, and entertaining activities of the ERC student body. This proves that young people of various backgrounds and multi-intelligences can work together to keep our earth clean and make solutions for pollution. Students can succeed, especially when they have a meaningful common goals and purpose, the earth. Thank you. MR. TULLY: The -- the program that you just saw was managed on hyperstudio software, and the students also created a video entitled Keep It Clean which I think will give you another sense of some of the other skills that these students have developed. (A video was viewed.) MS. JONES: Thank you very much. That was our environmental story. You missed the beginning of it. But in the beginning, the bunny was not as nice as he was at the end. He was a trash bunny just going around messing up everything. And by singing this song, rap was the only music he could understand, so we made a song rap. And he understood it, and he changed his nasty ways as he said. Thank you. MS. BOYD: Thank you. That was very nice. We appreciate it. Thank you for coming. MR. TULLY: It's programs like this that we like to involve students with. Not only do we end up with kids that have positive things to contribute to their communities and their neighborhoods, we end up with streams that are cleaner. But we end up with a curriculum that's -- that's more vibrant, that's more meaningful, that makes the connections among all the disciplines that often are left out from the standard approaches to education. So we're hopeful. We think that -- that the program that we're working on in Lee County is one that answers many different kinds of needs for teachers, for students, and for the community in general. And we're -- we're real happy to have a chance to work with teachers like Jim and students like this that are willing to commit to this kind of a program. Right now we've got 18 schools in Lee County that are involved with these kinds of programs. Depending on the abilities and the needs and the other constraints of the individual school sites, there's a wide range of different kinds of programs that are operational. Some schools have streams and creek sites that are right on the school site and the kids can actually go out during a class period. Other schools are dependent upon field trips to get out to their sites to do their work. So we have a wide range of types of implementation and -- and programs at the schools. Each year each of the schools has two opportunities to go out on formalized testing weeks, and it's on those two weeks, one in the fall and one in the spring, where we try to simultaneously collect data from across the county and use that data for some comparisons among the schools. And we also each year for the last -- this being the fourth year host a student congress. And at the student congress kids from all of these schools have a chance to meet with each other, share their ideas, learn some new techniques, and exchange some of the -- the projects that they've been working on. This year's student congress will be occurring tomorrow, so we're in the last throes of trying to -- to -- to get that organized. And this year for the first year we are involving students from outside of Lee County. I mentioned earlier that Barton Collier High and Immokalee High School will also be involved in our -- in -- in tomorrow's student congress. And we hope that that will be an opening for students to exchange information on -- on a broader scale. We also have some connections with Charlotte County that we'd like to explore in the future. And through the newly emerging Caloosahatchee River Citizens Association, we hope to be involving ourselves with projects in Hendry County and also Glades County as the river flows from Okeechobee down to -- through Fort Myers and into San Carlos Bay. One of our major connections is with the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network. And a team of teachers from Lee County schools has been involved in a series of workshops and training sessions and development sessions at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Jim and I and Laura Church back here and three other teachers from the district have spent several weeks in Ann Arbor working on curriculum and working on designing programs that will allow us to connect with other schools across the country through telecommunications and other -- other types of exchanges. This summer we will be hosting a teacher institute that we've called Watching the River Roll. And this will be an interdisciplinary training institute for teachers in southwest Florida. It will be a two-week, ten-day institute hosted at Lehigh Senior High School in Lehigh Acres in Lee County. And in this institute we will be training teachers in the biological, chemical, and physical monitoring techniques as well as introducing them to the whole range of interdisciplinary opportunities that they have for involving kids in -- in studies. We have an English teacher, an art teacher, science teachers, teachers that know the computer systems and the -- the -- the multi-media systems. And through this institute we hope to be able to provide classroom teachers with skills to implement programs on their own. We're very thankful to the water management district for all the help that you've given us over the years, and we're anxious to continue our association and particularly pleased that you've given us the opportunity today to show off some of the student work. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. MS. BOYD: Thank you. It was our pleasure, Mr. Tully. And, students, you did a wonderful job. Just terrific. Keep it up. Keep it up. All right. We do have some speakers from the public. Walter Stevens with Lee County government. Mr. Stevens, there you are. Sorry it took so long to get to you. MR. STEVENS: You caught me napping in the back. Let me get my notes. Just -- Walter Stevens, for the record, with the Division of Natural Resources management, Lee County, Florida. Dan earlier on Cary answered some of my questions outside the door a while ago. But our position on reducing the amount of water which is discharged from Lake Okeechobee causes us great concern. Our concerns are based on a lot of suppositions which may not come true because the logical train of thought -- and I'll run through it for you -- if you reduce the amount of water that flows out -- out of Lake Okeechobee, you're going to impact the navigation on C-43. If you impact the navigation enough, then the Corps of Engineers will reexamine their need for the locks that go between Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River. All this is just background. The Franklin lock which is the last lock in the river has a control elevation of 3.2. The Corps of Engineers when they straightened out the Caloosahatchee dug the channel to about 8 feet which means you're about minus 5 feet or 5 feet below mean sea level with the bottom of the channel. Well, what's happened is at numerous places between the Franklin lock and the Ortunna (phonetic) lock which is east of LaBelle, the excavation pierced the top of the sandstone formation. And the sandstone formation is a very, very porous formation. The draw-down from any well goes out a couple miles before you get a foot of draw-down. Simply stated that if you have any agricultural activity in that area, salt water intrusion's going to be there very quickly because salt water is heavier than fresh water, and it will move along the bottom of the canal. It will reduce the -- when you pump on the -- on the wells on either side of the Caloosahatchee, the likelihood of getting salt water from the bottom of the Caloosahatchee in your wells is very, very likely. We're going to -- by reducing that water level and the navigation and the Corps abandons their project, you're going to do away with a lot of wetlands that presently exist. So we would like to see a very, very thorough study done on the Caloosahatchee before you make any definite decisions on how much you're going to reduce the water coming out of Lake Okeechobee. The other thing is we've been named an MS-4 under the MPES program. Part of our part 2 application requires that we swear that we're going to abide by all the goals and objectives of pollutant load reduction and water quality. That's a couple of years away, but it's important to us that south Florida arrive at some criteria which we can live with because we're going to be the holders of the permit. And it's likely that we will be hit with any administrative penalties or whatever if we don't have -- if we're not in locked step on these -- on these issues. That's -- that's basically what I had. MS. BOYD: Thank you. Appreciate it. James English. Mr. English. And Virginia Corkran, I think Mrs. Corkran left. I saw her here earlier. MR. ENGLISH: Thank you, Madam Chairman. For the record, I'm Jim English, and I'd like to say I'm going to be as brief as possible. But there's something that I need to talk to you about today, and I think this is the time and the place to talk about it because what I want to talk to you about is a memorandum from Walter Stevens to the Lee County commission dated February the 8th, 1995, reference, Jim English's orange grove. I have recently received a copy of this by way of a public records request from the South Florida Water Management District. It's addressed to the Lee County commission. I'm in possession of a letter of transmittal where on -- where on that day or the next day -- I don't have the letter of transmittal with me -- Lee County transmitted ten copies of this thing over to West Palm Beach with instructions that they be distributed to the nine members of the governing board and to the executive director. They were doing that in preparation for a talk they thought I was going to give to you folks that day which I did not. But let me say this with regards to this memorandum: It says here that the purpose of the memorandum is to make the board aware of certain conditions which exist on the above-referenced property, and the referenced property is Jim English orange grove. As you may know, Jim English has made claims of damages to his orange grove due to flood waters from the north to the cypress water management district and the Babcock ranch. However, the damages appear to be self inflicted and not caused by Lee County, the South Florida Water Management District, or any other party or man-made diversion. And there is not one iota of truthfulness in that statement. And I think it's important that you all know and understand that. And at some point if these folks are going to continue to make those kind of allegations, they ought to be able -- they ought to be provided -- they ought to have to provide you with some sort of documentation which is backed up with some field work or some kind of facts. This thing goes on at great length. It's got exhibits attached to it, A through H. Exhibit A -- and I just want a moment -- I just want to touch base with them briefly. Exhibit A is labeled properties owned by the English family in the vicinity of Cypress Creek, Exhibit A. And the memorandum says about Exhibit A, this map shows the lands currently owned by the English family in the vicinity of Cypress Creek. The map also shows the date the property was first published by the English family and so forth and so on. Well, let me say to you that the depiction is not accurate. It does not show and is not an accurate depiction of the lands which are owned by the descendants of my grandfather, contiguous lands in these sections. The map is not correct. He says it also shows the dates that the property was first published by the English family. And that isn't accurate either. And he's missed some of them by more than 100 years. And the thing is a little more than garbage. And if it -- if it was put together to inform you folks, all I can say is that it was a waste of staff time and the taxpayer's money. He makes a further allegation in here and shows some aerials which are exhibits here and makes some further allegation that -- and I won't go into -- I won't read it to you directly in the interest of saving time. But he tries to make the point that either me or my family or somebody to do with the Englishes have covered up or filled up, leveled this land and filled up some natural water courses and that we've caused our own problems. And just let me say this to you: I took a member of the staff of the South Florida Water Management District and one of your consultants out there recently and showed them that that's not the case. And let me say this to you as a matter of fact: That we did not fill up any depressional areas or any natural or man-made water courses in preparation for planting that orange grove. We consulted with the staff of the South Florida Water Management District. We got in them from writing -- in writing what would be required of us prior to our planting that piece of property and orange grove. It took us almost a year to fulfill all the requirements that were placed on us by the South Florida Water Management District. We started no land preparation, cleared no land, planted no trees until all the permits which were required by the South Florida Water Management District were in place. And all I can tell you is that Mr. Stevens does not consider himself apparently under any obligation to tell the truth concerning matters of fact. MS. BOYD: Is that it, Mr. English? MR. ENGLISH: No, sir -- no, ma'am, that's not it. He also gives some water quality data here, and he purports that he's gone out there and northerly or upstream of our property he's taken some water samples and then southerly or downstream of our property he's taken some water samples and concludes that maybe this is -- maybe our planting this orange grove and our operation that polluted the waters of the county and the waters of Cypress Creek, and that is not the case. And in addition to that, I'd like to add that there are two tributaries of Cypress Creek which enter Cypress Creek from the east -- and they show on his plat, and they also show on his aerials -- that flow from other people's property. One of those tributaries flows through a hog pen and then flows down and flows into the Caloosahatchee and our orange grove. Another one flows out of a piece of property which is used for the raising and pasturing and stabling and training of horses. In other words, there's concentrated animal fecal matter on that piece of property. And that water drains down off of other people's property into the Cypress Creek and then through our orange grove. I guess in the interest of fairness and objectivity, he's completely ignored those two things. He further goes on -- he's got pages here out of the soil survey for Lee County. That soil survey was done more than ten years ago. I'm a member of the Lee Soil and Water Conservation Board of Supervisors in this county; have been for over 25 years. And it was through our efforts that this work was done. And it was good work at the time it was done, but it was -- it's over ten years old. And I can tell you and I think Mr. Williamson will agree with me that if we were raising cows and orange trees and winter vegetables by the same criterion and the same technology and the same best management practices to date that we were in 1984 or whenever it was that he says this thing was put together, we'd have been out of business backwards before now. And we are not planting orange groves the same way we planted them in 1984. And if we were, it wouldn't be working too good. And just because Mr. Stevens has not made himself aware of the best management practices and the best technology with regards to the establishment and the care of citrus groves in southwest Florida doesn't mean that I and my family haven't done so. And we have established this grove in accordance with best management practices and in accordance with all the rules and regulations which have been promulgated for water management or anything else. We made no attempt to get around any rule or regulation with regards to anything with regards to the establishment and the operation of this orange grove to this very day. And I am deeply offended by this thing, and I've got my engineer and my attorney working on a response to it. It's a matter of record in the Lee County courthouse, and it's a matter of record over there in West Palm Beach. And I can feel compelled under the circumstances to defend myself. And I've got other things to use my time and effort for, quite frankly, and my resources than to try to defend myself from this kind of garbage. But I'm going to go ahead and do it anyhow. But I just wanted you all to know with Mr. Stevens sitting here exactly how I feel about it. And I'm willing to defend anything that I've said here today, and I can do so with the facts. MS. BOYD: Fine. Thank you, Mr. English. MR. ENGLISH: Now -- no, I've got one further -- MS. BOYD: Okay. We need to wrap it up because we have a time limit. MR. ENGLISH: Yes, ma'am. I -- I have made two appearances before the Lee County commission trying to get them to straighten this thing out, and they haven't straightened it out. And I want to say this to you. There's two other points I want to make. Number one is I've got this lawsuit against the district with regards to our water management problems up there, and I have expressed a desire to settle that, and the district has too. And the district staff has expressed a desire to deal with my brother Ed instead of me with regards to that, and I have agreed to that. But I've got a hearing coming up on that. You do too, you and I. We got a hearing coming up on that on May the 23rd, and we're fast approaching the point of no return. We need to sit down and talk this thing out and get this thing settled before that courtroom. If you all got any influence with the staff and can get them to go ahead and do that, it would be a great accommodation to me and my family, and I'd feel deeply grateful for it. Now, the last thing I want to say, I want to tell you that I agree with most everything word for word Commissioner Spratt said from Hendry County and -- that what we need to do -- we got a serious -- some serious water management problems out there, and they're a result of permits which you all have issued relying on false and erroneous information, some of it emanating from Lee County, and some of it emanating from other consultants. And it needs your attention. And what we need to do -- as Mr. Spratt told you, what we need to do out there, we need to see some dirt flying. We want to see some work getting done. Thank you very much, and I appreciate you all coming over here today. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. English. I'm glad you didn't have to drive so far today. And we have one more speaker card, Thomas Sharp. Mr. Sharp? MR. REED: Madam Chairman, before Mr. Sharp speaks, I do hope that the last request of Mr. English be honored by staff. If we can reach accommodation -- MS. BOYD: It will. You know that. MR. REED: That I think was advice I think most of the members of the board I'm sure would agree with. MS. BOYD: Fine. Yes. Okay. Mr. Sharp. MR. SHARP: My name's Thomas Sharp. I'm a former officer of the Island Water Association. And what I have to say really doesn't have much to do with the Island Water Association except for offer their expertise in a certain form of instrumentation that I would like to suggest that be established. And I don't know whether you do it or whether county does it or whether Rick's students do it. But what we need to do is to have two sensing stations on the Caloosahatchee River, one up towards the Franklin lock and one down where tidal is always high in salinity, and monitor the salt concentration -- well, constantly really. You can have telemetry printed out in a meriman's office, and you can just read all these things. Now, what you could do with this data which would be hard data, you could tell Ray Judah and the staff, okay, you need some more fresh water, so we'll open the gates and let it come down. I don't know how many acre or feet an hour you can put through the lock, but you can schedule this thing just by the rate of change in salinity to get this thing under complete control. So it's just a suggestion. MS. BOYD: Thank you, Mr. Sharp. MR. HAMMOND: So the record's clear, there is an ongoing research project that does have radio telephones on most of the bridges that is sending back the salinity, temperature, and data on a daily basis. MR. SHARP: I'm sure it's useful, and I think that it would help in controlling the ratio of fresh water, salt water anywhere in the river. You could just pick any spot you wanted and maintain it practically at a constant, and you could easily do it. MS. BOYD: Thank you. All right. Well, we enjoyed being over here today. Chairman Matthews, thank you for hanging in there till the bitter end. And it's been nice to be here. And would you -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I just want to thank everyone who -- who did come today and county commissioners, the staff from all the county and -- and from the water management district as well as the Big Cypress Basin Board. I think it's been a good meeting. We need to do it more often. MS. BOYD: Thank you. Thank you. Well, with that we'll adjourn, and we'll meet again tomorrow morning in West Palm Beach. There being no further business for the Good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 4:39 p.m. These minutes approved by the BCC on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING BY: Shelly Semmler, RHR