LAKE COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY (352) 324-6141 REGULAR MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT AND AGENDA
Wednesday, June 23, 2021 3:30 pm Lake County Administration Building 2nd Floor - County Commission Chambers 315 West Main Street, Tavares, FL 32778
1. Call to Order / Pledge of Allegiance
Tab 13 2. Approval of Minutes: May 26, 2021 - Regular Meeting
3. Public Comment
4. Executive Director’s Report
5. Consent Items Tab 1 a. Approval of Lakes Appreciation Month Proclamation Ron Hart Tab 2 b. Mid-Year Budget Adjustment Tracey Percoco
6. Discussion Items Tab 3 a. Lake Joanna Stormwater Project Update Jason Danaher Tab 4 b. Sheriff Contract Revisions Ron Hart Tab 5 c. Award the Demolition of Hickory Point’s Entrance Tower Ron Hart Tab 6 d. NuRF Improvement Professional Contracts Jason Danaher Tab 7 e. Future Operation of the NuRF Jason Danaher Tab 8 f. Clermont Chain Boat Passage Survey Steve Crawford Tab 9 g. Purchase of Slope Mower for the NuRF Steve Crawford Tab 10 h. Award the Bid to Rescreen the Hickory Point Pavilion Ron Hart
7. Legal Counsel Report Kevin Stone
8. Board Member Comments and Items for Future Agenda
9. Information Items Tab 11 a. Staff Reports Tab 12 b. Monthly Financial Reports - May 2021
10. Announcement of Upcoming Meetings and Events Budget Workshop - Wednesday, July 21, 2021 (10:00 am) Tavares Utility Administration Building Regular Board Meeting – Wednesday, July 28, 2021 (3:30 pm) BCC Chambers/Admin. Building
11. Adjournment Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Ron Hart, Executive Director
DATE: June 8, 2021
SUBJECT: Approval of Lakes Appreciation Month Proclamation ______
Consent Item
Approval of Lakes Appreciation Month Proclamation
July is Lakes Appreciation Month and during this month the goal is to promote the value of clean lakes, ponds, rivers and reservoirs. The effort has been spearheaded nationwide for many years by the North American Lake Management Society and supported locally by the Florida Lake Management Society.
Support of this initiative will send a strong message about the importance of lakes in Lake County. Lakes provide drinking water, energy, food, and the means for sport and play. Lake County’s lakes are important to economic growth, they add to our water reserves, ease the rate and severity of floods, and impact our local climate. Caring for the health of our lakes protects and defends the animals and plants that depend on them.
The US EPA’s National Lake Assessment notes that poor near shore habitat, too many nutrients, invasive plants and animals, and other issues put our lakes at risk today. In light of these issues, we ask for your help to promote Lakes Appreciation Month and to protect lakes in Lake County by proclaiming July as Lakes Appreciation Month.
Executive Director’s Recommendation: Approve the Proclamation in honor of Lakes Appreciation Month during the month of July and direct staff to transmit the proclamation to the appropriate entities in July 2021.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Tracey Percoco, Financial Analyst
DATE: June 7, 2021
SUBJECT: Mid-Year Budget Adjustment ______
Consent Item
Mid-Year Budget Adjustment
The Lake County Water Authority (LCWA) utilizes a modified accrual type of budgeting. Accrual budgets allocate revenues and expenses to the fiscal year in which the revenue is earned, or the liability is incurred. Modified accrual budgets recognize both revenues and expenditures as cash received or liability incurred during or soon after the end of the year depending on when it is earned or incurred. This budgeting method allows a 60-day window at the beginning of the new fiscal year where expenses may be attributed to either the new or the previous fiscal year.
Most governmental agencies perform mid-year budget adjustments as part of their regular financial procedures. These adjustments are performed to compensate for changes in revenue, unexpected expenditures, or to balance funds at the close of the prior fiscal year. Lake County performs an annual mid-year budget adjustment which was most recently performed on May 27th.
The Finance Department at the Clerk of Courts along with our auditors at MSL are recommending that the LCWA perform a mid-year budget amendment as a method of reconciling the beginning budget balance to match the amount at the closing of the prior fiscal year. Staff recommends reconciling the fund balance at the beginning of the year by transferring in $850,000 from the special reserve set aside for the NuRF closure fund and $44,859 from the contractual services (future projects).
Executive Director’s Recommendation:
Amend the Fiscal Year 2020-21 Budget to include a reconciliation of beginning fund balance by reducing the following accounts: $850,000 from 890-996 Special Reserve NuRF Closure and $44,859 from 830-340 Contractual Services (Future Projects) to offset the reduction of 389-999 Fund Balance Beginning of Year.
Account Number Account Description Amount SPECIAL RESERVE NURF
9898900 890996 CLOSURE 850,000 Contractual Services (Future
9898710 830340 Projects) 44,859
TOTAL 894,859
Account Number Account Description Amount 9898100 389999 FUND BAL-BEG OF YEAR 894,859
TOTAL 894,859
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director LCWA
FROM: Jason Danaher, Water Resources Director
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: Lake Joanna Stormwater Project Update
Regular Agenda
Lake Joanna Stormwater Project Update
As part of the LCWA 2020-2021 Cooperative Stormwater Grant program, the Board authorized staff to execute a 50% cost share agreement with Lake County for the Lake Joanna Stormwater Project in an amount not to exceed $90,000. This cost share agreement will help to construct and install a single baffle box with media in the drainage ditch running through the Russel family property and identified as a significant source of nutrient input to Lake Joanna (Attachment A). The County also successfully secured funding from the SJRWMD to fund a portion of the project and entered into a 30% cost-share agreement with the District. The first baffle box is expected to be installed this Fall as the SJRWMD would not reimburse for construction completed prior to October 1st of this year.
Since that time the County has continued conversations with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) regarding the location of a second baffle box and stormwater treatment pond. The FDOT planned for the future expansion and widening of SR44 and will implement a stormwater retention pond to capture roadway runoff (Attachment A). The location of the stormwater pond is to the west of SR44 and adjacent to the ditch carrying stormwater runoff to Lake Joanna. It will be constructed approximately 750 feet upstream of the first baffle box. The County continues its negotiations with FDOT but has presented the LCWA with three possible options for additional stormwater treatment in the ditch.
Option 1 would include constructing and installing a second baffle box with media, only, to intercept flow passing through the ditch immediately adjacent and to the west of SR44. The estimated cost of Option 1 is $243,238. Option 2 includes construction of a dry stormwater detention pond, only, with an estimated cost of $218,502. The detention pond would be constructed within the footprint of the future FDOT stormwater pond that will be used to treat runoff from SR44. Option 3 includes installing the baffle box with media in addition to constructing a dry stormwater detention pond. The combination of a baffle box and detention pond could improve the capture of fine particulate matter passing through the ditch. The estimated cost of the detention pond and baffle box with media is $370,538. Attachment B provides the proposed layout of the piping, baffle box and detention pond options described above.
It was brought to staffs attention through conversation with County representatives that the proposed detention pond would not be a permanent structure. Once FDOT proceeds forward with their planned expansion of SR44 they will begin construction of their stormwater pond. At that time, the dry detention pond proposed by the County to treat flow passing through the ditch will be removed by FDOT.
Identifying which portion of the watershed upstream and to the east of SR44 contributing to the nutrient loading may allow better planning for long-term treatment. Staff feels the best long- term treatment of flow passing through the ditch would be achieved through the future construction of a wet or dry stormwater pond; however, land in the area is limited due to private ownership and/or impacts to wetlands. Even if an additional study could be performed and design of a stormwater pond completed, the construction of a treatment pond may be challenging due to expense and permitting issues.
At this moment the best option to immediately address nutrient loading in the ditch would be to implement one of the options proposed by the County. After reviewing the proposed options, staff feels an additional baffle box with media, only, is the most cost-effective solution. The proposed Option 2 or Option 3 above and constructing a dry detention pond that may be removed in the next 5-years by FDOT would not be cost effective for the LCWA. County representatives made it clear to the Board and LCWA staff future water quality improvement projects addressing nutrient loading in the ditch would rely heavily on LCWA funding. The County has no funds to cost share with any of the proposed projects described above.
There are approximately $120,000 of unused funds remaining in the LCWA 2020-2021 Cooperative Stormwater Grant Program. This would only fund 50% of the proposed baffle box project described in Option 1 above. Transfer of funds from Water Resources account 710-630 (Site Improvements) would be required. In the February board meeting, the Board created a “Future Projects” line item within 710-630 which encumbered $1.5 million. Staff is unsure what the Board anticipated directing these funds towards; however, a portion of this money would be required to fully fund Option 1 above. Alternatively, the County could submit the proposed improvements for consideration in the LCWA FY2021-2022 Cooperative Stormwater Grant Program this fall. It would delay the project, but staff could appropriate funds into the LCWA FY2021-2022 annual budget anticipating this project’s submittal along with other competitive projects from cities or towns.
Recommendation:
1) Authorize the Executive Director to execute a 100% cost share agreement with Lake County for the construction of a baffle box with media in an amount not to exceed $243,238.
2) Authorize the Executive Director to use remaining FY2020-2021 Cooperative Stormwater Grant program funds and transfer additional funds from Water Resources account 710-630 to cover the expense of the cost-share agreement. Attachment A
E. Lake Joanna Drive Baffle Box
Existing Ditch to Lake Joanna
Additional Baffle Box and dry pond.
FDOT Pond Parcel
December 18, 2020 1:3,144 0 0.0375 0.075 0.15 mi Street Names Township/Range Grid
Local Streets Section Grid 0 0.05 0.1 0.2 km
Subdivision Lot Numbers City Limits In Lake County Property Appraiser Subdivision Lots County Boundary Lake BCC
Tax Parcels Alternate Key
Tax Parcels
Lake County Board of County Commissioners Attachment B
16' of 48" RCP with MES
Type H DBI with 24' of 24" controlling weir 16' of 24" 8' of 24"
Baffle Box 24' of 24" RCP
3 Manholes at turns (typ)
Dry Pond 8' of 24" RCP Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Ron Hart, Executive Director
DATE: June 11, 2021
SUBJECT: Sheriff Contract Revisions ______
Discussion Item
Sheriff Contract Revisions
Trustee Hendrick and the Executive Director met with Sheriff Payton Grinnell on May 6th. The Sheriff expressed multiple concerns regarding several recent events. Several of these concerns are due to misunderstandings between the two organizations can and will be addressed through improved communications at higher levels of both organizations. Following this meeting, the Executive Director met again with the Sheriff on June 10th. At the meeting, the executive director reinforced the positive benefits our agency receives due to the collaboration between the two agencies. We also provided information regarding historical decisions and explained how they impact our ability to manage current operations at Hickory Point. Near the end of the meeting, we agreed to review potential solutions and work together in an attempt to formulate a series of recommendations that can be cooperatively supported by both the Sheriff and the Executive Director. As soon as we are able to negotiate a set of possible solutions, we will report these recommendations to the Lake County Water Authority Board for review and approval. Should the board desire to proceed, our attorney shall revise the contract to include the detailed items as agreed by the board.
Executive Director’s Recommendation:
For Information Purposes Only
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Ron Hart, Executive Director
DATE: June 6, 2021
SUBJECT: Award the Demolition of Hickory Point’s Entrance Tower ______
Discussion Item
Award the Demolition of Hickory Point’s Entrance Tower
At the January 27th meeting, the board directed staff to demolish the damaged three-level Hickory Point Entrance Tower due to long- term damage to the structure (Figure 1). Prior to demolition staff contacted multiple electrical contractors to relocate or reroute electric lines that provide power to parking and roadway lights. Most contractors were uninterested in the project due to the small size and their work schedule. Staff worked with Trustee Bonjorn to develop and implement a removal plan that relocated the electric to an adjoining outside panel. The Executive Director presented the completed electric project during his monthly board presentation. Employee Eli Willis was recognized as Employee of the Month for his contribution in implementing this project.
Over the past three months, staff has contacted multiple contractors for demolition quotes. Many were again uninterested for multiple reasons. Over time, staff has Figure 1. Entrance Tower at Hickory Point gradually collected the required 3 Recreational Facility quotes from contractors who were willing to perform the work.
The following are the resulting quotes:
Company Name Total Project Cost
Taylor’s Tractor & Tree Service $23,500
Blue Skies Enterprises $28,585
Top Cat Tom $30,500
Staff recommends awarding the demolition work to the lowest qualified bidder, Taylor’s Tractor & Tree Service. Staff will ensure the contractor has the required agency insurance prior to executing any notice to proceed.
Executive Director’s Recommendation:
Award the demolition of the Hickory Point Entrance Tower to Taylor’s Tractor & Tree Service for an amount not to exceed $23,500.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director LCWA
FROM: Jason Danaher, Water Resources Director
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: NuRF Improvement Professional Contracts
Discussion Item
NuRF Improvement Professional Contracts
The Board voted to proceed forward with site improvements at the NuRF after the May 6th board meeting. The areas of improvement focused on the inflow canal and targeted the following: 1) preventative debris removal; 2) monitor and control technology for alum dosage; and 3) improved technology for alum injection. Staff has communicated with firms contracted by the LCWA through continuing engineering services agreements to assign the scope of work and tasks.
Currently, staff has assigned Woodard & Curran the task to design and provide construction management for a grab rake to remove debris and implement monitoring and control technology for alum injection. Pegasus Engineering has been assigned the task for design and construction management to improve alum injection into water entering the NuRF inflow canal. Both groups are working with staff to supply the Board with a cost for services to complete their scope of work. It is anticipated the firms will provide staff their costs for service in time for the July board meeting. In addition, staff continues to work with representatives of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to draft a contract for cost-share improvements at the NuRF.
Staff Recommendation:
No action required. For informational purposes only.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director LCWA
FROM: Jason Danaher, Water Resources Director
DATE: June 10, 2021
SUBJECT: Future Operation of the NuRF
Regular Agenda
Future Operation of the NuRF
On June 10th Chairman Farner requested staff create a regular agenda item to permit time for Board members to discuss current and future operation of the Nutrient Reduction Facility (NuRF) which is currently operated by the LCWA to treat flood discharge from Lake Apopka (Figure 1).
Staff would recommend the LCWA hire a third party engineering firm to draft a bid package if the Board wishes to explore operation of the NuRF by a third party; however, the Board should be aware the contracted engineering firm who develops the bid package would be excluded from submitting a response to the future bid.
Figure 1. Aerial photo of the LCWA Nutrient Reduction Facility settling ponds.
Photo courtesy of Jim Peterson, SJRWMD
Staff Recommendation:
No action required. For informational purposes only.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Steve Crawford, Water Resources Manager
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: Clermont Chain Boat Passage Survey ______
Discussion Item
Clermont Chain Boat Passage Survey
The Board approved in March 2021 for staff to contract with the Center for Conservation Social Science Research at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to develop a survey to understand the attitudes and preferences of stakeholders regarding a proposed lock or lift system at the Cherry Lake Dam.
The survey is deigned to determine demographics, recreational use patterns of all lakes involved, the number and types of boats and boating activities, boaters’ knowledge about the dam and boating experience, perceived benefits and consequences of the lock system, and evaluate opinions of the construction of the boat passage system.
As a reminder, the survey will include a random sample of residents and businesses who are mailed a postcard with a link to take the survey online. Those who do not respond will be sent a reminder postcard. Those who still have not responded will be mailed a printed copy of the survey, with business paid return envelopes. In addition, boaters at the three public boat ramps will be surveyed or provided surveys on 20 stratified random days during the summer.
The FWC survey team and LCWA staff have developed a draft survey that is designed to fairly represent the Groveland and Clermont areas (Table 1). The draft survey is in Attachment A. Staff requests that the Board evaluate the questions and provide feedback by the July board meeting if they would like to see other questions and topics included in the survey. Once Board trustees’ input is obtained, staff will work with FWC personnel to finalize the survey and distribute it to local citizens during the summer months. Results are expected to be provided at the October Board meeting.
Executive Director’s Recommendation:
No action required for informational purposes only.
Table 1. Distribution of Clermont Chain Boat Passage Survey. Color coding is used to identify categories and their breakdown. Breakdown of survey sample (N= 5000) Population Sample Sample size (# of size weight addresses) Lake front or close from Lake residents (within 5,206 1,410 28.2 1000 ft buffer) 1000 ft – 5 miles radius 52,606 2,350 47 Outside 5 miles radius within selected ZIP codes 41,596 940 18.8 Boat ramp surveys with mail back return 300 6 Total 99,602 5,000 100 Breakdown of Lake front or close from Lake Population Sample Sample resident sample (N= 1410) size (# of size weight addresses) Groveland (N=640) 640 564 40 Clermont (N= 4,104) 4,104 564 40 Minneola (N=462) 462 282 20 Total 5,206 1,410 100 Breakdown of 1000 ft – 5 miles radius Population size Sample Sample sample (N= 2350) (# of addresses) size weight Two Groveland ZIP codes (34736, 34753) 11,681 940 40 Three Clermont and Minneola ZIP codes 37,093 940 40 (34714, 34711, 34715) Other ZIP codes (34737, 34748, 34756, 3,832 470 20 34787) Total 52,606 2,350 100
Attachment A (next page)
Attachment A. Clermont Chain Boat Passage Survey Draft
You have been selected to speak for your community and help us understand stakeholders’ experiences with the Clermont Chain of Lakes and attitudes toward a proposed lock or lift structure.
For the purposes of this survey, we define the Clermont Chain of Lakes as: all lakes in the below map, from Lake Louisa in the south to Lake Lucy and Lake Emma in the north.
This survey should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. Your responses are important to us, and we greatly appreciate your help!
NOTE: This survey is voluntary; you are free to skip any questions that you prefer not to answer, and you have the right to stop at any time without penalty. There are no known risks to participants in this survey and no compensation is provided for participation. Your responses will be assigned a code number for reporting, and your name will not be used in reports and analysis. If you have any questions about this survey please contact Chelsey Crandall, social scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC): [email protected]
Thank you, and we greatly appreciate your time and input.
If you would prefer to take this survey online, you may enter this link in your web browser: (to be determined)
To begin, please tell us a bit about yourself and your connection to the Lakes:
1. Which describe(s) your relationship with the Clermont Chain of Lakes? (Select all that apply) • Recreational user • Lake-related business • Lakefront resident • Local/nearby resident (non-lakefront) • Other: ______• I don’t feel connected with the Clermont Chain (skip to Q20)
2. How long have you been connected with the Clermont Chain? • Less than 1 year • 1-5 years • 6-10 years • 11-15 years • 16-20 years • More than 20 years
3. Do you boat on the Clermont Chain? • Yes • No (if no skip Q20)
4. In a typical year, what proportion of your boating trips are on the Clermont Chain? • Very few (less than a quarter) • Some (around a quarter of my trips) • Half (around half of my trips) • A lot (around three quarters of my trips) • Almost all or all of my trips
5. In a typical year, how often do you boat on the Clermont Chain in each season?
Never Once or Twice Monthly Weekly Almost Daily or Daily
Spring Summer Fall Winter
6. What is your primary reason for boating the Clermont Chain? • Cruising • Fishing • Engaging in watersports • Observing wildlife • Other: ______
Please tell us a little about your boat. If you own more than one boat, please refer to the boat you most often use to access the Clermont Chain of lakes in answering the following questions. These questions are important for the design of a lock/lift if constructed.
7. What type of boat do you use on the Clermont Chain? a. Kayak/canoe/paddle board b. Personal watercraft (example: jet ski, seadoo) c. Motorboat d. Sailboat e. Pontoon boat f. Airboat g. Other: ______
8. If your boat is identified in 7c-7g above: what are the dimensions of the boat? • Length (in feet): ______• Width (in feet): ______• Height of the highest component (in feet): ______• Weight (in pounds): ______
9. What is the make and model of your boat? ______
10. What material is your hull primarily constructed from? • Steel • Aluminum • Fiberglass • Wood • Rubber • Plastic • Other: ______
11. If your boat is motor powered: what is the primary propulsion of the boat? • Propeller • Water jet • Electric • Other: ______
12. If your boat is motor powered: which of the following describes your motor? • Outboard • Inboard/outboard or sterndrive
13. Do you have a trailer for your boat? • Yes • No
Next, we’d like to learn more about how people are accessing the lakes. Again, if you own more than one boat, please refer to the boat you most often use on the Clermont Chain of Lakes in answering the following questions.
14. How do you launch your boat when accessing the Clermont Chain? (Select all that apply) • Transport boat to a public ramp • Launch from a private or community property • Other: ______
15. When boating the Clermont Chain in a typical year, how often do you launch from: Never 1 – 5 times 6– 15 times 16 –30 times 31 or more times An HOA boat ramp State Road 19 public ramp Lake Minneola public boat ramp Hull Rd (Crooked River) Public ramp Other (please specify)
We would like to learn more about people’s awareness, experiences, and perspectives regarding the Cherry Lake dam structure. Please answer the following:
16. Prior to this survey, were you aware of the Cherry Lake dam? • Yes • No
17. Prior to this survey, were you aware that you can travel north from Lake Louisa to the Cherry Lake Dam or south from Lake Emma to the Cherry Lake dam? • Yes • No
18. Have you ever boated to the Cherry Lake Dam? • Yes • No (skip to Q20) 19. In a typical year, how often do you boat to the Cherry Lake Dam: Never Once or Twice Monthly Weekly Almost Daily or Daily From the Groveland area From the Clermont area
The Lake County Water Authority is considering installing a lock or lift system on the Cherry Lake Dam structure, which would allow people to move their boat through and connect the waterways on either side of the dam.
20. To what extent would you support or oppose the building of this lock or lift? • Strongly oppose • Oppose • Neither oppose nor support • Support • Strongly support
21. Do you have any specific comments you would like to share as to why you would support or oppose the lock or lift? ______
______
22. If a lift or lock was installed at Cherry Lake Dam how often would you anticipate using it in the next year? • Never • Once or twice • Monthly • Weekly • Almost daily or daily
23. Please use this space for any other comments you would like to share. ______
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Steve Crawford, Water Resources Manager
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: Purchase of Slope Mower for the NuRF
Discussion Item
Purchase a Slope Mower for the NuRF
The NuRF has three spoil mounds and now two new containment cells that all have sides too steep to mow with a tractor or conventional mower. These slopes are too tall to reach with a boom mower on a tractor. The standard machine for this type of slopes is a tracked slope mower (Figure 1). LCWA previously purchased a slope mower for the NuRF, however it was destroyed in a fire in 2016. Using Florida Sherriff’s Contract FSA20-VEH18.0 (expires 9/30/2023) for tracked slope mower purchases, staff received two quotes for two different but similar machines. Everglades Equipment in Leesburg provided a quote of $55,000 for a AGRIA Ridge Runner 9600- 112 and Jet-Vac in Apopka provided a quote for a RC TX-52XP of $55,250. The LCWA can use the existing state contract and purchase from either vendor without the need to request multiple quotes or post a bid for a new slope mower. Both mowers have a 52- inch cut, the Ridge Runner has a 24-hp. engine and the RC has a 27-hp. engine. Even though slightly higher in price, staff favors purchasing the RC TX-52X because it is made in USA as opposed to Germany and the parts supply and service of RC Mowers and the local Jet-Vac are very good. The LCWA Board approved $28,000 for a slope mower in the 2020-21 budget. Apparently, costs have Figure 1. Tracked Slope Mower soared since our last purchase so a transfer of funding will be required to make a purchase.
Executive Director’s Recommendation:
Authorize the Executive Director to transfer $27,250 from 710-340 Other Contractual Services to 710-640 Machinery and purchase a RC TX-52XP from Jet-Vac Equipment Company, LLC in Apopka in amount not-to-exceed $55,200.00.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Ron Hart, Executive Director
DATE: June 6, 2021
SUBJECT: Award the Bid to Rescreen the Hickory Point Pavilion ______
Discussion Item
Award the Bid to Rescreen the Hickory Point Pavilion
The Hickory Point Pavilion opened in 1992 and has served the public as a rented event facility for the past 29 years (Figure 1). The pavilion is a two-story open-air venue that utilizes stainless steel screens to allow air flow without the bugs. The years of exposure to moisture and use by the Figure 1. Hickory Point Pavilion. public has resulted in rusted, damaged and unsightly screens throughout the building (Figure 2). Replacement of damaged screens has been problematic because of the 16’ trim wood running across 4 separate screens. At the March meeting, staff recommended, and the board approved releasing a bid to rescreen the building with stainless steel screen and frame each screen individually with wood trim. A competitive public bid is required because the project is estimated to exceed $35,000. The rescreening bid was released, and the following sealed bids were received:
Figure 2. An Example of the Rusted and Damaged Screens.
Company Name Total Project Cost
Simplex Inc $92,670.00
Signature Construction Inc $175,000.00
ESX Construction LLC $82,930.00
Sunrise Entertainment Special Effects LLC $72,985.00
Based on the cost, staff is recommending awarding the bid to Sunrise Entertainment Special Effects LLC for an amount not to exceed $72,985.
Executive Director’s Recommendation: Authorize the Executive Director to award the Hickory Point Rescreening Project to Sunrise Entertainment Special Effects LLC for an amount not to exceed $72,985. Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director
FROM: Steve Crawford, Water Resources Manager
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: Staff Report for May 2021 ______
Water Management: Palatlakaha River Basin
A. Rainfall – May was a dry month with rainfall clustered on several days of the month. The three southernmost sites continued to receive less rainfall than the three northern sites. Rain stations averaged 1.29 inches during the month, which is 2.35 inches below the historic average (3.64 inches) for Clermont. The average total rainfall for the last 12 months was 48.58 inches, which is 1.91 inches below the historical cumulative average of 50.49 inches.
May 12 Month 12 Month Location (inches) Running Total Surplus/Deficit 474 0.90 47.78 -2.71 Brown Shinn Road 0.45 45.13 -5.36 Villa City 0.80 47.85 -2.64 M-1 1.62 49.93 -0.56 Emeralda 1.98 51.04 +0.55 Tavares 1.96 49.76 -0.73
The cumulative average rainfall for the western side of the county in 2021 = 12.61 inches (2.21 inches below average) for the 6 stations reported, which is 85% of the expected rainfall for 2021 to date.
Rainfall 10.00
8.00
6.00
Inches 4.00
2.00
0.00 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2020 Average 2021 Average Historical Average
B. Water Control Structure Report – All water levels in the Palatlakaha River system declined this past month due to low rainfall. Water levels in Lake Minnehaha during May averaged 95.98 ft. The lower pool between Cherry Lake and Villa City averaged 94.11. Both Cherry Lake and Villa City dams remained closed all month. Water levels at all locations, except M-1A, were below regulation. Water levels as of June 1, 2021 and changes from the previous month were:
Location Regulatory Range Upper (ft) Lower (ft) Change (upper) Minnehaha 96.00-97.50 95.82 N/A -0.58 Cherry Lake 96.00-97.50 95.46 93.82 -0.60 Villa City 94.00-95.50 93.78 89.89 -0.50 M-6A 91.00-92.00 90.18 87.73 -0.62 M-5A 88.25-89.50 87.70 84.10 -0.65 M-4A 83.75-85.00 83.42 77.88 -0.54 M-1 68.00-73.00 70.60 N/A -0.08
Nutrient Reduction Facility (NuRF)
A. Water Quality Sampling - The Nutrient Reduction Facility began operating March 2, 2009 and coincided with closing of the existing dam. Most of the Lake Apopka discharge has been routed through the NuRF. Per our joint NuRF Operation and Management Plan, St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) has control of discharge through the facility but coordinates with LCWA staff to determine NuRF capabilities.
Due to low rainfall, water levels in Lake Apopka were below regulation nearly the entire month of May and dipped below minimum desirable at the end of the month. Although May began with flow rates of 150 cfs, SJRWMD discharged an average of 13 cfs since May 6. There was no discharge through the dam because the west pond at the NuRF had the capacity to receive all flows since it was cleaned out by C & M Dredging.
Average (non-flow weighted) inflow total phosphorus concentration to date is 90.1 ppb (Figure 1). The NuRF has removed 57% of the incoming total phosphorus mass to date. The removal percentage does not consider the fact that the total phosphorus exiting the facility is not bioavailable. Average (non-flow weighted) total phosphorus concentration in the NuRF discharge to date is 38.5 ppb, which is above the Lake Beauclair 32.0 ppb TMDL. The total phosphorus discharged (not bioavailable) from the NuRF during May was 45.4 ppb and the average total phosphorus discharge from the NuRF for past 12 months (41.1 ppb) were above the threshold for Lake Beauclair (Figure 1). Average Total Phosphorus Concentration through the NuRF Maximum desirable TP is 32 ppb (red line) 100.0 90.1 86.5 90.0 84.1 80.0 70.0 60.0 45.4 50.0 38.5 41.1 40.0 30.0 20.0
Total Phosphorus (ppb) Phosphorus Total 10.0 0.0 Inlet Outlet Inlet Outlet Inlet Outlet Since 2009 Last 12 Months May-21
Figure 1. Total phosphorus concentration, based on weekly total phosphorus data and average flow rate reported by SJRWMD, was estimated into and out of the facility since the NuRF went into production, during the past 12 months and during May 2021.
Pounds of Phosphorus Removed by NuRF 40,000 37,829
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
Pound of Phosphorus of Phosphorus Pound 10,000 4,796 5,000 222 0 Since 03/02/09 Last 12 Months May-21
Figure 2. The NuRF's the facility’s total phosphorus reduction based on the concentration and flow since the NuRF went into production, for the last 12 months and the month of May 2021.
B. Vital NuRF Statistics 03/02/09 through 5/31/21
Total Alum Used 16.66 million gallons Alum Purchased To-Date $9,252,917 Total Water Treated 75.11 billion gallons Total P Removed 37,829 pounds Average TP Conc. In 90.1 ppb Average TP Conc. Out 38.5 ppb
C. NuRF Activity
• Regular coordination with C & M Dredging on the dredging project. • Coordinated with GEA staff to repair the centrifuge, install new scroll, and ship the old scroll. • Met with contractors to discuss various improvements at the NuRF. • Ordered alum accordingly. • Collected water samples twice each week. • Mowed, trimmed grass, bush hogged and applied herbicide to upland invasive plants. • Repaired the 2011 bobcat. • Pressure washed and greased the 2019 bobcat and dozer. • Replaced the clutch plates on the bush hog. • Maintenance on the east pond dredge and cable systems. • Replaced the centrate pipe and repaired oil cooler water line on the centrifuge. • Inspected alum tank lines and repaired leaking alum pump lines. • Welded broken shifter on the mule. • Welded separations of pond rails. • Hard plumbed the rain catch basin pump. • Obtained quotes for slope mowers and arranged a demo at the NuRF. • Repaired the plug valve for the sludge pump. • Removed rainwater from storage tank in prep for painting. • Repaired the road between the front gate and alum building. • Participated in a heat and stress webinar. • Repaired damaged water hose. • Cleaned flow meter and pH pumps and calibrated both pH pumps. • Cleaned alum and centrifuge buildings. • Had radio tower removed. • Prepared truck and trailer for delivery of old scroll to New Jersey. • Washed vehicles.
Maintenance Staff Aquatic Projects
• Mapped water depths of Lake Eustis. • Mowed the entrance road, river slopes and field at M-1. • Cleaned the roof of the storage garage at M-1. • Mowed around old barn at Denham sod farm. • Repaired pontoon boat.
Contract/Project Status
• Continued to coordinate with C&M Dredging for the NuRF pond dredging project. • Continued to coordinate with Ellicott Dredge Technologies for two new dredges at the NuRF. • Coordinated with Woodard and Curran to review Pegasus’ recommendations for upgrades to the NuRF. • Coordinated with Paramount Painting for painting the floc storage tank. • Wood continues Phase II of the Lake Minneola project. • Coordinated with Dredging and Marine Consultants, Carr and Collier Inc. and BMP Electric Inc. for the reconstruction of the Villa City Dam. • Coordinated with the Human Dimensions staff of FWC to develop a survey of south Lake County residents concerning boat passage at Cherry Lake Dam. • Communicated with FDEP regarding draft contract to cost-share NuRF improvements.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director
FROM: Biagio Gugliotti, Land Resources Director
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: May Staff Report ______
Property Activities
A. Bourlay Historic Nature Park – May 3rd, staff picked up lots of trash in the parking lot, checked the restrooms, checked the pier, and replaced several signs.
May 5th, staff sprayed with the 50-gallon sprayer along the entrance and trails for non-natives and grasses. May 6th, staff mowed part of preserve. May 10th, staff mowed all the preserve. May 11th, staff reinstalled screen door with new screen in place.
May 12th, staff trimmed back trails around the preserve and installed some new signs. Staff loaded and removed the large chunks of asphalt that were in the parking lot.
May 18th, staff checked the restrooms, trails, chickee hut, pier, cracker house, leaning palm tree, and fence lines and put up the last of the new signs. Staff also picked up trash in parking lot. Staff dropped off a load of mulch near the site residence. May 26th, staff trimmed back the fence line on Lee street, trimmed up the trees around the restrooms, removed fallen tree from garden area, checked and trimmed up more on the trails.
B. Crooked River Preserve – May 3rd, staff checked the restrooms and changed the kayak/canoe/locker combos. May 6th, staff mowed the preserve.
Sinkhole Pond
May 17th, staff changed the kayak/canoe/locker combos. May 18th, staff checked the restrooms and picked up trash. May 21st, staff cleaned up the garden areas and edged and blew off sidewalks. May 24th, staff changed the kayak/canoe/locker combos. And staff removed a wasp nest from inside the back of the locker.
Coral Bean Flower Coral Bean Seed Pods C. Flat Island Preserve – May 3rd, staff checked the restrooms and the group campsite. May 12th, staff restocked janitorial supplies in the restroom closet. May 18th, staff picked up trash, checked campsites, and checked restrooms. May 20th, staff mowed the preserve and the main loop trail. Staff also trimmed back the main loop trail. May 24th, staff cleaned out the group campsite fire pit and filled toilet paper rolls in the restrooms.
D. Sawgrass Island Preserve – May 3rd, staff put up new camping signs.
“Horse Camping Area” Sign Whitetail Deer on Trail
May 4th, staff trimmed up trails around the preserve. May 5th, staff sprayed non-native plants. May 6th & 11th, staff trimmed trails around the preserve. May 18th, staff put up new camping signs at the campsites. May 19th, staff mowed the preserve with the tractor.
E. Sabal Bluff Preserve – May 3rd, staff checked the trails and put up new signs.
May 5th, staff installed boundary signs in the water along the preserve shoreline. May 11th, staff mowed the preserve. May 12th, staff put up some new signs at the preserve.
May 18th, staff checked the trails. May 25th, staff, and Green Isles contractor pulled and sprayed non-natives in the restoration areas along the center road. May 26th, staff trimmed trees in the field and trimmed back along the center road.
Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar Gulf Fritillary Butterfly Passion Vine Flower
F. Hidden Waters Preserve – May 11th, staff mowed the preserve. May 17th, staff put rock into the erosion area on Country Club side of the preserve and spread a load of dirt on top. May 22nd, staff worked with W.I.L.A. to remove 5 full bags of non-natives from Hidden Waters Preserve. The kids got to learn about nature and the ravine stream.
Bag of Coral Ardisia Goper Tortoise Eastern Coral Snake
May 24th, staff cleared fallen trees out of trails and fixed a water bar on the ravine trail.
Buttonbush Flower Pod Eastern Box Turtle
G. Lake Norris Conservation Area – April 1st, 6th, 15th and 20th, staff changed combo’s and cleaned out fire pit. H. Scrub Point Preserve – May 3rd, staff picked up trash at the point and checked the trails. May 12th, staff mowed the preserve. May 17th, staff helped Bok Tower Gardens perform a survey of the Warea plots. Staff also sprayed Coral ardisia and other non-native plants.
Trash in the Fire Ring at the Point Sandhill Crane at the Point
I. Wolf Branch Sink Preserve – May 27th, staff used the tractor with the claw and mower deck and removed trees that were blocking the trails.
J. Bear Track – May 13th, staff trimmed trails and repaired fence lines. May 14th, staff repaired more fence lines and mowed the preserve.
Trail, Before Trimming Wetland Pond Area K. Fern Prairie Preserve – May 4th, staff raked fire lines. L. Flowing Waters Preserve – May 18th, staff mowed the northeast corner of the preserve and created access trails to invasive plants. May 19th, staff relocated a gate and repaired the fence. Staff collected trash from where bears had dragged trash bags into the preserve.
M. Treasure Island Preserve – May 11th, staff installed a new post with boundary signs. May 25th, staff checked the preserve.
N. Other properties inspected for trash, ATV activity, and vandalism:
O. Other Staff Activities: • Every Monday staff meets with Field Services to schedule projects for the week. • May3rd, staff performed the end of the month preserve check: collected sign in sheets, filled brochure boxes, and picked up trash. • May 5th, staff attended a virtual meeting with the City of Groveland about their Land Acquisition program. Staff priced trauma kits. Staff attended LCWA virtual staff meeting. • May 6th, staff attended the Statewide Scrub Working Group Meeting. Staff worked on sign quotes. • May 7th, staff worked on the office landscaping. Staff sprayed around LCWA office and the Hickory Point pavilion and trails. Staff worked on the April staff report. • May 10th, staff worked on reports, took beach sample to water lab, and performed the playground inspection. • May 10th - 12th, staff worked on Board Memos. • May 13th, staff helped as an instructor at a Fire Training at UCF. • May 14th, staff held a paddling safety training for the LCWA and County Parks staff that lead paddling trips. Staff practiced rescue techniques including rope throws, getting people back into their boats once in the water and boat over boat extraction. This was a hands-on training and participants got in the water and took turns acting as rescuers and rescuees.
Staff Practices Rescue Rope Throws Staff “Dives In” to Paddling Safety • May 18th, staff performed the mid-month preserve check: collected sign in sheets, picked up trash, and filled brochure boxes. • May 20th, staff attended the Bid Opening for the Hickory Point Pavilion rescreening.
LCWA Office Native Landscaping Bee on Blanket Flower • May 21st, staff worked on maintaining the landscape around the LCWA office and the Hickory Point Pavilion. • May 25th, staff worked on the Prescribed Fire Presentation for the Board Meeting. Staff updated the bass tournament schedule. • May 26th, staff attended the LCWA Board Meeting. • May 27th, staff attended the County Safety Meeting. • May 28th, staff participated in the Vehicle Inspection and Cleaning Day. Staff participated in a brief training for the new Trauma Kits which are in all the work vehicles, the office and the NuRF building. • LCWA Facebook Page has 1,229 Followers.
Preserve Visitation (Numbers based upon visitors who signed in, actual visitation may be higher.) *Numbers also include visitors who reserve camping and canoe/kayaks
May May Preserve 2021 2020
Bourlay Historic Nature Park 58 68 Crooked River Preserve * 157 317 Flat Island Preserve * 484 598 Hidden Waters Preserve 236 480 Lake Norris Cons. Area (SJRWMD- 43 97 owned) * Sabal Bluff Preserve 44 54 Sawgrass Island Preserve 70 155 Hickory Point Park (kayak rentals) * 1 0 TOTALS: 1,093 1,769 Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Lake County Water Authority Board of Trustees
FROM: Ben Garcia, Administrative Services Director
DATE: June 10, 2021
SUBJECT: GIS Activities Report for May 2021 ______
IT Management
• Installed new monthly virus protection updates and definitions to all network PCs • Monthly updates to the firewall on the network for virus and spam email protection • Monthly settings configuration for the spam email software to filter emails • Set up and coordinated virtual staff meetings on Team Meetings instead of Zoom • Coordinated the dismantling, transport and installation of the NuRF tower to the office to be used for Pavilion Wi-Fi communication and security camera installation. Thew crew came back to finish the installation of the antenna and new PTYZ camera. The job will be finished in about a week. • Completed the replacement of the conference room maps at the LCWA office and had them printed with a local graphics company to make them look professional • Coordinated with staff hardware and software calibrations for the collection of bathymetry data on Lake Eustis. Assigned Robert as the main person handling the data collection. One half of the lake has been completed and processed. Requested a quote to manage the post-processing and storage of the projects and data • Requested quotes for several software and hardware network equipment
Office Management
• Created several maps for staff and board meeting presentations • Processed another list of surplus equipment to auction • Posted all upcoming Board Meeting information on the LCWA website and updated video links to past meetings for the public’s access • Change user information for all financial and websites related to the business of the Water Authority • Updated the Board Bio Information page on the LCWA website • Trained Tekesha on the Board Meeting posting of minutes, agendas and memos • Met with several contractor regarding the wireless connection between the office and the Pavilion to get security camera access • Advertised and posted LCWA vehicle to sell on the street with an starting bid price based on KBB and requested sealed envelopes with the offers. Two offers came up at starting price.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director
FROM: Brian Nagy, Field Services Supervisor
DATE: June 7, 2021
SUBJECT: May Staff Report
______
Field Services
A. Staff Work • May 3rd, staff worked on painting the fishing pier boat docks as well as made repairs as needed at Hickory Point. Staff replaced rotten boards behind the pavilion at Hickory Point. • May 4th, staff began trail trimming at Sawgrass Island Preserve. Staff installed gates and posted signs to the pole barn as well as the shop at Hickory Point. • May 5th, staff participated in a staff meeting. Staff installed boundary signs around the shoreline of Sable Bluff Preserve with GPS. • May 6th, staff continued trail trimming at Sawgrass Island Preserve. • May 7th, staff mowed the slopes as well as the field at M-1. Staff mowed both sides of the entrance road leading to M-1. Staff cleaned the roof of the storage garage at M-1. • May 10th, staff continued mapping on Lake Eustis. Staff mowed around the old barn at Denham sod farm. Staff met with contractors on pre bid of pavilion rescreening. • May 11th, staff finished painting the boat docks on the fishing pier at Hickory Point. Staff continued trimming trails at Sawgrass. Staff installed boundary signs at Treasure Island Preserve. Staff installed a screen door at Bourlay Preserve. • May 12th, staff trail trimmed at Bourlay Preserve. Staff loading up pile of milling from Bourlay parking area. • May 13th, staff trail trimmed at Bear Tracks Preserve. Staff made repairs to fence as needed at Bear Tracks Preserve. • May 14th, staff participated in kayak safety training with Lake County at Hickory Point beach swimming area. Staff repaired down section of fence at Bear Tracks Preserve. Staff mowed at Bear Tracks Preserve. • May 17th, staff put rocks in wash out of walking trail at Hidden Waters Preserve. Staff added two loads of dirt on top of the wash out at Hidden Waters Preserve. • May 18th, staff continued mapping Lake Eustis. Staff repaired golf cart. Staff chipped up branches from Hickory Point and delivered them to Bourlay site residents. Staff worked on replacing hydraulic cylinder on the old blue tractor as well as repaired gravely mower. • May 19th, staff fixed a fence and installed a gate at Flowing Waters Preserve. Staff returned bobcat back to the NuRF. Staff worked on boom mower tractor.
• May 20th, staff made repair to pontoon boat. Staff mowed and trail trimmed at Flat Island Preserve. • May 21st, staff trimmed oak trees down the main entrance road at Hickory Point. • May 24th, staff installed bollards around light poles at Hickory Point. Staff worked on pole lights at Hickory Point. • May 25th, staff painted bollards that were installed to protect light poles around Hickory Point Park. Staff trimmed trees with lift at Hickory Point. • May 26th, staff trimmed Lee St. fence line at Bourlay Preserve. Staff continued trimming trees at Hickory Point. Staff prepped old F-250 to be sold. • May 27th, staff rewired light pole at Hickory Point. Staff removed down trees from roadway at Wolf Branch Sink Preserve. • May 28th, staff participated in an vehicle maintenance day as well as trauma kit training.
Ron Hart, Executive Director Gary J. Cooney, Secretary - Treasurer
TO: Ron Hart, Executive Director
FROM: Brian Nagy, Field Services Supervisor
DATE: June 9, 2021
SUBJECT: May Staff Report – Hickory Point Park ______
Hickory Point Park
A. Special Events • May 29th, Fishing for Autism Benefit Tournament, 50 boats
B. Staff Work • Park Ranger worked the pavilion rentals throughout the month; monitored rentals, cleaned pavilion and outside restrooms. • Park Ranger checked the trash and cleaned the restrooms every day and cleans as needed. • May1st, staff mowed the LCWA office. Staff trimmed the park bushes and picked up trash along Hwy 19. Staff blew off the boardwalks and weed trimmed the fence lines. Staff worked pavilion rentals. • May 2nd, staff weed trimmed, edged, and blew off LCWA office areas. Staff cleaned the shop, weed trimmed fence lines, and mowed, weed trimmed, edged, and blew off north parking islands. Staff also monitored pavilion rentals. • May 3rd, staff worked on replacing rotting boards around the park. Staff worked on painting the fishing pier and made repairs to the fishing docks. • May 5th, staff mowed, weed trimmed, and edged the entire pavilion areas. Staff mowed the boat ramp islands and the berms. Staff edged the roadways of the park. • May 6th, staff deep cleaned pavilion for rentals. Staff blew off entry roads, office, and staging areas. Staff spot weed trimmed the entire park. Staff finished weed trimming and edging park. Staff blew off boardwalks and boat ramps. Staff picked up palm islands. • May 7th, staff mowed, edged, and weed trimmed boat parking and overflow parking. Staff picked up trash around the park and along Hwy 19. Staff stocked and deep cleaned the pavilion. • May 8th, staff mowed the LCWA office. Staff monitored pavilion rentals. Staff weed trimmed fence lines and mowed north parking lot islands. Staff dug out run off sand from parking lots. • May 9th, staff weed trimmed, edged, and blew off LCWA office parking areas. Staff cleaned off the LCWA office parking roadway too. Staff blew off the north parking lot island roadways and entry road. Staff tested out different concrete cleaners on the sidewalks.
• May 10th, staff met with contractors on pre-bid for pavilion screening. • May 11th, staff finished painting the boat docks on the pier. • May 12th, staff set new rope fence in front of pavilion. Staff mowed and weed trimmed the parking islands. Staff blew off entry roads and weed trimmed the rope fence posts. Staff blew off the boardwalks around the park. Staff weed trimmed the islands near pavilion and boat ramps. Staff mowed around the park. • May 13th, staff mowed, edged, weed trimmed the entire pavilion areas. Staff edged the roadway in the volleyball parking areas. Staff blew of the boardwalks around the park. • May 14th, staff deep cleaned the pavilion for rentals. Staff picked up debris from around the park. Staff weed trimmed the retention pond areas. • May 15th, staff mowed, edged, and weed trimmed the LCWA office. Staff mowed along Hwy 19. Staff weed trimmed fence lines and around tractor implements. • May 16th, staff trimmed and shaped trees and hedges around LCWA office and the entryway. Staff mowed, weed trimmed north parking lot islands. Staff blew off LCWA parking areas, north parking lot roadways, and entry roads. Staff installed satisfaction survey units in the pavilion. • May 18th, staff chipped up tree trimmings. • May 19th, staff replaced broken fence posts and removed no trespassing signs. Staff weed trimmed behind the pavilion and along the sides of the boat ramps. Staff installed pamphlet holders outside of ramp restrooms. Staff edged along main roadways and blew off all areas that where edged and weed trimmed. • May 20th, staff deep cleaned the pavilion and picked up debris from around the park. Staff blew off the boardwalks. Staff also picked up the palm islands. • May 21st, staff picked up trash around the park and along Hwy 19. Staff stocked and deep cleaned the restrooms in pavilion and the pavilion itself. Staff trimmed trees around the park with the lift. • May 24th, staff picked up trash along Hwy 19. Staff blew off all the boardwalks, picked up the palm islands, and weed trimmed around the park where needed. Staff blew off the main roadways. Staff placed bollards around light poles. Staff worked with Eli on testing and installing new lighting for the main roadway. • May 25th, staff cleaned up the palm islands, mowed and weed trimmed the front roadway entrance. Staff also mowed and weed trimmed the berms. Staff painted the bollards around the light poles and trimmed trees with lift along main entryway. Staff also painted the dividers for the boat ramps. Staff trimmed trees with the lift. • May 26th, staff deep cleaned the entire pavilion. Staff picked up trash along Hwy 19 berm and blew off all the boardwalks. Staff trimmed trees using lift along the roadways. • May 27th, staff made sure the pavilion was ready for rentals and cleaned out the palm islands. Staff brush cut around burn pile and drying areas. Staff worked on light fixtures and fixed the one that had no power to it. Staff used the lift to trim palm trees. • May 28th, staff blew off all the boardwalks, deep cleaned the entire pavilion and restocked. • May 29th, staff weed trimmed fence lines and around tractor implements. Staff monitored the pavilion rentals. Staff blew off the boardwalks and mowed the north parking lot islands. Staff helped with kayak rentals. • May 30th, staff cleaned the shop and weed trimmed behind the pavilion. Staff fixed clogged drain in the beach restroom. Staff picked up debris around the park and blew off all entry roadways. Staff weed trimmed around the LCWA office and fence lines. • Update on the Hickory Point Facebook page 1,288 followers.
HICKORY POINT-MONTHLY REVENUE REPORT
May 2021
Lake County Water Authority Statistics Deputy Combined Totals Month/ May 2021 Year Total # of Citations and Written Warnings Totals Contacts Lake County Residents 15 Citations 34 Arrests 11 Other Florida Residents 23 Written Warnings 12 Traffic 5 Out of State Residents 1 Verbal Warnings 374 Hazards 12 Location of Citation Safety Inspections 292 After hours call 5 St. Johns River 21 Harris Chain 12 SAR cases 8 Clermont Chain 7 Miscellaneous calls 16 Other Lakes Other Agencies 7
Type of Offense Comments/SPECIAL DETAILS AND PROJECTS Violation of Wake Zone 130 Fatal jet ski accident on Lake George. 2 differnet night rescue searches on the Safety Equipment 23 Weekiva River. Mayhem Lake George Boat Special Patrol. Memorial Day Careless Operation 2 weekend Special Boat Patrol. Registration Violations 32 Other Violations 4 Type of Vessel Boat 131 PWC 69 Paddle craft
Total Hours on Water Patrol 449
number hours Preserve Extra Patrols 59 42
Boating Safety EXPO's 44 21
rev: Oct-13 Maryann Krisovitch Education Contractor 352-434-5025 [email protected]
Lake County Water Authority May 2021
Date Activity Hours # Contacts 5/3/21 Limnology lab work 2 5/6/21 Manatee awareness program – Trinity Assembly 2 50 5/6/21 Program prep – District 7 Garden Club Association 1.5 5/7/21 District Garden Club water resource program 2.5 100 5/18/21 Hawthorne TV program and shoreline restoration 2 700 assistance 5/20/21 Filming prep – water conservation & promotional item 2.5 selection 5/21/21 Webisodes – water conservation for adults and Water 4 WONDERS for kids (All webisodes are available on the LCWA’s Education Resources webpage) 5/24/21 Program prep & presentation – water conservation Howey 4 25 Town Council and resident 5/26/21 Water samples: Kirkland, Glona, Center, Winona, P’ha & 3 David 5/26/21 LCWA Board meeting 2 5/1-5/31 Misc. phone calls, emails, reports 4 Total for May 29.5 875
Total contacts to date 2,969 Annual budget amount $15,000 Budget amount remaining FY ‘21 $2,920 Total hours budgeted 468.75 Total hours remaining FY ‘21 91.25
Date Upcoming Activities Time 6/8/21 B. B. Brown’s summer camp 1pm 6/10/21 Student volunteers at LCWA 10:30am 6/15/21 B. B. Brown’s summer camp 1pm
May 2021 LCWA Contractor’s Monthly Report
5/1/21 Home & Garden Expo. Lake Co. Fair Grounds 4.75 hours 145 contacts
5/2/21 Home & Garden Expo Lake Co. Fair Grounds 3.25 hours 92 contacts
5/4/21 LCWA return and restock Expo supplies 1.5 hours
5/20/21 LCWA prep for 5/21 swag, planning, training with Maryann 3.0 hours
5/21/21 Lady Lake Veterans’ Park 4.75 hours and Lady Lake Library Water Conservation videos & Deliver Harris Chain maps to Eustis, Mount Dora Chambers
5/26/21 Six lakes water testing & deliver samples to Lake Co. Water Lab 4.5 hours
May 2021 Misc. calls, emails & Reports 3.0 hours
5/31/21 Create & send May report and bill .5 hours
Marc Crail
Total May 2021 hours = 25.25 Total May community contacts= 237
LAKE COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY REGULAR MEETING MINUTES
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 3:30 pm Lake County Administration Building
The Regular Hearing of the Board of Trustees of the Lake County Water Authority was held at 3:30 pm Wednesday, May 26, 2021 in the Lake County Administration Building, County Commissioners Chambers at 315 West Main Street, Tavares, Florida.
Members Present-District # Staff Present
Keith Farner, Chairman (At-Large) Ron Hart, Executive Director Courtney Stokes, Vice Chair (At-Large) Dr. Jason Danaher, Water Resources Director Marty Proctor (#1) Steve Crawford, Water Res. Project Manager Trampis BonJorn (#2) Biagio Gugliotti, Land Resources Director Tyler Brandeburg (#3 Ben Garcia, Administrative Services Director Butch Hendrick (#4) Tracey Percoco, Financial Analyst Rick Donohue (#5) Tekesha Stephens, Office Associate Kevin Stone, Attorney
A list of others present at the meeting is part filed in the permanent files of the Water Authority.
1. CALL TO ORDER / PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Chairman Keith Farner [00:00:01] Welcome to the May 26th, the Lake County Water Authority meeting, I'm going to say we have our public comment at the beginning in the meeting now. So, if you have any public comment that does not pertain to what is on our agenda. Please fill out a card and turn it in we'll get you right up here at the beginning of the meeting. If you have something that you want to comment on that's on our agenda. Please also fill out a comment card and we'll get you up here when we get that item up. All right. And in the meantime, let's stand for a silent moment of silent meditation and follow by the Pledge of Allegiance.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:00:50] All right, thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. To the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I was going to remind everyone, please turn off or put your silent or your electronic devices on silent we'd appreciate it I think I have done this time as I remember to, yes.
3. PUBLIC COMMENT
Chairman Keith Farner [00:01:20] All right do we have any public comment cards, I see none. All right let's move on Executive Director Report.
4. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Mr. Hart [00:01:41] Ok, we've got a number of updates we want to give you guys today. Let's see how well this pointer works and get the arrow to also work, ok Ben's got the arrow working. You'll note that the April rainfall amount was well above what we historically would see in April as a matter of fact, it is the wettest April we've had since 1953. So, it was well above normal and what that did for us, it made up the gap and the shortage that we had in January and March and put us right back on to the yearly average that we would have so far this year moving forward.
Mr. Proctor [00:02:28] Where's the data at, where's the location?
Mr. Hart [00:02:30] The data is from six rainfall locations that we have, Emeralda Marsh being the north and in the south end being down in the Green Swamp in Polk County within the Big Creek Little, Creek Basin at what they call Brown Chynn Road, if you know where that sat down in the Green Swamp and then we've got a whole series of gauges Draft Regular Board Meeting Minutes – May 26, 2021
in between and the interesting thing about the the rainfall during that month is it was very wet the wettest part was an Emeralda, which was north that was eight point three inches, and the driest areas were the southern end of Lake County. So, when we got a lot of rain up here in the north end down in the south end for the Clermont Chain of Lakes and flows coming into Clermont Chain of Lakes, they really didn't get that much. They got a very slight bump in water levels and it slowed the progression of the of the water level drop but they still they still dropped out fairly quick. And then this month, so far, we've got well below average going into the rainy season, which the rainy season actually should be kicking in this week for us historically but as you can tell, looking out there, that's not happening yet. We look at Lake Minnehaha, you'll note that same thing that when you get to the beginning of April, right where the water level jumps up there, suddenly it's dropping, go on after March and then all of a sudden it starts to go back up again. You'll note that there's there's that lack of fall for that period because of those rainfall events kicking it back up. But then right when we get into May, you see that progression with rainfall or the water levels on the Clermont Chain are quickly dropping back down again and now we're dealing with water levels that are below regulation. The importance of that event is that we're seeing water levels now in the Clermont Chain dropping five sixteenths or over a quarter of an inch a day and water elevations are going down really quick. And that's why it's important for us to not release water unless the levels are high within the regulatory range for the Clermont Chain, because we know that when it stops raining, those levels die down quick and next thing you know, we've got people calling us and complaining that there's no water in the lake and they can't move from one lake to the other. And that's where we're starting to get right now that we're just starting to get the calls in from the residents want to know why their levels are so low and if somebody is letting the water out. But if you look back in the data, you'll see that, you know, we went into January was the last time we discharge water and we stopped discharging any from that point on when the levels were relatively high in that and the regulation.
Mr. Hart [00:05:06] You'll notice for Lake Apopka, you'll see at the end, it's also diving down Lake Apopka is just above the minimum desirable level at this point, but well below the regulation schedule. And you can see on the bottom of the graph there the the peak flows that they had discharged out in the middle of April, which now they're just moving 10 cubic feet per second through the through the NuRF at very minimal amounts. You also see a similar thing for Harris and Dora and and Lake Eustis, we see this water level drop that's occurring, it's not as severe, dramatic as what it is on Lake Apopka. Apopka has a wider fluctuation range than the rest of the Harris Chain, so you don't see as big of a or quickly as a drop because you do have a number of spring discharges in Lake Harris that helped to low water levels to some extent on that chain of lakes. Griffin responds similarly, you know, just a little bit above the below the regulation and but not very far. During this event that we're looking at, the discharges going out of the NuRF, you can see that since 2009 we were averaging ninety parts per billion phosphorous coming in, which are very high numbers. That's pea green water for algae, and we've been able to reduce those nutrient levels down to thirty- eight point five and just over the past 12 months, we've had a lower level of nutrients coming into the facility at eighty- two point eight. Our discharges are still averaging thirty-eight point six for the last 12 months and just in April alone, we had that big slug of water that came through during the high rainfall period and so the nutrients are elevated for what's coming through the facility at that ninety-one or ninety-seven point one parts per billion. And our discharges are also elevated at that fifty three point zero, bear in mind during a large portion of the event, we're trying to use a pond that was fairly full and so it couldn't accept much material and didn't have the ability or the storage volume in it to readily settle out that flock as it was being generated. So you would get higher numbers in your outfall than than what you would consider desirable and the goal of course, is to get those nutrients down below that 32 parts per billion line, because that's what we would consider to have the water quality that's necessary to maintain the expectations in Lake Beauclair downstream. The difficulty is when you have a high flow event like this where there's 53 above, you're over 21 above what your goal or your target is. So, in order for you to balance that out on the red line where you need it, you need those high flows with something that's about 21 parts per billion lower than where that line is in order for things to balance out where you need it. So, you almost have to make hay when the sun shines in order to make up for these bad weather days that can discharge a lot more nutrients downstream.
Mr. Hart [00:08:10] Want to give you a few brief updates on Hickory Point improvement staff made, this is our our boardwalk that you guys had our staff, put all new boards down on the boardwalk through the wetland, and the board had approved for a contractor to come in and spray paint the structure and you can see the top left photo in the bottom right photos or sections of that boardwalk that had been painted. You'll probably also remember the retention pond where we had a problem there at Hickory Point where the water wasn't flowing into it there by the boat ramps and it was filled in with sediment and we paid and a contractor to come in there and clean out that retention pond, pull all the muck and organic that accumulated and remove that from that facility and that's what it looked like when they completed all the asphalt areas were uncovered. Instead of being covered with dirt and weeds on some of that, they're all uncovered and cleaned up and we're going to maintain it that way. When the bottom picture, you can see one of the the new light posts that we installed, some of these areas where we have overflow parking, that people that go in
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there and park, they don't recognize that there's a light pole behind them when they pull out and go back into the pole and knock it and this is one that they damage. What we've been doing and staff is finishing that up this week is putting these bollards around the base of the light poles so there's something that they can break before they break the light pole, light pole is very expensive we can put new pvc in the ground and paint it yellow cheap. This is an area by the soccer by our soccer league that the soccer utilizes, and you can see on the bottom is the pre work photo and there was all this sand material that was accumulating within that. Actually, the top photo, there's all this sand accumulating in the road kind of disappears on that corner and you'll see all the oak tree branches are extremely hanging low and vehicles were having a hard time getting driving through that area and it was scratch and some of them and rubbing on their roofs. So, we came in with the bottom photo and you can see we scraped off and removed all the dirt that was on the surface of the roadway and we also trimmed up all those trees, so it looks much more attractive and it's not damaging users vehicles.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:10:23] Did our staff to all that?
Mr. Hart [00:10:24] Yes, sir.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:10:25] Fantastic. Very good.
Mr. Hart [00:10:28] And I'll have to say something, a comment about staff that they've been excellent at buying into the improvements that we want to make and giving them some leeway to say, what do you see out there and what needs to be improved? So, they're coming to me with projects that need to be incorporated and improved at Hickory Point, and when I come to them with an idea or suggestion here's something, we need to work on they're coming with ideas to make it better and I'll have some examples of that. This is our restroom that we had everybody the beach and you can see that the condition, all the iron deposits over many, many, many years left on pretty unsightly and our guys are not necessarily the the best at cleaning. They necessarily have the best toolset or the skills, but I sent them out to work with the contractor to find out what you need to do in order to clean these things up and they got some free information on the right chemicals to use to to brighten these surfaces. You can see the hand dryers were extremely poor condition they removed them, they taped them off, they sanded them down and then recoded them, so they look like new once again. So, they're not new ones that they bought, and they just refurbished the ones that we have in the restrooms. They refinished the floors within the pavilion, all the wooden floors have been refinished. We had a contractor come in there and replace the the pumps in our lift station out there that they were the original pumps from when the facility was constructed in, and one of them was just hanging barely on its last life, that the bearings and all were shot in it and so we had a contractor come in there and replace those pumps so will last us another 10 years at least. And on our wood deck that we have behind the pavilion, there are a number of areas where they put down at some point these four by four posts, they laid them straight on top of the wood decking and that didn't allow water to run off of the deck, nor did allow leaves to be blown or moved off of the deck. So, we went back in the areas where someone had over the years done a quick job or a quick patch and we put in the new railings that allow for water and dirt and all to move off of the deck, and then we went back after that and painted those surfaces. And also, the benches, you can see that one of the benches are located inside of the bandshell or pavilion's behind the small pavilions, behind the larger pavilion those have all been painted and reinstalled. Top left is one of those decks where they came in and replaced the boards and then put new wood railings on that bottom on those edges and then they also we bought a pressure, we brought a paint sprayer and they they went through and they painted all the other new surfaces that were installed. On the right is the roadway that goes to the property behind us where we've got hiking trails right there and the boards, a lot of them were rotted off and they put new boards on there and also repainted those, bottom are the doorways to the restrooms there at the boat ramp and you can see that the condition was the pictures don't do justice it actually looks a heck of a lot worse than what the picture shows. They cleaned up the doorway and repainted those surfaces so that they look new once again. This is the fishing pier, if you guys remember that you guys funded the contractor to come in and put all new boards down, after they finished that our staff went in there and replaced all the top railings and all you can even see in the middle photo there, there's some slats they're missing they went through there and replaced all the slats that were missing, came through with our with our sprayer and then painted that entire dock structure once again. On the bottom image, you'll see that there's one of our grates this is the worst looking grate that we had at Hickory Point it was rusted out, had a huge hole in the bottom of it. They removed it, took it to a welder had them replaced the sections of steel that were rusted out, and then took those structures along with the other ones back into the shop and spray painted them, put them back out. The guy up on the top right is not one of our employees, our guys tried to go up on the roof of the pavilion and they were they started slipping off and so we paid a roofing contractor to go up there and patch a vent that had been leaking for 10 years up there. And what that that was doing was allowing water to run down the pipe and it was going into the restrooms and on the left you may not be able to see it, but the top left image, there's mold that's in the ceiling there in the drywall. And you can also see the bottom
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right image you can see one of the light fixtures where it was rusting out it was actually, you know, had stains and water deposits and all kinds of gunk inside the light. Staff took those down and just like the other structures, they did their ceiling repair in those buildings, they repainted them, put trim on it and also sanded down those light fixtures, and then recoded light fixtures and reinstalled them so they they looked new once again. This is the swimming beach Hickory Point, they staff went out there and they noticed something they picked up on their own the condition of that lifeguard buoy, and they put together a program and they went out there and and put new wood behind it, painted it, cleaned up the surface of the ring, washed it up, put new red paint a new red lines on it and a new line and buoy installed. On the bottom part you'll see the lifeguard on duty thing, simple thing they washed up the sign and then repainted the infill letters on it. You know, one of one of I think one of the notable achievements is that, you know, when you go through the park now, you'll notice all the street signs that we have that they now, instead of just being a metal pole that sunk in the ground with a metal sign sitting on it, they put four by four posts and they placed before by our they put a frame, a wooden frame going around the sign and paint those frames so it looks attractive and it makes all the signs look uniform is part of the facility, like they're all planned, more decorative and it was another effort that they thought would improve the public experience.
Mr. Hart [00:16:31] This is that stormwater pond we talked about earlier, actually, very, very poor original design to it. You'll notice the steps on the left going from the parking lot, going down into the stormwater pond for people to walk over to the boat ramp. Well, as you can see on the left one, it's raining and when it's wet, you're them walking through a storm pond in order to get to the boat ramp to get on and off their boats, and so people get their shoes all muddy walking through there. And what we did is that we said, ok we're going to not have people walking down the steps into their we're going to build them a boardwalk to get them across the stormwater pond to the other side. Staff constructed it and then we paint on the right, you can see the finished product after they had spray painted it. The fence along the outside of the agency has been an eyesore and staff is maintaining that fence and keep it in good condition. We've repeatedly had issues with people that would come and visit the volleyball or go play volleyball they would pull off the side of the road there along the oak tree roots and just park in those areas, and so we installed went ahead and installed a rope with fence like we have on the other side of the street so that it defines an area of where they can't park, they've got to stay on the road and they got to unload and then move their vehicle over into the parking lot instead of pulling in underneath the trees. And what that does is it prevents us from having negative interactions with residents that now they can see it's clearly marked where they can't park and our staff doesn't have to go up to them and ask them to tell them that they need to move their vehicle and it stops that negative interaction from occurring. On the right-hand side, you can see the beach restroom again, that these were the benches that people would go in to change clothes or to get ready to go for a swim or now they're being used predominantly for people to get ready for volleyball or go play volleyball. And you can see the bottom of there's two sets of the bottom set of photos, one where staff had sanded those benches down, coated them with polyurethane and had them cleaned up for public use. This is another one of the restrooms this is also the restrooms in the pavilion, you can see on the left hand side all the taped joints where the moisture from the roof leak was damaging areas in the roof, and you can see in the middle images that's the staff pulled all that damaged drywall down and they put new drywall up, finished the drywall and took the lights that were rusting, make sure they recoded the lights and sanded those down and repaint them, sprayed them and installed them back in there so we have a new roof. All the restrooms in the facility, you can see the top images were what they looked like before staff started working on them, you can see there was a dirt grout line or a dirt caulking line that was cracked and all the restrooms and they went in there and cleaned those up, cleaned the sinks and then resealed those in all the restrooms. This is our last image will show and this was the one we had talked about, the electrical that runs through the facility going through the the tower and this is one that staff worked with Trustee BonJorn, that he helped guide them in their preparation of how to get that electric out of the facility. He met with them, staff came up with a plan of what they thought would remove that electric and placed it outside in that center image there on those poles so that we can demolish and eliminate that building. And then Eli, our employee, went through and he relocated that electric you know, he actually worked with Trampis and Trampis reviewed what he was proposing to do to make sure everything was being done correctly and Eli got the work done. If you guys don't know Eli before he started working for us, he was working as an electrician and he doesn't have the skill or the level of Trampis, so that's where it comes in handy to have somebody like that on the board to save us that cost. And on the right, we had a concern that was given to us from one of the Marine Patrol Deputies about some individuals that were hanging out in the enclosure area where we keep equipment stored that had arrest warrants previously, when they had the background check, they couldn't be arrested because they weren't doing anything illegal. So, what we've done is we don't want any of our equipment, expensive equipment or vehicles walking away. So, we've put gates on those enclosure areas so that one staff is done at the end of the day or on the weekend that we've got a gate that we can close. We also put signage up on each one of those entrances that indicate that there's no public access beyond that point. So, keep people from just wandering in there to look around, hopefully particularly ne'er do wells. That being said, our employee of the month this month was selected to be Eli Willis, he is the guy who works up the NuRF and he's
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our NuRF operator. You see him on the tractor mowing grass there and he's also the one who's doing the electric work there at Hickory Point. So, we want to recognize him for him going above and beyond the regular call of duty. With that, I'll open it up to any of the board questions. If I can make one more statement before you move on to the agenda, get the mic on here. Just a quick statement that I also received that disclosure form and what it was missing were the directions. So, I'm sure that and I talked to the Supervisor of Elections Office that those all went out or mailed out without the directions going with them, but they are forwarding those, she's actually today, she's forwarding the directions to me and I'll email those out to you guys. And in particular, I want to stress make sure you get that deadline and don't let it wait to the last minute to do it, because they can't hammer you on that twenty five dollars a day and you may not know about it until six months down the road and that's when they'll tell you that you've been delinquent for this period of time, and this is the amount that you owe from being twenty five dollars a day late. And it can, you know, it can scare you when you're making twenty-five dollars a month I mean, that's a huge amount of your income that can disappear very quickly so just make sure you July 1st, you get those things done and turned in.
Mr. BonJorn [00:23:09] I'll say that Eli, you know, he was really knowledgeable, and he saved the agency probably three or four thousand dollars with what he did so was pretty cool.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:23:23] All right, let's move on before the next time, can we include secchi depth, some measurements there?
Mr. Hart [00:23:30] Yeah
Chairman Keith Farner [00:23:31] Ok.
Mr. Hart [00:23:32] Yes, definitely.
5. CONSENT ITEMS
Tab 1 a. Authorization to Surplus Inventory Items Ben Garcia
Chairman Keith Farner [00:23:32] All right, thank you. All right now we have a consent item does anybody want to bring this up, can I hear a motion?
Mr. Proctor [00:23:43] If it pleases you Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to pass the consent agenda as it stands.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:23:49] I have a motion.
Mr. Brandeburg [00:23:49] Second.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:23:50] And a second, any discussion? My only thoughts are what you guys wait so long to get rid of that piece of junk but look dangerous all right, all in favor that is unanimous thank you very much. All right we're moving right along, Jason Danaher here we're going to talk about some Hydrilla Nathalie's here from FWC.
MARTY MADE A MOTION TO AUTHORIZE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TO SURPLUS INVENTORY ITEMS 354 AND 394 AND DISPOSE OF AS NOTED. Tyler seconded the motion.
Motion approved 7-0
6. DISCUSSION ITEMS
Tab 2 a. Update-FWC Harris Chain of Lakes Hydrilla Management Jason Danaher
Mr. Danaher [00:24:20] Good afternoon members of the board, back in February Trustee Brandeburg had requested that Fish and Wildlife provide an update to the board on Hydrilla management in the Harris Chain of Lakes. With us today, we have Nathalie Visscher with FWC and she's going to provide us an update on the treatments that occurred
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in the fall of 2020 and also the first quarter of this year as far as where those areas were that were treated and future Hydrilla management in the Harris Chain as well so.
Nathalie Visscher [00:24:59] Good afternoon board members and chairman, how are you today? So, I know I seen new a lot of new faces, so I know most of you are familiar with me, but I'm Nathalie Visscher the original Biologist for Invasive Plant Management section at Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. I've been managing the Harris Chain for since 2005. So, I've seen a lot of changes over the years. Um, so out of our fiscal year for the state runs from July 1st to June 30th, so we're getting at the end of our fiscal year. So, I'm going to go and run over what we have done this fiscal year 2021. So, I have it here, all right, so we're going to go I'm going to start with Lake Harris that was the lake that give us the most issue this year. We treated about 2000 acres on Lake Harris this year, so we had about fifteen hundred um, that we treated in January. We had the plan I know I can do in the fall and I talk to you about the Lake Harris, we had that fifteen hundred acres on the west side and we were going to do it. We had the weather was not cooperating, we had the environmental conditions will not, didn't make it happen before the holiday. We did some trails, um, to open it, open it and we did finally treat it in January, so I not just treat it, in the spring April about three hundred acre, so I'm going to go there. So, as you can see, uh oh yes.
Mr. Proctor [00:26:51] Forgive me, but what does treated mean? This is the first time hearing this so.
Nathalie Visscher [00:26:56] Oh I'm sorry so yeah, we use herbicides to kill the Hydrilla so when we do a treatment, so that means we use herbicide and treat it so. Yeah do you see it, so I cannot show on the, you see what I mean? Ok, so this is what we do so submerge vegetation mapping to help us and what you see here on the map, the red and the different color, red, green, yellow it's the concentration of the vegetation in the in the water column. Ok, red means that it's topped out and so we do this we call it heat map mapping we do these, we map all the Harris Chain Lakes and every at the end of the summer and give us an idea what the vegetation is. When I do personally go out and cross- reference any vegetation areas because it can be stopped up native submersed plant doesn't mean stopped up with Hydrilla had most of the time it is, but I just isolated the native and Hydrilla. So, but this is unfortunately was 100 percent Hydrilla, so we had an issue it caused the issue of navigation at the boat ramp, people cannot get delayed, or get stuck. So, since we had issue to have it treated the entire cove, we did some trails to allow open navigation so people can put at the boat ramp and that is make it to the middle of the lake so, yeah, we try the yellow one. So, we did that in October so to give us give the stakeholders some relief until we do the following, the big treatment which we finally did in 2000 and in January. So, the weather, the temperature, water temperature was ideal the weather was finally cooperating, so we went ahead and treat the entire area. Um, so this is all going to come, and we do using satellite mapping as well so if you focus on the green area that is on the west side, it should do it. This is the first time that see it is changing any and this is the date was like December and this is January 18 after we treated it is nearly disappearing. So, we had a very good control on that area. So, so far, crossing fingers is still holding up. So, um so when we had when I redid my surveys again in the spring, after all the fishing tournament with a lot of, we work a lot more stakeholders, so in the fall we have the duck hunting season. We have when we have in January, usually through mid-March, very important fishing tournament on the Harris Chain, and they usually don't like when we go and treat at the same time. So usually that's why I don't do any treatment until mid-March or April because of the stakeholders we work closely with them so. So, by the end of April, April we'll still have Hydrilla on the left but was still treated from the January, was just hanging out and the but finally fell out and don't have anything to do with that. And I had about three hundred acres that still was hanging there and which we did back in April, so right now on Harris I do have the only area I can find Hydrilla is right there by Long Island, it's about it's present within the two hundred and fifty eight it doesn't mean I have two hundred fifty across topped out Hydrilla. But, so we as a group and the stakeholders, we are monitoring the area and if needed, will do some trails this summer to allow the navigation on the north side to the marinas and the restaurant, what is the name of a restaurant I forgot Hideaway, Hideaway yes. So, if I get really navigation that blocked, we'll do some treatments there open and some trail, but we will reassess for the fall on that area. So, and that's pretty much the only area that I have the most concentrated hydrilla so far on the Harris so. When I did Little Lake Harris, so we didn't do much didn't do much on Little Lake Harris we have hydrilla there on the Double Run area, it has been highlighted as a very important area for fishermen and so we just do some compromise with the stakeholders and we are monitoring that area. And if it gets above a hundred acres, we'll do some treatment. So, and the areas in the green are the one the areas that I'm going to monitor monthly because we just did and a whole lake treatment on Little Lake Harris last year, so we spend a lot of money and we don't want that to happen again. So, I'm going to monitor the other areas in the lake and be more aggressive on any treatment that needs to be done. So, I'm still leaving a little bit on the south end, so. Lake Dora, so Lake Dora I did some treatment in January, historically, Lake Dora didn't have a lot of hydrilla, barely anything. So, for the past couple of years, it's tough to be to develop and encroaching into different prices and Lake Dora has a lot of native submersed plants and that's what we want to promote on Lake Dora. So, we are a little more aggressive on Lake Dora, because it's a new
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infestation still, so we don't want to hydrilla to establish on Lake Dora. So, so we treated all the hydrilla present on this lake this year. So, it was about when I say, yeah, about almost 600 acres of your hydrilla so, and of course we'll continue to monitor. Lake Yale, so Lake Yale decide to grow a lot of hydrilla back at the end of last summer again for the weather and everything, we were not able to do all these big blocks treatment. So, we did some trail navigation to please the stakeholders and you can put it on park and drive all the way to the lake. So, we did a trail and then in March, April, we treated it nine hundred and twenty-five acres, I treated all the hydrilla on the Lake Yale so. So far, so good and don't wanna speak too fast. And on Lake Griffin we did I finally was about to treat the hydrilla by Haines Creek, I don't know if you were aware, but it was, you see. So, we did the heat map and you see all that green area over there it is native submersed plant can you show, yeah all that. It's not hydrilla it shows the vegetation there is a lot of native plants on the north end up Lake Griffin. So, we wanted and the yellow polygons but well, what the hydrilla was the most concentrated so that's why we treated there. So, I treated you three hundred and seventy acres the treatment looks good we have grass coming back and everything, so. But I was finally a good time to do it so.
Nathalie Visscher [00:35:40] Lake Eustis, Lake Eustis hanging there I didn't needed to do any treatment. I did notice some hydrilla coming in front of the river so I'm working on mapping the area to see the extent of how many acres we are looking at, the depth of the hydrilla to schedule a treatment there so. But so far Eustis has been pretty good, um. And Lake Beauclair, something like shows a lot of vegetation on a heat map, but it is native vegetations, which we are really pleased and probably with all that clear water that comes from the upper Apopka-Beauclair Canal, due to the NuRF and promote the expansion of the native plants. So, so but so far, it's hanging in there too so. And Carlton, we don't do any hydrilla treatment we do a lot of a prime plant treatment between horseshoe and Carlton, I'm sure you had some of the stakeholders call you on that. But that is finally we got the protein plants on maintenance control on these two lakes, so that is good and that's it. I mean, and I don't know why, but I do not have Lake Apopka on it, but we treated about five hundred and sixty acres this year on Lake Apopka but north Winter Garden shoreline and a little area on the north shore as the Water Management District was proposing to do some planting with yale grass and palm weed. So, we treated the hydrilla before we did some planting so for them and this year was a very challenging, challenging year because of Covid, you know. And so, we had a budget last year and July 1st and with everything happening in the state and Covid, the Governor took a lot of money back of what he had given this so to pay for anything else, the state. So, we were on a little tight and wanted to do what we wanted to do. So, but we still manage because some areas didn't need it as much treatment as the Harris Chain and I still spend close to three million dollars on hydrilla management on the Harris Chain this year, so but yeah, any questions?
Chairman Keith Farner [00:38:24] Wonderful presentation any question?
Nathalie Visscher [00:38:24] Any questions for me?
Mr. Proctor [00:38:27] You know I'm going to ask questions.
Mr. Brandeburg [00:38:29] Natalie, what do you see as the main causes of hydrilla especially west side of Lake Harris, Singletary Cove, Howell Marsh Park area? Is it the fishing tournaments? Is it factors? What do you think causes that?
Nathalie Visscher [00:38:40] No, hydrilla has been present over there historically, repeatedly we treat the same area. So, hydrilla the way it propagates, you have it's a we don't have the sexual plant here so it's all about fermentation. So, if it's a ferment grow established, it grows back. And also, when the plant is stressed, like in the fall, we're going to stop producing cherrims and tubers it like potatoes that goes into the sediments and unfortunately, when we treat, we don't have we haven't found yet and herbicides that will actually kill the tuber or cherrims. So, it just so the tuber stays in the sediments can be there for 10 years, don't move, don't do anything and all of a sudden, the water quality changes, with water clarity is more important and it just it doesn't take much for hydrilla to start growing again.
Mr. Brandeburg [00:39:45] Well, ideally, how long do you think this treatment should keep that area at bay, or at least not to the level it got to this past year?
Nathalie Visscher [00:39:54] Hopefully, hoping maybe until the fall.
Mr. Brandeburg [00:39:56] Ok
Nathalie Visscher [00:39:57] Hopefully we'll go through the summer without too much issue. The thing is, we don't want to treat in the summer because as the water temperature is too high, so when we put herbicide, it degrades too
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Mr. Brandeburg [00:40:29] Thank you perfect.
Mr. Proctor [00:40:30] So, I now understand since Tyler asked my question why it's in Harris, I guess always been there, is what you're essentially saying?
Nathalie Visscher [00:40:38] Yeah, it’s in Harris, it's in Griffin, it's in Eustis, it's in Beauclair.
Mr. Proctor [00:40:45] Why isn't it in Eustis though? I mean, you're not treating in Eustis.
Nathalie Visscher [00:40:47] I treat we did some large treatment on Eustis three years ago and so far, it hasn't regrow, but it doesn't mean I'm just now finding that some hydrilla coming back so it depends. Some treatments can last three months, six months, sometimes a year, two years it's really unpredictable. That is the hardest part with managing hydrilla so that's why we have to monitor these lakes monthly and we do a lot of mapping and to tell us what it is, and also it might be present but it might be just mixed with a lot of native and I'm not going to kill a little bit of a hydrilla and kill a lot of native.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:41:42] That's the problem I have in my house on Eustis I can see the hydrilla, but it’s all mixed in with the hydrilla, eelgrass.
Nathalie Visscher [00:41:49] Palm weed and so you choose, we I'm waiting for like a tipping point when it's really hydrilla is taking over the native and then this is the time to treat. But most of the time had the native can compete we've had hydrilla and doesn't grow, but then also like I said, is a tipping point, tipping moment but all of a sudden, it's going to take over so. So, it's a very hard and that's why regular monitoring and mapping is important on the lake.
Mr. Proctor [00:42:20] So where I'm going with this is this weed, I don't I don't see it present in the Clermont Chain.
Nathalie Visscher [00:42:25] It is not the only lake it is present on the Clermont Chain is Crescent Lake and Lake Winona and I haven't done any treatments there for say four, five years so, it's been but way the water is very tonic right now hydrilla, even though it doesn't need a lot of water light to grow, still does need some light so.
Mr. Proctor [00:42:48] So the water clarity is a factor in whether and how and how well it succeeds and grow.?
Nathalie Visscher [00:42:54] Yes, and the difference between native, native needs a lot of natural light light penetration hydrilla doesn't need as much. So that's why something will grow in 10, 12 feet of water and that's our problem on Lake Harris, because it grows up to 12, 14 feet of water, that means it's our treatments are very expensive because we treat the entire water column. So, we try not to allow that but so it doesn't so that's why you don't find native plants in deeper water, you find them closer to the shoreline and hydrilla just need a little less light penetration than native so.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:43:42] Anyone else?
Ms. Stokes [00:43:50] Are you treating with aquathol?
Nathalie Visscher [00:43:52] Yes, yeah, I did the aquathol and the trail I did, I use that quad so because I didn't treat the entire water column, I treated the first five feet. So, it was hydrilla on the bottom, but it was a line for navigation, so.
Mr. BonJorn [00:44:10] Do you have plans to treat any more in the Clermont Chain? Like you mentioned Crescent and Winona and I'm seeing it in the Winona Channel I don't recall seeing it there usually out on the lake. Sometimes I see it, but just in the last few weeks probably because we're down on water as well so it's clearing up some. But in Winona just past the bridge coming into the lake, I'm seeing some pretty big pods of it coming up that I've not seen, I don't think ever before, actually.
Nathalie Visscher [00:44:33] Is it hydrilla?
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Mr. BonJorn [00:44:34] Maybe not, it looks like it but there's two things out there, two of them look a lot alike.
Nathalie Visscher [00:44:35] OK, there's are a lot of cabomba in Winona as well and it's fanwort and it's a native plants, so it might be that. So, I wouldn't have a chance to be on chain yet.
Mr. BonJorn [00:44:53] So I can bring some samples?
Nathalie Visscher [00:44:55] Yeah, you can leave them at the Lake County Aquatic Plant Management that can take a look at that so or take a picture.
Mr. BonJorn [00:45:01] Yeah, I'll do both, I've taken pictures and brought them around before, so I'll do both. It's just something I've noticed in the last two weeks and happens to be on the top of it, it's popped up in some areas I've never seen anything there so.
Nathalie Visscher [00:45:11] Ok yeah, just take a picture you have a phone number, you can text it to me and maybe yeah.
Mr. BonJorn [00:45:18] Ok, sounds good.
Mr. Hart [00:45:20] We can stop by and take a look for you.
Mr. BonJorn [00:45:22] Ok.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:45:24] I thought that they had developed like a plant specific herbicide so if you treat the hydrilla just kills all the vegetation around it as well or?
Nathalie Visscher [00:45:34] No, no it's not that is like we have aquathol is specific to hydrilla it will not kill your grass at all it could impact the palm weed so because it's similar so it could have an effect on the palm weed.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:45:55] So it's not perfect, but it's better than it's better than nothing.
Nathalie Visscher [00:45:57] Yeah, it better than nothing so but that's why I just like, you know, we'll be careful and everything.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:46:03] I notice since the water clarity greatly improved, of course we all know the hydrilla that takes root first because it requires less sunlight, but I've noticed that the native vegetation were coming in and they actually push it and they do choke it out yeah and push it out.
Nathalie Visscher [00:46:21] Yes, they could yeah.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:46:21] So that's why it's so important for us to maintain that water quality consistency anyway.
Nathalie Visscher [00:46:29] And the thing is the in the fall our native plants are going dormant and that's where the hydrilla, which just never goes dormant takes over.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:46:41] Because they are dormant, not because it's any more aggressive but just because
Nathalie Visscher [00:46:45] Yes, it's dormant and they are not producing as much and everything so that's why and that's why hydrilla usually is ok, you're not finding with me again I'm going to take over so.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:46:56] And one more question do we talk about budget? We know how much you spent last year fantastic, good job do we have any projections for what might be coming this way?
Nathalie Visscher [00:47:06] Not quite yet, we are in the middle of our budget, so we all submitted plans from the state of Florida, all the original budget, some of the budget for each lake to Tallahassee. We had the budget reviews
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and now we just we have to wait and to see how the money is going to be distributed and so I will have a final by the end of June.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:47:28] By the end of June, that was my next question super fantastic.
Nathalie Visscher [00:47:29] Yeah so, at the beginning of the fiscal year so, yeah.
Mr. Hendrick [00:47:33] Did the Lake County guys help at all or do you do all of this because they pitched in last year.
Nathalie Visscher [00:47:38] Oh, well, my cooperative they do all the work for me, so we pay them for the labor. So yes, we purchase the herbicides and they do the labor so, so.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:47:51] All right any more questions? super fantastic. Thank you very much.
Nathalie Visscher [00:47:55] You're welcome. I'll probably see you in the fall.
FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY
Tab 9 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – April 28, 2021 - Regular Meeting -May 6, 2021 - Continuation of Meeting
Chairman Keith Farner [00:47:58] Keep up the good work, all right I know it's a constant battle out there and she catches it probably in every direction. So, uh, I forgot to approve the minutes, and that's my fault I apologize, could I have a motion to approve now since it was actually just one meeting can we just do them together? Because we just did a continuation they don't have to be done separately, do they?
Attorney Stone [00:48:27] You can do them in one motion I would just refer to both dates.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:48:30] Lets do a motion somebody please.
Mr. Proctor [00:48:32] I need dates.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:48:34] Twenty-eight and the sixth, April the twenty eighth and May the sixth.
Mr. Proctor [00:48:39] Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes for the continued meeting, April twenty eight and May six.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:48:45] I have a motion do I have a second?
Mr. Donohue [00:48:46] Second.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:48:48] And I have a motion and I have a second, any discussion, all in favor? And that is unanimous all right, now let's move on ok, I apologize about that. Mr. Steve, he's gonna update us on our pond dredging.
MARTY MADE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE CONTINUED MEETING OF APRIL 28th AND MAY 6th Rick seconded the motion.
Motion approved 7-0
Tab 3 b. Update on NuRF Pond Dredging- Project Completion Steve Crawford
Mr. Crawford [00:49:11] I wanna tag team on Natalie for just a minute. I've been working on these lakes since 1976 and back then, nothing submersed would grow in the Harris Chain except for Lake Harris. But the lakes were so green and nasty that no submerse plants would grow. So, for me, it's really exciting to hear that a lot of native plants are
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growing all over this chain and the whole northern half of Lake Griffin is covered with north with native plants that's tremendously exciting. We used to call that lake Lake Nasty, but now it's turned around.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:49:47] I'll make one comment about that I grew up in Tavares in the 70s and the water quality was so bad that I used to think the shed spawned every year and died because then the water quality was so bad it could not even support shad and the whole area just stunk as of dead fish. Incredible it was incredible, if you were here, then you'll never ok, I'm sorry go ahead.
Mr. Crawford [00:50:15] So update on our dredging, so what you see there in front of you is the obviously the aerial of the NuRF with the dry storage and the wet storage. The goal of the dredging project was to dredge two hundred and fifty thousand cubic yards. So, the first just kind of just do a quick step through. The first plan that C&M Dredging had was to to put geotech style bags in that the dredged material would go into the idea was for those that weren't here then, that these bags would dewater the material and then that they would dredge out of the pond into those bags. The dewatered material would then be stacked in the dry storage. Well, after a short time, they realized that the bags weren't dewatering like they should and the material wasn't dry enough to stack, so they actually had to build a road in through our dry storage, build a sump at the end of it, and then use a long reach to scoop that that muddy material out and throw it into our wet storage area. And they did that for a while until the wet storage area was too full. They had to actually build up the levee between the dry storage and the wet storage to keep it from cascading over. So, at the same time we were dredging with our with our own dredge in the east pond and we were dredging it up into the north portion of the pond, they started working on the south part of the pond, the west pond. So, we we dredged almost thirty-four thousand cubic yards out of the east pond into the north, into the west pond. Well, when they got to a little over halfway into the the west pond that's when they decided that the wet storage couldn't hold anymore, and it came time for Plan C. Plan C was mashed out and they built a two point two point three acre retention cell on the very north end of the property that had 15 foot high levees around it. And then they dredge the rest of the west pond into that pit. Which included, again, what we had already sent over from the east pod and it did not dewater again, like they expected it to this entire west pond, did not dewater like like was anticipated. They did find out when they got into the east pond that it dewatered is a lot better. We don't know why other than possibly the fact that when we centrifuge the material, the water that separated out of that goes back into the west pond, carrying with it some polymer, and maybe that made some different reactions occur. Nonetheless, the west pond didn't dewater like expected. So, when that first retention pit was filled, the we stopped and looked and there was over one hundred ninety-five thousand cubic yards that had been at that point dredged out of the ponds. Needed to go somewhere else, so we built the second retention pit about one point nine acres, this only had about 10 to 11-foot-high walls around it, but then they dug down about four or five feet to to hold the material. And then the goal to reach the two hundred and fifty thousand cubic yards would be to dredge about fifty-five thousand cubic yards out of the out of the east pond. That would've hit our target however, the the second pit filled up much quicker it dewatered well, but it filled up quicker than what they had hoped. But at this point in time, we'd kind of run out of room, there you see there's a little bit of empty spot there on the north side, but there's logistically we couldn't get trucks over to work on it and the levees have to be pretty wide at the base in order to to maintain and so there wouldn't be enough room to really dredge into that. The wet storage, we looked at possibly pumping some more into it, but they would have filled it within a day and then the only thing left was maybe the one of the areas to the west of the entry road. But the with the heavy traffic that we get coming in from the alum tankers, they would have to really substantially use some piping to get it over there and it just it just was logistically not, not obtainable. So, we had to stop a little bit short but, I don't know happen to that one Ben it just shows what a full pond. So we had we had to stop a little short of our goal, and so we talked to C&M if they're going to finish out the repairing all the roads that were damaged and cleaning up the facility, and so our recommendation is to authorize the Executive Director to close out the contract with C&M Dredging and compensate the contractor for work completed up to the effective final date of completion. Any questions?
Mr. BonJorn [00:56:11] I don't
Mr. Donohue [00:56:11] In the paperwork given to us, it says that the problem is we're running out of space, how are we going to move forward? What's what are we going to do when we have our dredges in there and the centrifuge back online? What's our plan? I know we brought up the last meeting there was plans for a landfill to take it, are we there?
Mr. Crawford [00:56:41] Right still working on that we do have, so we can get that material dry with our centrifuge. And we have we have enough space to at least make it most of this year, at least barring catastrophe and stacked the material there. But we are working still on getting contractors estimates of what it would be to to dredge or to excavate that material and haul it off for us.
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Chairman Keith Farner [00:57:13] I do think that's where he was coming from, he's talking about we're full we're going to have more material to add to it. Long term, we're going to have to have and of course, it's been suggested, putting if we can dewater it and removal a lot of the stuff and more effective that it would only be a couple of dumpsters full of material a day. We could have contract haul it off that way we only touch it one time.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:57:38] I'm sorry, did did you hear any of that? I'm sorry thanks, guys. Now, we had discussed this in the past and it was a I mean, there's been suggestions made up about putting a couple of dumpsters out by the conveyor and when a dumpster fills up, you just turn it over and contracting, just holding it off and we found a class three landfill that will accept the material. So, we could kick my thoughts are we could kick this moving millions of dollars of material that down the road a little bit. That's the main thing we only have to touch it one time once it comes out of our centrifuge fill it, gone I like that idea.
Mr. Hendrick [00:58:23] Yeah, that's after we get everything done out there.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:58:25] And that's after we get everything done which leads to some more questions, but I don't know where you let's let him finish before I interrupt him anymore all right.
Mr. Crawford [00:58:34] So that's that's right, if we can hold the material off as it comes out, you know, it would save us. And I, I got an estimate talking to contractors of about what it would cost. This is an estimate of hauling off all the dry material we have now, with the dump fees it would come to around one point three million.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:58:59] To haul it all off, to haul everything off that we have?
Mr. Crawford [00:59:05] To excavate and haul all the dry stuff off.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:59:06] Ok, that’s an idea, too, but still, what are you going to do with the future when you've got more stuff coming in? I just want to touch it one time bam, it's gone. We don't have to deal with a million- dollar problem down the road, so but I'd like to pursue that, I'm sorry I interrupted you again.
Mr. Crawford [00:59:22] No you didn't.
Chairman Keith Farner [00:59:24] Butch
Mr. Hendrick [00:59:27] Did, so C&M fulfilled their contract, they got the two fifty?
Mr. Crawford [00:59:31] No, sir, they came twenty-one thousand cubic yards short, which is about eight percent. And so, they're not going to bill us for that portion that they didn't, let me back up here.
Mr. Hendrick [00:59:44] So their reason for, that they want to pull out and leave the 20 and not charge us for it because there's no place to put it?
Mr. Crawford [00:59:51] We're full.
Mr. Hendrick [00:59:52] How dry is it in the one point nine pond? You said dried out a lot and we've had a good week.
Mr. Crawford [00:59:57] It dewatered better still, I wouldn't call it dry, but you can see it dewater it dewatered a lot better, they were able to put more material in and it kept shrinking down because it was dewatering better. But it's it's cracked and caked on the top but underneath that moist.
Mr. Hendrick [01:00:17] Yes, I was thinking maybe we could take that and haul that part off and then let them finish getting the pond done, pumping into there and getting that material out of there.
Mr. Crawford [01:00:27] It's an idea, you know, we got we got to pay to haul that material off. That's going to be a pretty good chunk. There's probably thirty thousand to forty thousand cubic yards.
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Mr. Hendrick [01:00:44] Well they were supposed to take it back to the back to the dry storage unit that was part of their contract.
Mr. Crawford [01:00:47] It was, yeah, but it won't stack, so.
Mr. Hendrick [01:00:51] That's not, that's that's all part of going into business, I don't get it at all, I don't get this at all. I'm just blown away by this whole thing. I can't believe it.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:00:59] What do you suggest Butch?
Mr. Hendrick [01:01:01] Well, I suggested using centrifuges to begin with.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:01:04] Well, we can't go there now.
Mr. Hendrick [01:01:05] Can't go there so my suggestion is, let's see if we can get that material out of there and get somebody to haul it off because, uh, start with that or talk to C&M and then get their rigs out there and haul that dry enough material is a lot drier than it was when they had to ladle it out earlier, take it to the dry storage or put it in the pond out back or something like that. But to leave that gap in the middle of the east pond full, that's they got to finish it, somebody's got to finish somehow.
Mr. Crawford [01:01:35] You know, I do know that we'll start dredging again within the next three to four weeks, the painters just arrived this week to start painting the storage tank in the next three to four weeks, we'll start dredging again. So, we'll be able to remove material and stack it in our facility. And in August, we should be getting our new dredges in that can dredge all the way down to the bottom and we'd be able to clean out that area.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:01] So we'll be able to dredge again when?
Mr. Crawford [01:02:04] We should be dredging we should be dredging again in the next four weeks.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:09] I'm sorry.
Mr. Crawford [01:02:10] In the next four weeks.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:12] Ok and everything's up and running with the centrifuge and everything ready to go.
Mr. Crawford [01:02:15] It's all fixed and repaired now.
Mr. Proctor [01:02:20] And that dredging is with the old quote on quote the old dredges, ok
Mr. Crawford [01:02:24] The old dredges, the new dredge should be in in August.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:27] Why are we waiting for, there's something holding it up while we're waiting for four weeks.
Mr. Crawford [01:02:32] The storage tank is being painted.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:34] OK, that answers that thank you.
Mr. Crawford [01:02:42] I would say that that C&M Dredging, I think has been over backwards and in every angle they possibly could.
Mr. Hendrick [01:02:49] We saved C&M Dredging a ton of money let's cut to the chase. I went out there, I came up with those ideas because he was kind of, he was getting his hand it to him and I said, let's come up with something different. I know Christian so we talked about it and that's what we came up with, those ideas at least do that. So now we don't owe them anything, they've done you know, we work together, which is fine. Let's work together and let's get this thing done. You know, it cost it does whatever, but I don't want to pay extra either. I'm more interested in getting it done. So, without him losing, I might lose either. So, let's figure out this and get it done. So, for them to leave that gap in the middle. I I'd love to talk to Christine again.
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Chairman Keith Farner [01:03:31] Didn't we didn't we amend the contract, though? Where is legal staff I'm sorry, we changed the contract.
Attorney Stone [01:03:38] There was a change order at the time that they discovered the geo tubes weren't effective and we changed the contract to go to the other storage option that was effectively cost neutral. The it looks to me like the change or we would be doing now would just be deleting the rest of that judging from the scope Butch has it right and saving us this
Mr. Hendrick [01:04:00] To me, if you got a contract like that, you run into the hard part. Well, ok, well, I won't charge you and I'm outta here. I mean, just don't do that I mean, I can't imagine doing that I'd never do that.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:04:10] We we contracted to have those ponds cleared out.
Mr. Hendrick [01:04:14] Right.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:04:14] And that's an important, I want to hear some of the board members,
Mr. Hendrick [01:04:20] Somebody is engineer and the engineer should be involved, it's not our fault
Chairman Keith Farner [01:04:23] I understand that, I understand that. I just want to know what the other board members are thinking about and we can take a course of action as a board.
Mr. Hendrick [01:04:31] I agree with that.
Mr. Crawford [01:04:32] I may add, when we did the change orders, we saved about forty-four thousand, it's on that little chart in front of you there, about forty-four thousand as a result.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:04:44] I understand that, but I'd rather have the ponds cleared out. That's what we were that was our goal was to have the ponds cleared out and ready for a nasty, heaven forbid, storm season, which I think all in all, we've done a good job. The staff has this contract isn't quite working out and I know that a lot of it was kind of experimental with these geo tubes. But I kind of agree with Butch in a way that, you know, we had a contract to clean those ponds out and their job was to get it done. So, I don't know, I want to hear from some others.
Mr. BonJorn [01:05:17] So is it because we're out of space or is it because it's the hard part? Butch you're saying it's the hard part they're leaving, is it because it's harder to get it for them? Or is it just strictly because we're out of space?
Mr. Crawford [01:05:25] We're out of space, unless we did something like that to create more space? We're out of space, a space of what we have right now. And when we made the contract with C&M, it was it specified in there that would be two hundred and fifty thousand cubic yards or as much as space would allow.
Mr. BonJorn [01:05:44] Does it cost us any more or less, I guess, a savings worth it if we dredged ourselves later? The forty-four thousand is equate when we get our dredges going is it going to be is that better for us, worse for us, the same for us?
Mr. Crawford [01:05:56] We're going to be dredging regardless that's what I do there. So, it'll just be normal cost, a run on the NuRF.
Mr. BonJorn [01:06:03] I mean, Butch's idea to haul it off, we got hauled off anyway. So, the cost is the cost we're going to spend it now or later, so that doesn't scare me, but it's just a matter of having them. I mean, if the guy legitimately come to you and said he's done all he can, I mean Butch do you want to talk to him, you sound like your buddies with him it was your idea. Why don't you talk to him?
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:19] I wouldn't go that far but,
Mr. BonJorn [01:06:20] Wow, you backing out of that one a little bit
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:24] No, I know him that's all I said.
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Mr. BonJorn [01:06:26] Ok, I got you.
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:26] I respect him as a business but other than that.
Mr. BonJorn [01:06:28] Well, I mean, if he legitimately has nowhere to put it, then I mean, we can continue to argue with him, but if he wants to dredge and we don't have a place to put it, I think that's why we're having this conversation right.
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:40] That's where the argument comes in what his opinion has no place to put it.
Mr. BonJorn [01:06:44] Right.
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:44] He was supposed to have it dry enough to put it in the back to begin with. Oh, I can't stock it because it won't dewater enough. You took your engineering, you bid it this way, you make sure to dry enough.
Mr. BonJorn [01:06:53] It was his evaluation that it would be dry enough.
Mr. Hendrick [01:06:56] So that's my opinion, I guarantee you it's drier than that one point nine pond then it was they were ladling in that stuff out of the geotubes.
Mr. Crawford [01:07:03] It is still going to be wet so it's going to be heavy and the amount of material that's in there, I'm thinking it's going to be pushing close to a million dollars to haul it out of there.
Mr. Hendrick [01:07:13] I'm saying take it to the dry storage with his rigs like he was using to haul it back before.
Mr. BonJorn [01:07:17] Did he say why couldn't do that, that portion as the rigs won't lift it or is, he backing out or something like that, that is important to us?
Mr. Crawford [01:07:24] I'm not sure it would stack, still it's drier, but I'm not positive it would stack. I don't know for sure it’s a 15-foot-high pit, so.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:07:38] If if we want to, we don't have to act on this today do we, or do we? Ron
Mr. Hart [01:07:49] It would be good to give us some direction on how to address the contractor.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:07:54] Well that's what I was going to suggest, is if we can have some alternate suggestions to this, if Butch can come up with something and some kind of an alternative that is acceptable to everybody in the board, especially, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, we just got to go with what we have here unless somebody has some type of a solution to this problem. So, I don't know if we can
Mr. Hendrick [01:08:17] I'd be more than happy to talk with him if you guys want me to it up, whatever you want me to do.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:08:22] Is the board comfortable putting this off until or next month you want to be?
Mr. Hendrick [01:08:28] Well, I'll talk to him and I'll talk to him within a week, but I can report back to Ron, who can report back to you.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:08:35] Well, he's going to report back to the board at the next meeting.
Mr. Crawford [01:08:39] May I add something?
Chairman Keith Farner [01:08:40] Sure.
Mr. Crawford [01:08:41] If we move this material out of this pit and into our dry storage, we're pretty much going to be dead in the water without removing it. We won't be able to do our own dredging going forward.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:08:52] If we choose to store the material that we're dredging at our own site.
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Mr. Crawford [01:08:55] If we still store dry area, right.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:08:57] Yeah, but there are solutions to that problem as well by removing everything off our facility.
Mr. Crawford [01:09:02] Yeah, with with money.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:09:04] With money.
Mr. Hendrick [01:09:06] On the west side of the entrance road, yeah west side, there's still a lot of field over there, can we do another pond there and not have to jump through all the district hoops now because of that silly little area they call calling wetlands? It's actually blocked off.
Mr. Crawford [01:09:24] I mean, a pond could be built there on the west side again, you'd have to you'd have to run.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:09:30] Said the pipe was a problem.
Mr. Crawford [01:09:32] You'd have to run some do some heavy-duty work, I think, to get the piping under there so they.
Mr. Hendrick [01:09:37] Do a lot of heavy work for a million dollars. I mean, get it out of there so we can keep going.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:09:42] All right. Well, this is what I'd like to do unless anybody opposes it.
Mr. Proctor [01:09:48] I believe I just heard that rainy season is upon us. I don't get a real good sense that having a pond were you trying to dry material that's going to take five or six or seven inches of rain, a month for the next five months, I don't see that being above a forward progress. Am I again I naive, am I oversimplifying that?
Mr. Crawford [01:10:14] I'm not sure I totally understand what you've come from so that these pits you're talking about, the pits that we've dredged into.
Mr. Proctor [01:10:21] Right, one point nine, two point three, right?
Mr. Crawford [01:10:23] Right.
Mr. Proctor [01:10:24] Those are those are like pits?
Mr. Crawford [01:10:26] Right.
Mr. Proctor [01:10:27] So if we and we haven't had rain to speak of in this part of the county for several months, and yet we've only made marginal progress on drying in this material. You're saying it won't even stack now in the middle at the very end of dry season, we're coming in the rainy season, we're going to start getting multiple inch rain events on a weekly or biweekly or more basis.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:10:50] Let me just bring this up, you know he says there are pits and technically there could be pits and cold that. But these things have berms that are, what, 15 to 20 feet tall? Well, I mean, they're like a buildup berm around it.
Mr. Proctor [01:11:03] That's going to create a dump water on top of that.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:11:07] Right.
Mr. Proctor [01:11:07] That's going to not only prevent dewatering of the material, it's going to it's going to make the material wetter and the material at some for some portion of the day, whether it's 10 minutes or 10 hours, is going to be sitting in water. I don't understand how that's going to make forward progress dewatering that in the next five months.
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Chairman Keith Farner [01:11:25] I would think of it stacked like it is with those sand and clay pits around there, that it will dewater, it's just we're going to have to break those pits down with the front-end loader and haul it off sometime in the future. But I don't I don't see a quick solution to that that's going to that's going to cost a lot of money, just like he said, to haul all that stuff off.
Mr. Hendrick [01:11:46] You got a couple of options, if you could scrape the foot and a half of dry stuff off the top, I can say it's cracking and you've got some dry stuff on the top scrape that off and give you some room to dredge in there.
Mr. Crawford [01:11:57] I had an independent contractor come out, has nothing to do with this and we looked at it and he was trying to figure out some way we could scrape that off of there you're talking again you get a levee that's 15 feet tall and it's not built to drive anything on, it's peaked and they couldn't really come up with a way to be able to scrape that off, I had that same idea I don't see any way to do that.
Mr. Brandeburg [01:12:25] Ben, can you go back to the cost slide for a second, please, with the recommendation. So I guess my question here is the remaining twenty one thousand cubic feet or whatever it is, would our cost of removing that material, in your opinion, be less than one hundred twenty five thousand or more than two hundred twenty five thousand like, is this a better deal to remove that material than us doing it ourselves or how would that work from a dollar standpoint? If that question makes sense, because we're saving a hundred twenty-five thousand to cancel the contract now, but we still want to remove that remaining material. A, could we do that for a better price and B, do we have room to store it? Because I think those are the driving factors to then make a decision on this.
Mr. Crawford [01:13:07] The twenty-one thousand we do have room to store.
Mr. Brandeburg [01:13:10] Ok, but our cost to dredge and dewater and do whatever else, do you have any idea how that would stack up to this contract?
Mr. Crawford [01:13:17] It's our normal operating procedures to do so, so it just falls in our normal operating costs.
Mr. Hendrick [01:13:22] So the way C&M bid it out, this project was to try to match up the cost that we would incur to do this project, then, of course, with some overhead for them on it. But I'm just trying to see how the dollars match up here, because if we save one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars off this contract, are we save anything in the end by doing it ourselves, or should we push back and try to have them complete the contract? If that makes more fiscal sense.
Mr. Crawford [01:13:45] We think we're saving.
Mr. Brandeburg [01:13:47] Ok.
Mr. Proctor [01:13:48] So then when you, we have some X number of square feet that's not dredged to the deeper level, it's only to is it 12 feet that the old dredge is go to.
Mr. Crawford [01:14:00] Correct.
Mr. Proctor [01:14:00] And the pond is 20 feet deep do we have any any evidence other than it just we think it's going to work that the new dredges will be able to get through that material? Because I recall that being a question, whether the new dredges would be able to get through that material and get to the bottom of that.
Mr. Crawford [01:14:23] Right, I don't think they'll have any problem with that. Um, our old dredges, I think, would be able to handle it if they went that deep.
Mr. Proctor [01:14:33] And again, I don't I don't I don't want this to sound like it's going to but, you think what do we have that's that's beyond empirical evidence that's going to be the case?
Chairman Keith Farner [01:14:45] I have one more question, how much flow can we handle through a ponds right now? I mean, if, say our centrifuge is going to be up and running and our old dredges are running, can we handle 250, 300 cubic feet a second through our ponds at this time?
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Mr. Crawford [01:15:03] Sure, for at least you know maybe like three weeks.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:15:09] Cause one pond is cleared out to 20 feet, one pond pretty cleared out.
Mr. Crawford [01:15:12] Right, it handled for at least four weeks.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:15:16] A month.
Mr. Hart [01:15:20] Just bear in mind that one pond can handle hundred and fifty cfs and our other one is still fairly full, so we'd be limited in what can float through second one. So, you have one hundred fifty cfs and you may be able to take another estimate we'll say about 20 to 30 cfs maybe in the other one at this point.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:15:42] I thought it was more than that that it could probably handle. I think that's an important number that we're going to need. That's what these ponds can handle um, if we cancel this contract, because I think they were actually designed to handle 400 cubic feet a second, but the dredges were never designed to dig it out 20 feet if they're down to 20 feet and probably handle the extra flow, but I have mixed emotions about.
Mr. BonJorn [01:16:11] Was Marty's point pretty good about the rain coming? I mean, is that going to set us back? I mean, are we pushing off on something we should just you know, move forward and get rolling and get this stuff going? I mean if the costs, like that was my first question just what Tyler said if the cost is no different or better. You know, and it gets us moving because the only thing I see to go back to seeing him on is if they can actually move stuff to the back for us right. Other than that, they don't really have any value to us because we have no other place to put it. So, I think those are two questions. It's either are they going to move it out back and if you are exhausted that effort with them or because if you have them, we should just move forward, in my opinion.
Mr. Crawford [01:16:53] No, we did not discuss that with them.
Mr. Hendrick [01:16:56] Can I ask legal question that that contract, does it, uh, state in there about, because that could be interpreted a ton of different ways, you know, as long as they have storage.
Attorney Stone [01:17:10] Well, I don't have it in front of me and I haven't reviewed it for the purposes of this meeting. So, I don't want to try to speak with any knowledge that I don't have, and I can go look. But my recollection is that with the geotubes which were originally contemplated, they were going to, I think, fairly easily be able to do with the dewatered material stacked in the existing storage. So, I don't think that running out of space for storage was on our mind is a limiting factor when we entered into this arrangement.
Mr. Crawford [01:17:39] It was written in there.
Attorney Stone [01:17:41] I don't remember.
Mr. Hendrick [01:17:42] Yeah, that's why I'm saying the definition of storage, if you got 90 percent water and you can't dewater it then if you could get it dry like you were supposed to you got plenty of storage, but if you've taken 60, 80 percent water.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:17:57] All right, this is what I'd like to do if somebody wants to make a motion on this and our second, we can discuss and vote on it. If nobody makes a motion on it, we're going to kick the can down the road until next month where hopefully we can come up with some alternative solutions. I would like that contract reviewed by legal staff to see exactly what it does says and how it can be interpreted. And this board can take a better position and make a vote at that time unless somebody wants to make a motion right now and we can entertain it, second it, discuss and vote on it all that good stuff. I don't, that's not for me to say.
Mr. BonJorn [01:18:33] I'll make a motion yeah, I authorize the Executive Director to close out the contract with C&M Dredging, compensate the contractor for work completed up to the effective final date of completion.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:18:45] I have a motion do I have a second?
Mr. Proctor [01:18:46] Second.
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Chairman Keith Farner [01:18:47] I have a motion and second, discussion, Trampis?
Mr. Donohue [01:18:52] Are they scheduled already to pull out by June 15th?
Mr. Crawford [01:18:55] They are.
Mr. Donohue [01:18:55] So we if we waited for our next meeting to make a vote on this, we're too late.
Mr. Crawford [01:19:02] Right, I don't know how that would work.
Attorney Stone [01:19:05] I think we definitely have to tell them that we wanted to hit pause on this, you know, I think that if there's going to be some alternative solution that involves moving material around, that's not something that's going to get accomplished between now and next meeting. It's something that we would talk about next meeting. And then, I don't know, you might be talking about entering in a new contract with new contractors to do this moving of material. I'm not sure exactly what that would look like, but it does strike me that by the time we got all that arranged, our new dredges might be here. So, I don't even know if if those two can work at the same time. I mean, from a feasibility just a technical standpoint of how this would go. The questions about whether their contract was fulfilled by removing as much material as they could remove and that they have performed completely in accordance with their contract or are we not getting what we contracted for and therefore not paying what we contracted for? I am not sure if that makes a difference, but it's something I'd have to go back and look at a contract language before I could give you a good answer on. So, it could be that the contract always called for the possibility that there wasn't enough storage, and nobody's breached any contracts, everybody's done their job, and this is just how it closes out in accordance with the terms of the contract. If that's the case, they're entitled to be paid and that's the end of it. Alternatively, it could be that they were unable to perform in accordance with the terms of the contract. It might be where we are, I don't know, and therefore we're holding back some of what they would otherwise have been entitled to be paid. I think that those are a little bit different um, if the first is true, I don't know that we get to ask them to hang around in the event that we have a different idea, that makes sense?
Mr. Hendrick [01:20:59] Are they behind schedule already, did we give them a amendment because they got behind?
Mr. Crawford [01:21:04] We did an extension.
Mr. Hendrick [01:21:06] Yeah extension, so so we're going to we gave them a extension, now we're just going to bend, so we're going to take it and here's your money and ok, we'll take over the hard part.
Mr. Brandeburg [01:21:20] I mean, doesn't it look like we're paying them for work completed if we're still saving one hundred twenty-five thousand between now and June 15th with the change or savings? I mean, are we already compensating them for what they've already done? Whether they dewater that appropriately or not is another question, but it doesn't look like we're paying them for any work that they haven't done if we go forward with this recommendation, correct?
Mr. Crawford [01:21:41] Correct.
Mr. Brandeburg [01:21:42] Ok, because, I mean, it looks like the limiting factor is always going to be the space we have at the NuRF, I mean that doesn't seem like that's something C&M can fix at this point. I mean, if they say they're done and we don't have any room to store it and you think that's a viable course of action, I mean, I agree that it would make sense to close this out, save what we can save and move forward as much as we need to. But I don't see what we're going to gain other than if there is something in the contract that says we needed to dewater to X and we haven't done that, that's a legal question. But other than that, I don't think we're paying them for anything they haven't done.
Mr. Hendrick [01:22:14] I think the definition of dewater and storage, that that's very you have to have it dewatered and you'll have enough storage if you don't have any dewatered you don't have enough storage room. So, yeah so it might be just take the whooping and move on and do it ourselves a later.
Mr. Proctor [01:22:39] So you're you're really going to dislike this question.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:22:43] You're talking to Butch.
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Mr. Proctor [01:22:46] Oh, no, sir, I'm not talking to the board, the whole board and I'm talking to the staff again, what I'm seeing here, based on the question that you asked, which I think is a very important and viable question, which is how much how much water can we effectively and efficiently do a very good job, maybe an outstanding job of purifying through the NuRF as it exists today and for what period of time X? Again, what we do know is that if we get an infinite amount of water with a high, nutrient high nutrient load, we're going to bury the ponds again. We're going to basically stop treating water and we're going to do a poor job of treating the water. This is this is the crux of this whole problem that I have with the entire facility in the way that everything I'm hearing. I do not believe we can win the war with God and nature; God and nature are going to have the ability to throw bigger problems at us than we're going to be able to solve. If we had six centrifuges, nine thousand acres and all the equipment and manpower and money in the world. The point I'm making is, is that I would like to see not today, I would like to see the board, or the staff come up with what amount of water can we treat very effectively, consistently over a long period of time and set that as a goal. Not just on paper goal an actual limit and say ok, beyond two hundred and ninety-three cfs, we just simply it's going to cause problems and we just we're going to end up getting behind the eight ball again and getting unable to treat water again and do a lousy job of treating water. Or we can say we can do two hundred ninety- three cubic feet per second and do a very good job from now until whenever Lake Apopka gets to thirty-two ppm. I mean, again, I'm not asking for solution.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:24:57] I absolutely appreciate everything that you're saying there. I think we probably can handle it if we get our one pond totally cleaned out and we've got 50 cubic feet to a second going through the other pond and we can handle it and we're cleaning it. And I think we can handle 200 cubic feet a second comfortably. But this is the problem if we get a major storm event, there's going to be millions of tons of water going over that spillway anyway. But we've got to do our best that we can to treat everything before it gets to that point. And I think if we can handle a sustained flow of one hundred and cubic feet a second for a month, that's a long time handling a lot of water and even when you see these big storm events, I don't, do you have any data or can you recall how high the flow was and for how long in some of these, like Irma or any of our other storm events that we've had.
Mr. Crawford [01:25:51] Jason was here then and Ron, I think it was four hundred and fifty cfs coming down Apopka-Beauclair Canal.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:25:58] For how long?
Mr. Hart [01:25:59] I’d say we probably had it for about two weeks but it,
Chairman Keith Farner [01:26:04] two weeks, so we can handle this
Mr. Crawford [01:26:06] But then it was three hundred for another couple of two or three weeks.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:26:09] We can handle that.
Mr. Crawford [01:26:10] With empty pond, with empty ponds.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:26:10] If we can get our ponds cleared up, we can handle that and then when our down season comes, we can get them cleaned out. We've got our 20-foot dredge coming I'm very excited about that, I think that's going to increase our capacity.
Mr. Proctor [01:26:24] But I don't want to get involved in this now, we've got a motion that's specific to a specific situation. I'd like to focus on that. I just want to the board to be aware that until we and the board and the staff come up with something that isn't doing a perfect job with an infinite amount of water for an infinite amount of time. I'm going to come up with this every time we talk about this.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:26:47] It's ok. I understand.
Mr. Proctor [01:26:50] So, that and I'm leave it at that, and I think we should just focus on this motion.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:26:56] Well, we're on the motion, we have a motion, we have a second, do we have any more discussion?
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Mr. Hendrick [01:27:00] Yeah well, I think yeah, I'm kind of mixed on this because I don't like to get stuck on a contract and that's what's happening here. But as attorneys you know sometimes, you're better off paying off instead of going to court forever, and it cost you more than it does to pay it off and we don't have time. So, we're going to lose time and it's probably gonna end up the same thing, so my opinion is just like I said, take the licking and keep going.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:27:29] I agree, I would have been happier to pay the one hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars more to get our other pond cleared out. That's what I really that was the goal but I'm ready to move on guys. Do we have any more discussion? All in favor of the motion, raise your hand and that is unanimous good discussion, people. Ben you're up.
TRAMPIS MADE A MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TO CLOSE OUT THE CONTRACT WITH C & M DREDGING AND COMPENSATE THE CONTRACTOR FOR WORKED COMPLETED UP TO THE EFFECTIVE FINAL DATE OF COMPLETION. Marty seconded the motion.
Motion approved 7-0
Tab 4 c. Demonstration of the New Lake Water Atlas Web Page Ben Garcia
Mr. Garcia [01:28:03] OK, good afternoon, chairman and board members, I would like to go ahead and talk a little bit about Lake County Water Atlas, hopefully will be a less demanding topic. I'm just going to do a demo and show just basic use of the website. I don't want to get too much in detail, but if you have any questions, you're more than free to contact me and let me know and I'll go ahead and show you how to do whatever information or search, whatever information you need. A little bit of history about the Water Atlas we basically we're going to do a little bit overview, so then we're going to do a live demo and then we're going to talk a little bit about the value of the Water Atlas. The Water Atlas started in 2003 in Lake County, it was designed basically with a need of all the agencies, all the data that we have and contain. We wanted to actually find a place that we could actually store this information instead of the public or the professionals going to each of those websites to get there, get the information they need it. We created the Water Atlas and actually it was sponsored it started with University of South Florida. We paid them to basically actually maintain the Water Atlas to be able to keep us with the information updated. And they went ahead and got more partners that now form a bigger Water Atlas, it's not just Lake County, it's also includes Orange County, Seminole County, Polk County and when you go from one Water Atlas to the next, you actually don't notice the difference is seamless. So, the data goes across our lakes, especially one example is Lake Apopka you can just go to any of the sampling locations coming from the Orange County side or coming from the Lake County side and the information seamless. It also helps with the fact that we could all basically chip in and be able to keep the costs down, as a matter of fact, we have not seen an increase on the maintenance that now we pay for the Water Atlas in10 years. Now we're coming to the end to the end of that time where things are more expensive, especially the software and the hardware and the University advise us that there's going to be a little bit of price increase to adjust for those prices and I'll be talking a little bit more in detail about that. One of the unique features that the Lake County Water Atlas has is the Spring page, on the Spring page we could actually provide more information to the public to all the Springs we contain in Lake County, the location, some of the photos, some of the information, to that is doesn't change that much but is there. One of the things that we have not been able to do is update that information. If there's any current information, we haven't been able to do that because since 2017, we stop the maintenance for that. We're thinking that on the next budget year, we want to go ahead and add the maintenance back to that and at least be able to update the website once again. Still, there is all the information, the basic information that you need to know about the Springs are there and I will be showing that later on. One of the things about the Water Atlas that it shows the information that you're looking for in several ways and it shows maps. I'm more graphic of course, you know I do GIS I like to see maps. To me it's better to search the information based on maps but you can also get graphs, you know, and many of the information that we've been talking about this meeting or in many of the other meetings you could actually search it here, you'd be able to find it here.
Mr. Garcia [01:31:50] One of the limiting factors on the Water Atlas is the amount of data that we have, we have a lot of data and some of that data actually doesn't get updated frequently. In order to do that, we basically have to pay a little bit more to actually be able to input some of that information and some of the information is actually coming across from one system to the next and we could just update those automatic. But many times, the information doesn't get updated right away. We do have one area that actually we have to call a real mapping Real-Time Data Mapping and there you can actually see current information as far as half an hour ago and I will be showing to. So how do you get to the Water Atlas, there's several ways you go through our website. There's all kind of links in our website and
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also you go to wateratlas.org, and then you're going to see all the lists of the Water Atlas in there and then you can see Lake County, and you can also go to that website address, or you just go to Google and you put Lake County Water Atlas and there will be the first link on the top and then you click on that and you'll be able to get to the Water Atlas. So, let's just go ahead and quickly demo, we see hopefully I can see that you can see this. Well, you're going to have to do this to push it into the screen, so this is the Lake County Water Atlas, as you can see our logo right there. We are the main sponsor for this site and as soon as you come into it, it does give you some splash pages where you can scroll and you can just go directly to any of those topics, or you can just scroll down and you see a map in here, again I'm graphical so I would use the map and if I want to go ahead and see one particular water body, I could just go ahead and go to the water body right here. You don't have to do searching, you don't have to do anything else just click on it and we'll get you to that page. Or you can see a list of the most frequently visited lakes and you can just go ahead and scroll down through those and be able to get that information for that particular water body. You can also search it, if you don't remember the lake name or anything you just start typing and it will just recognizing, and we'll just go ahead and search that lake and be able to get to it. Now, the Water Atlas has four main parts which are in the top right here, those are tabs, one of them is just a discover part of it and this one is just basic information and quick information. You just go to it and you could just get information about the Springs, Real Time Data Mapper, this is the area that I was talking about, but also a video gallery, photo galleries and information like that you'll be able to get it through the discover. If you go to the maps and data which is my favorite part, you go to the advanced mapping application and let's just go ahead and for the sake, just just click on that and what it is, is just an app that will go ahead and display the information. It will give you a little bit of basic information if you don't know how to work with GIS, but it's simple. I mean, you can just zoom in zoom out, it does have layers so you can actually select different backgrounds, including our historical areas. As a matter of fact, we went ahead many years ago we went ahead and did a big project where we scan of those images and we rectify them, and we basically now have it here as part of the Water Atlas. So instead of storing this information and on our server, we just basically send it to them and they're doing this for us, so as part of the service that we we pay. Now, if you click on the let's say you want to see the 1941 aerials as background, you can see those are 1941's in the background, and you can see some of the changes as you go. You know, some of the lakes used to be a little bit bigger and all that information is displayed there but you can actually browse through the different years since 1998 all the way down to 1941 ok. Again, from here, you can actually click on any of the water bodies and you can just go ahead and go to the water body website and then it will contain more information. So there's several ways, like I say in the beginning or through the mapping here, if you go back to the maps and data, if you go to real time data mapper, is just basically another map but this one has these sampling locations where it's real time and some of them you're going to see that maybe they're not active. It could be that they're down, it could be that that it doesn't get active until a certain time and you're going to see some of those in there. But I'm interested on this one right here ok, this is at NuRF and if you click on this, you're going to see that that was updated two hours ago, I could click on it and then I could get more information as far as the elevation, the flow, maybe right now, there's no flow.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:37:09] No flow.
Mr. Garcia [01:37:09] Yeah. And then I could actually get more information on this. So, if I click on additional information, will give me more information about that particular site and then will give me graphs. And this is what a lot of people like to see, too. So, it could be a 24-hour graph, it could be seven days, or it could be 30. Now, if you want a longer time, depending on the location, you can actually go all the way to 1947 I believe and some of those locations have data that far back, but it just depends on the location. On this particular location I can actually go ahead and download data, I can actually set the dates that I want the data from, and it will give me that information as long as it is available. So that's that's another area that I could actually get that information to. So, going back to the beginning of the page rainfall estimates, we can actually click on that and it will give us basically a map that shows like rainfall in certain areas in the county. So I'm sorry, it's just and you know where the information is download, I mean, come in, the rainfall was coming, one of the things we would like to do is be able to attach our rainfall gauges that we have in Lake County and we would like to actually turn those into real time. So, one of the goals for this year is to actually be able to get that done and then once we have real time data, we could just provide that information through the Water Atlas. That's one of the one of the goals, so that's a little bit of the Water Atlas. So as far as our traffic, how many people actually visit the website, how many people come through it between January of this year and March, we had eleven thousand visitors that have come through the website and have stay a stay on the website searching for information. We could get more detailed information as what type of information they're looking for. We get know what kind of water bodies are interested the most and know when we have the certain events on the specific lake, we can actually see the attention going to that lake. So, we can actually monitor a little bit that information. Where some most of the visitors come from well, there is, of course, a Florida Lakefront, and that one is just a real estate site and basically a lot of people just want to find out how this lake that I'm buying my house by, you
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know, how they're doing this spring feed. That is the first question that I get all the time is a spring feed lake, all that information is on the Water Atlas. So, they go here we refer people to go to the website for that purpose. And, of course, the Lake County Water Authority in Lake County FL, Google is a big one, so that's where most of the visitors come from. And again, it will provide that type information they're looking for and what kind of water bodies. So, let's talk a little bit about support for the Water Atlas, there's a lot of value for the Lake County Water Authority to be able to provide this information to the public and to the professionals. I think that it's it's a cost-effective system to be able to provide everything into one place. As far as time it saves a lot of time to the staff to be able to instead of answering questions on the phone, we refer people to go to the Water Atlas and they get the information they need. They don't call us back they just go through it and they find information they're looking for and move on. And they provide that same sometimes they provide that information to other people. So, people get to know about the Water Atlas because word of mouth and a lot of people just go through the Water Atlas for that sense. So, for Water Authority the value is just priceless but let’s less quantify that. Let's say that we were to go ahead and maintain such a website ourselves, let's just go ahead and pay somebody, you know, different people to actually be able to maintain such a website. It will cost us an arm and a leg, and it will be way too expensive. The reason that we are able to do what we are doing is because there's a group of people doing it, I mean, the agency's doing it, and that's why we are able to save a lot of money. If we were to, let's say, a quantify based on the numbers of calls we get, you know, just spending five minutes a call for all the calls that we get and asking questions looking for questions about water resources. It will be just thirty-seven thousand dollars in one year, you know, just for doing that. So when you talk about value also, there's a lot of questions that we answer through the Water Atlas and necessarily it's water related, but people just want to go and seek, you know, how the lake is doing for their home values or they want to just go ahead and download certain information or they want to use a see a map of some of the water bodies or they want to use it for educational purposes. As a matter of fact, we got teachers using the Water Atlas for their education water resources, and some of the classes are doing that. We also promoting some of that with our educators contractors, and they just promote the Water Atlas and they teach some of the teachers how to use it and they start using it. So, let's talk a little bit about money basically, these are the meanest every year that we've been paying as twenty-five thousand dollars this year, just upgrading the Springs page and doing everything that we need to do with the Water Atlas, including the increase will be about 30,000. The university that gave us the option and say, ok, you guys want If you guys want the data to be updated more frequently and you want the most up to date information there every month, then it will cost a little bit more. If you want to do that at this point and are ready to move to that stage. I think we've been doing an excellent job with the information that we have. And if we could actually tie in the USGS data and also the rainfall data that we are planning to do, I think that will be very useful and not necessarily we have to go to the next level. That will be, in my opinion. So, and you know how with the Lake County Water Authority keep promoting and supporting the Water Atlas? Well, definitely the budget is the first step, we need to also keep promoting it through the education purposes and we need to also upgrade our components and the data. We and we are actually in the process of getting bathymetric information and we actually tie that in into the Water Atlas we display the maps. As a matter of fact, I didn't tell you that part, but we have maps that we have provided in the Water Atlas people could just download it from there. One of the again, the tying in the rainfall data, that will be an upgrade that we can actually tie into this and there's always some information that we need to update so. Any questions regarding the Water Atlas?
Chairman Keith Farner [01:44:32] Questions anybody?
Mr. BonJorn [01:44:34] I mean, I like it, I use it, I give it to customers or customers, to residents when they're calling about water rainfall and kind of let them look at the Big or Little creek and it's kind of just what you said, and hopefully they'll pass it on or if they call and tell me what they think the the levels are. We use the Minnehaha for for the south chain and, you know, kind of helps them pass along, like you said, but also gets them off my back a little bit because it is what it is. We're dependent on rainfall and that's all we've got. So I expect I've been getting calls for about a week now, but it's been quiet because we've done good with our water levels but I love it, it's a tool I'll use three times a day when I'm looking at flows in Big and Little Creek when we're getting the rain just to know where we're at so I'm all for it.
Mr. BonJorn [01:45:16] Anybody else? Absolutely fantastic job, my only question is do we have a link on there to like FWC? And of course, we've got hydrilla problems that are always raised in your head up a little bit and that's where I'd like to direct them, because that's their responsibility and do we have that link and the information they need? And because you don't think you don't have to wait on FWC, if you have a problem, you can get a permit and do some treating yourself, although, you know, it's kind of taken on a Goliath type project but still, I think every little bit helps. I just want to encourage people to participate as possible. Do we have that type of link?
Mr. Garcia [01:45:56] Definitely, we didn't tell you that too much to show.
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Chairman Keith Farner [01:46:00] Oh I understand.
Mr. Garcia [01:46:01] But all those agencies that I show you the beginning, one of the slides, basically, they provide this information and they all have links in there and now there's a document library where you can actually information, historical information that have been stored, any information related to water resources get stored there and it's linked to the provider. In this case, it could be the FWC or it could be Lake County Water Authority or St. John's or any of those agencies and then they will click on it and it will take them to those sites.
Chairman Keith Farner [01:46:31] Very good very good, well, thankfully, we don't need a motion. All right, thank you Ben, good job keep up the good work, too. It's a big job and very important. Is everybody comfortable, you want to move on, you wanna take a break? Ok, guys, let's be back in 10 all right.
FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY
Tab 5 d. LCWA Prescribed Fire Burn Program Ben Gugliotti
Chairman Keith Farner [01:47:04] Ben
Mr. Gugliotti [01:47:05] Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I'm going to speak briefly to you about the Lake County Water Authority's Prescribed Fire Program, and I was told it would be brief so I can speak at length about this if anybody wants more information, feel free to contact me and if anybody is interested in coming out on a burn, you can give me your contact information and I'll notify you, when we're doing a burn, you can come out and visit it. Ok, there we go, the Lake County Water Authority manages over 7000 acres of conservation lands and prescribed fires, a really important tool in our toolbox to manage those lands. Pretty much all agencies that manage natural lands use fire, including all the federal agencies, all the state agencies, water management districts, counties, cities, even private entities like ranchers, timber companies, private hunting areas. So, it's just it's that important of a tool and in the southeastern United States, we burn about six million acres per year, and in Florida alone, we burn about a million. Now, we're not responsible for all those, but we do our part. And we also use a combination of in- house staff, as well as contract burning guides of approved contracts for us so you should be aware of that. We do some contract burning, but we have seven people in-house and a couple of brush trucks an atv and a tractor with the disc so we can get some stuff done ourselves. Ok, so really quick why we burn one of the biggest issues is wildfire mitigation and we can't say, well, if we prescribed burn it, we're never going to have a wildfire. But it's been shown that, you know, by having regular prescribed fires, you have less frequent and less intense wildfires. You're basically burning up those fuels as a prescribed burns was not available for a wildfire. And then also they're really important in maintaining Florida's natural ecosystems. Most of Florida's ecosystems require fire at some interval to maintain a healthy, happy ecosystem and even though it looks really nasty after we're done, there's normally a flush of nutrients and a flush of new growth after after the burn by within a couple of weeks, you'll start seeing new growth and within a couple of months, you can barely tell you've done a burn. So, most of our plants and animals are fire adapted and they're more than happy to see the fire. Fire helps maintain structure, structure of our native ecosystems and by that we mean kind of keeping woody species out of our base of marshes, keeping hardwoods out of pine dominated ecosystems, things like that. And it's really quick, so here's a picture, and this is actually at Sawgrass Island Preserve, we burn on the east side of planted pines over bahia grass. So, lots of fine fuels burn really, really well and afterwards I was walking through the unit and I saw this and so pines like fire and they kind of promote fire their pine needles burn really, really well. Oak trees don't really like fire and they kind of inhibit fire. So, you can see where this area just burned, we had lit the edge and just kind of carried through the unit. But when it hit that oak litter, it just basically stopped and went around that tree. So, we didn't do anything to, you know, influence that. That's just how it burns it just things like fire, they promote fire. Oak trees don't like fire they inhibit it. And the problem is, once you get those hardwood oak species invading into a pine dominated area, it's hard to get them back out and get it back on that natural fire rotation. Also, so Sand Pine Scrub, Sand Pines, unlike other species, the pines, when they burn, the entire tree burns up kills the adult tree, they actually have what's called serotinous cones that pop open in the heat of the fire, melts resins, pop open those pine cones, drops the new seeds that you have an entire crop of new trees, whereas most of the other pine species, just like frequent low intensity fire that is burned right underneath them and never got to the adult trees. Fire stimulates a number of life cycle stages in plants such as seeding, germination and flowering and periodic fire increases plant diversity. It's also, like I said, important for animals as far as providing food and habitat for them, also opening up brush areas for them to move around and to feed. And also, fire may have beneficial effects on aquifer recharge, and in the back of the memo, I included a couple of infographics by goodfires.org. But if you
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look at the bottom of that sentence there's it says periodic fire can improve water quality by increasing aquifer absorption. And I'm always trying to find some good data on that I cannot find any research it's kind of one of the things that they throw around a little bit and it's kind of like, oh, yeah, sure. But I'd love to find a good research paper on that that I can kind of point to and say, ok, this is why.
Mr. Gugliotti [01:52:03] So basically, how we burn as land manager and a burn boss, we'll go out and assess the area that we want to burn. We'll figure out what preparations need to be made and we'll define that unit. General, we're going to try to use existing roads and trails to kind of create a, you know, a line around it. If we need to, we may add some additional lines so we have access to the entire perimeter, and we can kind of contain that fire. Some agencies are able to burn just kind of in the wetland areas, but we don't really do a lot of that. We'd rather have our line all the way around something so we know we can contain it and it's not going to sneak around to an end round end up in the neighbor's property so. And then depending on the height and type of vegetation or fuel and the long term management goals, we may use some mechanical treatments and so this is some work we recently did at Flowing Waters Preserve and you can see kind of in the middle there, that's our disc and that's our fire line. But we've also chopped one pass on the outside of the unit and then about three or four passes on the inside of the unit to kind of lower that fuel. And you can kind of see this is the average height of the existing fuel that was there a flame could easily jump across there and catch the other side. So, by kind of prepping that and chopping that, we're going to make it a lot easier to burn and also in those thicker fuels is going to create a more continuous fuel bed. So, it'll be easier for the fire to carry. Ok, and so here's just an example of this is an area that we burned without doing any kind of mechanical treatments, and I would say those are probably five to 10-foot trees and probably 10 to 20-foot flames. And then this is an area of the same property, also Flowing Waters where we've done the mechanical treatment and you can see it's kind of grown back a little bit but this little yellow thing in the back, there is actually a person standing there. So, this vegetation is about, you know, two to three feet tall with about five-foot flames. So, we're just really kind of lowering that fuel, lowering that fire intensity and it just makes it a lot easier to burn. And then also, once it's done burning, you're going to top kill these trees you're not going to completely kill the plants, but you'll have all these dead kind of blackened standing sticks. So especially if it's on a property that's open to the public esthetically, it's a little more pleasing if we've prepped it mechanically. So, it's a really quick part of our prescription is going to be the weather requirements, including all kinds of things like temperature, surface winds and prescribed burning is a little bit like sailing. We need some wind because otherwise your fire is going to kind of just go, you know, anywhere it wants but we don't want too much wind, obviously don't want to go sailing in a hurricane. So, both for the, you know, pushing the fire in the direction you wanted to, but also with your smoke management you need some wind, but not too much. And then we also have some things like dispersion index, that's basically an index of looking how the smoke is going to rise and move away. So, you're not smoking out your neighbor, smoking out roads and things like that. And then also recently they've had the added the air quality index and that's relatively new, like the last year or so that they've added that requirement. And it has been problematic, we've had a request denied because of that. So at least once so that's something we're still kind of learning, getting a handle on it. And then also in the prescription will identify what kind of staff we need, how many personnel and also what kind of equipment, and so these are some of our brush trucks and this is F550 with 225-gallon tank. This is our 350 with 150-gallon tank and it's just a poly agricultural tank. It's got a pump, hose reel and then a manifold over here that can kind of control where the water goes. And so that's basically a slip-on unit and so they kind of slide in and out of the trucks, although we do use to keep them on the trucks because not only for fire, but we also use them for when we're herbiciding to move water. We don't generally mix herbicide in the tanks, but we use it for supplying water when we're mixing in other tanks or even in a backpack sprayer. And then also for watering when we're doing plantings either on the property or even around Hickory Point, it's sometimes easier to drive the truck over there and water some new sod or a plant versus having to string a bunch of hoses around if it's not in your hose bid. And then also this is our mule, so we've got a utv with about a 50-gallon tank in the back with also a pump and hose reel and that's really, really helpful, especially getting inside of the units. Generally, we don't drive our trucks into the units just because we don't want to get stuck in to goffer tortoise or get stuck on a stump. But we will put the utv in there it's a lot lighter and more maneuverable.
Mr. Gugliotti [01:56:38] And then also in the prescription will have our admission plan, basically how we're going to light up the unit smoke management plan where the smoke is going to go, and then mop up plan how we're going to clean things up when we're done. And then also just contingency plans, where we're going to get more water? What happens if somebody gets hurt? What happens if we have an escape? Things like that, which generally we that doesn't happen but it's always good to know that ahead of time and not wait till something happens. And so, this is actually part of our smoke management plan, so this is the smoke screen that we do ahead of time, just kind of looking at our smoke sensitive areas such as airports, schools and medical facilities. And then this is Sable Bluff Preserve here this little red thing in the middle of this little protractor. And then we're just kind of generally look at what direction do we want to blow the smoke? Obviously, we want to blow it out over the lake and we just want to make sure there's nothing
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Draft Regular Board Meeting Minutes – May 26, 2021 downrange that we're going to impact. And then the day before or the day of the Florida Forest Service has a smoke screen modeling tool on their web site and so you can actually define your burn unit and then we'll actually give you a projection of where your smoke is going to go based on the weather for that actual day and any other environmental factors. So, I usually include both of those in my prescription and then using the burn, we get out there, we do a briefing with the crew, make sure everybody knows where things are located, the unit we're burning, our objectives, our staff assignments and things like that. And so really quick, we'll just kind of run through a scenario of doing a prescribed burns. So, this is Hidden Waters Preserve this is the southern unit, Abrams Road is here, Country Club is over here, and this is the entrance right there. So, let's say we're going to burn this on a southeast wind. So, we want to kind of blow the smoke out over top of our property, so it has time to get up and out before it starts impacting the roads or our neighbors. So, we'll usually start with the test fire on the downwind side there and we'll light that, make sure the smoke is going where it's supposed to go, that everything looks good, it's burning, the fuel is appropriately, and then we'll start an igniter moving down that back line. So, we're essentially doing a backing fire, so it's on the downside of the unit and it's going to back into the wind. And then we'll have a holding team that the truck kind of following along with them down that line and then also place another truck on the other side, because even though we're not lighting along this side, it's going to slowly creep along that line also. So, we've got to keep an eye on that and then our igniter will kind of keep moving along that line and the truck will kind of follow along til we got that whole back line lit. And then depending how it's moving through the vegetation, we may do a flanking fire kind of down this line and even come back over here with another igniter igniting that line. We can do some internal ignitions like point source ignition, things like that, just to kind of speed things along and also to kind of moderate the intensity of the burn. We don't want to kill or fire adapted pines that like fire we don't want to make it too intense but we do want to kill some of the hardwoods knock those back, or just depending what our goals are, that did not work properly so, see if I can and for some reason, that's popping up on top there. So anyway, so I was going to say, normally our fires look like this and they're pretty mundane. Anyway, but then here some point source ignitions where we're kind of just lighting some smaller things within the unit. And then that's kind of a little more intense fire, but unfortunately, my video is on top and you can't see anything else. But yeah, so that's generally what our fires look like sometimes they're a little more intense, a little more aggressive. But for the most part, we're just kind of burning off that dead layer of vegetation on the ground and it just kind of creeping along there.
Mr. Gugliotti [02:00:23] Yeah, yeah, and then after we're done, igniting will give us some time to kind of cook and burn up those fuels and then we'll start our mop up and we're using water from the trucks and as well as hand tools and just kind of getting in there and we'll kind of mop up a perimeter usually 50 feet into the unit just to make sure nothing can escape. And then also any things that are producing a lot of smoke like light or not stomps and just, you know, heavier fuels so that we don't have any smoke issues overnight. And generally, we start about 10:00 and we get out there, set up signs, prepped the lines, do what we need to do, have our meeting. We'll usually start putting fire on the ground about 10:00 and generally we try to be done by about five o'clock. However, we can't leave the site until it's secure so we there are some days we've been out there till nine o'clock at night so, but we try to kind of keep it within the normal operational period. And then usually will go up the next day, check the fire, make sure it's either completely out or if we need to do some additional mop up, we'll do that. And then the land manager or burn boss will check it periodically just to make sure we've met our land management objectives. And that's it, you guys have any questions?
Chairman Keith Farner [02:01:35] Questions, comments?
Mr. Donohue [02:01:41] I just thought you would burn going with the wind but you're going the other way.
Mr. Gugliotti [02:01:42] Yeah, so that would be called a head fire the problem is it's like speeding in your vehicle. You burn more gas and you burn it less efficiently, so it puts out more smoke. It actually has higher temperature so you're more likely to kill good stuff that you don't want to and it's just a little more aggressive. So, by using a backing fire or even a flanking fire, it just regulates that temperature at times more time to burn. So, it burns it more efficiently, produces less smoke and has a better ecological effect. Now, if we're trying to kill stuff like let's say we have some hardwoods that we want to toast a little bit, we may use a head fire in certain areas, but generally it's a lot safer using a backing fire.
Mr. Hendrick [02:02:22] Does staff our staff do all this or do you?
Mr. Gugliotti [02:02:23] Yeah, yeah so like I said there are seven of us.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:02:26] They subcontract out some of it.
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Mr. Gugliotti [02:02:26] What's that.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:02:27] Some of it get contracted out.
Mr. Gugliotti [02:02:28] Right yeah, actually, we haven't done a contract burn in almost three years. We've done some prep work, but once we get the prescription written and everything prepped, we just kind of wait for everything to kind of fall into place. You got to have the right weather, you've got to have the staff and the equipment already to go on the same day so it can be hard sometimes. So being able to do some stuff in-house, especially some of the smaller burns, really allows us to get a lot more done. We work with the contractors on the more difficult burns where need additional staff and equipment and they have a lot more specialized equipment that we don't have. So, it allows us to do some of those bigger burns but it's also nice to be able to get some stuff done in-house.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:03:05] Absolutely excellent job, you're doing a great job managing our properties. My only question or comment is we've got, of course, our budgets right around the corner, or if you guys are good on equipment or if you need something, that'll be the time to put it in.
Mr. Gugliotti [02:03:20] Oh sure, yeah no, I mean, we’re pretty well established. When I started, we were pretty low now we've got two trucks. We actually got another slip-on unit donated, Travis Snow his father works for the National Forest up in Ocala and they actually gifted us a really nice sked unit. The motor is not running right now, so Brian is kind of working on that, getting it rehabbed. But it's the tank itself, the pump, it's actually a very, very nice setup. So, once we get it up and running and then also, I'm also working on trying to get a old brush truck from the county. They just recently got new brush trucks, so I'm trying to get one of their old units also and that way we'll have backup, I should mention that. So, when we write the prescription, we put the minimum required to do it safely. But it's always nice to have a little extra because of a truck breaks down or somebody gets called out and they got to go pick up their kid from school your out of prescription. So, it's always good to have a little extra there. So, it's nice to have an extra vehicle that you can use as a backup or an extra person there on staff. Plus, during the day, you know, the people who are igniting are doing a lot of work most of the holding teams just kind of watching but in the evening or at the end of the day is when you do most of the work with the mop up. So, it's always nice to have extra people there, because by the end of the day, you're tired, you're hot, you know, and that's when all the hard stuff begins so.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:04:34] All right you just let us know as a board how we can support you.
Mr. Gugliotti [02:04:38] Thank you very much.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:04:38] Fantastic job, all right let's move on Executive Director Annual Review I'm assuming everybody got their envelope.
FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY
Tab 6 e. Executive Director’s Annual Review Ron Hart
Mr. Hart [02:04:47] I just want to let the board members know that Linda Moreno was the previous human resources person on our staff, and when she retired, it left a huge hole for somebody to fill within the agency and Ben Garcia volunteered to step forward and said that he would accept those responsibilities. So, he's been undergoing regular classes in human resources and training so that he's able to help pull that share of the burden that the agency has. And we also have a professional consultant that you guys have contracted with and allowed us to contract with in order to make sure that we're complying with those requirements. As such, Ben is prepared to lead you through the directions that you need on how to go through this process.
Mr. Garcia [02:05:32] So we provide oversight we provided the forms what it is, is this is your opportunity to evaluate the Director and you will go ahead and put your comments. There are some areas that you have to do is check in as you're you see it fit and then we would like to go ahead and have those in by the next board meeting, once we get that, of course, there can be no discussion between the board members regarding this topic. Once we get all the forms back on the next board meeting, what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and at least this time we're going to involve the H.R. consultant. She's going to go ahead and evaluate and take all the forms and she's going to do a
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summarize presentation on the July meeting. And then you got and then the board will have the opportunity to talk about this topic on that meeting and it could be a public meeting of course, it's going to be a public meeting. Any questions?
Chairman Keith Farner [02:06:34] So we bring them to you?
Mr. Garcia [02:06:35] Yes, on the next board meeting yes.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:06:38] Before the next board meeting?
Mr. Garcia [02:06:40] It could be before the next board meeting or at the board meeting.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:06:43] Or at the board.
Mr. Garcia [02:06:44] At the board meeting.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:06:45] Okay, that's fine.
Mr. Garcia [02:06:45] That would be the deadline.
Mr. Proctor [02:06:46] Can it be mailed?
Mr. Garcia [02:06:48] Could be mailed, yes.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:06:51] All right, let's move on Legal Counsel.
FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY
7. LEGAL COUNSEL REPORT Kevin Stone
Attorney Stone [02:06:59] Well, we had a couple of things to report to you, just that have become law since the last time we met because the legislation legislative session has ended, and the governor signed some bills. One thing that I think is important to know is that our Florida Legislature passed a liability protection having to do with Covid so that any agency like ours or business, private business that is doing their best to comply in good faith with the guidelines that have been handed down by state and federal government is shielded from certain kinds of lawsuits that could otherwise have been filed by people who somehow catch Covid, for example, by using one of our facilities or otherwise in Coronavirus related damages. So that is certainly in accordance with the State of Florida policy of returning back to normalcy. So in conjunction with that, the Governor on May 3rd issued an executive order, um, which was closely on the heels of an order from Florida's Surgeon General that expressed the Executive Branch's policy of normalcy and getting things back to the way they were, suspended all emergency orders and all emergency ordinances that may have been passed by local governments, um, and encourages all governmental operations to be available in person. I think we've got a long way in getting back to that but if you had any questions about why a lot of the government facilities that you're visiting, including the Water Authorities, feel like they're kind of back to normal, um, we know why the Governor has directed it and we're given in exchange for that some of that liability protection so I think that's a positive thing for our agency. One other thing that doesn't directly affect our operations, but because of what we do, I thought you might be interested in. There was an environmental related bill that was passed this session that is taking all domestic wastewater, um, utilities and requiring them to come up with ways to eliminate non beneficial direct discharges and water bodies. And I think that, you know, over the years, we've had a lot of improvement in technologies of treatment of wastewater. But there's still some of these legacy systems that have direct non beneficial discharges. And those are being addressed by some of the things that the legislature to this year thought you'd be interested. Otherwise, there wasn't a whole lot that's going to affect our internal operations. Um, I thought those two would have the most impact. If you have any questions or want to talk about it with me, you're welcome to give me a shout I could talk about that stuff all day. Otherwise I have nothing else to report and see yall soon.
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Chairman Keith Farner [02:09:36] We have any questions for our attorney where we're just sitting here. All right, we are good. My comment was I would like to know if we have any of those type of wastewater management plants located in Lake County that are injecting, I guess it would be considered gray water, is that safe to say? All right, I'd like to know if there's any in Lake County.
Mr. Hart [02:10:02] Well, we'll check into it to make sure and get back with you, but I believe that they've all been addressed within Lake County. The only one that I know of I know that there was a permit issued for the City of Winter Garden there on Lake Apopka but let us double check just to make sure.
8. BOARD MEMBER COMMENTS AND ITEMS FOR FUTURE AGENDA
Chairman Keith Farner [02:10:16] Ok, very good, very good board member comments, Trampis what you got?
Mr. BonJorn [02:10:22] No, I'm good, I'm good this month.
Mr. Donohue [02:10:25] It was a good meeting, I thought I learned a lot, thank you, guys, thank you, staff, for educating us a little bit today thanks.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:10:31] What you got?
Ms. Stokes [02:10:31] I'm good.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:10:31] Butch
Mr. Hendrick [02:10:35] Ok you can answer these are a couple questions for Ron and to start it can be answered right now if it's a simple one. If not, we wait till the next meeting of course. You know where we're at on removing that tower, the entry tower to Hickory Point? And I want to put on the agenda to discuss the Sheriff and Ron and myself meeting that we had for next month. I can report on that. Discuss the negotiation with our LCWA engineers that we have on record or preferred vendors, whatever the name
Chairman Keith Farner [02:11:13] Is that pertaining to any particular?
Mr. Hendrick [02:11:15] Yeah, for the NuRF that we discussed in our meeting, we were supposed to start talking to all the five on that, to implement all the new stuff that we voted on. Oh, Mrs. Campione, Commissioner Campione would like to come in and discuss progress on the Lake Joanna she was going to come in today, but she would like to do that in the next meeting.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:11:36] I don't blame her, what you got Marty?
Mr. Proctor [02:11:40] Yeah, I'd like to augment that I've been asking Jason and Ron for some additional knowledge with regards to the transition to proportional control of the water, monitoring the water more actively, more frequently, and then using proportional control to control the alum and what the impact is. I had some very large misinterpretations and misunderstandings about that, and I get a little more knowledge on that. And I'm also interested in what the thoughts are as we go forward, priorities like with the intake, to me that's a really big expense and it's a it's a very complicated piece of hardware and I think I'd like to know whether we can kind of delay that and do the ramp thing they were talking about first and see how that plays out. Just those kinds of things, just more knowledge wrapped around that because again, I'm finding out the more I get into it, the less I know, and I'm not thrilled about that but it's part of the process. The other thing that I have on my mind is, again, I'd like to bring up and maybe we can discuss it now. I don't know if it's appropriate to go into quarterly payment just to make it less work for the staff so that they don't have to write seven checks a month.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:13:05] I know we had talked about making let's make that an agenda item, can we make that a agenda item?
Mr. Proctor [02:13:08] You wanna do it that way, is that is that is that appropriate to do it that way?
Mr. Hart [02:13:13] It's your board meeting, if that's the way you want it done, that's where we'll put it on there.
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Mr. Proctor [02:13:17] Is it a big enough thing where we really need to do that or?
Chairman Keith Farner [02:13:19] Yeah.
Mr. Hart [02:13:20] Or if you're just all in agreement, it's an easy decision you just tell us and start doing it that way and we'll do it.
Mr. Hendrick [02:13:27] I'll go even further say just bring them to the meeting don't even mail them, just bring them here quarterly.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:13:33] Listen, I hardly ever take my check and it was a year or two ago that I forget who came up to me and they had all these forms that I'd never signed. And so, I got it all at the end of the year, which was perfect because it was Christmas time, Thanksgiving. So, I think we have a lot of flexibility there and I think with every individual board member, it could probably be flexible. I don't know that we need to if we need an agenda item, we will keep doing that. But if you guys are just comfortable telling them, pay me once a year, I'm ok with that too.
Mr. Proctor [02:14:06] The suggestion that was made to me was if we did it quarterly, we would and we did it so that the fiscal year, September and was the end of one of those quarters, then everything from the previous year would be in that year, everything and the following year would be in that. Also, then the second the first pay out of the quarter or the year, the first quarter of the year would include all of the old board members wrapping them up and all of the new members bringing them in. So, if it was done quarterly with the end of September being one of those periods, it would kind of fit together with the way the calendar.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:14:45] Wanna do it on consensus, everybody good with that?
Mr. Hendrick [02:14:47] Well, let me ask a question about the accounting part of that your CPA, I think you might have a certain time frame you'd like to have it done by because, I mean, it's not much, but it's still in there you have to have it in your,
Mr. Proctor [02:14:59] I did ask they they and they said that once a year was probably a long time to keep track of it but quarterly was kind of like a good compromise. So, then they're writing effectively twenty-one checks a year instead of eighty-four. But there's a cost involved please she's got.
Mr. Hart [02:15:16] If I if I mean, that's a good comment Butch, and I think the way to handle is if we had some motion from the board that way we can show finance that we were directed by the board to withhold your money up until that quarter comes to an end and then pay it all at one time.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:15:31] Can we legally make a motion like this without it being an agenda item?
Mr. Hendrick [02:15:37] I'm more worried about my account not,
Attorney Stone [02:15:39] I think that would be fine.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:15:41] Ok, somebody make a motion.
Mr. Proctor [02:15:44] I would like to make a motion that we be paid physically, mechanically by check quarterly, as opposed to monthly with one of those core, one of those periods falling in sync with the fiscal year end of September, the end of September.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:05] I have a motion do I have a second?
Mr. Donohue [02:16:06] I'll second it.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:08] I have a motion and a second any more discussion? Let’s vote, all in favor. I’m good with that.
Mr. Proctor [02:16:17] Seemed like really trivial to be an agenda item.
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Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:21] And not to bring up money, but I thought our legislators were supposed to hey Butch, didn't you talk to our legislators a while back and they said we're going to do something about getting our pay increased a little bit.
Mr. Hendrick [02:16:33] I got water thrown on me on that.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:35] Oh, you did?
Mr. Hendrick [02:16:36] Oh I got it, they're ready to go just they didn't do it this session. How much yall want?
Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:43] Not that much, but anyway that's for another discussion.
Mr. Hendrick [02:16:48] I do think it does need to be at least something.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:16:53] Listen you Tyler here he's our finance guy you know, you can come up with a good formula and a solution. All you gotta do is look at all these other cities with their paying you know, so we can come up with something that's a little more competitive.
Mr. Hendrick [02:17:07] It's just cause we do a lot of work I mean, time in this not for the money obviously.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:17:14] I understand that, Tyler what you got, you good?
Mr. Brandeburg [02:17:17] I'm good.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:17:19] I got a couple of things for a future agenda, I'd kind of like to see a presentation from St. Johns, if possible, with their plans and goals and timeline is for Lake Apopka. Since we've got a major expenditure going up on our NuRF project, it might determine a little bit of direction for us, if that's ok. I'd like to compliment our Hickory Point staff, absolutely fabulous job, I pulled my boat out last week and I could tell that it's greatly improved. Greatly improved you know, I'll be honest with you, I'm the first one that was kind of ragging on the park there for quite a while, but it is turning around thank you, thank you.
Mr. Hart [02:18:05] Thank you Keith, they're working extremely hard on it and I've got a new list of things from my last trip around there on Monday. So, they'll be even more activity in the future.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:18:15] All right and let me see what we've got here. Oh, I just wanted to make sure you're doing a great job, I want to make sure they're not lacking anything. I want to make sure in our future budget that we have enough that they are taking into account to continue the good work, because I know it's not cheap all right.
Mr. Hart [02:18:32] Thanks and the board has always been extremely supportive of making sure that staffs needs are addressed and we certainly appreciate that.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:18:40] Well, I understand that but there was a time where the needs were kind of slim and the park was degrading pretty good there and I don't want that to go backwards. I want to go forward you know, I want that to be a fact that when I was picking up my boat, they had a volleyball tournament going on there I was impressed, so very good. I want to thank Trampis for the good job you did on our building out there and helping to relocate. That was tremendous, very grateful and staff, I'm sure they appreciated it. And which brings up another subject of our board members if you, not asking you to get involved a lot but if you want to get involved a little bit, you're welcome to get more involved in helping out some of our staff. I mean, I go back to the NuRF project myself on occasion and help out a little bit if I can. So, if you're comfortable doing it and you need something to do, it's a good thing plus, it gives you a better feel the agency and what we're about. And I think that was it, but I am good. Wait a minute, Butch had one more thing.
Mr. Hendrick [02:19:50] I forgot my monthly phosphorus free at question.
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Mr. Hart [02:19:55] That's a, I was disappointed that you didn't bring it up earlier, but yes, I did call Don Luke with Phosphorus Free and he accidentally returned my phone call and he told me that he would give me a call back to set up a meeting when the board could go out there by the third week of May and then I got ghosted after that. So, we will contact them again and continue to contact them and until the door opens.
Chairman Keith Farner [02:20:24] At this point, I don't have a whole lot of stock in them. However, I would like to hear from St. Johns and what their plans and goals are and timeline, and that may influence some of our financial decisions for the future. So, I look at that as being a good thing, anybody else?
Mr. Donohue [02:20:43] Did we finalize anything with Polk County are good on that meeting or not.
Mr. Hart [02:20:44] They're looking at September is when they tried to schedule the meeting and there was a Polk County representative who couldn't make that date. So, they're looking at rescheduling again for some other time.
MARTY MADE MOTION HAT WE BE PAID PHYSICALLY, MECHANICALLY BY CHECK QUARTERLY, AS OPPOSED TO MONTHLY WITH ONE OF THOSE CORE, ONE OF THOSE PERIODS FALLING IN SYNC WITH THE FISCAL YEAR END OF SEPTEMBER. Rick seconded the motion
Motion approved 7-0
9. INFORMATION ITEMS
Tab 7 a. Staff Reports Tab 8 b. Monthly Financial Reports - April 2021
10. ANNOUNCEMENT OF UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Regular Board Meeting – Wednesday, June 23, 2021 (3:30 pm) BCC Chambers/Admin. Building
11. ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 6:02pm
Tekesha Stephens, Recording Secretary
______Gary Cooney, Secretary-Treasurer Keith Farner, Chairman
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