I'm excited about our meeting today. I'm going to call this meeting to order and ask that we have a motion to adopt the agenda, unless anybody has any conversation or changes to the agenda. So moved. Second. Excellent. We motion a second. Are there any comments to the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously. We now have an agenda. Next up is an adoption of our minutes. Did everyone have a chance to review them? And were there any questions or comments on the minutes? If not, I'll entertain a motion. All right. We have a motion in a second for the minutes. Any questions or comments? All right. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Up to business. So as requested, we have asked the Springs Council to come today and give a presentation to us about our BMAP, I guess, really, and about the Santa Fe Springs in general. So we will turn it over to staff and let them share what they have to share. Yeah. So Ryan Smart with the Florida Springs Council is here today. He's got a presentation that was in your backup materials, and it'll cover several issues that the county's been focused on also. So I'll let Ryan take it away. Thank you. Ryan Smart, Florida Springs Council. Thank you all so much for having me here today. It's a real pleasure. I'll get right into it. So first of all, you know, why do we care about the springs and these things, and why am I here? Our springs are in bad shape, right, especially in the Santa Fe and the Chetukni. And what we've seen is, you know, we've seen things go from, like, that picture on the left there where the Chetukni looked in the 90s to where it was in 2012, and then all of those pictures are more recent. And so we're seeing the algae take over the systems, and that's a combination really of two things I want to focus on today. One is too much nitrogen pollution in the system, and then the other one is not enough flow. So we're taking too much water out of the aquifer, which is stopping it from coming out of the springs. And as we do more and more research, you know, we're really finding that the flow and the water quality elements are very, very connected, not just because, you know, there's a dilution aspect, but the actual flow will push the algae, right? So it'll keep it from settling on the plants, so, you know, you can see spring systems that have, you know, where you would think one might be more pristine than another based on the pure nitrogen readings. But when you look at them, that doesn't play out, and I think a lot of that has to do with flow, dissolved oxygen, some other things like that. Can I ask it? Go ahead. Yeah, I was going to ask a similar question, but you mentioned the 90s. In the 90s, we were already seeing higher nitrate levels than we were in the 70s. The 70s, you know, when I was growing up, the springs were literally crystal clear. I almost drowned as a child stepping out of a boat because I thought it was like two feet deep when it was, in fact, like 10 feet deep. It was that clear. So we, you know, the 90s aren't necessarily, you know, pristine in any way, shape, or form, but that would be a nice place to get back to. Right, but it still looked, I mean, you know, that picture on the left there at Ichetecte still looks pretty good. The water, you can see it is blue and not green, right? The water is going to be clear because it's coming, you know, around these areas. It's coming out the aquifer, but, you know, it should have that. I mean, there's a reason all of our springs at one point were pretty much called blue springs. Now we've renamed them all, but that's because they were all bright blue. And now they're much more green. You can see the aquatic vegetation, right, which is, you know, the sign of a healthy spring and how that's disappeared. And a lot of that has to do with the flow in algae. Well, my point was is that the appearance of the water isn't always an indicator as to how healthy the water is, even though that's a good way for us to market to the public. I guess I just have one question. You know, I've heard from a number of researchers that it's both nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, that, you know, we have a very phosphorus-rich system, and so small amounts of phosphorus can potentially trip systems because they're sort of already kind of at their kind of capacity level. Is that true, or is nitrate still really the predominantly driving issue? I mean, phosphorus is very important, but when you look at the – and we have, like, springs like down in Wekaiva, they are in violation of their nitrogen and their phosphorus TNDLs, so they have both. When you look at the Santa Fe springs, nitrogen is the limiting factor. Now you get down into South Florida, and they talk primarily about phosphorus issues. So it kind of depends on region, but certainly we would not want to, like, say we need more phosphorus in the system. There's plenty as it exists right now, and we need to keep it that way. All right, so I'm going to start out talking about water quality, and when you talk about water quality, the regulations that we're talking about are basin management action plans. These are really the only regulatory systems in the state to take a polluted water body and turn it into a clean water body. And springs were required to have basin management action plans, new basin management action plans by legislation that was passed in 2016, Senate Bill 552. And for the first time, it really laid out some markers for what basin management action plans have to do and what they have to contain. Now, their plans, you know, there's a regulatory element, but there's still plans, but there's certain things that have to be in those plans. So when DEP moved to adopt the plans for the first time back in 2018, they had not done many of the things that that law in 2016 required. So a bunch of springs groups, primarily local groups like Rainbow River Conservation, Friends of La Cava River, our Santa Fe River, and Stephanie Alliance, got together, FSC funded and managed a challenge to those rules saying you need to be able to at least hit the minimum standards that are in statute. We took that challenge for more than four years to get all the way to the First District Court of Appeals, which ruled in our favor in validating the 2018 basin management action plans. And the thing that the court ruled on was the lack of something called allocations. And all allocations is is a fancy word for responsibility. So it is what assigns the responsibility to each polluting entity within a basin and says you need to reduce nitrogen by this much in this time frame, this much in this time frame. And if everyone does their part and everyone hits those goals, in 20 years we would have cleaned the system and achieved the water quality goal. So we are now 2025, a new basin management action plan has never gone into effect for the Santa Fe and Itchituckney Rivers because when we wanted first DCA, what DEP requested was two years to be able to figure out the allocations. And they already had a deadline of 2025 to publish new BMAPs. So the First District Court of Appeals agreed with that and said you've got until July 1, 2025, to come up with those allocations. Now, in the meantime, what we've seen is we've seen the Santa Fe go from having three impaired spring systems, so three outstanding Florida springs. So there's many more impaired spring systems, but we have these 30 outstanding Florida springs that are designated in law. These are all your first magnitudes and kind of the second magnitudes you've heard of, like what kind of. So the Santa Fe, we're very blessed. We have five, five or six, six outstanding Florida springs in the Santa Fe. That's second only to Sewanee, as far as the amount of outstanding Florida springs in any system. When they first did the BMAPs back in 2018, we had three impaired outstanding Florida springs in the Sewanee system, in the Santa Fe system. In 2025, we now have five. So two of those spring systems, Columbia and Treehouse, that were not impaired back in 2018, are now impaired. Where are those? I don't know those springs. My. Columbia and Treehouse, is that? Do you want? Columbia is right there. In fact, those are the good. The Treehouse is more or less next to it. Okay. It's near the 441 bridge area, if that helps you. Oh, okay. Okay. So where is the pollution coming from? Well, in the Santa Fe basin, the pollution is mostly coming from agriculture. You can see there that about 50% of the pollution is coming from farm fertilizer and another 16%. So about two-thirds of the pollution comes from agriculture. The second largest source of pollution is septic tanks, and that is a growing source of pollution that we want to make sure we get in front of before it gets any worse. Then you do have a little bit in the urban sports fertilizer camp, very little in this area for wastewater. And then atmospheric deposition, just to give that a second. And this is essentially the nitrogen that comes from the sky. So, you know, all the other things on there, we can do something to control, right? We can do something about urban fertilizer, agriculture, septic, and wastewater. We can't really address atmospheric nitrogen directly. So the hope is that by reducing nitrogen in other areas, we can also reduce the atmospheric deposition. But the truth is that to get those gains, they're going to actually have to be achieved through those other means. So when DEP looks at the full pie chart of how we have to reduce, they kind of take atmospheric deposition out because they know those reductions have to be achieved elsewhere. So this is a little bit confusing graph, but it's one of my favorites. This is the state of the Santa Fe River water quality since 2018. So that first black dot over on the left, that's where we started. So that is where DEP reported our nitrogen levels to be at in 2018 when they adopted the BMAPs. And what they said was we're going to have a 30% reduction within the first five years. That would be that white dot moving to the right and going down. But instead, what we've seen is that nitrogen has continued to increase over the last seven years. So you can see that we are now worse off than we were when we started and now have a much larger reduction to meet in a much shorter period of time, which, of course, is going to require even more aggressive action because we've gone from, you know, trying to solve a little bit under 3 million pounds of nitrogen in 20 years to trying to reduce, you know, closer to 3.3, 3.3 and a half over 15. Yes. So where is this kind of growth coming from? It doesn't seem like we're doing a lot more agriculture than we used to do. I mean, lands around here that I think of as being used to be agricultural lands are starting to be developed. So if that amount of agriculture seems to be dropping a little bit, why is the nitrogen still going up? Well, you know, not every acre of land that's in agriculture is created equal by any means, right? So you have some practices that might put 40 pounds of nitrogen per acre on the ground. You have other ones that might be 300 pounds of nitrogen. So as we see agriculture intensify, as we see more agriculture become irrigated from non-irrigated, you know, you can have an overall decline in the amount of acreage that's in agriculture, but still see increased pollution numbers based upon how the land is being used. So is it the type of crops they're growing, or is it more just the methods they're going about? I mean, the methods follow the crops, I would say. You know, most of the advancements in methods are actually moving towards more conservative practices with, you know, hopefully less nitrogen and less water use. But I think adapting to those practices has been very slow. You know, one of the very disappointing things that we saw in these new rounds of BMAPs is every agricultural producer within a BMAP is required to implement best management practices. That's kind of the only thing we have in Florida that you can really tell a producer that they have to do. Everything else is more or less voluntary. So most of the BMAP, especially the 2018, but still the 2025, relies on producers implementing those best management practices. It's been a big talking point for FDACs that we're going to get more farms enrolled. We're going to do more inspection verification visits, make sure BMPs are done. We're very disappointed to see that BMP enrollment has dropped since the last BMAPs. So if you look at the amount of acreage, it's in agricultural production, we have fewer as a percentage acres implementing BMPs than we did in 2018. And that is obviously moving the wrong direction. We should have gone from like 50 up to, you know, 55, hopefully up to 75, 80 percent. Instead, we've gone from 55 down, you know, a little bit. I haven't really been following the changes in the BMPs lately, but, you know, I know that we would desire more of the agricultural land, just particularly in the vicinity of the river, to be put into more silviculture-type agriculture use, which has a very low nitrogen pounds per acre application than a lot of others. But at one point, if I recall, some of the BMPs for silviculture were more onerous than BMPs for some of the other agricultural things. Is there any kind of weighing of the BMPs and like what – because you can kind of almost, you know, push certain kinds of crops by how you manipulate how the BMPs work. I have not heard that silviculture BMPs are more onerous, but that might be true. Which could just be me talking to a silviculture farmer that had a lot of opinions. No, but you could be right, because I don't focus a lot on silviculture, because like you said, it's not the issue. Right. You know, we would love to see some of the really intensive row crop operations transfer over into silviculture. To have that happen, we need a lot more state funding to help out our agricultural producers to make those kind of changes, you know, which we're not – isn't happening right now. So, you know, my point is that when we go to our, you know, our legislative delegation or when we go to Tallahassee, having the talking points to say, here's the things that we need in order to make these things work, that's good information to have. I guess I would also just like to chime in here. I think it's really – I hear what you're saying about intensive agriculture, and I think that you're right in terms of the intensity of expectation of production on a piece of property, given the management of the soil and the other resources. But you can have row crop or food production farms that are following good management practices or best management practices that aren't releasing nitrogen into the environment if they're following those practices well. And so I don't think our goal is to – at least our goal for Alachua County, I can speak because I know that we're investing a lot in ag, is not to reduce the acreage of food crops being grown in our county. In fact, ideally, we'd like to increase that because we'd like to have more self-reliance for food locally. But it's to work with those farmers so that they adopt the kinds of practices where they're doing soil conservation, where they're making compost, where they're building organic soils that hold a lot of water and a lot of the nutrients where they need to be at the root zone of those plants and that they're using slow-release fertilizers and other techniques that help to reduce runoff of those fertilizers into the field. So I guess I just want to be careful about demonizing one kind of agriculture over another kind of agriculture because it's very much about how you manage your farm. And I think the reduction in BMP enrollment and the reduction in maybe an reduction in practices is also a result of the other pressures that ag is facing around labor. I mean, as we have a federal government crackdown on immigrant labor, we have a lot of other labor issues in terms of costs associated with it. It's kind of harder to implement those things when we're also creating difficulties for those farmers in terms of the people they have on the ground to do that work. I just have to be the ag advocate in the room always, but I just want to be careful. I think that's good, but I know that some of the Florida Springs Council's recommendations with respect to silviculture come from the modeling that you guys did. And I'm curious how your modeling takes into account some of the best, best management practices that could be used in row crops, or do you just typically use what you typically see as part of the model? Right, so when I started doing this, we took them up with our own numbers, and I never got past the discussion of whose numbers are right, so I just used DEP's numbers. So every number that you see here is a number that was generated by the state. Okay, because I like jealous modeling. I mean, FSI has done some great stuff, but there's the amount of nitrogen that you need for silviculture versus row crops. I think one of the things, another thing that kind of came out of the BMAPs is, you know, we talk about food production, right, but it's a small, you know, the majority of the ag lands are not producing food. Right. So, you know, we can maintain that food production, no problem. It's the commodities as a whole that are the biggest problem, which is things that none of us eat, right? And it's one thing to say we want locally grown vegetables, but does anyone care whether your hay is grown in one of the most sensitive spring sheds in the world? I don't think so, right? I think that most of us would say, okay, we could probably buy our hay from somewhere where it isn't being grown in a place that has a direct impact on springs because, you know, there is no, in this area, if you're going to be operating a, you know, farm as a business for profit, you really cannot avoid contributing to the water quality problems, right? And that's why we have this best management practice operation, because if you implement best management practices, you get a presumption of compliance with all state water quality law. So there's nothing anyone can do to come after you if you implement those practices. So, you know, this is just the law. You know, the law says every producer has to do this, and for doing it, you get the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. So I think that, you know, at the minimum, if the producers – because, again, there's no doubt where the pollution is coming from. It is coming from agriculture. I wish it was septic tanks. Every conversation I have would be so much more fun if we could be talking about septic tanks. But it is agriculture, and if we're going to be – if we want to achieve the water quality goals, you know, we're still in a situation in this basin where we could get rid of all the people, all the pollution from urban fertilizer, septic tanks, and wastewater, and we'd still have heavily polluted springs. So, I mean – So I think that's why we need more incentive programs to support farmers to make shifts in their – in their way that they're doing their operations because they're being asked to do more and more, and they're making less and less. Like, the average firm is making 19 cents on the dollar at this point. So to try to ask them to then, like, change their practices from center pivot to drip, for example, you know, or something like that when they'd have to make that infrastructure investment. So I'm hopeful that with our new ag programs, maybe we can layer incentives on top of them that would shift them towards these BMPs and beyond BMPs. Well, that's what we need, right, because BMPs won't get there. So it's absolutely – that's what we're pushing for is incentives. I mean, regulations are not going to – we're getting to get there. We need a much more robust incentive program to be able to – because, I mean, farmers, we need to pay for the cost trip, you know, the drip irrigation, at least through cost share, a good portion of it. Moving – you know, there's some instances – you can do some math when you look at how much farmers are making compared to what citizens are paying to clean up the water. And the numbers – it's kind of what gives me hope is that we have this huge gap between what our farmers are making from an acre and what it's costing the state to clean up the water. And my feeling is, why aren't we paying the farmers to do better, right? I mean, you know, so it's not – so they can be better off economically, better off financially. And – I mean, the window is there. That is possible. We just have to get the policy support up in, you know, Tallahassee. And I know that our farmers want to do the right thing, but when you have this – you know, when you don't have a regulatory agency that's enforcing anything, it's really easy just to keep doing what you're doing and not even get signed up for those minimum practices. Well, and to be a natural resources manager with no – not being paid to be a natural resources manager. Exactly. Right. And that's not fair. Absolutely. I'm 100% with you. Okay. So this is where we're at right now on Santa Fe BMAP progress. So these are the allocations. I didn't put down the whole – break it out piece by piece. But these are the allocations that we fought for in court and what everyone has to do to be able to achieve the water quality goals. So where we're at right now is we have a 20-28 milestone, which is 30% reduction. Agriculture has gotten 55% of the way there, mostly through best management practices and cost share. And then it goes down from there. So local governments have only either completed or submitted projects to achieve 17% of that 20-28 loading. And private golf courses and private wastewater treatment facilities have not submitted a single project or completed a single project. So, you know, we have a long way to go, right? We're about 46% of the way to our 20-28 goal, and that is counting in a lot of instances from 2003. So we've been able to, you know, get that reduction done, but it's taken about 20 years. Now we need to do the same amount we've done over the last 20 years and the next three years. And then looking forward, we need to get that to that 1.3 million pound number. And the important thing about all these is that DEP does no projections of future loading. So all of this is assuming no new people move into the basin, no more intensive, you know, no approach operations intensify, right? This is a status quo. Of course, we know people are moving into the area, so you really have to do even better than that because as you're getting credits on one side, you're adding to the amount of pollution coming in on the other. So again, FSC is looking at what we can do to try to improve these BMAPs. I think the biggest problem we have with them is there's a provision in law that went in in 2023 that says that every BMAP has to meet that five-year goal. It has to have the projects and practices to meet that five-year goal. Almost none of the Sprint's BMAPs, including Santa Fe, do. And our basic simple position is that if you plan for failure, you will fail. And right now, the BMAPs of every project is implemented perfectly. If everything goes on time and on budget, we will not see the kind of reductions we need in nitrogen to save the springs. Second issue is flow. So Santa Fe River flow has been declining over a long period of time. In 2015, rivers were found to be in violation of their MFL, which means that significant harm is occurring. We have three gauges that the water management districts and DEP use to look at whether or not the system is suffering significant harm. That is the level for an MFL. So MFL is all the way down at significant harm. That's typically thought to be 15% loss in a really key environmental value. But of the three different compliance points that they look at, two of them are in recovery and one of them is meeting its MFL. So that requires the districts and DEP in this case, because it's a joint project between the St. Johns River Water Management District and the South Sewanee River Water Management District to develop a recovery plan. We've seen various different models of this recovery plan. I think some better and some worse. Stacy and the staff has been wonderful at making comments and working with DEP and working with nonprofits and trying to get this right. I think that what we saw come out recently for the 2025 recovery strategy is a major step backwards from what we saw proposed in 2024, which is unfortunate because I think what was rolled out in 2024, while I think it gave folks too much time and had some loopholes, it was a fair way to go about doing it. The 2025 MFL recovery strategy has essentially thrown all of that to the side and said we have one big project that's going to fix everything. And this is a proposal to pump 40 million gallons a day of treated wastewater from Jacksonville over to the Santa Fe and Chetecne Basin, and then use that water to recharge the aquifer in the Santa Fe, which according to the fancy models that the districts in DEP run, that can single-handedly solve all of the problems with flow in the Santa Fe River. We are supportive of the project because we, you know, in reality, when you look at what we need, unless GRU and some other folks are going to start handing back funds to their permits, it's going to be really hard for us to get there. You know, first of all, we shouldn't be in this situation. No consumptive use permit issued in the state can cause harm. So how in the world have we ended up in a situation where the systems are suffering significant harm? So the permitting system is broken. That's something we'll talk about in a minute. But given where we are with permitting, we're going to have to have, I mean, to me, this is like our North Florida Everglades project. Are they buying back permits? Are they? No. Like in the West, you know, with water issuance, they're actually buying back water rights in order to incentivize people to give up some of their pumping allocations. So in the recovery strategy, one of the things that it was, I think, more prominent in the 2024 version, but it still exists in 2025, I would say is that, you know, let's say you're coming in and you need a water use permit for 2 million gallons a day. You could go find another water use permit that's, let's say, going to a less economically viable activity, and you could buy out that permit. And then that whatever the savings at those compliant points is going to be for buying out the permit, you would get that credit towards your new permit. And that's something FSC pushed hard to get into the recovery strategies. I think, you know, I'm not in favor of a water market by any means, but using those kind of systems to push water towards higher value uses, especially as we begin to see, you know, this project, and Jackson, this is a $1.1 billion project, and that does not include the easements to run the pipe 80 miles, or the land to build the wetland. So I know everyone here is familiar with Sweetwater, which is one of my favorite places. Since I found out about this project, I went to Sweetwater, and you're like, this is enormous, right? And Sweetwater is tiny compared to what it would take to treat this much water to a level where we would not be doing, because it is treated wastewater. So you have to make sure it's super clean before you put it into the Santa Fe, or we're just going to make the problem I talked about a minute ago worse, right? I assume they're treating to somewhere close to drinking water standards. Oh, they're below drinking water, yeah. So, I mean, I went and met with the district, and, you know, all of this is going to be worked out in the science and in what nature does, but, I mean, they believe they can get it to near background levels, which, like, below the TMDL, which would be fantastic. But there's so many things that aren't measured, pharmaceuticals, things like that. But that's something else that has to be addressed, yeah, and the districts are, they're talking about it. That stuff is harder, but they understand, especially coming from Jacksonville, that is a real issue. Some of these forever chemicals, and, you know, there's a lot of- Yeah, there's a lot of industry in Jacksonville, there's a lot of medicine in Jacksonville. Absolutely. So, you know, and there are new things that can be done, but again, it's like, you know, we're at that $1.1 billion price tag, and we're not thinking about all of those things. So, this is going to be an enormous project. You know, for comparison, all of Florida Springs get $50 million a year in restoration funds from the state. So, this would be the equivalent of 30 or 40 years of Springs restoration funds to get this done. But we need to get it done, because I don't see another path. What we don't believe is right is relying on it exclusively for the recovery strategy. Because the way that the recovery strategy lets this happen is everyone can continue to get their permits indefinitely. So, essentially, they just- Now we're acknowledging that harm is happening, but we're saying it doesn't matter that harm is happening from your permit, because this project is going to come online 15 to 20 years from now, and that's going to solve all the problems. So, we can continue to hand out permits. You know, if we- If FSC, if I was king for a day, I would reverse it. I would say everybody's taking a haircut today, and as we can get these projects online, we can make more water available. But I would put the health of the river system first. One of my big concerns is that if we keep handing out permits, the regulated industries aren't really going to have skin in the game to get this project done. But if they were being told, hey, in five years, your permit's going to be clawed back, I think we would get a lot faster movement in Tallahassee. Right now, the budget request for this project for the next year is $25 million, and I would have loved to have seen that be hundreds of millions and start getting a down payment on a project this big, you know, not trying to finance it year by year by year through a legislature that is always changing, a governor that will change three or four times during this project, right? It's a long time. And we've seen in South Florida where they build whole reservoirs just to blow them up and build another one. And, you know, I don't want to see that happen here. Is there conservation anywhere in any of this? There is, you know, there are, in the actual recovery strategy, I don't think there is a ton of mandatory conservation. The district said that they did plan on working that out and increasing conservation through their permits. You know, one of the things that I thought was good about the 2024 plan was it created a tiered list of things that agricultural producers could do, and they just had to get the five points in their water conservation checklist. That's been removed. So kind of that entire, you know, and again, that's somewhere where certainly cost share is necessary, but that's how you get the cost share is by putting in the requirement for the practice and then going out and getting the funding. And you could build that in, but to just say we're not doing it, I think, is a step in the wrong direction. I have a question for you. Yeah, sure. To Commissioner Alford's point, talking about this project specifically, we're talking about nitrogen loading, phosphorus loading, we all know that, how much bioassay data is going to be available from that wastewater treatment effluent? I assume it's AWT. I'm hoping it's infiltrated wetlands. How much bioassay data is going to be available? The district has said everything. I mean, that's what, you know, this is all, I mean, we're in the pre-planning stages, but in the discussion we had, they took this concern very seriously. So I just kind of have to take them on their word. You know, right now they are building kind of like miniature treatment, very, very small treatment wetlands to take a small amount of the water that would be run all the way out here, begin to put it through the treatment wetland and then measure all those things on the other side to see what they can do about treatment. But it's, I think it's one of those things we have to watch absolutely, because if the water coming in, 40 million gallons a day, is not clean, then this project just fails automatically. The nitrogen may be lower, but you may be killing all your fish. If we're not looking at bioassay data, or they don't reproduce, or... No, I agree. Yeah, I mean, no, that's, I think that's the big concern. I think it's going to take some real treatment, you know, and it's an enormous amount of water to treat that, to that standard. But, I mean, at least in the discussions with the district so far, they totally understand it. You know, another thing that we've been suggesting is there's going to be these massive wetland treatment areas. You could get a really good double bang for your buck if you bought out land that was either currently in intensive commodity production or was, you know, at risk of development, right? So not only create a wetland, but use that to offset any of the additional things that would be coming in. Use it to offset future growth. Obviously, we're in cellars, people will want to do it, but there you could get kind of a double benefit of, you know, reducing the water use and reducing a chunk of pollution on one side while getting the recharge on the other side. This is like on the scale of Reedy Creek, right? I think it's bigger. Bigger than Reedy Creek. 40 million gallons a day is really big. I guess Reedy Creek's like, what, 20? That was a while back when it was 20. I'm curious. If I may interject, the Water Management District, Sewanee, does want to come to the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners and give a presentation on this project, so I can work on getting that on an agenda. And is there a theoretical timeline for this project? Theoretical? Sure. Sure. 15 years. Theoretical. We're going to start, but to wrap that up. I mean, we're in the pre-planning stages. And I think that the way the districts laid it out was that you could get portions of it coming online earlier, right? But they were looking at 15 years as having the whole thing operational. I mean, you're looking at such a large wetland, it may need to be in multiple areas. You might be able to get wetland. So there's, I think, there's a lot to still be discovered. 15 years seems optimistic, but doable. Are they talking at all about saltwater intrusion because of ocean rise and the lowering of the aquifer and the areas coming in from the outlying areas, you know, even up through the St. Johns River into our system that way? I, they are talking about it, just not in terms of this, I think in terms of this project. It seems like it would affect, you know, all of this stuff coming in from Jacksonville too, you know, the water. Well, this water, I mean, so the reason that we do this, right, so the water is pumped from west of Jacksonville, but Jacksonville pumps so much water that they've moved the entire Santa Fe Basin towards Jacksonville. So they're, essentially, that Jacksonville water is stealing from the Santa Fe, which I know I drove over here this morning, it seems like it's a very long way away, but that is what's happening, right? So, I mean, Jacksonville's a big city, lots of water use, and they're pulling our water out. So, the idea is let's pump it back over, which, you know. I wish I was in a room. So, next steps on this one. DEP is, has to propose a recovery strategy for adoption. At that point, if anyone wants to, they could be challenged. They will then go for ratification in front of the Florida legislature in the 2026 legislative session, assuming they do propose it for adoption. That's a double-edged sword, because the rule can be changed during the ratification process. FSC is certainly going to be trying to work to improve the rule and get a little more protection on the front end, while also supporting the project on the back end. But most of the time we've seen these rules go through, they have ended the legislative session significantly weaker than they began it. And I think we need to make sure, at the very least, that's not, that's not happening. If it is not challenged, if it is ratified, then it can go into effect next year. 20 million. Last thing, so to consumptive use permitting, and again, part of that same 2016 law, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was required to adopt a new permitting regime and definition of harm for outstanding Florida Springs. So, obviously, this would be, you know, very significant for the Santa Fe and Itchituckney. That was back in 2016. We got to 2024, and DEP had never proposed a rule. They had just sat on their hands for eight years. So, we sued them in Hernando's circuit court, saying you have a requirement, a mandate, to adopt this rule. On the very last day, the DEP had to respond to our writ of habeas of mandamus. They, instead, finally announced that they were going to propose a rule. Unfortunately, the rules that they have proposed are identical to the rules that have been in place since 2014. So, 2014, they adopt new rules. Since 2016, the legislature looks at those rules and says, these will not preserve outstanding Florida Springs. 2025, DEP is still trying to go under those same 2014 rules. And we know that this was not intended because the sponsor of the bill who wrote it told us so in a public committee. And I won't read the whole quote, but his take on the thing that he wrote and they passed unanimously was, it's a new standard here, not something that's been previously done before. So, we were very disappointed that it was no new standard and that it was exactly what had previously been done before, which is what had led to us suffering significant harm, right? I mean, this is the reason that the Santa Fe MFL is in violation is the failure of the consumptive use permitting process. Too much water has been allocated, as well as the fact there's some sources of water, like private irrigation wells, that just aren't well tracked. But overall, it is the permitting. So, we went back to court basically telling DEP, we can't tell you what to do, but you can't do the same thing you've been doing. Whatever you're doing, it has to be more protective than what's gotten us in this situation. That case is currently pending in front of the First District Court of Appeals. If we're able to win there, and if we're able to get DEP to adopt rules that meet the requirements of the law, and the law says no consumptive use permit shall cause harm to an outstanding Florida Springs, and the rules must prevent it, then some of this NFL stuff might not even matter. Because if they can't issue permits that cause harm, we're going to see the Santa Fe system recover very quickly, because we will see water use in the basin, you know, drop. Do you have hope for that? I do. I do. I mean, you know, the court is the court, but, I mean, on the language, as I read it... It is Florida. It is Florida. I will point out, we've, Fort Springs Council, this is our third time at First UCA, and we've never lost. So, we've never won at DOA, the Division of Emergency of Hearings, and we've never lost at First UCA. Okay. So, I remain optimistic. I think the DEP clearly has a requirement to do something different that is more protective. I think they have a lot of leeway in what that is. We actually have provided draft language, I think, five years ago on what that could be that's been ignored. But I think that clearly the status quo is not working, and the Santa Fe MFL was something we really highlighted in the hearing, because it's really tough to argue that the consumptive use permits are not causing harm while you're looking at a system where the district says significant harm is being caused by the permits. So, real quick, these are just some of our FSC priorities for the next year or so. We want to increase state funding, 2026 session, for springs restoration. $50 million is not nearly enough. $150 million would not nearly be enough, but that's our goal, is to get up to $150 million a year. More money for land conservation. Of course, Florida Forever was gutted, only $18 million last year. That should be at a minimum of $300 million. And, you know, as Florida grows more and more, and we're seeing people come here, the more and more land we need to conserve, and providing much more funding for those agricultural grants and cost-share practices. So, not just saying that. That is one of our top priorities for Session 1. That's why I brought it up. I just didn't know if you were going to talk about it. And we want to repeal sections 18 and 28 of SB 180. These are the sections that say you all can't do, don't have home rule power, cannot improve your comprehensive plan, cannot provide additional environmental regulations. Yeah, I mean, you know, just everywhere I go, talk about government's people, that is a core concern. And it's a lot of very red counties that are also being caught up in that and are very unhappy. So, I have some hope for that. As I mentioned, we want to improve the Santa Fe MFL during ratification. We want to see existing laws enforced. That's what a lot of our court work is doing. It's just, I mean, I say it all the time, but Florida's blessed to have really good environmental laws. We just don't follow them. But we have the benefit of they're there, right? So, we can go to court and we can hope to get to a point where they're being administered faithfully. And then working with local governments to adopt strong local fertilizer ordinances, prioritize water conservation, and prohibit new irrigation wells and new development agreements. We just had Citrus County pass one of the most protective urban fertilizer ordinances in the state. They have a nine-month blackout, 65% snow release, 25-foot setbacks. I think a year ago I would have thought that was impossible. But I think one of the benefits of the BMAPs and people being able to see, wow, we have a big problem and we're on the hook to do something, is that the local governments are saying, well, we can force the septic tank upgrades, which are going to have to happen, or we can put in urban fertilizer ordinance. And you all, of course, Alachua County has been so far ahead of this issue, and we use Stacey's materials and you guys as an example at all the commission meetings. It's been so helpful to be able to especially show some of the data-driven stuff that the Alachua EPD comes up with, you know, that is based on numbers and surveys and stuff. I met, you know, the Citrus County Commissioner is really listening to those things. So, thank you all very much for having me, and if there's any more questions, I'm happy to take them. Does anybody have any other questions? Does it help for counties to support your efforts at what you're doing in Tallahassee, letters of support, or, you know, as you're joining the lawsuit, you know, does that happen? On a certain issue, but, you know, Tallahassee is not always a very friendly place for local governments right now, and I think it takes a very balanced approach of knowing. You know, when I, 15 years ago, League of Cities and Association of Counties were big dogs in Tallahassee, and they worked with us all the time, and it was great. And now, I think you have to choose your battles a little more carefully because... Okay. Yeah, well, they don't like us very much up there anyway, so I don't know that we would be helpful. Right, but I mean, not just for you all. I mean, any local government. And I think, you know, where it's something of particular stake to you, then it's worth weighing in on, but I think that, you know, that's kind of the... Well, having the concentration of springs up here all the way up to Madison and Tallahassee and all of that, I just didn't know if that would help as a block. I think that where you all want to help, we're very happy to have it, but, you know, you guys are smart people. You'll ask us for it if you need it, though. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Stacey, which is a great thing. Yes. Yes. Stacey, here's lots of my ideas. We're about to be in a place where there are going to be possibly significant political changes in the state of Florida also. I mean, new governor and all of those things in the next two years. So, you know, getting ready for particular changes and opportunities is, I think, worthwhile. I think good legislative change with the Florida Association of Counties and League of Cities often is more than a one-year process. As well, so, you know, anything that you can provide to us that are active in those organizations is super useful because, you know, we can put forth legislative priorities to those organizations and argue for them. And I think that's really important. And I think that there is a lot of sympathy for this, as you said, across those red counties. They're seeing, you know, lots of tourism revenue from springs degrading in quality. They're seeing, you know, they're seeing the impacts. You know, the folks that have lived in those counties all those years have seen the changes just like I've seen them. And it's really obvious that the water coming out of the ground isn't good. And, you know, when their grandkids can't, you know, drink what comes out of the faucet, then that's also an issue. So anyway, I would like to work, you know, closely to try to get those priorities. And to that point, that one slide that was the FSC priorities wasn't in our presentation. No, I changed it up at the last minute. Yeah, so if we could get a copy of that and a copy of the minimum flows and levels page, that would be great. Absolutely. Yep. And I just want to say, sorry, the cities and, I just want to, League of Cities and Association counties are still doing great work. Oh, absolutely. But we recognize that it is a hard place right now. They've shifted out of necessity and are still doing, you know, incredible stuff. But strategy-wise, you know, taking the long view is something that they're very good at. Yeah, I'm happy to talk with anyone, as Stacey knows, about legislative session ad nauseum. Anybody else have any other comments? Stacey? If I could just add a little bit of context for some other things that the county is doing that's in relation to what Ryan just presented. There is a pot of money that FDACS has for agricultural projects that take BMPs kind of beyond. Unfortunately, that money is normally the money that goes to water quality grants, which we had a couple projects we were going to apply for this year, but it got zero funding, so we are not doing that. I have a couple exploratory meetings this week to see if there's a potential role for the county to work with FDACS and some local producers to try to get some of these projects within Alachua County to help us meet our allocation. The big part about that, because we are one of the local governments, as is High Springs and Gainesville, that has an allocation in this new BMAP. So we're just trying to figure out, you know, if we work with ag as a local government, can we meet some of our allocation? And then the final thing I just wanted to mention is we did get a grant that we are doing a study of the economic impact of springs recreation in this region. We did it in 2013, and it is kind of redoing that and adding some other elements, some other things that just weren't available in 2013. So I should have that report next year, and that might be something that can help everybody to also talk about that economic value of our springs. So I just wanted to share those things since they seem to match up. And I think it's interesting, just if I can, to point out the fact that, you know, your work, particularly in having Alachua County become an agricultural partner to farmers, it gives us really a leg up in making these arguments to the agricultural community. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's what I was going to say is I think that they're, like, the approach that, like, much like Citrus County was an unlikely bedfellow in conversations around fertilizer ordinances, I think that while ag might be seen as the unlikely bedfellow around springs protection because they're providing a lot of the nitrogen that's causing the harm, I think that one of the biggest challenges that they have is that agriculture is dying, you know, because they can't afford the increasing cost of production, increasing cost of labor while facing the decreasing market shares with all of these, like, crazy things that are happening, tariffs for their imports, and then competition from overseas for their exports and for their local domestic production. So I think the work that we're doing to invest in our local food system, like, with the food hub and with trying to think not just about, like, agricultural lands protection, you know, it's like, it's great to protect the land, but if there's no money to be made on that land, then the farmers are going to stop farming it and they're going to sell it anyway, you know. So if we can think about the ways in which we think about the economics of farming at the same time we're thinking about these cost share opportunities and we link arms with Sean McClendon's office, with Bailey McFellin and with our economic development office, with our food hub and with our small farms grants and with our land acquisition program for easements and with your cost share for, you know, then we can create sort of a bucket of resources that we can take to farms and say, hey, look, like, you can make money with an easement, you can protect your land for future generations of your family, you have money for incentives to shift and adopt new strategies and new technologies to use less resources and less inputs and get the same level of production and, you know, you've got opportunities to get infrastructure dollars to invest and to work with the county to find new market shares through the food hub. So I think that's kind of, like, that's why I work on all those buckets is, like, because it's, like, it's one thing to just talk about natural resources and be like, do these things, but if they're not making enough money on their firm to even keep their firm operational, then asking them to adopt, like, lower fertilizers, low input fertilizers or get rid of their pivot irrigation is kind of, like, out the window. So I think trying to tie those two together, our economic development piece and our conservation piece, and think about the ways in which we deliver those together is a really important thing. We help them win and become heroes. Exactly. So the more, like, EPD and, well, Andy and EPD and you and EPD and Bailey can be putting your heads together about the ways in which our strategies kind of work together as a team, I think is really powerful, could be really powerful. One more question. Are you all following the conversation going on between Bronson and Cedar Key in terms of taking water and pumping it to Cedar Key? Just what I've read in the news. Okay. I didn't know how far they got in because I would imagine that's going to impact. There's a Blue Springs over there in Bronson, too. There is. Sewanee River is okay for flows at the moment. Okay. And, you know, I was – one of the projects that had been proposed for Santa Fe was to pump water from the Sewanee. Okay. Well, that makes much more sense. So I would – I think, you know, I'd rather use JEA's treated wastewater than – You, like, steal from a lot from Peter to pay for all of us. Right. Because, you know, yeah, there's not a problem until there is, right? And, you know – Yeah, because Sewanee gets way down there, too, sometimes. That's what I mean. I used to live with Sewanee. It does, but just as an MFL concern, they're not – you know, they still have – I don't like the term excess water, but that's the term that – It's not – it's like when the Santa Fe would need it most, the Sewanee wouldn't necessarily have it. That's – yeah, because I lived at that site on 441 for a couple of years, and you can – Portage – yeah, I mean, you have to. If you're – canoes and kayaks, you have to walk across there at that – that springs. I didn't know that's what they were called, those little spring spots there at that 441 bridge, though. But it's low, and I can't help but think that that is impacting the quality of the water in the river, too, that low level. And I don't know why we're not pushing conservation all over the place. You know, they do it out west. Commissioner Watts? On your table that you had up there, this is a grain of sand on the beach, but it talked about private golf courses. This is something that's kind of come to our – come to High Springs house right now, and Stacy and Steve were at the same meeting I was. There's a private golf course in an adjacent, potentiometrically upgradient municipality – I don't want to call them out – that has consumptive use permits that are almost equal to the entire city of Archer for a private golf course. They bought the property. They bought more property, and they basically bought the cups with it. We found out at that meeting – I don't know, Stacy, if you knew this beforehand, but I didn't know until we were sitting in a P&Z meeting. Every time they water, they're going to be fertilizing. It's concurrent. That consumptive use permit doing no harm, you're fertilizing every time you water. They're going to be watering every day. It's a golf course. Right. Well, are they fertilizing with watering, or are they fertilizing every time they water it? Because those are two different things. Like, you can fertilize – if you can fertigate through your irrigation system, it doesn't mean you're doing it every time. That doesn't sound like that may be accurate. You may want to follow up with them. Because if they fertilized every time they watered, they would actually probably kill their grass. Well, they fertilize and hail every time they water because they're using treated rice water. Well, that's different. But still – That's a lot less nitrogen than fertigation. It depends on what the level is. Right. Yeah. I mean, we've – the city of High Springs and Alachua County have submitted affected party status letters to the city of Alachua for another project. But, you know, I mean, when you come to High Springs, where I am, the karst geology and, you know, it's all going to end up at the river, everybody in High Springs is impacted by that, whether you're on, you know, municipal water or well. So how do you fight that? So the golf course – each private golf course should have its own allocation, essentially, for how much – just like local government, how much pollution they need to be reducing. But when you look at how hard it's going to be to do this, I do think that's one of those situations where we think about choices that we make and what we value. So private golf courses are supposed to have their own allocation? Private golf – in the BMAP? Yes, private golf courses have their own. So they're not included, like, in your local government number. They are included – So if a new private golf course comes on, then how does that work? They would – in the next – they would get an – essentially get an allocation. And they would fight for the biggest allocation they can because then they have to reduce it, they can still do what they want to do. And then you've got a P&Z member, board member, in that municipality that sits on the Water Management District Board that approved that cup. Now, to her credit, she recused herself from being involved in the municipal process. However, you know, as a municipality, we have no – we have no say over consumptive use permits. We don't – you know. So how do we bridge that gap? How do we – how do we become more partners? With an adjacent local government? No, with – with water management districts. How do we do a better job working together? I think Stacey does about the best job. I was going to say. That's a great question for Stacey. And, you know, I would just say ask Stacey and do what she does because she's – she – yeah, I mean, Stacey – you are so lucky to have Stacey. But to her ability to work with the agencies and finesse things, I mean, it's difficult, right? Because they are a special district appointed by the governor, and they're not really answerable to anyone but the governor. So it's – that's a – so I think a question everybody has, and I don't have the answer, unfortunately. Okay, well, I want to make sure we have time for the public to give us some feedback, and I'm sure they may have something that would be useful to use. So are there any public that wish to comment? Please come to the microphone here, the empty chair, or the chair he was just in, and state your name, and you'll have three minutes or so. We can be a little flexible given that I think we have – we don't have very many – we'll say three to four minutes. I'm Linda Wiesman. I live out in Fort White near the confluence of the Itchituckne and the Santa Bay, so I'm happy to follow Ryan. I have authored a citizen-generated petition to establish a springs protection zone on the lower Itchituckne that is – has been submitted to FWC on July 29th. It is in the final stage – final part of the review stage. Review responses are due back October 24th. It is gaining traction. It surprised me. At this point of the local municipalities, Fort White and Brantford and Columbia County have agreed to endorse the SPZ. Yeah. I was like – I love the SPZ. Yeah. Good job. So the Swanee County Commission is tomorrow night. That's going to be more of a fight even than Columbia County. I just want to make sure you all knew that – who I am. If you've got any questions, anybody I can present to, any chance of support anyplace, let me know. I am working this just as hard as I can. Can you send us materials on your springs protection zone, what exactly it would entail, what it would mean? I can send you the petition. Now, the petition under the SPZ statute has to be entirely environmentally written. There is certainly – there are certainly other aspects to establishing a springs protection zone. One is safety. This is the lower itch, not the state park. So we have tubers, paddle craft, interacting with motor vessels. What this asked for, this petition asked for, is a no-wake zone and restricting PWCs or jet skis from the lower itch. It does not restrict prop boats because I did not have the scientific data to support that at this time. Sole reason, to be honest. That may come later in a separate petition. So, yes, so we have the safety aspect of interacting paddle craft and tubers and swimmers, me, with the jet skis, the issue of the wakes. And, right, currently we do not have any statute that lowers speed on the lower itch. Itchutukmi. And then the other aspect, of course, is a tourism aspect. The jet skis come through and the river just turns brown, and it's like floating down a sewage line. So we do have the tourism aspect there as well. Thank you. Thank you. If you send things to me, I'll send everything out. You got it. I may have already sent it to you. Linda is presenting at the Santa Fe Springs Protection Forum that I post on October 23rd. Yes. Excellent. So come on out. Thank you for your work. Thank you. I appreciate it. Would anyone else like to speak to the commission? Please come forward. Hi, Jenna. Good afternoon. Dan Zhu, Chief Resiliency Officer. A couple updates from the city. Nationally, the city received the LEAD for a city gold certification, and we celebrated at the city commission with a representative from U.S. Green Building Council. And we also presented the work at the Florida Planning Conference with Commissioner Eastman. So this is a milestone that at the national recognition level indicating that we are becoming the leader on sustainability effort. So I especially wanted to thank this board for your support because you guys provided a letter of support to make this opportunity possible. So at the global level, the city got invited by the Clinton Global Institution and joined by over 1,000 leaders from 46 countries last month. At New York, we brought gains from work into the international conversation on resiliency, food, and the economy. So it's definitely a great honor to hear from the Clinton family and the governors from California and Virginia. And at the local level, we had a Pine Ridge Refresh Cleanup led by Commissioner Book, and this is a great opportunity to unite the neighbors and even children. And then we also had a scene for the sun, which was hosted by CLIO Institute and the Climate Reality Project. So the mayor's proclamation was presented to the event. It was really delightful to see those children singing at this concert. Okay, and then in terms of the resiliency community tour, we've been doing this since January, and each section that we have one chapter related to the resiliency plan in Gainesville from energy, water, transportation. So our next tour will be at Field and Fork, supported by Commissioner Prezia. Thank you so much. Good to have you on. Okay, so we also started monthly tree planting in the past weekend, and each month we select a location within Gainesville, and we will have volunteers in collaboration with Public Works to do the tree planting. And finally, you may be curious about the grant implementation. So the $26 million from Department of Transportation, that portion of the solar canopy is finally getting into the implementation request for proposal stage. So with all this milestone, we are really excited to see this momentum from all of our partners and our communities. So together, we firmly believe that we are building a city that is stronger and more resilient. So we are doing something we can at the local level. Thank you all for your support. Thank you for all your hard work. And if I could just add in, Dan Zhu, you didn't mention this, but also is listed by GRIST as one of the 50 environmental leaders to watch. I think about two weeks ago, they put on that list. That's very exciting. Good. Very cool. Thank you. Nice work. Any other public comment for the board? Okay, any commissioner comment or member comment? I have one more question. Yes, ma'am. There is a meeting tomorrow night at St. John's River Management in Palatka, and I put it on my calendar to go for some reason because it sounded good to me, and I can't remember why. Do you guys have any information about a meeting, Steve? I don't have enough time. Okay. St. John's? St. John's. Mm-hmm. Palatka. I can look, too. I just didn't know if it had come up on you all's radar radio, on the radar, because it came through our e-mails, and so I'll check and see. But I had it to go for a reason. I'm not sure why, except Rob Bradley is the chair of that board now, is he not? Is he not? Yeah. And I wanted to meet up with him, too, for his use at Center. Okay. So members, all right, our next meeting date is December 1st. Yes, and if I could get some clarification on that agenda, we do have an opportunity to have two people from the Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, who have been working on the technical assistance grant through the Community's LEAP grant in the Empower Coalition. They can come in person and give an update if there's interest in that. Okay, great. We had also talked at our last meeting of maybe getting an update on the bike and pedestrian plan, and that timing works for that group, if you'd also like that. Perfect. And I think that would probably be enough. That would be enough, right, yeah. That sounds great. Thank you. You know, down the road, though, I'd really like to hear what the city is doing with the hog town projects. You know, I see excavation work, and I see reclamation work, and I see tables, picnic tables, and benches setting along, you know, the creek side. I just could like to know what it looks like, you know, what the plan looks like, because it's exciting to watch it happen. This may be a report from what you guys are seeing happening in the city. I can reach out to Public Works or their... I think it's what you're referring to, which is just... All right, that's to clear out the hog town base for flooding issues, right? There's also a long-term hog town creek greenway plan that's not... Well, that's kind of what I, you know, I knew there had to be something that would be cute to go with it, you know, just the practical part. But, yeah, I'd just like to see kind of where you all are with that. I can reach out, and then maybe we can get that on a 2026 agenda. Yeah, just an update, because it looks cool, you know. If you do go to this meeting, ask them if they're planning on opening up the Akawaja next year, since they didn't do it this year. That's why I'm going to talk to Rod. Because that's certainly recreational use in the district area. Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I'm going, too. I wanted to talk to him personally about that. All right, thank you. Okay, if there are no other comments, then we are adjourned.