[0:02] I guess, well, well,

[0:06] well, yeah.

[0:12] Get it together now

[0:20] and get your love

[0:22] Come and get your love

[0:42] get your love now

[0:46] love

[0:49] Com love

[0:57] G let your love

[1:01] Come and get your love

[1:10] But To baby

[1:18] Oh yeah it the same man

[1:42] Come and get your love

[1:46] Come and get your love,

[1:53] my bags last night, briefly.

[2:00] Zero out, 9 a.m.

[2:07] And I'm gonna be high.

[2:12] As a kind by then.

[2:20] I miss the earth so much.

[2:23] I miss my wife.

[2:29] It's lonely out of space

[2:35] On such a time, that's white.

[2:49] And I think it's gonna be a long, long time

[2:52] touchdown brings me round get too fine

[2:56] I'm not the man that think I am at home

[2:59] I No, no no

[3:01] I'm running mad.

[3:06] Rocket man Burning out

[3:17] And I think it's gonna be a long, long time

[3:20] To drop down, brings me round and get too fine.

[3:25] I am down

[3:29] I'm a rocket man.

[3:32] Rocket man,

[3:35] burnin' attitude of hair belong.

[3:45] Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.

[3:53] In fact, as cold as hell

[3:59] And there's no one there to raise them.

[4:05] If you did

[4:12] And all the science I don't understand.

[4:20] It's just my job five days a week

[4:26] A rocket.

[4:32] Rocket man.

[4:40] And I think it's gonna be a

[4:43] long, long time till tuck it down brings me

[4:46] round and get too fine.

[4:48] About the man that think I am at home.

[4:52] Oh, no, no, no.

[4:54] I'm a rocket

[4:59] man, burnin' out of fuse out here

[5:02] alone.

[5:09] And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.

[5:30] Madam Chair, you have a live mic.

[5:33] I'd like to call the August 28th, 2026,

[5:36] uh, big Cypresspace and board meeting to order.

[5:39] If you all stand, and I'd ask Michelle McLeod

[5:42] to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

[5:47] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States

[5:50] of America, to the Republic, for which

[5:53] it stands, one nation, under God,

[5:57] indivisible, with liberty and justice, for all.

[6:05] Good morning, board members.

[6:06] It's nice to see everyone this morning.

[6:08] I hope everyone has been enjoying a wonderful summer, and

[6:11] as we transition from the height of summer toward

[6:14] the fall, I look forward to continuing our

[6:17] work together and building on the tremendous

[6:21] progress that we have made.

[6:23] Thank you for being here and for your continued commitment to our shared goals.

[6:28] A couple of housekeeping items first.

[6:30] Board members, please make sure your microphone is on,

[6:33] and you speak into the mic, so online attendees can hear you.

[6:37] If you turn your head while you're speaking to talk to

[6:40] another board member, please drag the mic with

[6:43] you so that we can make sure your comments are captured.

[6:47] Please try to get as close to the microphone as you can.

[6:49] And to be recognized, please use the buttons on the dais.

[6:54] For those joining remotely, thank you for your continued

[6:57] interest and support.

[6:58] And as a reminder, today's proceedings, are accessible

[7:02] via Zoom, as well as call your TV in the district's website.

[7:06] For those here in person, if you would like to comment

[7:09] on an agenda item, please complete a speaker form

[7:12] that's in the lobby and bring

[7:15] it to the front where Troy Miller is seated to my right here.

[7:19] If you're joining by Zoom, use the raise the hand feature and

[7:22] Troy will call on you.

[7:23] And if you're participating via phone, Star

[7:27] 9 raises your hand and Star 6 mutes and unmute.

[7:30] That brings us to agenda revisions.

[7:33] Lisa Keeler, are there any changes to the agenda?

[7:37] No, Madam Chair, there are not.

[7:39] Our 1st item of business today is to

[7:42] transition to a new vice chair for the period of August 2026

[7:46] to July 2027.

[7:49] Last year, at the August 22nd board meeting.

[7:53] The board appointed Miss Smith and Miss

[7:56] McLeod for successive one-year terms as vice chair

[7:59] of the Big Cypress Basin Board, with

[8:02] Miss Smith serving as vice chair beginning August 2025

[8:05] through July 2026.

[8:08] Followed by Michelle McLeod.

[8:11] Service, which will begin August 2026.

[8:15] through July 2027.

[8:17] It's already been one year.

[8:19] Boy, time is really flying.

[8:21] And I wanted to take a moment to thank PJ for her

[8:24] services vice chair to this board.

[8:25] Thank you so much.

[8:26] I appreciate everything you have done.

[8:30] And as of today, Michelle McLeod will start

[8:33] her term as vice chair.

[8:34] So I wanted to congratulate Michelle on

[8:38] becoming the vice chair and let you know that I look forward to working with

[8:41] you more in the future in your new role.

[8:44] I want to give you the opportunity if either one of you would like to

[8:47] say something, PJ, if you want to say a few words and then Michelle following.

[8:51] Just a few.

[8:52] Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity and

[8:55] to the board as well.

[8:57] And it was a interesting year, and really, I really enjoyed it.

[9:00] Thank you.

[9:01] Thank you.

[9:03] Michelle?

[9:03] Yes, thank you, chair, for this opportunity.

[9:06] Truly, it's an honor to serve under you.

[9:09] You have an amazing reputation here in our community for

[9:12] your leadership skills.

[9:13] So thank you so much for that.

[9:15] And PJ, you did us very well.

[9:19] You served us well, being so well connected in the community as you are.

[9:23] You're such a great spokesperson for us.

[9:25] So great job.

[9:26] Yes, thank you, thank you so much.

[9:28] And we'll go ahead and we'll let them take a couple

[9:32] minutes to change chairs.

[9:34] And then we'll go ahead and move

[9:37] right into our agenda, our next agenda item.

[9:43] All right, that brings us to extension by board members.

[9:48] These are abstensions for anything

[9:51] and disclosures on the agenda.

[9:54] We'll go ahead and go down the line.

[9:55] Mr. Romano.

[9:58] Okay, make sure your mic is on and you're talking into the mic, please.

[10:02] Ms. Lenhard?

[10:03] And for me.

[10:04] Mr. Hill?

[10:06] None.

[10:06] I have none.

[10:08] Vice Chair McLeod, non-privy.

[10:10] Miss Smith?

[10:11] None.

[10:12] Okay, that takes us to the next item, which is consider approval

[10:15] of the minutes of the July 7th meeting.

[10:18] Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes?

[10:22] Hearing none.

[10:23] I take a motion in a 2nd to approve the minutes.

[10:26] Okay, move by Ms. Smith, 2nd

[10:30] by Vice Chair McLeod.

[10:32] All in favor.

[10:33] Please say aye.

[10:34] Aye, oppose.

[10:37] Hearing none, that passes unanimously.

[10:39] That brings us to the basin administrators' report.

[10:45] Good morning, and thank you, Madam Chair.

[10:49] I want to start off with just an announcement.

[10:51] regarding the corkscrew watershed initiative.

[10:55] We are rounding out the end of

[10:58] that 3 year study, and our next and

[11:02] last public meeting is scheduled for September 30th at one p.m.

[11:06] It's going to be held in the basin administrative office.

[11:09] Um, The focus probably of that public

[11:12] meeting is going to be on the modeling results that

[11:16] we've been looking at for the last several months or maybe a year.

[11:19] I'm not sure.

[11:20] Um, and how that how those modeling

[11:23] results relate to the potential projects that could come out of the study.

[11:27] And again, those projects are

[11:30] potentially, or, I think, hopefully, we're all hoping, right?

[11:34] That it's going to help restore the natural or

[11:37] the historic hydration to corkscrew swamp sanctuary.

[11:40] So exciting time for us to be

[11:43] finishing that project and want to let everybody know that that

[11:46] next public meeting is at the end of September.

[11:50] So then one other thing, uh, that one

[11:53] other project that I want to talk about is actually just around

[11:56] the corner from Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and that is our Bird Rookery

[12:00] Swamp Boardwalk.

[12:01] That is one of our capital projects this year in the basin.

[12:05] And while you're going to hear from Brad,

[12:08] how our rainfall is below schedule, and we

[12:12] all know that our natural areas are a little bit drier.

[12:14] I saw a crew post on their website last night that they

[12:17] were canceling their last wet walk of the season because of dry conditions.

[12:22] So while, you know, dry conditions

[12:25] can be bad for natural areas, it is really good for construction.

[12:30] So our contractor is ahead of

[12:33] schedule on this boardwalk.

[12:35] They've been going like gangbusters replacing

[12:38] that and we are still on schedule to have a ribbon

[12:41] cutting before the end of the year.

[12:42] Uh, which will be perfect timing for all of

[12:45] our local hikers to get back out and enjoy bird rookery swamp.

[12:48] So with that, Madam Chair, unless you have any questions, I'll turn the meeting back to you.

[12:51] Are there any questions for the basin administrator?

[12:57] Go ahead, Miss Smith.

[12:59] Just a basic housekeeping.

[13:01] Can you do an invite to us for the September 30th meeting?

[13:04] Okay.

[13:04] Absolutely.

[13:07] Anything else?

[13:08] Okay, thank you, Lisa.

[13:10] Appreciate it.

[13:12] All right, that brings us to general public comment.

[13:15] We're ready to hear from the public.

[13:16] And these comments are for items

[13:19] that are not on the agenda.

[13:21] There are two opportunities during the meeting,

[13:24] if you want to address anything that's not on the agenda, and

[13:27] we'll start with anyone who is here in person first, Troy,

[13:30] and then go to our virtual participant.

[13:33] Madam, sure, we have one comment card here in the room, Richard Eckstein.

[13:38] You'll approach the podium.

[13:39] You'll have 3 minutes, sir.

[13:47] Good morning, my name is Richard next time.

[13:48] I'm a resident of Collier County.

[13:50] Golden Gate Estates for 20 years.

[13:53] I have some technical assessment.

[13:55] Hurricane season flood vulnerabilities to

[13:58] discuss with the board.

[14:01] And I gave you a packet right here.

[14:05] So you could read over these issues that I've discovered

[14:08] in the water management distribution of the canals

[14:11] and gates and basically the infrastructure.

[14:16] And, um, one of the biggest problems is,

[14:19] is Golden Gate Estates is a vulnerable flood,

[14:23] um, mass flood potential.

[14:27] Because of the villages of Eastern Collier County

[14:30] and the tomato fields are being developed.

[14:32] All that water has nowhere to go.

[14:35] With 47 houses, proposed to be built there.

[14:39] And if you have a major storm surge coming from the west.

[14:44] And there's no gates to block the storm surge.

[14:46] It'll fill up the canals.

[14:48] Philip Golden Gate Estates and 40,000 houses will flood,

[14:52] catastrophically, in the next 5 years.

[14:56] And I thought I'd bring this to your attention so you can address the mechanical

[15:00] issues with this problem.

[15:03] The hydrology is this.

[15:05] The system you have now is over 40, 50 years old,

[15:08] it's not engineered for the watershed component right now.

[15:12] It's in the estates and the surrounding area with

[15:15] all the new developments.

[15:17] And if we don't address this problem in the next 5 years, it

[15:20] will flood, and it will be catastrophic.

[15:24] And if there's any way that your board could put

[15:27] in some type of, um,

[15:32] Flood pumping stations, and certain areas

[15:35] of the estates to address this problem.

[15:39] Uh, when the catastrophic storms hit that,

[15:43] um, this gravity flow system you have now is antiquated

[15:47] and it will not move the water fast enough, so

[15:50] that these states won't flood.

[15:52] And if you have any questions, I like to answer them.

[15:55] Okay.

[15:56] Thank you very much.

[15:57] We did receive your handout.

[15:59] Okay.

[15:59] I had a copy of it at my place, and I think each

[16:02] of the board members received a copy as well.

[16:04] So we'll have to take a moment to digest

[16:08] some of your comments from that.

[16:09] And I appreciate you coming today and bringing this concern to our attention.

[16:13] Thank you very much.

[16:14] Thank you.

[16:15] I have just one more concern about these floodgates.

[16:17] They're all exposed to hurricane force wind.

[16:21] They are, um, the water level's too high, and

[16:25] you have mosquito problems and algae problems that

[16:29] are building up in the canals, and all the canals in

[16:32] the estates are overfilling and overtopping.

[16:34] And because the system is,

[16:37] they're holding too much water back.

[16:39] If they could push the water out periodically

[16:42] to flush the system out, then fill back

[16:45] in again, get rid of all the mosquito larvae, mosquito control

[16:48] won't have to use so much chemicals and spray the area.

[16:51] Thank you.

[16:53] Thank you very much.

[16:53] And I would encourage you to meet with separately

[16:56] with our water manager at the basin, to

[16:59] go into it in detail.

[17:00] All right, thank you for your time.

[17:02] Thank you very much.

[17:03] Have a nice weekend.

[17:04] Madam, sure, that's our only comment here in the room and there are no

[17:07] hands raised on Zoom at this time.

[17:08] Okay, great.

[17:09] Then we'll move on to board comment.

[17:12] We'll go ahead and start with Mr. Romano.

[17:15] And for me.

[17:16] Okay, Ms. Lenard?

[17:18] None for me.

[17:18] Mr. Hill?

[17:19] Uh, n none.

[17:21] Uh, Ms. Smith?

[17:23] Um, are any of my colleagues joining me to do

[17:26] the, the, um, trash pickup, the

[17:29] beautified, what is it called, Lisa?

[17:31] Keep calling.

[17:32] Keep calling.

[17:32] Beautiful?

[17:36] It's a question to all of you.

[17:38] What day was it?

[17:40] Do you have it on...?

[17:42] Spurious days, or...?

[17:43] It's one day.

[17:44] I sorry.

[17:44] Towards the end of September.

[17:46] Yeah.

[17:46] It is.

[17:46] I don't have the date off hand, but I know it was an email that was sent out a

[17:50] couple weeks ago, I think.

[17:51] We can resend it to you all and refresh your emails.

[17:54] I just like to encourage them to join me.

[17:57] Okay, great.

[17:58] Michelle?

[17:59] Yeah, I believe I have a conflict.

[18:01] That's why I didn't respond.

[18:02] We've got, I want to say that it's

[18:06] conflicting with the resiliency conference that's coming

[18:09] up for both Southwest Florida and the

[18:12] Florida State resiliency conference, but I'm

[18:15] not sure if that's the conflict, but there was one on my calendar.

[18:19] And I'll be out of that country during that time frame.

[18:22] So I would do it for sure.

[18:24] Okay.

[18:25] Okay, you may maybe they're holding up the flag there for us.

[18:29] So.

[18:31] I'll get the other Michelle to come.

[18:35] So the other Michelle has, I'm also committed

[18:38] kind of through Barefoot Beach.

[18:40] So I always say that, to be honest with

[18:44] you, when I walk the beach, I do trash pickup every time.

[18:47] I don't, but I will look at my calendar for you.

[18:49] How's that?

[18:50] Fantastic.

[18:51] I'm not opposed to coming if I'm available.

[18:53] Can I make a comment?

[18:55] I walked with Michelle on the beach before and I can attest.

[18:59] She's right.

[18:59] She'll pick up any kind of trash she sees.

[19:01] Yeah, I'm like ridiculous.

[19:03] That's wonderful.

[19:04] That's wonderful.

[19:05] That's all I have.

[19:06] Okay, thank you.

[19:07] I have one thing.

[19:09] I had an opportunity to go out in the field, um, to

[19:13] greenheart of the Everglades.

[19:15] And as you know, I mentioned

[19:18] before, I believe, that, that we are,

[19:22] we took over this one area off of 41, that, that

[19:26] was kind of dilapidated, had a failing

[19:29] seawall, had some dead trees that were

[19:32] kind of leaning into the water.

[19:34] And our folks, have

[19:37] begun cleaning it up, and our field station guys,

[19:41] talked to Rory Feeney, and thought

[19:45] that they could do some of the work in house, and save some money, because you

[19:48] know that it's not in the budget right now,

[19:51] because it came upon us outside of the cycle.

[19:54] And so they've been working very, very hard to

[19:57] clean up the area and get it ready so that we can put some

[20:00] surfacing on that area that's

[20:04] already asphalt and concrete and put a

[20:07] canoe launch there or a kayak launch and get it in use

[20:10] for our public to go out there.

[20:11] So that's exciting and that should be coming towards

[20:15] the end of the year as well.

[20:16] So just in time for perfect weather, and I

[20:19] want to thank everyone who's involved with

[20:22] working together in order to make this possible, and

[20:26] doing such good work with it.

[20:28] So thank you.

[20:29] And Lisa, thank you for hurting all the cats and dogs and

[20:32] and keeping this on track.

[20:35] But Greenheart of the Everglades is extra special to our community

[20:38] and to the greater South Florida water management district,

[20:41] and I just want to say thank you to the folks for doing that.

[20:46] All right, and that, uh, if there's no further, uh,

[20:50] board comment.

[20:52] I'm going to call on Rory Feeney to provide us with an

[20:55] update on the crew marsh restoration project.

[21:00] That was a good opening for you and all the great work you're doing.

[21:03] Yeah, thank you.

[21:04] The fuel station's doing phenomenal job.

[21:06] Actually, I have Madam Chair and

[21:09] board members have the privilege of handing this presentation over

[21:13] to Rick Bauer.

[21:14] He is our regional land manager for the crew area.

[21:18] I began working at the district for about a

[21:21] year ago, came to the district, from Lee

[21:24] County, Parks and Recreation as a land manager there.

[21:27] So I'm pleased to present Rick formally to the

[21:30] board, and he'll be discussing the crew marsh restoration.

[21:34] I'd also like to take this opportunity to recognize

[21:37] Marshall Ward.

[21:38] She's our new section, land stewardship section administrator.

[21:42] She comes to the district from FWC

[21:45] after 20 plus years with FWC, as a biologist,

[21:48] and as a regional administrator over 10

[21:52] wildlife management areas, I believe, Marcia.

[21:54] And she's been with the district for about 6 months now.

[21:56] Right.

[21:57] Two great people today.

[21:58] Welcome, Bern.

[21:59] Right.

[22:00] Thank you.

[22:00] Here you go, Rick.

[22:05] Thank you, Rory.

[22:06] And good morning, Madam Chair and board members.

[22:08] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present on our corkscrew

[22:11] marsh restoration update.

[22:13] So Corkscrew Marsh is a 7300 acre

[22:16] parcel of the Corkscrew regional ecosystem watershed.

[22:19] It's primarily a basin marsh surrounded by music,

[22:22] flatwoods, and hammocks.

[22:24] And the marsh system provides critical habitat for a lot of our protected

[22:27] species, such as the Everglades snail kite and woodstork photo to hear.

[22:32] And the marsh itself was primarily an herbaceous

[22:35] sawgrass marsh historically.

[22:38] However, over the past few decades, it's suffered from a

[22:41] recruitment of undesirable woody species such as

[22:44] Carolina Willow.

[22:45] Those woody species create woody monocultures that

[22:48] shade out our herbaceous vegetation and can lead to a loss

[22:51] of biodiversity, not just in our plant systems, but with

[22:55] our wildlife species as well.

[22:56] So the district has been implementing pest

[23:00] management strategy in order to combat those effects.

[23:04] And the main tool of our plant management, a

[23:07] pest management strategy is mechanical vegetation reduction.

[23:10] And as you can see here, we are targeting not only

[23:13] Carolina Willow, but some other undesirable woody species,

[23:16] such as button, button bush, and red maple.

[23:19] And most of the work that the district has been performing

[23:22] is up at our corkscrew marsh trail system.

[23:24] However, we have done some test plots and some other

[23:27] areas, such as the Corsgrew marsh camping site and

[23:31] the Cypress Dome hiking trails.

[23:33] And the district has been performing this work since 2021.

[23:36] We've been averaging about 19 acres mulch per year.

[23:41] And fortunately, we've been blessed

[23:44] that our partners at FWC have been able to provide

[23:47] additional multi-mulching acreage from

[23:50] some funding that they've procured as well in 2025

[23:53] and 2026.

[23:55] And for the next slides.

[23:57] I'm going to be focusing on this main system that we've been performing

[24:00] up at the coursescrew marsh Trail system.

[24:04] So this is located where the Marsh Observation

[24:07] Tower is, if you're familiar with that area.

[24:09] It provides a good anchor point for us to start our

[24:12] work and work on some of the drier areas of

[24:15] the march system while working towards some of the interior

[24:18] where it gets a little bit wetter.

[24:19] It also provides us an opportunity for the public to

[24:23] view our restoration efforts of trying to restore

[24:26] this system as well.

[24:27] And we've been doing this for a couple reasons.

[24:30] One, it's a little bit easier for our contractors to get into that area,

[24:33] but we're also trying to keep a big block of polygons

[24:37] open for prescribed fire treatment, which is another land

[24:40] management tool that I'll touch on a little bit later.

[24:44] So for the planned work for this past fiscal year,

[24:47] we are going to continue to work interior and building on that polygon.

[24:51] However, when our contractors started working in this area, they

[24:54] found this area to be a little bit more wet than they were anticipating,

[24:57] that led to some rutting from their equipment and

[25:00] some downtime from them getting stuck.

[25:03] So instead of trying to force our way through there and potentially

[25:06] causing more harm than good.

[25:08] Um, we decided to rotate towards our contingency plan,

[25:11] which was to continue and expand that area down

[25:15] by the Corsegrew Marsh campsite that we had done that test plot at in.

[25:19] And you can see that we continued that work, again,

[25:22] working from the exterior towards the interior, addressing

[25:25] some of those drier areas, and trying to keep in

[25:28] mind our prescribed fire follow-up treatments as well.

[25:32] This ideally helps us out also because this provides

[25:35] us as another area that we can apply those prescribed fire treatments.

[25:38] That way we're not doing one burn every 2 to 4 years, which

[25:41] is the ideal fire return interval, but

[25:45] we can burn one one year, wait a year, burn another another year.

[25:48] And that way we're continuing those treatments.

[25:51] And the contractor uses a variety of equipment based on

[25:54] the environmental conditions that they're encountering.

[25:56] And this photo on the left, you can see a forestry mulcher

[25:59] on the left-hand side of that photo.

[26:01] That is a machine that can move very quickly and efficiently

[26:04] and cover a lot of acres in a short amount of time.

[26:07] However, it's a little bit limited because it'll

[26:10] get bogged down in wet areas.

[26:11] And when they start to encounter those wet areas,

[26:15] that's when they switch to the excavator with a mulching head.

[26:18] It has a lower PSI on the treads so it doesn't create as much running.

[26:22] And also it allows it to pick its spots of where

[26:25] it positions itself in the drier areas and swings its boom

[26:28] around to mulch those, Willow, and other woody species

[26:31] that we're looking to treat.

[26:33] And when we do this project, we mulch the vegetation all the way to the ground.

[26:37] This does not, unfortunately it does not kill the plant entirely.

[26:40] However, as these re-sprout,

[26:43] we're hoping that this project is performed as close to the wet season as possible.

[26:47] So as the resprouts start to form, the water levels will

[26:50] rise and either drown out the plants and potentially kill it,

[26:54] or at least it inhibits its growth enough for a lot

[26:57] of that emergence vegetation that we're looking to bring

[27:01] back into the system, starts to recover.

[27:04] And it recovers very, very quickly.

[27:06] In this photo, you can see that this was

[27:09] taken as mulching was occurring.

[27:12] So it was only about a week after this area was mulched.

[27:15] And in the photo, you can see a lot of those desirable native

[27:18] vegetative species coming back, such as sawgrass and

[27:21] cat tail and Sagittarian pickerel weed.

[27:24] However, this ultimately is not a one catch all

[27:27] treatment for restoring these areas.

[27:30] And we do have to implement one of our most effective land

[27:33] management tools, which is prescribed burning.

[27:35] And we were able to conduct a prescribed burn in July of this

[27:38] year for some of those areas that had been mulched in the past.

[27:41] Our primary objective was to reduce woody

[27:45] species rejuvenation and recruitment, with

[27:48] a secondary objective to reduce some of those cattail monocultures

[27:51] that had come back in some of the areas that we had mulched.

[27:55] And we were a little bit fortunate enough that

[27:58] in, uh, this year it was a little bit drier than we were anticipating.

[28:01] So when we did this burn during the height of growing season, which is

[28:05] ideal for treating those woody species.

[28:08] The water levels were a little bit lower.

[28:09] So combining high winds with

[28:13] aggressive firing techniques, we were able to achieve

[28:17] a lot of those results of reducing those woody vegetations that

[28:20] are spending a lot of energy, growing instead of trying

[28:23] to defend themselves against these systems.

[28:25] So the prescribed burn ended up being about 80 acres,

[28:29] and here is an image overlay of the area that was

[28:32] treated with the prescribed fire over top of the areas that was mulch.

[28:36] And you can see that most of the areas that were burned and

[28:39] covered in our prescribed fire treatment were areas that were mulched prior to last year.

[28:43] That is the result of those areas accumulating

[28:47] more fuels during those years, whereas things that were mulched

[28:50] last year just haven't had enough fuels to recover during that time period.

[28:53] The exception being there's areas that the cattail

[28:56] monocultures were starting to come back because cattails are very susceptible to burning.

[29:01] And when we took a look at our fire evaluations

[29:05] post-burn, you can see that this photo on the left, this

[29:08] is an area that was mulched in 2025 on the left in

[29:11] the area that didn't burn next to an area that had no

[29:14] treatment in history with vegetative reduction mechanically.

[29:17] So you can see that the, even with the aggressive firing

[29:20] techniques, the fire pushed through the area that wasn't mulched, but ended up

[29:24] stopping short just because those fuels hadn't accumulated enough.

[29:26] However, if we wait 2 or 3 years for the next fire return

[29:30] interval to come back, there is a lot of beneficial pyric

[29:33] vegetation in that community that was mulched in 2025

[29:36] that should allow that treatment to be more effective.

[29:38] And in the photo on the right, you can see this was an area that

[29:41] was mulched in 2023, looking into an

[29:45] area that was mulched last year.

[29:46] And you can see a little bit of an edge effect on the fire where it started to

[29:49] brown out those willow recruits that are coming back.

[29:52] And hopefully, again, allowing for more fuel accumulation.

[29:55] Future prescribed fires can be more beneficial.

[29:59] And we had the most success in areas with high fuels.

[30:02] So this photo on the left is an area that's primarily sawgrass dominated.

[30:06] That was 1st mulched in 2021 and then burned in 2023.

[30:10] And you can see that there is a gray layer of haze

[30:14] kind of just beneath the pine canopy.

[30:16] Those are all three-year-old willows that have been completely torched out.

[30:19] Um, and given that this area was

[30:22] mulched and has now been burned twice, um, with a

[30:25] fire intensity that we had in there, we don't expect many woody species

[30:28] to be successful recruiting in that area.

[30:31] And in the area on the right, this is an area that has not been mulched at all.

[30:34] And while you can see that there was not complete defoliation of a

[30:37] lot of the woody species.

[30:39] There is that browning out.

[30:40] So whatever woody species that weren't killed outright

[30:43] in the fire, they should be at least stressed enough that they're being

[30:46] reset to 0 and having to sprout from the ground.

[30:50] And we even had some unexpected effects in areas

[30:53] that had high cattails.

[30:54] So for these types of burns, we use the mature willows as a fire brake.

[30:58] A natural fire brake, which you can see on the left.

[31:01] This is an area where willow that has not been treated,

[31:04] the fire pushed in about 10 yards, and Willow is

[31:07] not very receptive to burning, so the flames were then extinguished.

[31:10] But it did have a good edge effect on that mature willow.

[31:14] In the photo on the right, that is an area where mature

[31:18] willow has not been mulched at all, but the canopy was

[31:21] a little bit sparser, and there was a dense variety

[31:24] of cattails underneath of it that allowed the fire

[31:28] intensity to continue and push into those mature willow systems.

[31:31] This actually extended about a 100 yards through

[31:35] those mature willows.

[31:36] So this may end up being a couple of acres that we don't need to

[31:39] treat at all if it has the desired effects.

[31:43] I also wanted to touch a little bit on some research that

[31:46] we're conducting with our partners in geospatial

[31:50] over at headquarters.

[31:52] So we are doing what's called multi-spectral imagery detection.

[31:56] They basically take a high resolution aerial

[31:59] image of corkscrew marsh and run different

[32:02] wavelengths of light through it, looking how different plant

[32:05] signatures come back to it.

[32:06] So in this map, Willow shows up as

[32:10] red or as pink, depending on what other sort of woody

[32:13] species are mixed in.

[32:14] Um, herbaceous vegetation, so there's up as green,

[32:17] and open water shows up as teal.

[32:19] So that area that's pointed out in the map where the previous molt

[32:23] chain has occurred, that's areas that is flooded and surface

[32:26] water that's reflecting back that signature.

[32:28] And from this, we can see that there's a density

[32:31] of willow surrounding the edge of the marsh.

[32:34] And for the central marsh basin, the

[32:37] eastern side is pretty heavily dominated by Willow.

[32:40] However, the Western side, it looks like there's a lot more

[32:43] open areas where there's not that much willow showing up, which

[32:46] was a little bit of a surprise for us.

[32:48] So the next effort to go out

[32:51] and validate this model is to go out and hike in ground truth.

[32:55] So these are photos that were taken in that area where it shows

[32:58] the more pristine marsh.

[33:00] And this is much more typical of what a basin marsh should look like.

[33:03] There's still Button Bush and Willow and

[33:06] other woody species that you would expect, but they're in low densities

[33:09] and the majority of the vegetation is

[33:12] herbaceous.

[33:13] And this is an area that has no history of mechanical

[33:17] or prescribed fire treatments.

[33:19] To further, uh, validate our model.

[33:22] We are also partnering with our drone team over at headquarters

[33:26] to fly transex over the areas that have the transition

[33:29] genes from where Willow starts to go into those

[33:32] more herbaceous vegetative areas.

[33:34] And they take very detailed,

[33:38] high resolution videos down to less intensive an inch,

[33:42] in order to see what sort of species we're seen

[33:45] and further adapt our model and potentially

[33:48] also planned for future land management activities.

[33:54] So where does this leave us today?

[33:56] We'd like to continue the mechanical work.

[33:59] Ideally, we would like to start linking some of these areas of the pristine marsh.

[34:03] This aerial imagery that's shown with a multispectral

[34:07] detection is a couple years old, so it doesn't show the work that was performed this year.

[34:11] However, that area that we mulched down by

[34:14] the corkscrew marsh campsite almost broke through that

[34:17] buffer layer of mature willow.

[34:20] Also, the area up at Courstream Marsh,

[34:23] hiking system, where the majority of the work has been performed.

[34:26] There's also an airboat launch up there.

[34:28] So if we link these areas of pristine march during the wet season,

[34:31] we should be able to get airboats in the area and do future land management

[34:34] activities, further analyze how the system is responding,

[34:38] and do future planning efforts.

[34:40] We'd also like to try using different types of equipment.

[34:44] That excavator is ideal right now for some of

[34:47] the aquatic areas that we're working in.

[34:49] But as we get into the deeper water areas, it's also going

[34:52] to experience running and limitations when we have wetter

[34:55] than anticipated years.

[34:56] However, there are aquatic excavators that the tracks

[34:59] are basically booms like on a pontoon boat

[35:02] that can access those areas much more effectively with

[35:05] less impact to the environment.

[35:08] We also want to continue our prescribed fire regime.

[35:11] That's obviously the most cost-effective method that we have.

[35:15] In addition to restoring it to a natural state.

[35:19] We want to continue that prescribed fire return

[35:23] interval on our mulch areas.

[35:25] But we also want to start targeting those higher fuel areas.

[35:28] This area in the northern marsh, where it's

[35:31] identified on the map.

[35:33] That's, again, it's more of a modeled color because that

[35:36] is a less dense area of canopy with cattails underneath of it.

[35:40] And if we can get fire brakes set

[35:43] in around it, it's a potential that prescribed burning will

[35:46] treat that whole area without having to do mechanical work, which

[35:50] will make things go a lot quicker.

[35:52] And we also want to maintain the high quality habitat.

[35:56] That central marsh on the western section where we're

[35:59] seeing a lot more of that typical besian marsh system.

[36:02] We'd like to introduce fire in that to help maintain

[36:05] that and keep the willow from spreading in further.

[36:08] And we have already been in contact with our partners

[36:11] at the Florida Forest Service and planning some Ariel Burns

[36:14] potentially for that system.

[36:18] And I'd be ever missed if I didn't recognize all of our partners

[36:21] that helped make this work possible.

[36:23] Obviously, FWC, who helps co-manage this property

[36:26] with us, along with our partners at the crew land and water

[36:29] trust, conservation collier, and the department environmental

[36:32] protection that assist us, particularly with those prescribed fires.

[36:36] And with that, I'll take any questions.

[36:39] All right, thank you for your excellent presentation.

[36:42] It's very informative.

[36:43] Go ahead, Miss Smith.

[36:44] Um, You have a great planning

[36:48] mind because with all the conditions and financial,

[36:51] you know, the considerations, et cetera, you do a great job, um, and welcome to the team.

[36:55] So I thought I had a simple math question for

[36:58] you, but I don't think it's going to make sense now.

[37:01] But I'm going ask you anyways.

[37:03] So 73, 30, 7,330

[37:07] acres, and then you do 19 acres a year is,

[37:11] are you actually gaining ground or is

[37:15] it not all that 7300 that we have to be focused on?

[37:19] It's not the 7300 is not all

[37:22] that we have to be focused on.

[37:23] So the main marsh system makes up about 4500 of that.

[37:28] Um, there's areas where the hiking trails are in,

[37:31] uh, both at Corstery March and at Cypress Dems.

[37:33] There's a lot of music flatwoods in there.

[37:35] There's depressional marshes, which don't have the same sort

[37:38] of management, difficulties and challenges.

[37:41] Um, and there's hammocks as well.

[37:43] So it's just that main central marsh that we're working on.

[37:47] But also, that's why the prescribed fire isn't so

[37:50] important so that we don't backslide.

[37:52] We're not having to go back and retreat those areas and we're maintaining

[37:55] them as we make progress.

[37:57] Okay.

[37:58] Um, so you're using the drone.

[38:01] That was one of my questions is drawn because it's so effective.

[38:04] I'm assuming you're using AI to overlay this and really

[38:08] do some, that's a no-brainer question, right?

[38:11] Um, I'm not personally, that would probably be a

[38:14] question for our geospatial partners.

[38:16] They did most of the analysis.

[38:18] My effort in that was giving them areas where

[38:21] they could model effectively and also going out on the ground

[38:24] to validate the model.

[38:25] Okay.

[38:28] Cattails are our friend, right?

[38:31] They can be.

[38:32] Okay.

[38:33] They provide good wildlife habitat, particularly

[38:37] for rails and other species.

[38:39] And they also hold back nutrients from the water.

[38:42] The problem is, is that you don't want too much of anything,

[38:46] even though Carolina Willow is a native species.

[38:48] If it makes a monoculture, it leads to a loss in biodiversity.

[38:52] The same thing is true with cattails as well.

[38:56] And I have another question, but I can't read it.

[38:58] Oh, what is aerial burn?

[39:00] Like you said, you had aerial burn.

[39:01] So, um, for that, we would use a helicopter

[39:05] with an uh, HelaTorch on it, which basically lights

[39:08] the fire from underneath the helicopter.

[39:10] Um, and that way...

[39:12] Sorry, I love this, but...

[39:15] And that way it works much more effectively in aquatic

[39:18] areas where there may be water on the ground and you're looking to burn off some

[39:21] of that emergent vegetation and also areas where it's a little bit

[39:24] difficult to access, which obviously dealing with course through marshes.

[39:28] And this is a common, it's a common thing that you do is the aerial burn.

[39:31] Yes, it's one of the things that our bureau uses out for a

[39:34] lot of our lake Ochobee burns.

[39:36] Thank you for present, your presentation is very excellent.

[39:39] Thank you.

[39:40] Vice term, McCloud?

[39:41] Yes, great.

[39:42] Great presentation.

[39:43] Very thorough.

[39:46] Just in trying to understand our role in this.

[39:49] What kind of effects do

[39:53] these have, these efforts have on like water quality?

[39:58] Flooding?

[39:59] So, uh, it helps out a lot with just restoring the marsh

[40:02] to the natural system, um, just as like Miss Keeler was mentioning

[40:05] with the corkscrew watershed initiative.

[40:07] We're looking to get it back to that natural state.

[40:09] So all the efforts that we're

[40:12] doing is helping to address water quality in

[40:15] addition to hydration of the aquifers and all those

[40:18] other big picture efforts.

[40:20] Okay, thank you.

[40:23] I have a couple of questions.

[40:26] Do we currently have an updated land management plan for this area?

[40:30] Yes.

[40:31] The land management plan was last updated

[40:35] in 2023, I believe, for corkscrew marsh, Regulia.

[40:39] for the olive crew.

[40:41] Olive crew.

[40:42] Okay, so you're working off of that in chipping

[40:45] away at 19 acres a year, roughly.

[40:48] Yes, ma'am.

[40:49] Do we have the capacity to do more if the funding was there?

[40:53] Yes, ma'am.

[40:54] Okay, so we do have the capacity to move that along.

[40:58] The aerial imaging

[41:01] that you showed, was that just

[41:04] standard imaging

[41:07] or are we using drone technology for that?

[41:10] How are we doing that imagery that you showed?

[41:13] A little bit of both.

[41:14] So the aerial imagery.

[41:16] I forget which service geospatial uses, but they

[41:19] can basically pick which date the satellite

[41:23] imagery was taken, and that way we use the plant's biology

[41:26] most effectively.

[41:28] So some of the areas that we built

[41:31] into the model were during flowering season, when the Carolina

[41:34] Willow is producing those bright yellow flowers, in

[41:38] order to use that as part of the signature.

[41:39] And some of it was during just the regular summertime when

[41:42] it has leaves on it.

[41:45] And that way we can combine those to make a more accurate model.

[41:48] Obviously, if you're using aerial imagery with a deciduous

[41:51] plant, like the Carolina Willow, if you're doing it in wintertime when they

[41:54] don't have any leaves, the model is not going to be very effective.

[41:58] Um, so, uh, that's primarily what we've been using,

[42:01] but those very detailed high resolution imagery

[42:04] that the drones took a couple weeks ago when we were validating

[42:08] those transects.

[42:09] Those will become very effective because we

[42:12] can actually see plant species because again, the resolution is

[42:15] like .8 inches per pixel.

[42:18] So one of the steps in

[42:21] the process or one of the 1st steps is to get that imagery, right?

[42:24] Yes.

[42:25] And then you plan what needs to be treated

[42:28] as a priority based upon the density and the

[42:31] type of plant that you see in those areas.

[42:33] Yes, ma'am.

[42:34] And that's why, that's why we're kind of adapting our strategy

[42:37] a little bit, because we've been able to verify

[42:40] that that Western part of the marsh is in much more of

[42:43] a pristine state than we would anticipate.

[42:46] So it could maybe be maintained right

[42:50] now instead of being put into maintenance, right,

[42:53] by some treatment?

[42:54] That's excellent.

[42:57] Because that's pretty impressive, that imagery that's able

[43:00] to pick out the type of plant that's on the ground and that.

[43:04] So great, great job.

[43:06] I don't see any other questions from the board.

[43:09] The only other comment that I have today is

[43:12] Rory's birthday, Rory Feeney, and he's joining us today at

[43:15] our board meeting for that.

[43:17] And as what do we do at the basin when we have a birthday,

[43:20] we've got cupcakes, right?

[43:21] So we have cupcakes to share with you and the staff

[43:24] can certainly take cupcakes as they go.

[43:27] So thank you, Rick, for being a part of it, and thank you for your excellent presentation.

[43:32] Thank you, ma'am.

[43:33] job.

[43:34] That brings us, is there any public comment?

[43:36] No, ma'am, we have not.

[43:38] Okay.

[43:39] The next item is the reason

[43:43] why we're here, and that is the fiscal 2627

[43:46] budget presentation by Candida Heater.

[43:56] Welcome, candy.

[43:59] Thank you, Madam Chair.

[44:00] Basin board members.

[44:01] Thank you for having us here today.

[44:07] So today's presentation is to,

[44:11] uh, finalize and, uh, request

[44:14] approval, uh, for the basin

[44:18] milledge rate and the basin's budget, which

[44:22] will, um, then be reflected in

[44:26] the district's overall, tentative

[44:29] and final milledge rate and adopted budget.

[44:34] For fiscal year 2026, 27,

[44:38] which begins October one of 2026,

[44:41] and then will end in September 30th of 2027.

[44:46] So today's presentation will briefly go

[44:50] over the millage rate.

[44:52] Millage rate is your 1st discussion.

[44:54] Then go over the revenues and

[44:58] expense, overview, some budget highlights.

[45:02] And then at the end, staff will

[45:05] be requesting 2 motions, and

[45:08] they will be requested to be voted on separately.

[45:16] So the first topic, the millage rate.

[45:19] The fiscal year 2026, uh, 27

[45:23] proposed milage rate is 0.0978 mils.

[45:28] That is $9.78

[45:31] per $100,000 of taxable value.

[45:37] This millage rate is the same millage

[45:40] rate that was proposed in July.

[45:43] There is no change, as well as it is

[45:46] the same millage rate as the current year, meaning there's

[45:50] no increase in military.

[45:52] The millage rate for a $500,000 home

[45:56] would equal about $48.90

[45:59] for the year.

[46:01] And this rate then covers services

[46:05] within the basin within Collier County,

[46:08] for flood control, picking operations,

[46:12] um, groundwater monitoring, uh, et cetera.

[46:20] The budget proposed before you

[46:23] today is $23,648,374.

[46:30] It is the same amount.

[46:32] that was proposed in July, so there

[46:35] is no change in the revenues nor the expenditures

[46:39] to the left are your revenues.

[46:42] Your advalorum taxes.

[46:43] at 68% or $15.9

[46:47] million of that $23000000

[46:50] proposed budget, as well as some

[46:53] intergovernmental federal revenues

[46:56] that are projected, um, to

[46:59] be received from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as

[47:03] a potential reimbursement based on those expenses

[47:07] for picking in strand operations.

[47:10] Utilizing some fun balances, about

[47:13] 13% or $3.1

[47:18] million.

[47:19] And then various other revenues, such as investment income,

[47:23] right away permits, service center lease,

[47:26] as well as some fund balances from,

[47:30] they call your county cooperative agreement for Gordon and Palm.

[47:34] To the right are your proposed expenditure

[47:38] categories, the largest vein within your

[47:41] capital projects, uh, at 31%

[47:44] or 740000000 dollars, and

[47:47] then moving to uh, restoration of Picayune

[47:50] Strand at 4 million, uh, the service

[47:54] uh, center, as well as flood control

[47:57] operations, a little over $6000000

[48:01] And then Gordon and Palm at 900 uh 1000

[48:04] land stewardship at 883,000.

[48:10] So this is a little different.

[48:11] Part of this presentation in August that

[48:15] we present compared to the July, where

[48:19] we break down those areas within the

[48:22] district, the South Florida water management district, that is responsible

[48:25] for implementing the

[48:28] basin's work plan and those activities that we just briefly discussed.

[48:32] So first, the administrative services and executive

[48:36] offices at $612,000.

[48:39] That is made up of your general services and

[48:42] facility staff, um, that maintains the service

[48:45] center, uh, portion of that, uh,

[48:48] funding comes from the lease.

[48:50] The lease does cover a lot of those expenses.

[48:53] The picking strand, water quality, monitoring and lab analysis,

[48:57] which is under your water quality, a bureau

[49:00] within the South Florida water management district, and then all

[49:03] the control room.

[49:05] at headquarters that works

[49:08] with your water managers

[49:11] here at the basin for water management oversight.

[49:16] Also, ecosystem restoration, which is a division,

[49:19] um, within the district is $745,000,

[49:23] um, that is dominantly their responsibility

[49:26] for the basin that they'll be working on in 2627

[49:30] is the picking strand, threatening endangered species,

[49:33] aquatic vegetation, monitoring, uh, service

[49:36] center, uh, that uh, covers outreach

[49:39] and communication, uh, basin, water management, modeling,

[49:44] support.

[49:47] Your engineering and construction, uh, and modeling

[49:50] division, um, that's under, um, Ms. Lucinay

[49:53] that often comes over and presents, you know,

[49:56] for the basin at $9 million.

[50:00] This is the area that's responsible for

[50:03] the basin's projects.

[50:08] Field operations and, uh, which includes land management.

[50:12] This is at $7.8 million,

[50:15] and as we see here on the slide, dominantly

[50:19] responsible for maintaining the canals,

[50:22] the water control structures, Picayune

[50:26] strand operations.

[50:29] As well as the land management support for the various areas within the basin.

[50:36] Information technology.

[50:38] at 337,000.

[50:39] Um, this is made up of your SCATA team.

[50:43] It supports your SCATA system.

[50:45] as well as base and board support.

[50:48] And then you have the reserve's debt fees and charges,

[50:51] which the basin doesn't have any debt.

[50:53] And that's your emergency reserves, which is $2 million.

[50:59] Property appraiser, tax collector fees, self-insurance program.

[51:07] As mentioned earlier, the next steps, after this

[51:11] meeting is the inclusion of the basin's

[51:14] milledge and budget within the district's

[51:17] overall budget for the September

[51:20] 10th hearing at 515 in

[51:24] West Palm Beach and then September 22nd.

[51:32] So the 1st motion, being

[51:36] requested, is the milledge.

[51:39] Staff, uh, requests, the

[51:43] basin board of the South Florida Water Management District to approve the

[51:46] submittal of the millage rate of 0.0978 mills.

[51:53] For fiscal year 202627, requesting

[51:57] the board of the South Florida Water Management District

[52:00] to levy those Advalorum taxes within the Big Cypress

[52:03] Basin, on that rate to finance basin

[52:07] functions contained.

[52:09] In the fiscal year 2627 basin budget.

[52:14] Thank you, Ms. Heater.

[52:15] Troy, is there any public comment on this item?

[52:20] We have no registered speakers here in the room and no hands raised on Zoom, Mr. Chair.

[52:24] Thank you.

[52:25] Are there any board questions for candy on this item?

[52:30] Saying none if I could have a motion and a 2nd for

[52:33] this, this...

[52:35] So moved.

[52:36] Okay, Andy Hill moves to approve the military.

[52:39] Second.

[52:40] Vice chair McLeod, seconds.

[52:42] I'll now do a roll call vote.

[52:45] Mr. Romano?

[52:46] No.

[52:50] Ms. Leonhard?

[52:51] Yes.

[52:53] Mr. Hill?

[52:53] Yes?

[52:56] Ms. Smith?

[52:57] Yes.

[52:58] Vice Chair McLeod?

[52:59] Yes.

[53:00] And I vote, yes.

[53:01] That passes 5 to one.

[53:03] Thank you.

[53:05] The next resolution, staff request,

[53:09] a resolution of the big Cypress Basin

[53:12] board of the South Florida Water Management District,

[53:15] submitting the fiscal year 2026, 2027

[53:18] basin budget, in the amount of $23,648,374

[53:26] to the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District

[53:29] for inclusion in the district's budget.

[53:32] Thank you, Candy.

[53:33] Troy, is there any public comment?

[53:36] No, ma'am.

[53:37] Okay, is there any board comments or questions for candy?

[53:40] Seeing none?

[53:42] I'll take a motion and a second.

[53:44] So moved?

[53:45] Is that count?

[53:46] Mr. Hill moves to approve.

[53:49] Vice chair McLeod seconds.

[53:51] We'll now do a roll call vote.

[53:53] Mr. Romano?

[53:54] No.

[53:55] Um, Miss Lenhardt.

[53:57] Yes.

[53:58] Mr. Hill.

[53:59] Yes.

[54:00] Miss Smith.

[54:01] Yes.

[54:01] Vice chair McLeod?

[54:03] Yes.

[54:04] And I vote, yes.

[54:05] That passes 5 to 1.

[54:09] Thank you very much, Candy.

[54:10] Thank you.

[54:13] Okay, that brings us to our technical reports.

[54:17] With our field station activity report,

[54:20] with Mike Barber and Mike, you're on Zoom.

[54:23] Can you hear us, and go ahead?

[54:27] Yes, ma'am.

[54:27] Here?

[54:28] Good morning, Madam Chair and fellow boardmen.

[54:30] I am Mike Barber, supervisor for the Big Cypress Phil Station.

[54:36] And I'll be presenting the fuel station activity report today.

[54:42] We'll go over pump station operations, different

[54:45] activities that we do within the maintenance area,

[54:49] and an outlet.

[54:54] Here on the airport road canal, we're doing mechanical

[54:57] harvesting, we're using the truck store,

[55:01] one of the pieces of equipment that we have, where this

[55:04] machine comes in handy.

[55:05] You can drive it down to banks.

[55:07] You don't have to have the access ramps.

[55:10] We go in, we cut the vegetation,

[55:14] put it on the bank, and go back and pick it up with

[55:17] the skid steer, move it where we can get to it,

[55:20] with the trash truck and haul it off.

[55:27] Here is another type of equipment

[55:30] we use for the mechanical harvesting, this is with

[55:33] help from West Palm Field Station with their crane and crane

[55:36] operator, and Miami Field Station with

[55:39] a towboat and towboat operator.

[55:43] We put this in the bigger canals, the deeper canals.

[55:46] It's got the big plow, as you can see on the pitcher on the left.

[55:50] You can see the big plow behind it.

[55:52] They can drag that behind this towboat and

[55:55] it actually breaks the vegetation loose from

[55:58] the bottom of the canal.

[56:00] We ran the I 75 canal from Pine

[56:04] Ridge all the way down to Golden Gate and then

[56:07] transferred over to the Golden Gate canal and ran

[56:10] it from Golden Gate 2 to Golden Gate 3.

[56:14] We spent about a month and a half doing this and it

[56:17] has now been sent back to the Miami Field Station.

[56:21] And doing this, this helps with vegetation.

[56:24] We get it before it gets bad.

[56:26] We don't have to spray it as much or do heavier

[56:29] treatments if we can keep doing this mechanical harvesting.

[56:37] Here there are some trees that were spotted by some

[56:40] of our subcontractors, so we went out.

[56:43] This is on a Cypress canal.

[56:44] We went out and uh, The group,

[56:47] the team members went out and cut these trees up before they got down into

[56:50] the hallway into the canal and transferred

[56:53] down against the structure and caused any damage or any blockage.

[56:58] They cut them all up, removed them, and hauled them to the Atlantic.

[57:06] Here we're at FICA 5 where we changed out some

[57:09] damaged wiring or some gearboxes.

[57:12] It was just some stuff that need to be done within the maintenance

[57:16] realm of doing things.

[57:19] There's several other guys changing wires and then our

[57:22] IT tech working on getting everything back

[57:25] to where it's back in operation four.

[57:32] Here we assisted the skate of the

[57:36] group with solar panel upgrades.

[57:39] We went from 150 or from a 100

[57:42] watts, solar panel through this bigger 350

[57:45] watt panel.

[57:46] We went from ATM batteries to lithium batteries.

[57:51] This helps with left sunlight,

[57:54] charges faster, and then also this keeps the RTUs running.

[57:58] Say, if you do lose power or the generator fails

[58:01] or anything like that, this keeps the RTUs

[58:04] up and running so that we can still receive data.

[58:07] We did this in-house to save money so we

[58:10] didn't have to get contractors and stuff like that.

[58:12] And this has been done at Cocoa 3, Cocoa 2.

[58:16] And now, as of last week, Cocoa one has been upgraded also.

[58:25] Here we have Phil Station, technician

[58:28] working on the side gate.

[58:30] We had a storm and lightning hit the control board and

[58:33] took out the little gearbox motor.

[58:36] We do this in-house so we don't have to hire it out,

[58:39] save the district money by doing a lot of stuff like this in-house.

[58:47] Our normal cars in the canal.

[58:49] Car on the left, went into the Facto Canal on July

[58:53] 3rd, car on the right, went to the airport road,

[58:56] canal on July 30th.

[58:58] Both drivers walked away.

[59:00] But no injuries, minimal damage

[59:03] to the canal bank.

[59:04] We was able just to rank down the ruts where they drug them back

[59:07] out and everything's good to go.

[59:13] Here we had, this is at the fuel station, one of the doors

[59:17] was leaking around the top.

[59:19] So, again, in-house repairs,

[59:22] we went and got some rain gutters, rain gutter, door guards,

[59:25] and installed them over the door to keep it from running down and running through the top of the door.

[59:33] Here's our 3 month outlook.

[59:36] You know, just our normal preventive maintenance and inspections.

[59:40] Keep on doing our vegetation, control.

[59:43] Continue working on our canals.

[59:46] And we'll be waiting for when the rain gets here so we

[59:49] can do gate changes if needed.

[59:55] We'll transition now into the comprehensive Everglades

[59:58] Restoration Project Activity Report.

[1:00:05] Photo on the left shows a pub station operator

[1:00:08] manually exercising the vows on

[1:00:11] the fuel farm at the back of pub station.

[1:00:15] They do this, just to keep them, make sure they're moving, because during

[1:00:19] the dry season, nothing's actually getting used out there.

[1:00:22] It's just very little fuel, so these valves don't have to open and close much.

[1:00:25] So it goes around and manually moves these.

[1:00:29] They do this at each pump station.

[1:00:32] On the right is distribution

[1:00:35] pump shaft, while they was doing some maintenance, they noticed that

[1:00:39] the shaft was pitted, so they pulled that shaft out,

[1:00:42] had it sent off and recoded, put it back together this way.

[1:00:46] It doesn't cause any issues in the future.

[1:00:54] Here we have pump station operators

[1:00:57] replacing the stem boot covers on the gates.

[1:01:00] These boots go from the top of the gate to

[1:01:03] the bottom of the gearbox and they cover that stem.

[1:01:07] This keeps the dirt and trash from building up on the stem

[1:01:10] and being transferred into the gearbox and causing

[1:01:13] gearbox and gearbox damage.

[1:01:22] Phil station staff members had to go down these tough booms,

[1:01:25] they keep the debris from going on across to the,

[1:01:29] like, Union one, Weir and going

[1:01:32] into the Port of the Isles there by the marina.

[1:01:35] As you can see, on the left-hand side, the

[1:01:38] grates that go on these tough booms are completely covered with

[1:01:42] barnacles and different things and

[1:01:45] they was not working right.

[1:01:46] It was impeding the flow.

[1:01:55] Airfield station staff members replaced all the

[1:01:58] hardware, cleaned the tough booms as much as

[1:02:01] they could get off of them.

[1:02:03] We utilized the little skid steer to help pick

[1:02:06] these up and move things around so you wouldn't nobody getting hurt.

[1:02:16] Either replaced, anchored off on both sides of the canal.

[1:02:20] that are back in operational form now.

[1:02:27] And...

[1:02:29] Ms. our chair, Ms. Roman, spoke to this earlier about

[1:02:32] the green heart of the Everglades, staff members went down.

[1:02:37] We took the trees down, as you see here, on the pitcher on the left.

[1:02:41] That is our superintendent, Mr. Dan Walsh,

[1:02:44] he took the initiative to do the tree cutting force.

[1:02:48] He is still arborist.

[1:02:50] So it worked out pretty good for us.

[1:02:52] We took all the trees down, cut them up, hold them off.

[1:03:02] Picture on the left, we thought was neat because once Dan

[1:03:07] cut the tree down, we've seen this picture or got this

[1:03:10] image of the heart.

[1:03:14] Yeah, green heart on the Everglades.

[1:03:16] Great.

[1:03:16] These two pieces of equipment here is

[1:03:19] the only thing we rented, we rented the stump grinder

[1:03:22] and the mini excavator with a jackhammer on it.

[1:03:26] We ground all the stuffs down, then we busted all of

[1:03:29] that concrete up that was on the seawall there, and

[1:03:32] it didn't have any rebar.

[1:03:34] So we reused most of that for

[1:03:37] rip wrap around there.

[1:03:38] That saved a lot of money for the district.

[1:03:47] We got the sod down, we got everything leveled out, put

[1:03:51] sod all the way around and it's been getting water.

[1:03:54] It's staying green right now.

[1:03:57] We've already had people down there fishing.

[1:03:59] I haven't seen anybody launch any kayaks

[1:04:02] or canoes yet, but there's been a lot of people in there fishing and

[1:04:05] we're getting a lot of good feedback.

[1:04:11] The outlook for this is, you know, just our normal wet

[1:04:15] season, pump orders, our PMs,

[1:04:18] and, uh, we will, we're gonna start this week doing

[1:04:23] entrance road, work and maintenance

[1:04:26] cycle for the tie back levees between each pump

[1:04:29] station will go in and grade these levees

[1:04:32] and stuff so that if we have to go across them or whatever, we can,

[1:04:36] you know, air our, keep them in good shape.

[1:04:41] And closing this is a picture that was taken at Golden Gate 3,

[1:04:45] this is fuel station and service center staff,

[1:04:48] and I just wanted to put this in there to acknowledge everyone because

[1:04:51] without this group of people and everyone's

[1:04:55] hands and everything we do, these presentations would

[1:04:58] not be happening because these people,

[1:05:01] each and every one helps with everything we do here.

[1:05:07] And if there's any questions, I'll be happy that.

[1:05:11] This is an amazing photo.

[1:05:13] It is.

[1:05:13] Mike, thank you for your presentation, but this is an amazing photo

[1:05:17] of the Woodstorks gathering at

[1:05:20] the Picayune Strand Restoration project.

[1:05:23] And Mike told me that he took this picture as

[1:05:26] the date is on it.

[1:05:27] July 2026.

[1:05:29] So that's like, you

[1:05:33] know, just a month ago, right?

[1:05:35] Normally, uh, and we've got Audubon in the audience,

[1:05:38] but normally they're not gathering like that hanging out.

[1:05:41] So restoration is working and that's just

[1:05:44] an amazing photo as well as the one with all of the

[1:05:47] members of the field station mic.

[1:05:49] So I want you to pass that on to the guys our thanks.

[1:05:52] Are there any questions for Mike on the field station report?

[1:05:55] PJ?

[1:05:56] Just a quick question.

[1:05:58] Oh, sorry.

[1:06:00] For the vegetation that you mechanically removed.

[1:06:03] Do you do you compost it or do you use

[1:06:06] it for anything or just throw it?

[1:06:07] What do you do with it?

[1:06:10] We take it to the county landfill, and they actually put

[1:06:13] it over on the backside and let it dry out, and then they

[1:06:17] use it to build up their areas back there

[1:06:20] as far as keep it for erosion purposes.

[1:06:24] They grind out.

[1:06:25] I think they grind some of it.

[1:06:26] I'm not sure.

[1:06:27] I could find out for you and get

[1:06:30] back with you and let you know exactly what they do with it, but when we

[1:06:33] go to dump it, they have us put it on the backside of where

[1:06:36] they have their yard debris.

[1:06:39] You can let Lisa know.

[1:06:40] Um, it's sorry.

[1:06:42] Just, it's a good answer, because I just didn't want to put into the lands fill.

[1:06:46] I'm sure there's got to be a use for it and so that sounds like a really good use for it.

[1:06:49] Do we have very much solar?

[1:06:53] on property on any of our properties.

[1:06:55] That's the 1st time I saw that we had a solar capabilities.

[1:06:59] Excuse me, we do.

[1:07:01] A lot of our STA systems have a solar backup.

[1:07:04] So yes, we do rely on our solar powers.

[1:07:08] Okay, primarily for the backup, um, nothing

[1:07:11] to really, like, for a

[1:07:14] primary power source or anything like that.

[1:07:16] I'm going to let you ask that question to Brad that whenever he comes up next.

[1:07:20] Would love to ask that question.

[1:07:23] No, I'm just kind of curious because I'm like, yeah, I should have we should have asked that

[1:07:26] question before because, you know, we're in the sunshine state, but yes, it's

[1:07:29] also Brad will be able to answer that much better than I can.

[1:07:32] Fantastic.

[1:07:32] Thank you.

[1:07:33] You're welcome.

[1:07:34] Thank you.

[1:07:35] Any other questions for Mike Barber on the field station report?

[1:07:40] Mike, I don't see any.

[1:07:41] Hope you're feeling better.

[1:07:42] Thank you for your report.

[1:07:43] Excellent.

[1:07:45] Yeah, I'd like to add that in that picture of the Woodstorps,

[1:07:48] I'd like to take credit for that, but that came from Amanda

[1:07:51] McKenzie and Mary Festmeyer from over at headquarters.

[1:07:54] They're the senior lead environmentalist and the lead environmentalist on the project.

[1:07:59] They gave me that picture because I had asked them about if

[1:08:02] they had anything for down there.

[1:08:04] So I don't want to take credit for that picture.

[1:08:07] All right, Mike.

[1:08:08] Noted.

[1:08:09] Thank you so much.

[1:08:10] Okay, now we have Brad Jackson with our water conditions report.

[1:08:14] Brad, welcome.

[1:08:16] All right, thank you very much, and good afternoon, Madam Chair, board members.

[1:08:20] It's a pleasure to be here again, to give you your update.

[1:08:22] I'll kind of go over what's been going on in our system, what the conditions are.

[1:08:25] Basically, this wet season, but mostly since last board

[1:08:29] meeting early July.

[1:08:31] So I will jump right in with the no

[1:08:35] surprise to this chart here.

[1:08:36] Basically, everyone already knows how dry our area has been.

[1:08:40] We're running quite a deficit.

[1:08:42] That's basically the main takeaway from basically my

[1:08:45] presentation today is normally we're in water, like flood control mode.

[1:08:49] We can do water conservation mode at any time of year.

[1:08:52] It's really dependent on conditions and we're in that condition now where

[1:08:55] our rainfall is, you know, 50, 60% of

[1:08:59] normal for a wet season.

[1:09:00] So you'll see a lot of information today, really about how

[1:09:03] dry it is, and what we're trying to do to make sure that

[1:09:06] we hold on to that precious resource while we, you know, still have it,

[1:09:09] and we're able to hold it.

[1:09:11] Make sure we're recharging aquifers, things like that.

[1:09:14] But here you can see we're running about a 10 inch deficit.

[1:09:18] June, July, August, all pretty much half of

[1:09:21] what you would normally see this time of, you know, for a

[1:09:24] wet season.

[1:09:26] Technically, our wet season started, the middle of, um,

[1:09:29] May on middle of May, May 15th, but, you

[1:09:32] know, it really hasn't been much of a rain maker yet for us.

[1:09:36] You can see the chart on the lower right.

[1:09:39] That's kind of our, um, each color

[1:09:43] is, you know, the upper the upper percentiles and lower

[1:09:46] percentiles of our rainfall as you move from the left is

[1:09:49] January, the right is December.

[1:09:50] So the black line is your average.

[1:09:53] The red line is this year.

[1:09:54] You can see 2017 is our highest year,

[1:09:57] and it's almost, we would almost double where we would be.

[1:10:00] Um, if you were to, you know, look back in time, but they

[1:10:03] had about twice as much rain at that given year than we have this year.

[1:10:06] So almost a full years of rain already in 2027

[1:10:10] this year, only 30 inches, quite shy,

[1:10:13] short of everything that we have,

[1:10:16] that we would really need this time of year.

[1:10:19] So looking back at the rainfall itself, where did it

[1:10:22] actually rain, where it didn't it?

[1:10:23] Your average colors here that you would expect to see?

[1:10:27] The left is June, July, August, going from left to right.

[1:10:31] Normal would be kind of a beige color.

[1:10:33] Blues are below average, reds are above average.

[1:10:36] You can see there's really no red.

[1:10:38] And really no beige.

[1:10:39] So not a surprise there that since we're running about 50 to 60%

[1:10:42] of average for this time of year, hence the water conservation that we've been doing.

[1:10:47] Um, you can see, there's a little bit of rainfall

[1:10:50] that fell in the July in the Southern, um, Facca

[1:10:53] Union and Henderson Belmead area, um,

[1:10:56] but it's very, very localized.

[1:10:58] And, um, you can see some of those responses when I get

[1:11:01] to the Henderson Creek, um, graphs a little bit later.

[1:11:05] Looking at August, if we end up getting much rainfall,

[1:11:08] the rest of this month, and we'll see what the next few days have in store for us.

[1:11:12] But right now, if we end where we are today, it would be our driest

[1:11:15] August, since we, our records

[1:11:18] here from 1990, so it would be our driest looking back that far.

[1:11:21] So quite a record, if that comes to fruition.

[1:11:25] Either way, it's very dry for us.

[1:11:29] So I will also now start to stare step through our

[1:11:32] canal system, and I've got a new graph I've

[1:11:35] put on here to basically show the importance and compare

[1:11:39] past years with this year and how much water we're actually moving through the system,

[1:11:42] and then out to our tide.

[1:11:44] So on the on this slide

[1:11:47] here, you remember the blue shaded areas.

[1:11:50] That's our normal operational levels on both of these.

[1:11:54] This top graph is GG4, which is the blue

[1:11:57] triangle, and then the purple triangle off to the left is GG1.

[1:12:01] The water flows along this canal and out when we have an excess of it.

[1:12:04] So you can generally see GG4 is basically

[1:12:07] right smack in the middle of average.

[1:12:09] We've had 50% rainfall, and yet we still have normal

[1:12:12] water levels in Golden Gate 4, showing

[1:12:15] that we're able to retain the water we do have rather than wasting it and

[1:12:18] sending it off to tide.

[1:12:20] GG1, you see similar stories here.

[1:12:23] The purple line.

[1:12:24] That's our water level this year versus historical.

[1:12:27] When we're in flood control operations, which we're not right now.

[1:12:30] We're trying to conserve water, were higher than that.

[1:12:33] So this is exactly, this is not by,

[1:12:36] um, this is on purpose.

[1:12:38] This is what we're trying to do to conserve the water resource.

[1:12:41] Make sure it can go into our groundwater, our surficial aquifers,

[1:12:45] keep our wellings hydrated.

[1:12:46] And on the left, this chart

[1:12:49] down here says GG1 discharge.

[1:12:51] This is the volume of water that moves through that last structure.

[1:12:54] So this, um, kind of teal color.

[1:12:58] That's the amount of water that went out in 2024.

[1:13:01] The blue is this year.

[1:13:03] So in 2024, 160,000

[1:13:06] acre feet, in a wetter year, that's what we did.

[1:13:08] Sending water out compared to this year.

[1:13:11] It's not even 20,000 acre feet of water that left the system.

[1:13:14] So the little bit of water we have, we're holding it in and not

[1:13:17] releasing it out of the system.

[1:13:19] That's basically the takeaway on this slide and all the rest of them.

[1:13:24] The Kokahachie Canal.

[1:13:26] I won't spend as much time on these since I explained the 1st one, but these are basically

[1:13:29] repeats just to kind of show the differing conditions of everything.

[1:13:32] So Cocoa 3, the blue triangle, Cocoa one, the coastal structure.

[1:13:36] The thing I want you to note here, Cocoa 3 is so low.

[1:13:40] I mean, we're not, we're below the 25th percentile on this canal.

[1:13:44] So we're trying to hold everything we can.

[1:13:46] We have an open the structure.

[1:13:47] The rainfall just hasn't materialized in this

[1:13:50] area to make sure that it could even respond yet.

[1:13:53] So as the rainfall happens, we'll continue to see the

[1:13:56] headwater go up and up and up, but it just hasn't materialized yet.

[1:14:00] You can see it on Cocoa one as well, this small little recession here.

[1:14:04] Um, this line going down.

[1:14:06] That's not us moving water through it.

[1:14:08] That's just the water, you know, ET, water use.

[1:14:12] It's just going down on its own.

[1:14:13] It's hot, it's sunny.

[1:14:14] So that's unusual to see this time of year.

[1:14:18] You can see that it's above the green line.

[1:14:19] Again, that's on purpose.

[1:14:21] to hold the water back so we can make sure we're keeping

[1:14:24] saltwater intrusion at bay, the groundwater recharge, all of those

[1:14:27] things happening.

[1:14:29] And the discharges for Coco one on the left, you don't even see a

[1:14:32] blue bar on this one because we haven't released any water yet.

[1:14:35] That's how dry.

[1:14:36] This basin's been.

[1:14:40] Henderson Creek here.

[1:14:42] So this one, this is the area that got a little bit of rain in July, so we

[1:14:45] do have a little bit of more discharges in the southern area.

[1:14:48] You can see this graph here.

[1:14:50] The blue is this year in 2024.

[1:14:52] again, it's still a far cry from 2024, but it's

[1:14:56] more than the others, just because that's where the rainfall happens,

[1:14:59] so you can see we're able to respond to the rainfall when it happens,

[1:15:02] move through the correct amount and retain the right amount

[1:15:06] within the system, make sure that our water

[1:15:09] levels are healthy and able to keep the water that we need inside the system.

[1:15:13] So basically what you can see in the Henderson Creek one,

[1:15:16] the water levels are normal.

[1:15:18] They're within the green, they're within our normal operational band.

[1:15:23] So I've got a couple new slides here for Picking

[1:15:27] and Strand and Miller and kind of how the canal system interacts

[1:15:30] with the Picking and Strand project, and to show

[1:15:33] how the water comes into the system and how much we pump out,

[1:15:36] not out, but into the restoration project.

[1:15:39] So this one is the Miller 3.

[1:15:42] This is the control structure here, and it moves water south down

[1:15:45] this canal to the S 486 pump station when there's water available.

[1:15:49] I've got the 2 graphs here sitting.

[1:15:51] tied by side or one on top of each other.

[1:15:53] The blue is Miller.

[1:15:55] This one down here is the pump station.

[1:15:57] You can see they run very close together.

[1:15:59] They're parallel.

[1:16:00] So, you know, what happens upstream also happens downstream.

[1:16:04] The thing I want you to note here that's interesting are the flow rates,

[1:16:08] not just the stage, not just the water surface elevation, but

[1:16:11] the flow rates down here, the purple is the pumped flow,

[1:16:14] how much water we actually moved.

[1:16:15] versus Miller 3.

[1:16:17] But the important part is the actual capacity of these structures.

[1:16:21] The miller pump station can pump upwards of

[1:16:24] 1400 CFS, I think.

[1:16:26] And we've spent one day pumping 200 CFS.

[1:16:29] So not even a very small percentage of

[1:16:32] what the structures can actually handle.

[1:16:34] And this is pretty much across our entire board, not

[1:16:37] board our entire system.

[1:16:39] We're using a fraction of the capacity because we're in water conservation mode.

[1:16:43] So that's kind of the story here is, yes, we're still moving water,

[1:16:46] but we're conserving it and sending the water intentionally to

[1:16:49] where it needs to be, you know, best for the

[1:16:52] water levels and best for the restoration project to the to the south.

[1:16:56] And that more of these pumping

[1:17:00] volume comparisons, the blue is this year, and the orange

[1:17:03] is what happened in 2025

[1:17:06] last year, the 1st year we had it online.

[1:17:08] So again, 3 times what we pumped last year,

[1:17:11] 3 times what we've pumped this year so far.

[1:17:13] So a very different, very different system.

[1:17:16] But at the top here, even though we pumped

[1:17:19] 3 times less than we did last year, there's still some water on the landscape

[1:17:22] in the picking and strand.

[1:17:23] If the colors are red, bluish.

[1:17:26] There's not a whole lot of it, but there is some water,

[1:17:29] kind of in these lower areas here, and the pump stations,

[1:17:32] this purple triangle, and you can kind of see some of the areas where

[1:17:35] some of the water is moving through there, but it is definitely less

[1:17:38] than it has been in previous years.

[1:17:43] Moving slightly to the east, the Fact Union Canal, and the picking and

[1:17:46] pump station, S487, the same graph here,

[1:17:49] basically a Fact Union 5 is the blue triangle, more

[1:17:52] of the same story, intentionally holding water back inside

[1:17:56] the system, and picking a strand down here.

[1:17:58] We're holding waters just above where they would normally be,

[1:18:01] but we're still providing water to the restoration project to the south,

[1:18:04] as you can see from the 2026 purple

[1:18:07] line, the pump flow down here at the bottom.

[1:18:13] So I wouldn't normally include this slide

[1:18:16] in an August presentation, but we did have drought

[1:18:19] conditions in June.

[1:18:20] They've improved somewhat looking, you know,

[1:18:23] this came out yesterday, August 25th, or 27th,

[1:18:27] but we still have moderately dry conditions,

[1:18:30] abnormally dry conditions, and even some moderate drought

[1:18:33] inside the our basin area.

[1:18:36] So it really, this helps guide, you know,

[1:18:39] lets us know how dry things really are across the board.

[1:18:41] It's not just an isolated system, an isolated spot that's

[1:18:44] dry, but basically the entire state is in some form of drought one way or the other.

[1:18:48] And that helps guide, you know, a little bit of what

[1:18:51] our strategy will be for gate operations, water levels, things like that.

[1:18:57] I spent a lot of time talking about the water levels, but

[1:19:00] I didn't tell you how those looked in comparison to historical.

[1:19:04] So what you see here, it's kind of a rainbow

[1:19:08] of colors, but the left is the water levels inside

[1:19:11] each of those canal.

[1:19:13] is a map of our canal system.

[1:19:14] The reds are lower than they are.

[1:19:17] Um, usually for August, such as the, such

[1:19:20] as this area here, the Cocahachie, and some areas are higher

[1:19:23] than what you would normally see in August, such as GG1.

[1:19:25] They're black in some of the areas over here in Facca Union,

[1:19:29] again, intentional where they were higher than normal.

[1:19:32] The lower ones, we haven't got water to those areas yet.

[1:19:35] There just hasn't been enough rainfall.

[1:19:36] So, this is really indicative.

[1:19:39] It's unusual to see that because we're doing water conservation.

[1:19:43] We if, you know, we need to do change operations.

[1:19:46] I've shown you the same slide before, before a hurricane,

[1:19:50] and basically they're all red showing we've made those pre-storm operations.

[1:19:54] So we can pivot one way or the other to make get ready for a

[1:19:57] storm event if one, you know, it happens to threaten us again.

[1:20:01] And then looking to the north, the corkscrew watershed

[1:20:04] area, this place is exceptionally, it

[1:20:08] appears to be exceptionally dry.

[1:20:09] All of our groundwater, our surface water levels there are below the 10th percentile.

[1:20:13] So very dry, and you don't have to take just the color for it.

[1:20:17] We went out and took some pictures of what that situation actually looks like.

[1:20:22] This is our cork 3 structure.

[1:20:24] That's on the north end of our canal.

[1:20:27] And this is the roadside ditch that runs along

[1:20:30] the Shady Hollow Boulevard.

[1:20:32] The Cork 3 structure is this concrete structure here.

[1:20:35] This is normally completely full and there's four, 5

[1:20:39] more feet of water sitting inside of this canal, and

[1:20:42] then there's water coming into this as well that we have to move through.

[1:20:45] That is not the case this year.

[1:20:46] You can see how dry, everything really is out there.

[1:20:49] So very, very unusual.

[1:20:52] And then this is just to the east of there, cork two.

[1:20:55] This is, um, on the other, just as you come

[1:20:58] off of a Mockley road onto Shady Hollow Boulevard.

[1:21:01] The cork 2 structure here.

[1:21:03] You can see the water lines and how much room there is.

[1:21:06] This is three, 3.5 feet that we still need to fill

[1:21:09] up before we even start to think about discharging water in

[1:21:12] a routine, you know, case and routine operation.

[1:21:15] So we still have a lot of storage capacity left in the system, which

[1:21:19] is why it's so comfortable that we can, you know, be able to conserve

[1:21:22] water, since we have so much storage left, we're able to hold more

[1:21:25] water, um, where we can because we know we have

[1:21:28] baseline capacity in the system because we're not flowing anything today.

[1:21:32] Lisa and talked about the

[1:21:35] Bird Rookery Boardwalk.

[1:21:37] This is just by there, that we have a stage recorder just to the east of

[1:21:40] where the trailhead is.

[1:21:41] And these are some pictures of what that area kind of looks like.

[1:21:45] You can kind of see the, I tried to pick

[1:21:48] out the normal water surface where you would expect it to

[1:21:51] be this time of year in the swamp area, but it's completely bone dry.

[1:21:55] I mean, you can, there's you could walk out there.

[1:21:57] That's very abnormal.

[1:21:59] It tells me, again, there's lots of storage available upstream

[1:22:02] in our headwater for flood control, which basically

[1:22:06] lets us make sure that we can do water conservation operations

[1:22:10] correctly and not sure, you know, make sure we're not putting anything at risk.

[1:22:15] Looking forward, um, the seasonal outlook.

[1:22:19] So right now, we're kind of in this drier than normal scenario.

[1:22:22] September kind of looks the same thing.

[1:22:25] I'm sure people have heard the El Nino and Super El

[1:22:28] Nino things in the news and all that.

[1:22:29] The way it affects us is in our dry season.

[1:22:33] We get more rainfall, that time of year.

[1:22:36] Um, you know, through November through February

[1:22:39] time frame.

[1:22:40] I think I've talked about that in the past.

[1:22:42] It doesn't mean it's a June type event, but it does mean

[1:22:45] that we have more than average rainfall that we're expecting.

[1:22:48] So, hopefully we can get a little bit of rain to help offset

[1:22:51] some of the dry conditions we've got over the summer and

[1:22:55] help get us through the next dry season without anything, anything major.

[1:22:59] In the short term.

[1:23:00] Here's our weather outlook.

[1:23:02] This is already out of date.

[1:23:05] The Tropical Storm Dolly has now longer a tropical storm.

[1:23:08] It was off to the east.

[1:23:09] It's a remnant now and is expected to dissipate.

[1:23:12] you know, it's already dissipated.

[1:23:13] So it'll continue to track up towards this path here.

[1:23:17] And then it brings some beneficial rain to the Caribbean, but it's

[1:23:21] not opposing at risk or anything at this point, but we'll keep our eye on it

[1:23:24] and be able to make adjustments as we need to.

[1:23:27] In the short term, the forecast over here, this is the

[1:23:30] 7 day forecast.

[1:23:31] This tells me we're basically gonna go back

[1:23:34] to maybe more of a typical rainy season, at least for the next week.

[1:23:37] This tells us we're going to get about 2 inches over the next week,

[1:23:41] which is a good thing, but also that's only average.

[1:23:44] It's not going to help us make up.

[1:23:46] It's gonna keep us from losing more ground as far as the rainfall of that facet.

[1:23:50] And then I did talk about how the monthly outlook or

[1:23:53] the seasonal outlook going forward and down and below.

[1:23:57] This is you've got our new tool that

[1:24:00] our meteorologist has helped us or put together for us, but

[1:24:03] this gives us an outlook of kind of what we would expect looking forward in time.

[1:24:06] You can see September, October, November, et cetera.

[1:24:09] But the thing, don't pay too much attention on the decimal all the

[1:24:12] way out to the 100th point, but the bigger numbers here,

[1:24:16] five, three, 4 inches.

[1:24:17] Those are, you know, two, 3 times what we would normally see in

[1:24:20] those months, but they're not June type rainfalls.

[1:24:24] They're not 10 inches.

[1:24:25] So it's not anything that may really make up that much deficit.

[1:24:29] It might just help us keep the, you know, keep us from receding down where

[1:24:32] we normally would, um, the normal recession you would see at that time of year.

[1:24:36] So this would be beneficial rainfall given how dry

[1:24:39] we are at this point in time.

[1:24:42] And with that, I will close with this picture

[1:24:46] of another fairly low looking canal in the Cocahachie area.

[1:24:51] Very interesting, Brad.

[1:24:52] thank you for your presentation

[1:24:54] questions from the board.

[1:24:55] Okay, Mr. Hill.

[1:24:57] All right, Brad.

[1:24:58] I'm not going to ask you how you start water.

[1:25:01] flowing from the skies.

[1:25:03] I just checked my radar app and it's not changing today.

[1:25:08] slide eight, it was kind of interesting,

[1:25:12] where you look at the, um, yeah,

[1:25:16] on the upper right, um, slide, yeah.

[1:25:19] But I was wondering, is it stops at 41.

[1:25:23] Is it possible to have a take a look at that throughout

[1:25:26] into the 10,000 islands to

[1:25:30] see what water seeps into the estuary?

[1:25:33] So we drew the line at 41 because the

[1:25:36] LIDAR that this is based on.

[1:25:38] So it's based off basically our well network versus

[1:25:42] LIDAR and the LIDAR gets less effective, less accurate

[1:25:45] as you get into the wet wet areas, and so we

[1:25:48] cut it off there for that for that kind of reason.

[1:25:50] And it looks like that the blue spots, which I believe,

[1:25:54] suggests adequate water.

[1:25:56] That also tied out with your with your rainfall.

[1:25:59] Correct.

[1:26:00] And that was kind of interesting in that area.

[1:26:03] Why it was just, do you have any thesis

[1:26:06] as to why we're getting rain in that area and

[1:26:09] not in other areas?

[1:26:11] It was, I mean, it's just random?

[1:26:13] Yeah, kind of.

[1:26:14] I mean, it just depends on where it falls that particular day.

[1:26:16] I wish it would fall a little bit more, but yes,

[1:26:20] yes.

[1:26:21] Good.

[1:26:22] Thank you.

[1:26:23] Miss Smith.

[1:26:25] I like your new reports are much more clear.

[1:26:28] Is that you?

[1:26:29] Did you do that?

[1:26:30] Oh, it's software.

[1:26:31] Okay.

[1:26:32] So Mr. Eckstein came in, which

[1:26:35] I love the public coming in and asking questions and it's very specific.

[1:26:39] I'm assuming you're going to be pretty much answering those questions.

[1:26:46] So I have one.

[1:26:47] If you are not, if you're going to do what he kind

[1:26:51] of is asking me to do is kind of like release those levels.

[1:26:53] What does that do?

[1:26:56] In this in this drought.

[1:26:57] So if we were, If we were

[1:27:00] to lower levels at this point, the water levels would respond

[1:27:03] quickly and drain the surficial

[1:27:06] groundwater that's surrounding everything around that, which

[1:27:09] are below the 10th percentile for this time of year, I checked our water,

[1:27:13] groundwater level conditions just a few minutes ago, and

[1:27:16] most of the, all of the surficial wells on the lower west

[1:27:20] coast or below the 10th percentile.

[1:27:22] So it would only start to affect those even more.

[1:27:24] That's kind of what's helping hold those levels up.

[1:27:26] Are those canal levels and our water control structures

[1:27:30] are helping that along with some of the secondary systems.

[1:27:33] So they'll open those up right now.

[1:27:34] You'll get one flush of water out, and

[1:27:37] then the water would be, would be gone.

[1:27:39] So short term effect, long term, um,

[1:27:43] more damage.

[1:27:44] Okay, interesting.

[1:27:46] The other question was just to follow up on the solar.

[1:27:49] Do we have?

[1:27:52] Thank you, Lisa.

[1:27:56] So the solar that we have.

[1:27:58] It's basically it, we have a lot of STA sites and

[1:28:01] areas where there's not commercial power readily available.

[1:28:03] So the solar panels are the primary source,

[1:28:06] to keep the batteries charged, so they keep a battery charge for

[1:28:09] our monitoring wells, like the ones up in bird rookery.

[1:28:11] There's not a power pole sitting right there.

[1:28:13] So that's what the solar power, the solar panels are for.

[1:28:16] They keep the batteries charged.

[1:28:17] And they've gone, our skated team's gone through and upgraded those

[1:28:20] over the last 2 years to make sure that we're

[1:28:23] more resilient, so we're on cloudy days.

[1:28:26] when we have hurricanes, things like that where the sun doesn't come out.

[1:28:28] We don't lose that battery power, so we still have that information available.

[1:28:31] But as far as control structures, no, those

[1:28:35] have commercial power or some sort of backup generator, something

[1:28:38] of that effect that's more resilient than just solar power.

[1:28:40] Okay, so where it's effective, resilient,

[1:28:43] we'll have solar, if not, we'll use a traditional grid.

[1:28:48] Right.

[1:28:49] And even then, we have a back.

[1:28:50] So like the upgrades that the field station was doing at Cocoa 3,

[1:28:54] they have commercial power and backup

[1:28:57] generator, but the solar power helps keep things still online

[1:29:00] if something goes wrong with the other things.

[1:29:01] So we're triple redundant almost.

[1:29:04] Okay, understood.

[1:29:05] Thank you.

[1:29:05] Appreciate it.

[1:29:08] Thank you, Miss Smith.

[1:29:09] Okay, thank you, Brad.

[1:29:10] I don't see any other questions.

[1:29:11] Sorry, thank you.

[1:29:12] Appreciate it.

[1:29:14] Next item is the monthly financial report with Candida Heater.

[1:29:23] Thank you, Madam Chair.

[1:29:25] The monthly financial report, um, that is

[1:29:28] in your package today, um, that I'd like to brief you

[1:29:31] on is through June 30th.

[1:29:35] So thus far, we have collected

[1:29:38] $21.8 million.

[1:29:42] You had budgeted for recurring 17.2.2.

[1:29:46] The reason for the additional funding

[1:29:50] is, as mentioned previously, is

[1:29:53] related to the agreement.

[1:29:56] We call your county, um, and schedule to

[1:30:00] submit funding to the to the basin

[1:30:03] for the Gordon and Palm River.

[1:30:05] So that is the increase above what was budgeted.

[1:30:09] You have collected all of your abalorum

[1:30:13] funding as projected.

[1:30:16] The month of June is typically when

[1:30:20] we do collect all of our admalorum.

[1:30:24] Um, expenditures, we have expended $14.8

[1:30:30] million, um, from last

[1:30:33] month, May to June, we spent

[1:30:36] $25000000 and that's,

[1:30:39] um, related to the tower, payments for the tower.

[1:30:42] Right now, you do have a fairly large balance.

[1:30:47] Um, within your operations and maintenance program

[1:30:50] of about uh, $12 million.

[1:30:53] That is made up of your $2000000

[1:30:57] emergency reserves, which we hope we don't use, and it will stay available.

[1:31:01] Um, as well as uh,

[1:31:04] staff is uh, holding funding there to cover

[1:31:07] uh, the I 75 Weir

[1:31:10] 2 when the bids come in and they come in on Tuesday.

[1:31:16] In comparison to this time last year,

[1:31:19] so June of this time last year.

[1:31:22] Um, comparison in revenues last

[1:31:25] year, you were at $20, uh, $2 million,

[1:31:29] so you're about 150000000 in collections in revenue.

[1:31:32] Um, that is related to the Avalorm,

[1:31:35] uh, tax revenue, as well as some of

[1:31:38] your Picayune operations.

[1:31:40] You've received a little more revenues in

[1:31:43] intergovernmental because of picking from the Corps of Engineers,

[1:31:47] expenditures.

[1:31:49] This time last year, you were at about 12000000

[1:31:52] this year at 14.

[1:31:54] It's about $2000000 higher, and that's because of the

[1:31:57] tower paying out and finishing that project.

[1:31:59] So, um, everything looks very, um,

[1:32:03] financially stable, um, for the for the basin,

[1:32:06] and uh, that concludes my report.

[1:32:09] Thank you.

[1:32:09] Questions for candy on the monthly report.

[1:32:12] I don't see any questions.

[1:32:13] Thank you.

[1:32:14] Thank you.

[1:32:16] All right, that brings us to the 2nd public comment

[1:32:19] portion of the meeting.

[1:32:21] Again, this is another chance for the members of the public

[1:32:24] to speak on anything that was not covered in the agenda.

[1:32:27] Troy, is there any public comments?

[1:32:30] Madam Chair, we have none at this time.

[1:32:32] All right, then that brings us to the final board comment.

[1:32:36] And we'll go ahead and start with Miss Smith.

[1:32:39] I have none.

[1:32:41] Okay, we'll go to Mr. Romano.

[1:32:43] have none.

[1:32:45] Ms. Leinhardt?

[1:32:46] I guess the only comment I can offer is as we listen to

[1:32:49] the different field station reports and the crew reports

[1:32:53] as an example, it's very interesting to see the

[1:32:56] work in-house to control costs.

[1:32:59] So it's very much appreciated, and I think relevant to bring up

[1:33:02] today as we approved a tax rate and budget for our board.

[1:33:06] So thank you.

[1:33:06] Well said, thank you.

[1:33:08] Mr. Hill?

[1:33:10] I got something for you.

[1:33:12] Michelle was made some comments about solar,

[1:33:15] and some of you may or may not know what I do for a living.

[1:33:18] I run an investment firm, and we have a significant

[1:33:21] holding in a company called Next Power, which

[1:33:24] is the world's largest company in the

[1:33:27] in the adjacent into the solar

[1:33:30] business, where they provide the equipment

[1:33:33] for a solar panel to transverse as

[1:33:37] the sun is moving through the sky during the course of the day.

[1:33:40] Their business isn't putting

[1:33:43] a couple solar panels on top of one of our buildings.

[1:33:45] They do utility scale at a very large base.

[1:33:49] And it's a business

[1:33:52] that's growing rapidly due to the needs for energy.

[1:33:56] And the thing that I've seen in a for

[1:33:59] a while is that we have a significant area of open

[1:34:02] territory where this could come into

[1:34:05] play in the spreader basins.

[1:34:07] And you're just like, how can we put solar panels that's going to get wet?

[1:34:11] Well, here's where the connection comes with their equipment.

[1:34:14] They are working with farms that

[1:34:18] elevate the solar panels above the ground.

[1:34:22] So you see, if you go on their website,

[1:34:25] you see photos of cattle,

[1:34:29] either grazing animals, in

[1:34:34] some areas of growing crops all underneath the solar panels.

[1:34:39] And those solar panels move through the course of the day.

[1:34:41] And since candy's just about finished with a budget.

[1:34:44] Another month or so she'll be finished.

[1:34:46] She probably doesn't have much to do, but I think this will be a huge Apple

[1:34:49] project to take up her time in case she gets bored.

[1:34:53] I think it's something to start taking a look at.

[1:34:56] And what could we do with the power?

[1:34:58] Obviously, adjacent to the solar production

[1:35:02] of energy comes batteries, huge

[1:35:05] industrial scale batteries to store power

[1:35:09] until needed.

[1:35:10] And then when it's, if it's not needed, I'm sure there could be

[1:35:13] a connection to the grid to sell it to some entity, FPNL,

[1:35:16] obviously, would be the 1st thought.

[1:35:20] It's, I mean, this is going to be 25,

[1:35:23] $50000000 type of project, but it could be

[1:35:26] a significant source of revenue for the basin.

[1:35:32] That's what I got for you to think about.

[1:35:35] Vice chair McLeod?

[1:35:37] Vice Chair McCLough?

[1:35:39] Thank you for that, Andy.

[1:35:40] for me today.

[1:35:42] Just to show you how engaged Candy has been.

[1:35:47] If you're interested in reading this, this is available online,

[1:35:50] but this is the budget for the district as a whole.

[1:35:54] And so Candy Hat and her

[1:35:57] team, Julie Matock, who really helps the basin,

[1:36:00] does a great job for us.

[1:36:02] They are leaning forward here at this point in the year.

[1:36:05] getting all these budgets submitted to Tallahassee.

[1:36:09] And with everything that they

[1:36:12] do, that's a huge responsibility.

[1:36:14] So thank you for all you do for the basin, and

[1:36:17] also, I'll take this opportunity to thank you for everything

[1:36:20] you do for the district to make that, make that work for us.

[1:36:24] Um, couple comments on solar.

[1:36:28] This is not a new technology.

[1:36:30] It's just getting some innovative applications.

[1:36:33] One of the things that I looked

[1:36:36] at many years ago when I was on city council was the

[1:36:39] fact that how could we incorporate solar to

[1:36:43] minimize the cost of our or our utility cost.

[1:36:46] And one of the things you can do is

[1:36:49] on the storage tanks, you can apply solar panels, and then

[1:36:52] you can take off some of those costs from your operations

[1:36:55] from utilities.

[1:36:57] You know, you don't need to just float it on a lake either.

[1:37:00] You can also float solar panels on a lake.

[1:37:02] And you bring some, some, um, uh, benefits from that.

[1:37:07] But it's more complicated than just the technologies available.

[1:37:10] And so that might be something for us to

[1:37:14] see if we can maybe find a partner, that we could do a demonstration

[1:37:17] project at no cost to the taxpayers to see if we

[1:37:20] could have some application for it.

[1:37:22] But, um, you know, that, I'll leave that with

[1:37:25] Lisa and the staff, um, from time to

[1:37:28] time at the district level.

[1:37:30] We look at innovative technologies for folks to come to

[1:37:33] us and give us ideas on ways that they can, the

[1:37:36] benefit and in the partnership.

[1:37:38] So I'll leave it at that and see.

[1:37:41] But solar is not a new technology.

[1:37:43] It just needs greater application and storage

[1:37:46] like you said, Andy, with the batteries.

[1:37:48] you know, from that aspect.

[1:37:52] A couple of other items.

[1:37:54] One, I want to congratulate and welcome Jacob,

[1:37:57] who's joined the basin team as one of our engineers

[1:38:00] and water managers.

[1:38:03] So thank you for those who haven't met Jacob.

[1:38:06] He's here today.

[1:38:06] And feel free to meet him before the end of the meeting.

[1:38:11] Also, I want to thank Derek Brown, our basin attorney.

[1:38:15] He sits here every meeting, right to my left,

[1:38:18] down here next to Lisa, Keeler, our basin administrator,

[1:38:22] and he does an incredible job behind the scenes for us.

[1:38:25] And Derek, I need to give you a

[1:38:28] shout out because you've just always there for

[1:38:31] us, no matter what we need, and it's very,

[1:38:35] very helpful to have you hear all the meetings with us as well.

[1:38:38] So a big shout out to you today and a thank you.

[1:38:42] Also, I want to congratulate Michelle

[1:38:45] on your vice chair for this coming year.

[1:38:47] I look forward to seeing what you can do in

[1:38:50] the chair and thank you for having my back.

[1:38:52] That's the most important thing.

[1:38:54] And cupcakes for all.

[1:38:57] Don't forget, even our members of the

[1:39:00] public who joined us today.

[1:39:01] Feel free to join in in the cupcakes for our birthday

[1:39:04] celebration.

[1:39:06] I'll see you at our next meeting, which is Friday,

[1:39:09] October 23rd.

[1:39:10] We're adjourned.

[1:39:18] call out my

[1:39:28] in the

Big Cypress Basin Board

Agenda

Transcript