Save Our Indian River Lagoon on 2026-08-21 8:30 AM - Aug 21, 2026

do the pledge allegiance. John Dice. Here. Mark Shrope. Rick Nipper. Here. Bruce Larson. Kimberly Newton. Deb Harmon. Here. Laura Lee Thompson. Here. Nicholas Sanzone. Richard Bankhead. Here. Aaron Adams. Kurt Smith. Here. Fred Goldstein. Here. Barbara Wall Scanlon. Eric Maness. Here. John Windsor. Here. Charlie Venuto. We have a quorum. Is anybody on the phone or nobody on the phone? Okay. Thanks. But we did have a lot more people RSVP, so I think they're stuck in traffic. Oh, just kind of wandering. Okay. Yeah. They'll be wandering in. But we do have a quorum. Thank you. Everybody, I'm sure, has reviewed the agenda. It was sent out a week ago. And do I have a motion to accept? I'll make the motion to accept the agenda. That was Deb? Second. Eric? Mm-hmm. Okay. Eric, seconded it. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thanks. Passed. The minutes came out a week ago, too. I'm sure you all reviewed them. Any additions? Any comments? John, you mentioned one. Yeah. We started the meeting last time. When we started the meeting last time, you offered some guidance for changes in the ground rules at the implementation of the chair. And I just thought those might be handy to have those in the minutes so that everybody could see them and, you know, we'd go forward with them. But it seems like we've gotten them here in a hard copy. Okay. And that's sufficient right now. But I can provide them to you as a separate from the minutes. Do I have a motion on the minutes? I'll make a motion to accept the minutes. Okay. That's Deb. Second. Second. That was Laura Lee. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Passes. All right. Well, we do have the ground rules that we're going to go over right now. And I just, just to preface this, I put these forward just because we're entering a really critical period here where we're going to start to see projects. And I just want everybody to realize the ground rules and how important they are to us getting this job done. So, Terry, go ahead. Or did you want to? I can read them. There's no reason to. I mean, you all have them in front of you. So, you know, make sure that you review them and prepare yourself for the meetings to come because it's very, very critical that we get through our job. That's our job is coming up. So, and Dick wanted to just mention something, something positive. Yeah. We have a lot of positive going on about us now with the data and everything. But on the fishing, we've come from, when I first came here, and there are no fish. You know, there's no use to go there. There's no fish. There's no use to go almost anywhere. And at the same time, we were, we had a lot of water that was, you know, going the wrong way. And so there was a question on St. John's too, what was going on. And I've seen in the last month a change to that. And instead of there's no fish, except for north of you, nicely, that it's changed to where the fish are. Okay. In other words, the fishermen are talking, say, well, the fish are here. You know, we've seen, we've seen big fish here north of Banana River would be a good example. It's very clear up there and starting to grow, you know, small, small plants. And now they're seeing big fish up there. And that's happened. We have people we talk to and they're, they're saying, hey, they're going here or they're going here. And it's a big change. And, and then lastly, and positive, by the way, and all of everybody here, especially these people, the paid ones, they've done a good job. And it's, and we all know it's sporadic. There are places they're nothing. And you won't get one bite. You won't see one porpoise. You know, you hit areas. And this week, first of all, you know, we lost, we lost a lot of little fish. So we didn't see many porpoises. And this week, or mullets especially, you know, we saw a lot of small mullets. I'd seen one of the big ones here and about two months ago. And this week, five porpoises had circled back around the big ones. And we're eating them. It's been a long time for five porpoises. You know, usually we go out and one follows us where we're going or something like that. So I just wanted to thank everybody and tell you that it is working. And, and I'm, and it's sporadic, as we say, which is frustrating as hell. But thank you, everybody. And appreciate all the hard work, especially staff. Yes. I'd like to, I'd like to just add on to that. I don't, I don't get out on the water much anymore since I had my back surgery. But I can report that at my own house, I don't know if I've, and I can't get in the water. But I don't know if I don't have seagrasses growing. But I know the Calerpa is just taking off. And fish wise, I see tarpon, I see snook, redfish, got a lot of dolphins. And unfortunately, I've seen a couple of very large bull sharks. They're, I guess they're following the fish too. And they have to eat. But it's a little disconcerting when you see one, one day, and then the next day you see two. So I guess that's the, that's the con side of adding fish to the, to the well. Thank you. Thank you. And I, I forgot to the, the St. John's, you know, which we worked, I worried about, we, we have a place on the St. John's and you wonder what we turned the water around, you know, from going to salt water. And, uh, we had the best bass year we've had in probably six or eight years this year. So I can show you pictures. But I, I had a couple on a fly, but I had a couple over four pounds and so obviously caught bigger bass in my life. That's a part of your presentation. Yeah, the pictures. Yeah, exactly. A hundred pictures. So next we have Virginia. Hey, good morning. Uh, this is quarterly report month, so I will be very, very brief, but we have now completed 140 community projects, 2,666 homeowner projects, and, uh, over a thousand, 1,030 conversions from septic to sewer. Um, the Merritt Island G septic to sewer project, that land purchase for the lift station is complete. So, uh, at long last, the final design can move forward. Um, uh, remove four more derelict vessels in the last month. I just wanted to make, uh, one update under the work underway, the Sykes Creek muck dredging, the bid package. Um, we've had a lot of interest from new bidders and they asked a lot of questions because they're new to, um, bidding with Brevard County. And so the, the bid opening has been extended to next Friday instead of today. Um, but we're looking forward to a good competitive process. Um, the Lagoon Loyal website, uh, we're currently reviewing major updates. I think, uh, we're looking forward to sharing those with the committee. Um, and we've had numerous requests from people wanting to see the Cocoa Beach, um, muck capping project, which is extremely difficult to accommodate. And so we, I want everybody to know we're, we're working with the contractor on, uh, video, you know, with drone shots so we can share everybody and be transparent about that project, but it's just not easy to get groups out there. It's got to be small groups. There's a lot of equipment. There's a lot going on. Um, and so, uh, we just, we just can't accommodate trip after trip after trip of people who want to see that project. Um, on the presentations, um, Brandon presented at the Unitarian, um, Friendship Fellowship Church in July. Um, Laura Lee and I are going to be on the CETA and Friends, um, radio, uh, talk radio. Uh, Melanie is presenting the Pond Watch at the Florida Lake Management Society Conference. Um, on September 30th, uh, I get to speak to the Space Coast Realtors. Then on October 1st, we have the, um, Space Coast Chamber of Commerce and on October 27th, the Space Coast Chambers Business Advocacy Committee. So excited about, um, getting to speak to those groups. Um, and of course there are so many opportunities for volunteers to participate out in the lagoon. I wanted to highlight, um, I believe it was the last meeting, uh, Dennis Wojtowicz, um, presented to you on his Crab Trap Removal, um, work. And so, uh, that has just wrapped up and now he's working on a trap of the trash this week. Um, or there's always Reef Building this time of year with the zoos Restore Our Shores, MRC's working on mangroves, um, Keep Brevard Beautiful, and Waterway Warriors to join every folks with their, uh, International Coastal Cleanup. So lots of opportunities to get out there on the water and, and help. Um, and then, uh, I didn't know we were going to get a fish report this morning, but next month's meeting is going to be all about fish. Um, your own Aaron Adams is going to present on his angler observations, um, research. And then we're going to have a panel of fishing guides talk to you about their experience out there on the lagoon. So really looking forward to next month's meeting. And that's my report. Thank you. All right. Um, a couple of questions. Um, one, and it's probably a typo. Uh, this month you reported 580 Quick Connects agreements executed, and last month it was 581. So did we have somebody drop or? We did. We, um, there are occasions where a homeowner finds out that the connection is not going to be really feasible, so they withdraw. Okay. That's why that number might fluctuate slightly much more. Thanks. And then I noticed also that, I guess it's going to be later with the finance report, but, um, just also a comment. I don't know if you saw Dennis's numbers from that crab trap removal. I think between the big Titusville event they had, right, that was amazing, and his, there were something like 250 maybe between the two. And, uh, as he was reporting last night, um, sadly, but for better, they found lots of live crabs and fish in these traps and released them all that they could. So pretty amazing stuff. They found a lot of lobsters too. Oh yeah. Little lobsters in the traps. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You're up and ready. Yeah. I have a question. Do we have a new attorney? I'll introduce myself real quick. I've covered a couple times before, but, uh, Heather's out of town, so I'm covering today Sarah Beasley. I'm also with the county attorney's office. Okay. Hello. Thank you. Thank you. And Sarah, it's like she's still in high school. Okay. Well, good morning. Um, for the May collections, we have collected four million, no quarterly discretionary this month. The total revenue from conception is 539 million. And for the monthly financial statement, the anticipated revenue at the end of the fiscal year is 573 million. The actual revenue is 502 million. For the expenditures this fiscal year, the total assigned to projects and programs is 114 million. I mean, 114.7 million. And the actual spending is 37.6 million. So I'm going to scroll through the financial reports because I've got a little more in depth on the grants. I want to go a little bit more on that this period, um, quarterly. So our grants, we, for federal grants, this fiscal year, we have spent 2.5 million for our state grants, 9.8 million. Our fiscal environment, 859,775, which gives us a total of expenses is 130, or 13.2 million. Okay. We have reimbursements that we have submitted that we are waiting on payments to come back to us. We have submitted the LPA 144, which is septic upgrades, which it was $284,876.71. The LG 002 quick connect connections is 146,917. The IRL, I'm sorry, INV 64 IRL circulation and water quality forecast model. Um, it's in the process of receiving the payment. We're just waiting for the check to come in. That was our latest update. It's $14,702.76. We did receive the last final payment for the IRL 2024 pond pilot program. So we received the check this week for 5,108.88. Okay. Staff is working on future reimbursements. Uh, the LPA 0056, which is the Sykes Creek zone MNT septic sewer. Um, probably about 365, it's 1,262. The WG 072, 700,000. It's the micro sewer line extension. Get down. And the NS 059, which is 4.9 million. That is the Sykes Creek T construction and connections. The WG 055 is 2.6 million, which is the Sykes Creek zone M septic to sewer. The LPA 0093, which is, whoops, too far, 134,000, which is the water quality improvement. And the LG 001, 512,819 for septic upgrades. And the LPA 474, which is the 5.0 million, um, you galley dredging. So they are diligently working very hard to get those rebates submitted to and get them reimbursed. And at this point, we have no new executed grants right now. Okay. Do you have any questions or anything? I know that was a lot. Well, the video was, was trying to keep up with you too. And yeah, having a very hard time. I'm like reading, but also like trying, yeah, trying to move. So yes. One question that you had a graph that was usually on the bottom of that monthly financial statement. Is there a reason that it's not on there this month? Um, I know that Brandon was out of town and so I, and, um, so it was in the folder. So, but I mean, it will be up next month. I do apologize for that. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Any other thing? Yeah. It's in the slides going up. I have it in my presentations. Oh, okay. Good. So we do have it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Here comes Terry. All right. We have quarterly updates today. So we are reporting on the progress from May 1st through June 30th. And just as a reminder on the, um, paperwork in your packet, the green signifies that the project's been completed. Yellow is that, uh, progress was made this past quarter and pink signifies that progress has not been made. And we can ask questions along the way. Also. So anybody has questions along the way, go ahead. Okay. Is that fine with you? Yeah, that works. Starting off with, uh, public education. We have seven projects in the plan. One is complete and that's our, um, our oyster gardening program. And we have six ongoing. Brandon's presenting right after me. So I'll let him highlight the lagoon loyal campaigns. Um, but the restore our shores program, um, focuses on outreach, oyster gardening, clam restoration, into the seagrass nursery. And I wanted to highlight this oyster here. They were out doing some spat monitoring and that one has lots of little babies growing on it. So it's good news there. Excuse me. Under education, um, there's, there's a lot of unspent money and I was wondering if some of it could be moved into other education programs, um, like, like, um, education on septic tank upgrades. Um, a lot of questions are being asked in quick connects, uh, you know, how, how to get them, when to get them, um, you know, when to apply for them, um, and also on the septic to sewer projects too. So we are working on a video showing how to apply for the septic upgrade, quick connect and sewer lateral funds and how that process works. So I think that would really help, um, homeowners know, but currently everything in the plan is allocated towards those, uh, project types, those campaigns. So, um, during the plan update phase, we would need to revisit and reallocate funds, but that would, could slow work down because our, we have task orders out for each of these campaigns and work is going on. Yeah. I just noticed that Indian River County was, was doing a campaign like that to educate, to actually, you know, having sessions for, for that and, uh, to, and it might help people to understand what's going on. All right. We'll take a look into that. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Um, moving on to wastewater treatment facility upgrades. We have 10 projects in the plan for our complete and, um, currently the West Melbourne Ray Bullard facility is under construction and is about 20% complete. Uh, they recently installed, uh, this bypass line right here at 440 feet of a new backwash line and they are waiting to pressure test this line and continued electrical work on this project. I have a question on this, um, uh, with fish, specifically to wastewater treatment facilities, uh, pharmaceuticals in the wastewater is a pretty major issue, um, in the fishing community more and more so. Um, has there been consideration of adding, um, retrofits to treat the stormwater, treat the wastewater for pharmaceuticals as part of this? It's a, I can get you some better numbers, but it's not very expensive relative to this cost. It'd be a minor add on. So is there an opportunity to have that add on to these much larger upgrades? I'm not sure if that is part of this particular project. I could look into it and talk to the city and see if that is something they could consider modifying. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We have, um, a couple that are in the design phase, uh, Melbourne's Grant Street water reclamation facility is expected to be rebid this month. The South Brevard, um, received their deep injection well permits and their preliminary design is underway and they are working on land acquisition. The South Beaches has 90 percent design is, and is preparing to bid. And the Port St. John is looking at potential areas to relocate the plant. The Cove package plan upgrade is, um, not currently contracted, but I did recently reach out to get an update on that project. So I'm waiting to hear back. Another question, um, on the, uh, deep water well injection, um, is there a, is there a monitoring, um, associated with that for groundwater intrusion? I believe that's all through DEP. They have to report and monitor on all that. Okay. The reason I bring it up is we had issues in the Florida Keys with some of the injection wells. It resulted, you know, in a lawsuit, which was the county had to, um, change it, but it was affecting the fisheries there as well. Oh yeah. I saw that story. Yeah. And those were shallow wells. Ours are much deeper, so I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess that's the question is why they were permitted shallow and deep. That's not been defined. And every place is different. Um, in Charlotte County, for example, they had an injection well, um, and they kept losing pressure and they did a dye test and eventually they found a water coming up six or seven miles away. Um, and so it, there's also been some work, I think it was FIU, that showed that some injection in, say, southwest Florida might actually come up in the Keys. Um, and so it's, it's one thing to, quote, get rid of it, but we're not really getting, we might just be sharing, as a friend says, we're sharing a poo with other people. Um, so that's why I bring that up. And from the, I've talked about this before in this venue, but a lot of the fresh water coming into the river is, um, it's through groundwater and we can talk about next month because the guys will know, but there are some spots that you can tell, um, um, the water, you can tell, for example, if it's rained inland a lot, because like a week later, there's new water coming in and it's not high quality. So just throwing that out there to make sure that when they're doing this, they have good monitoring. Okay. Um, moving on to rapid infiltration basins and spray field upgrades. We have two projects in the plan. The Long Point Park project was completed in 2017 and we currently have the Sterling House condominium, uh, uncontracted as we're waiting for pending media test results. Package plant connections. We have two projects in the plan. Oak Point was completed a couple of years ago. Currently the Willow Lakes RV park, um, last quarter they were out to bid, received, um, a couple of bids for that project. And now the construction contract is under review to get started on that, hopefully in the next couple of months. For sewer laterals, we have six projects in the plan. Um, five smoke testing projects have been completed and the countywide repairs are underway. Um, this quarter we had an additional 14 repairs for a total of 1,187 of 1,222 repairs completed. And I wanted to highlight this picture here. Originally this pipe was going through the tree. So obviously had some leaks and the plumbers work to, um, move the pipe around the tree. For septic removal, we have 42 projects in the plan. Five of those are completed for a total of 430 connections there. Um, we have 15 in construction and 17 are in design. Um, this quarter we had a couple of South Beaches A connections underway. Last quarter we sent letters to Roxy in Riverside notifying the homeowners of connection. Their connections are available and we're starting to receive those applications for those homeowners. Um, for South Beaches O and P, we made significant progress. Um, this quarter we worked on the Riverside crossing. So you can see the construction before and after here. Um, and they completed the line installation on Alamanda Court. Sykes Creek N is constructing the foundation for the vacuum pump station and installing the vacuum main. Sykes Creek Zone T installed the sewer pipe and vacuum pits and started paving Newfound Harbor Drive. Uh, West Melbourne has Lake Ashley and Dundee Circle under construction. Um, Lake Ashley, the lift station is nearing completion and they're waiting for electrical service, transformer installation and energization of that, um, lift station. Dundee Circle completed the gravity sewer main or sewer system final manhole pipes and the sewer laterals and right of way restoration is underway. We have Merritt Island Zone C, Zone F, and South Banana B in the bid queue. Um, they're going out together for economy of scale, hopefully to get a better price. South Central Zone A bid has been awarded and construction contracting is underway. We have 13 in the design phase here. Sharps A, B, and Coco C are having bid documents prepared. South Central, uh, Zone D is preparing the engineering and technology assessment report. And we have four projects that are currently not contracted, but we do have Palm Bay. Zone A is currently with the city out for signature. Uh, we've been very busy with septic upgrades this quarter. Um, Joel processed another 201 applications and another 123 septic tanks were, um, constructed or completed, um, for a total of 910. We had an additional six, uh, quick connect applications and another 35 of those homes were connected for a total of 574. There's a lot of money in that. Yeah. It's a lot of work going on. Yeah. Um, under stormwater projects, we have 248 projects in the plan. Um, three more were completed this quarter for a total of 61 complete. Um, here we have the basin 2258 Babcock Road wood chip bioreactor. And this project is using bioabsorption activated media to treat the water before it's conveyed to the C 54 canal. We also completed the basin 1280B flamingo road denitrification project. This will treat runoff with, um, the bioabsorption activated media before infiltrating into the groundwater. So the swale here on the left picture is where it's collecting treats and retain stormwater via the system. This is what's underneath that swale. So to give you a better idea. Um, so it's retaining that stormwater via system of a ditch bottom inlets and storm chambers. Uh, the city of Cocoa Beach also completed the ramp road project. And this project is diverting runoff to the stormwater pond that was modified to include B mats and side bank filters. Um, we have four projects currently under construction. The basin 1398 sand dollar project is about to wrap up. This project installed rack rock baffles using crushed aggregate stone to slow the flow of runoff, um, to allow more time for treatment into this canal before it flows into the lagoon. The city of Cape Canaveral executed the Fillmore Avenue project and they began construction earlier this month. Melbourne has the Apollo general aviation baffle box underway, but are experiencing issues with dewatering. Um, the Espanola baffle box is expected to be completed within the next couple of months. And the box was recently delivered, I believe in late July. And that's, you can see the baffles really good in that picture there. Um, we have eight other stormwater projects in the design phase. Kings Mill had to alter their final design plans and is working to secure additional grant funding. The Huntington pond project is working on the final design. Angel Ab is working on 66, 60% design. Elliot has design at 60% complete, but the, um, surveys from last quarter are determining that some redesign work, uh, will need to be done. The Richland project has 90% design complete and permits were recently submitted. The Spring Creek baffle box is in design and looking to acquire property for that project. And the C10, uh, project has about 5% design complete on there. We have a few with contracting underway. Basin 212 East Main has a task order out. We are reviewing the scope of work for the Satellite Beach West Basin, uh, water quality improvements and the South Street and Knox McRae baffle box projects are currently out for signature. Oh, just a minute. The, the first two lines in that and table nine, um, there's, there's money just sitting there. And is that, is, does that money, is that money sitting there and getting distributed to individual projects as they come up? Is that where the comes? Yes. So those are like, as we get stormwater applications in this next cycle, we'll be pulling from those. Those are the priority basins listed in one of the tables in the plan. So that's what that money is. Okay. Thank you. Let me clarify. That money is allocated to specific areas that were identified as the highest priority locations to address stormwater. And work is, yeah. But if somebody comes up with another project that they're ready to do, then, you know, based on the cost share that the committee has recommended that the board has approved, we can move money from a basin project that hasn't started design yet to a new project. As long as it's in that basin or no, it can go outside the base in the same sub lagoon. We try our best to keep the money within the same sub lagoon. Okay. Yeah. It's just a lot of money sitting there and unspent. Yeah. So that's part of the green stormwater infrastructure program that we asked the committee, if you want us to build a program to work with homeowners and business, private property owners to also implement stormwater storage capture treatment on their sites. So we're trying to figure out how to deliver stormwater treatment faster. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Question on these and other projects. Do we know to what extent that the stormwater projects maintain the same flow patterns as in where it goes into the river versus a change where the flow goes into the river while treatment is added? So some of, like, are you referring to? This comes to, let me give some background. So is Alex on the panel next month? Yes. Okay. That'd be a great question for him. They've noticed that with some of their clam plantings, areas that the clams seem to be doing well, when a project was completed that changed where the stormwater came in, even though the stormwater is cleaner, it changed the salinity enough that it kind of killed the clams, which also have other effects. So that might be something we think about as well. We're working with the fishing community to kind of figure out, um, clean water is great, but if you change the salinity drastically, it can be pristine water and you're still going to have effects. Right. So usually we are not changing the outfall. Okay. Right. The stormwater is coming from this area and it's coming down this canal ditch, whatever, and it's going out that outfall to the lagoon. Okay. We're intercepting it along the way and doing whatever treatment we can fit, you know, along the way. Okay. And so we're not changing the path. The big exception to that are the re-diversion projects where we're, you know, taking water that should have gone, that historically went to St. John's River and somewhere else. Okay. Putting it back that direction. Okay. There are some exceptions where we can pull water from a couple basins to a centralized treatment area and that might shift, um, what percentage of that water goes out, which outfall. So we can, we can look at that, but that's rare. Okay. Thank you. I think the work is more on infiltration rather than outfall. For sure. So, yeah. Okay. Uh, on to vegetation harvesting, we have 11 projects in the plan and 11 are now complete. This quarter, the unincorporated countywide vegetation harvesting three project was complete. Um, this project, uh, harvested three million pounds of nuisance vegetation from the parish medical center pond, the chain of lakes expansion pond, which is pictured here, uh, the rotary riverfront pond and the veterans memorial pond. And this project exceeded its anticipated TN total nitrogen and total phosphorus removal. Um, we have 21 muck removal projects and 15 interstitial projects in the plan. This quarter, the O'Galley muck dredging project started. Most of the work involved, um, mobile mobilization and laying the pipeline and prepping the dredge material management area to receive the material, but they did start dredging on August 7th. The cocoa beach muck capping project started on June 22nd. And I wanted to highlight this photo here is, uh, um, a core showing the first three inch, uh, lift of sand that's been placed on that muck. Um, the Sykes Creek project is, uh, as Virginia already mentioned, um, currently out to bid for one more week. They did have a pre-bid meeting in July. So hopefully we'll have news next quarter on where we are with that. Um, we have 11 projects in the design phase. The Titusville East and West project is evaluating design options. Canaveral South had a meeting with the city of Cape Canaveral to look at site logistics. Indian Harbor and satellite beach are piggybacking on O'Galley. So once that project is wrapped up, uh, Indian Harbor's planning to go next and then satellite beach after them, Spring Creek, uh, is looking in the city's looking into property for a dredge material management area site and working on permitting. And we have four projects, um, uncontracted at the moment for oyster bars. There are 28 projects in the plan and 17 are now complete. The zoo, uh, recently completed the North Indian River Lagoon 3, constructing over 26,000 square feet of reef. And they also completed the Central Indian River Lagoon 4 contract, constructing 8,000, 8,700 square feet of reef. And this here, they always get volunteer groups out. This is their local, the local parrot head club out helping with the reef construction. The zoos also installed, um, reefs on the North Indian River Lagoon 4 contract for a total of 2,225 square feet and the Central Indian River Lagoon 5 contract for a total of 3,997 square feet. And we have a, uh, five that are in the design phase and five that are uncontracted, but we are, the zip project is under review. Uh, for planted shorelines, we have 10 projects in the plan. Nine are complete. A design is underway for the Hub SeaWorld Research Institute Coconut Point Shoreline Project. Um, this quarter they completed the geotech, sediment sampling, and the benthic survey. For the clam aquaculture stimulus program, we have contracted all 18 farmers and now have a waiting list, um, for future farmers to participate in the program. We have reimbursed 17 of those farmers are waiting on, um, one more piece of documentation to complete the last one. The IRL clam project completed the, um, restoration of native clams at the Grant Island site with 15 million clams and they have their Titusville project currently underway, um, with 15 of 24 million clams dispersed and we'll be highlighting a video on this project, um, later today. So to overview all of that, we are now at 100, over 186,000 pounds of annual total nitrogen reduction, 156,000 pounds of one-time nitrogen reduction, equaling, um, 300, over 343,000 pounds. Our annual total phosphorus product reduction is over 16,000 pounds and our one-time is close to 7,000 pounds. We've received 232 scopes of work, 223 projects are in or have completed design, 176 are in or have completed construction, and 140 are complete. So here's the countdown for the project type for where we are for each of those projects. So one education, 16 waste water, 72 storm water, seven muck and interstitial, and 44 restoration projects. And then our overall numbers for our homeowner projects, uh, 1,187 sewer lateral repairs, 456 sewer connections, 574 quick connections, and 910 septic upgrades for a total of 3,127 homeowner projects. Here are the infographics showing where we are with the total nitrogen and total phosphorus reduction. So as I just mentioned, 343,000 pounds of total nitrogen has been reduced and over 23,000 pounds of total phosphorus has been reduced so far. And then I think, Fred, this is the image you were looking for. So we've, on the projects, we've spent close to 120 million. We have about 127 million in additional grant funds on top of the sorrel funding. We have 335 million dollars in projects in progress. 455 has been spent and in progress, collected close to 540 million for the projected 583 million. That is all I have. Any other questions? Do you at all, uh, track how we're doing with BMAPs? Uh, yes, those just came out in July. Um, I'm working on the credit split with all the municipalities right now for it. So yes, we had a meeting with DEP yesterday. Okay, good, good. Thank you. Go ahead, Fred. Just maybe an idea. I mean, this, I assume this is a giant Excel spreadsheet or something like that. The table, yes. Yeah. So, I mean, this is incredible. There's so much stuff in here and trying to keep up with it is interesting. But I think for the public, it might be good if you reordered this by completed and they see that table grow under progress and then waiting. So we could show all the greens, you know, and then work it that way. I don't know if it would be of interest for this group. We could have two separate tables or it's many tables in that packet. So, um, I'm just trying to think how best to do it. But if you have 140 done, there'd be 140 lines coming down. They would, people could understand that that's growing, but here's what we still have left. It'd be a lot easier to kind of keep for, especially for the public, perhaps just a thought. I don't know how difficult that would be, but the performance, the performance tables kind of do that. Do you, do you, do you want to go back further into the performance tables? Are they? They're organized by project type in the performance table and then by entity. So the, the completed isn't like all at the top for each one. Right, right. I understand. That's a little, a little more understandable. Sure. I don't, um, you know, we could easily do that. I'm, I'm thinking it would be better to do it as a supplement than an instead of. Right. Um, but for this presentation, are you wanting a different format? No, I just thought just in general, it might be something as Brandon, he's putting out all this great stuff to just see that in that kind of an order. Right. These are all done. It was 140. Now it's 150 in that. It just, it just much more visually appealing, I think. Yeah. And we have that completed projects list in the plan that we update annually. So, you know, we're, we're updating that all the time. So, you know, that's an easy thing for us to do. It's just, yeah, it's, it's really hard to, um, cover. Yes. Here's all the things that we've completed, 140 of them. Right. And here's the nearly a hundred that are underway. Keep everybody's attention long enough to go over a hundred projects that are underway. So there is, we, we haven't, we haven't found a good way to do that. So yeah, happy to take more ideas on it. And it may not be a good way. The best way. Yeah. Uh, Virginia, would a story map be a functional way to communicate that data? It's on our street. Yeah. Right. So that, that exists, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. And it has the layer of the completed versus the layer of the in progress. Mm-hmm. Okay. I thought so. Yeah. Um, would it be possible to clarify, I guess to the public, the, the difference between spent and in progress and collected in verbiage on the chart potentially? I mean, I'm assuming that's just, you know, waiting for the next plan to spend it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, it's not waiting for the plan. It's, it's waiting for, yeah, engineers and contractors and folks to get it done. There's a lot of zeros in there. So, so it's planning a project. And then contracting. Yeah. So when the municipalities or whoever is ready to go to contracting, that's what spent and in progress is. I'm specifically asking about the collected column versus the spent and in progress? Yes. So collected is the number Lori gave where, what we've collected so far of the 583 million, we've collected about 540 million so far. Mm-hmm. So that's what is spent and in progress is what is currently contracted and has a task order or contract for, for work underway. Mm-hmm. Right. So the first three columns are on the expenditure side. And then the last two columns are revenues. So maybe, maybe that's what we need to show, do a better job of explaining. Go ahead, Deb. So maybe the fundamental question that Eric's trying to get at is the, there is a very big difference in those two numbers, the 455 and the 540 million. And I have heard public perceptions out there that that that money is just sitting around waiting to be spent. But as I understand it, so I think maybe that's what you're trying to clarify, is that money that, but the difference between what's spent and in progress and collected already earmarked for projects in the plan. Yes. I think that may be part of the message that we are concerned the public understands. Right. So there's millions of it that is in the septic upgrade and the quick connect buckets, right? And so that's spent as soon as people say, I'm ready to connect, I'm ready to upgrade, right? There's also nearly 60 million in in those stormwater basin rows that you previously asked about, right? That we will either design and construct projects in those priority basins or other people will come up with alternative stormwater treatments elsewhere and the dollars will be shifted. Go ahead, Deb. So that money is already earmarked. And if sorrel is not approved, then there will be no more projects added to the plan, even though we know more need to be done to continue the progress. Is that a fair interpretation? Right. The only way new projects would happen is if money was taken away from existing projects, reallocated. Right. And so the money that we're seeing in the projections is already spent. Allocated. Allocated to be spent. I'm not allocated. Okay. Thank you. That was all together, wasn't it? Clarified with that. Projected and allocated. I mean, we can just add that to the projected because that is what we've allocated. Okay. Let me be a simple, just add that one word to the projected. Yeah, just one comment. I think it's important because what I hear a lot is that people assume that it was 10 years, we're raising 560 whatever million dollars it is, and that's already been done. In other words, they don't understand that we've spent 120 million dollars plus the grant fund, and then we have in progress this. And so they're wondering, where is it? And also that points to the fact that the progress we've seen is based on these numbers here, not 500-something million dollars. And understanding that is critically important, that there's more coming. And how we better explain that, you know, is I think one of the issues we face. Agreed. Any other comments? Are you going to continue to? Nope. I'm going to let Brandon go. Okay. I thought maybe we have more tables to go over. All right. So we'll go over the April through June communications. So we did see a dip in our website traffic over that time period. Not sure exactly why that is. There's nothing we can really correlate with that. But we did see that slight dip, but it's kind of back where it was before. So we had a big bump in March, and then that dipped back down. So whereas the Lagoon Loyal website saw a very large increase increase in the month of June, and that is due to the push that goes out for the fertilizer ban. So we run a lot of various ads and videos and things that are pushing that fertilizer ban. We had the video ads, radio ads, as well as, you know, Google ads and Facebook ads that go out there. And so a lot of that helps drive traffic back to that website. And we also saw an increase in the signups with that increased web traffic. So more people signing up for Lagoon Loyal. The social media pages, so our Facebook, you know, as we see spikes as we normally do when there's a few hot topics or posts and get into some of those posts of the larger or the post that got the most attention this time around. We had one on the buffer zones around ponds. So that got a lot of reactions and quite a few shares with people, a fair number of comments. But if you'll see, the second highest post actually had more comments, and that was on the placement of the pipelines for the DMMA. So while it didn't get as many reactions and shares, it got a lot of comments, so it helped boost that in the number of views as well. Anytime we post about muck, it tends to get a lot of comments. Lagoon Loyal, Facebook, same thing. You know, you see different peaks and things there. Their top posts were one on keeping grass clippings out of the roadways and another one just on how storm drains empty the lagoon and keeping trash and other things out of it. And Instagram, we saw that buffer zone one pop back up again. We also had, there was a lot of attention on one of our algae bloom posts. We had a bunch of people sharing some of those and commenting. So, and then Lagoon Loyal's Instagram, they had a similar, you know, top post was that grass clippings one. And then another grass clippings post were the two highest ones on Lagoon Loyal. So we're trying to get that attention out there. And I still see it every day walking by, you know, people's homes and grass out in the street. So trying to educate them to get that back in their lawns. The newsletter, you know, it's still increasing in subscriptions. And we should see that probably go up even more as we get into a lot of these community programs starting in the fall. And we get a lot of signups at those. So should see more of a jump in that. And we're still maintaining higher than average open rates. And the average for the last three months was higher than the previous three months. The algae bloom newsletter. Now the reach on that, we saw the increase in April, but that was just because we had an extra week and we go by how many times that email goes out. So really, it was around that 900, you know, and when you look at the subscribers, it's, you know, lower than that. Stayed pretty much the same. We did see a dip in June, and that wasn't due to people unsubscribing. That was actually due to cleaning up the subscription list. I received a notice from Constant Contact that our bounce back rate, which means emails that they send out and you get a notice back that that email is no longer working. We were getting above 10% and it can affect your sort of how you get caught in spam filters and other things. So you try to clean that up every once in a while and get rid of those bounce backs. And so I went and cleaned up all those bounce backs. And a lot of them were from various agencies, state and city agencies of employees who probably moved on and were no longer there. So it seemed to be the majority of the bounce backs. And still, you know, keeping an above average open rate on those as well. As far as some of the Lagoon Loyal programs coming up, as Virginia mentioned, we are working on the website. We were hoping to have a rollout last month, but it was kind of delayed due to a change in how the website is structured for the rise in AI searching. So the new thing used to be SEO and it had to do with the keywords on your websites. Now they call it, uh, geo, um, generative instead of, you know, is, uh, with, for the gender of AI. And basically the AI reads a website differently than Google's crawlers and other search engines do. So they're having to retool and add more things in. Um, I was just at the public relations association conference. And that was a big topic in their meeting this year on how to get AI to look at your things. And they mentioned that the details that most average people could care less about, the more you have on your website, the more the AI is going to pick it up and credit you for, you know, when it's searching for things. So we're adding in a ton of pages. We have over a hundred different pages of topics that just kind of go into detail on all the different project types and other things and FAQs and all things that AI will pick up on. And while it will be a resource for people to see, you know, some people probably don't want to delve that deep, but it will help us in AI searches for coming up when people ask AI questions and then it'll direct them to our site from there. So having to retool the website when everyone's used to SEO websites, and now having to go to this GEO has caused some delays and they're trying to add more things in there. Um, one of the other things I was at a St. John's, uh, water conservation meeting and, uh, Todd was actually the speaker there. So he was, uh, it was good to see him, but, um, Charlie was, you were, or no, you weren't at that meeting. It was a different one. I saw you. But, um, so Todd was there talking and, uh, one of the other presentations they had was on a community project that one of the water management districts was doing in a neighborhood. They had a digital sign put up telling people what the rainfall was for the last seven days and whether they should irrigate or not. And, uh, I found that kind of interesting. And then just after that meeting, I was meeting with the Lagoon Loyal folks and they had actually been developing something similar, but will go out as kind of an email notice to people. They can, uh, keep track of what the rainfall is and whether they should be irrigating or not. So that's one of the new programs that they're kind of working on for that excess irrigation component and trying to educate people on, you know, the weather. We've had enough rain that you can just skip your irrigating. And so that'll be one of the things coming in the future. How do they do it on a region by region? It's so stochastic. I mean, there's actually websites out there that track it, you know, regionally, you can put in your address and find out exactly what your rainfall was for the last couple of days in that area. And they use, you know, a lot of different data sources, but they can give you a fairly accurate estimate. Thanks. I was wondering if we, if, uh, after, um, Mark's, uh, presentation on the, on the mapping tool, if we could do a video on the use of the mapping tool, uh, may help, help individuals that, you know, want to go into it and find things out. Uh, a video may, may be something that they would access. Okay. We've been looking at it. Thanks. Anything else? Any other questions? Go ahead. Probably a question for Terry. Um, when you look at the overview and it talks about the, um, total one-time nitrogen reduction and the total one-time phosphorus reduction, and then it's got the, um, total annual nitrogen reduction pounds per year. It's like a hundred and, around 185,000 pounds of, uh, nitrogen per year. But our projected, um, total reduction at the end of the 10 year, or at the end, it's kind of confusing because it says at the end of 10 years, it would be like closer to a million. We're, we're still a long, long way from the million. So that's kind of hard to explain to people too. Is the total one-time production or reduction, does that happen like right after the project is completed and there's like a extra shot that's, that's reduced, but then it never gets reduced by that amount again? Can you explain all of that? Thank you. One-time reduction is for projects that go in and capture that, those nutrients one time. So for example, uh, the aquatic vegetation harvesting is going in and getting all of those nutrients at once. The interstitial treatment on, um, the muck removal projects is treating that water one time. And then the other one is our clam aquaculture. Those clams are being harvested one time. So those are our one-time reduction projects. The other projects are reducing nutrients annually. So that's why they're an annual number. So for vegetation harvesting, that total one time reduction number will go up the next time there's a big vegetative harvesting? Correct. Okay. All right. So you could see from the previous quarter, it has a number. And so we just completed that big harvesting project. So that's why those numbers jumped up. Okay. And we have a graph we've been using in our presentations. And I think it was in one of the presentations here too, just sort of showing that cumulative with that annual added in each year and started stacking on top of each other. So the amount we've removed so far is over that one million, but as far as annually, it hasn't hit that. Thank you. Anything else? Anybody else? Any questions? Thank you, Brandon. Thank you. Now we have other reports and special presentations. Mike, come on, come on up. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Good morning. Mr. Chair and committee members, my name is Mike McMunigle. I'm a strategic planning basin coordinator in the Indian River Lagoon and upper St. John's River Basin. I'm glad to be here with you this morning to highlight the next in our series of videos, a connected by water series of videos concentrating on the Indian River Lagoon. I think Lorraine Simpson said it best probably last month when she was here with you and she talked about the team effort required the restoration and fixing the lagoon requires a team effort. There's a lot of excitement and buzz lately about a lot of the progress that we've seen over the last couple of years and rightfully so. But we want to make sure that we also recognize there's a long way to go as well, right? A lot of work remaining to be done. And our hope is that this video in part helps to tell that story of, you know, celebrating those successes as well as recognizing that we still have a lot of challenges remaining in front of us. So also just wanted to briefly recognize a couple of the stars in the room with us here this morning that helped to make the video what it is. And so a special thank you to Virginia and Laura Lee for participating in the video, sharing part of your story and your experiences as well. So thank you very much for that. So with that, I'd like to introduce Connected by Water Indian River Lagoon. Thank you. My first connection to this lagoon was when I was probably six years old, coming down on that classic road trip, you know, from New York with my parents. And the two things that stuck with me was the smell right now in the spring of orange blossoms and water. St. John's River, Indian River Lagoon, how blue the water off our beaches was. The lagoon, it's been a part of my family's story for four generations now. My grandfather operated the Titus Hill Fishing Pier when I was a kid. My father had a boat plant. He built fiberglass boats. And then there's me and my sister. We have Dixie Crossroads Seafood Restaurant and Wild Ocean Seafood Market. In the 70s was an absolute dream because the water was clean, pristine. It was a really good time to be a kid. Here along Florida's East Coast, the Indian River Lagoon isn't just a body of water. It's a part of our identity. For generations, people have come here to fish, to work, to raise their families and to experience something you really can't find anywhere else. My grandfather would call two or three people on the phone when the shrimp started running. Usually it was like really early in the morning, like around three or four o'clock in the morning. Half the town would be out on the pier. You know, a lot of them would still be in pajamas and bathrobes because they, the shrimp, sometimes they only ran for a few minutes and they didn't want to take the time to get dressed. The Indian River means the world to me. I've made my living on the Indian River. It's where I cut my teeth fishing. It's just, it's been a place where I've gone to, you know, relax, fish, get food and make a living. So my whole life is kind of surrounded by the Indian River Lagoon. They remember clear water, thriving seagrass, schools of fish moving across the flats. And over time, many began noticing those things disappearing. There were fish houses all along the waterfront at Oak Hill. Now there's none. When you rode down US 1, there were all these little mom and pop, little restaurants. Gradually, all of that business left. In 2010 to 2011, we lost a lot of trout. We lost all of our snook. We lost most of our tarpon. We had the worst freeze we ever had, which killed 90% of our life we had in the river at the time. There was nothing to filter out the algae that absolutely bloomed. The story of how we got here is complex. It involves decades of growth, changes in how water moves across the landscape, and how excess nutrients make their way into the lagoon. The same things that make the Indian River Lagoon special also make it very susceptible to pollution and require us to live a cleaner lifestyle than what most Americans are able to do. Drainage was cut by engineers to convey water that historically drained to the St. Johns River, drain it more quickly to the Indian River Lagoon to provide flood protection benefits. But that also carried pollutant load to the Indian River Lagoon. Water does not follow those jurisdictional boundaries. So we have to look at how the water is connected to identify where the best place for projects should be and how to reduce that pollution. And that requires everybody who is responsible for the land to participate in protecting the water. Not that anybody's to blame because we just didn't know any better. But now that we do, there's a lot of activity going back into trying to restore that ecosystem. Across the lagoon, there are projects happening right now that are making a real difference. From large-scale infrastructure improvements to hands-on restoration in the water. The Rediversion Project takes that water, captures it, treats it, and pumps it west to the St. Johns River where it belongs. So we're keeping that pollution out of the Indian River Lagoon. We're keeping the excess fresh water out of the Indian River Lagoon to protect salinity. We're also putting fresh water back in the St. Johns River where it is needed. Restore Our Shores is part of the Brevard Zoo's conservation programs. And really the focus of Restore Our Shores is applied habitat restoration work out in the Indian River Lagoon. Our largest program by far is our subtitle oyster restoration work. We also do work with a few other resources that we've started working with a little bit more recently in say like the past five to six years. The biggest one that we're really working with right now outside of oysters I would say is seagrass. We're not trying to plant our way out of you know the declines that have happened but we're definitely trying to learn as much as we can and support those large efforts. I saw 9.2 billion clams estimated come out of the estuary as a fishing guide. And the more clams that came out of the water the dirtier our water got. And so I figured hey let's put back clams in the water that was the last thing that came out of the water. Hooked up with Dr. Todd Osborne from the Whitney Lambs. He's been my bridge to the scientific world out there. It took us two months to find 39 clams but we found those 39 clams and started an aquaculture based breeding program here. The whole idea behind that really is as clams filter feed they're removing algae which is a problem for us in the IRL. Letting light get through the water column to the sediment where we want our seagrasses to come back. And that's a that's a natural connection that we're trying to re-establish. There's not going to be a silver bullet. There's not one solution. So being able to work on multiple solutions that might take place in the water but then also those that take place on land before polluted water ever hit the lagoon. I think that's really where this collaboration comes in. Dirty water is not good for business, not good for tourism, but not even good for these homeowners who live right on the lagoon. And so understanding that we're in this for the long game that's both the challenge and the opportunity. And if I'm an engineer wanting to come down here and be part of this vision for space that's exciting and scary, then I want to live in a really good place. I want it safe. I want it's healthy for my family, for my kids. And so this is all about workforce, quality of life, and clean water is absolutely essential to that. Science, partnership, and community all working together towards the same goal. When you drive across the causeways and you look out across the water, it's blue. Ten years ago, it was technicolor, brown, red, green, and muddy. Just horrible. We can also see in the last several years the recovery of seagrass beginning. The year ago, we saw return of seagrasses to Mosquito Lagoon and parts of Banana River. Wow. We haven't seen grasses there for 10 plus years. Everybody needs to understand with ecosystems is they don't operate linearly. So you do this and this happens. You do this, you do this, you do this. You keep adding work and then all of a sudden you hit a threshold and things jump up and you see a response. That step up with the grass coming back in Mosquito and Banana was just really infused a lot of people with energy. You say, okay, it's working. We have a black drum fishery during the winter months. That is incredible. It's better than when I was a kid. It literally is better than when I was a kid. I have never seen so many people who go out of their way to get involved. It is very inspiring to see how passionate people are about the lagoon. The cool thing is that water connects everything. It connects us to each other and us to the world around us. I think there's a lot more that people can do in their everyday lives thinking about where their water goes. Anything you put on your yard east of I-95, including the barrier islands, ends up in the river. We don't have any tidal flow. It's one of the most unique estuaries in the world. If you take care of your little piece and the next person takes care of the little piece, it's a win-win for everybody. From small changes at home to supporting restoration efforts, every action matters. The future of the Indian River Lagoon depends on the choices we make today. And while the challenges are real, so is the progress and the opportunity to protect this place for the next generation. Because in the end, this isn't just a place we visit. It's something we're all connected to. I concentrate on seagrasses, so we're really excited about, you know, putting that video together as well and getting the same positive feedback that we've gotten from this one, as well as our Lake Apopka video. And then after that, I'm really excited about the upper basin video as well. So really looking forward to working on that one as well. So yeah, thank y'all very much. Appreciate you having us. Thank you for your efforts. Yeah. Mike, what channels are you pushing this out? Oh yeah, that's a good question and one that I'm not going to be able to answer for you because that is not my department. But yeah, we, I think Caitlin, you know, is tuned in. Caitlin, our Caitlin Butler, our communications outreach coordinator, we have a lot of close coordination with y'all. So I'm sure we're probably tuned in with that. But yeah, I'll have Caitlin, you know, reach out to Brandon probably and make sure we're. Yeah, we're in communication frequently, so I can get in touch with her and find out for you. Yeah. You know, they're going to be at the RRL Fest this year. I'm assuming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We typically are. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You bet. Thank you. Next we have Joel. All right. Good morning. I'll introduce myself for a really long time to wait for the TVs to switch over to the PowerPoint here. There we go. See? So just for those who don't know, my name is Joel Beaudry. I manage the septic upgrade program for Sorrel. And I came and presented to y'all, I think in November of last year, about the potential for a $6,000 minimum for that septic upgrade program. This is kind of that update on where we are in that one year pilot. So it was approved by the board on December 16th, 2025. So that's about when we started sending out approvals on this. And then I pulled this data earlier this month, August 9th, 10th, somewhere in that range. So just to remind everyone about that meeting back in November, this was the story we kind of presented. We're seeing an increase in septic upgrade interest. So both applications and completed septic upgrades continue to increase every year. And then we were also seeing the average and then that median cost for each tank to be upgraded to the homeowner. That was also going up. And then we also showed, this is just kind of that area on Merritt Island by Rotary Park, that the way the model is situated, neighbors were getting very different grant amounts. So here's a property getting $20,000. Their neighbor's only getting three. That next neighbor over is getting about $1,300. And we're getting down to hundreds of dollars. And I think if we kept going along that way, it would get to zero. So these neighbors are looking at their neighbor five houses down. They are getting $20,000. I'm not getting any money. What's going on there? So we presented all that. And the committee recommended to offer a minimum reimbursement for that septic upgrade program is $6,000 as the minimum. And then we must use any state matching funds, which we did not have available then, and to most extent do not have available now. But if we had had those, they would be used as part of this minimum split 50-50. So both those trends are still continuing as far as the increase in cost and then participation. So you'll see that completed upgrades were only in August, and we are only 10 or so away from meeting what we did in all of last calendar year. We've already approved more applications in 2026 than we did through all of 2025. And then the median cost has increased thus far. The average has gone down a little bit. I think that's probably because we started calculating that a little bit differently. We started going by tank rather than by total project cost. So some contractors were doing projects where they put in two, three tanks. And so those costs obviously are much more. We ended up dividing that out to where it was their average cost per tank. So I think that's probably why that dips a little bit. It's still well over $20,000, which is our maximum grant amount. So the price overall is still increasing, but that's the explanation for that little dip in 2026. So what happened in the past eight months or so? So 44 of these projects with the minimum reimbursement have been completed. So that's a homeowner has applied, actually had the system installed, delivered all of the reimbursement paperwork to us and we issued them a check. We did 279 total. So about 16% of the completed projects we've done in this time period involved that $6,000 minimum reimbursement. Prior to that, so the entire length of the program, we did about 20 that were either $6,000 or less out of that $361. So it was about 6% of total projects. Before the minimum were these lower loading properties. Now it's about 16%. And then we have 102 properties, which are about 19% of the applications we've approved thus far that might be impacted by the minimum. I say might because we still include our incentive chart. So for some of these properties, for some systems, they'll get the $6,000 minimum. For other more efficient systems, it'll actually be over that $6,000 minimum. As per our incentive chart. So I don't know how many of those 102 are actually going to get $6,000 reimbursements and I won't know until they actually tell me which system they install. But feasibly, if all of them end up installing a system that gets $6,000, it'd be about 20% of the current applications getting that amount. Money-wise, $264,000 has gone in these minimum reimbursements. We've spent a little over $4.5 million in that same time period. So it's only about 6% as far as the actual finances going towards these lower loading properties. And that's $199,000 more than would have been spent had we have not instituted the minimum. So properties that were receiving low or no eligibility, that's about that level. I think about $15,000 of that number is state matching funds. So some properties were approved for state grants. They got reworked to that minimum. But no new applications went in with state matching. So that's why it's only about $15,000. So project cost. So there was a worry that perhaps contractors were charging more because we were giving that $20,000 grant amount. And so now that we were providing $6,000 at a lesser level for some homeowners, we were seeing whether or not contractors adjusted. On average, they're charging about $1,200 less for one of these systems. That is not statistically significant. I couldn't find any way to make it truly correlate. And there's also an outlier in that data. As you see, Palm Bay septic kind of in the middle of that table charged about $6,500 less than average. That particular property did not do any drain field work. So it's not comparing apples to apples. It's also they only did one. I think they've only done two or three otherwise. So it's a really small sample size. If I remove them, that goes to about $902 less, still not statistically significant. So I don't see any true correlation causation, anything in that as far as whether or not septic contractors are charging more or less when homeowners have more skin in the game. These invoices look very similar to what they do when it's a $20,000 grant. So just kind of summarize everything all in one place. There is still that July 1st 2030 deadline given by the state. So everyone in the watershed neither either needs to connect to sewer if that's available or upgrade to this enhanced nutrient reducing systems that we're helping homeowners install. We've done 44 of these systems with the minimum. That's about $264,000 out of the four and a half million we've spent. And homeowners are installing efficient systems. So even the ones with that minimum, they're still choosing systems that are on average doing 73% nitrogen reduction. The minimum requirement is 65. And that 73% is right about in line with what we're seeing program-wide. So they're choosing the same systems. A lot of that has to do with contractors. They tend to only install one or two. So they're still choosing those more efficient systems. And then, as we just said, the project cost tends to be a little bit lower, but there's no statistical significance to that number. So thank you. And I am happy to answer any questions. I was wondering if, are vendors overwhelmed by the number of applicants and number of people? Multiple contractors have mentioned this is the busiest they've been. I don't believe they're going to complain about that. So they are working and they are, multiple contractors have hired new office staff to accommodate that. So they're, they are moving forward with it. And they're kind of getting a system in place to make this go more efficiently. So they're responding well to the, to the increased demand or? Yes. So the permitting is now taking longer, um, with Florida Department of Health and their ability to issue permits. So permitting is taking a little bit longer. That has caused, um, some concern with homeowners. I thought DEP was. They're the, they're the rulemaking and regulatory authority, but in Brevard County, uh, Department of Health still handles the permits. Okay. So they're running about 90 days for a permit. So that, um, you know, homeowners have called asking about that, but the contractors have kept busy. Um, they're having some scheduling issues with doing this many jobs. They don't necessarily have all the equipment to do 10, 15 a day. So they're scheduling things out farther, but they're still getting the work done. Paperwork's coming back into us. We're getting final approvals. And financially, how is the program? Is it, is it robust? And there's plenty of, I'm not worried about running out of funding. Um, certainly if we're thinking short term, you know, year, year and a half, I don't want to give any guarantees. The closer we get to 2030, cause I just don't know what it's going to look like. I imagine we will be considerably more popular in 2029 than we are now. We have seen more contractors doing business in Brevard, um, name contractors in neighboring counties are, um, increasingly contractors that have been local, but we're previously only installing conventional tanks have kind of switched over and are installing more of these systems. So more contractors are coming in. So homeowners have more options to speak to more contractors, but the contractors, I'm not worried about their ability to keep going. Okay. Good. So if, um, the homeowner that's only eligible to get the $6,000 and they choose to put in a $20,000 system, they're responsible then for the rest of the money over the, and they're okay with that? You're, you're not, you're doing it? They, so I, I can't speak for homeowners who choose not to move forward cause they stopped talking to us. Um, but quite a few are, um, they kind of understand that in other counties there's, there's zero incentive, um, or they remember when they were eligible for $400, $500. So homeowners that know they have to get this done or moving forward with it are happy to take any level of assistance. And so certainly that $6,000 is enough to get them to fill out our paperwork, turn things in. Good. Thank you. All right. Um, I'm sorry. When this was originally done, when you figured out, okay, somebody with this house is eligible for higher amount, it was based on net flow or something into the lagoon, right? So there's a certain value associated with that in terms of the dollars over the, you know, spent for that amount of flow. As we brought these others up to 6,000, have we looked at what that variance, that change is? In other words, that we're now maybe loading homes or paying for homes that might've been a zero and had very little net flow. And how much are we paying per pound or something like that? I have not run those numbers, but I can. Um, as far as properties that are loading zero, there's obviously less than 44. You know, so it means it's going to be a really small percentage of our total output. Still, most of the applications we're getting are from higher loading properties. So properties eligible for 15 to $20,000 still make up the bulk of our applications. Got it. Question. I hate to ask the cocoa one, the North Cocoa, my phone rings and says 85,000. And there's, where, where are they at? Are you talking about cocoa J and K? Well, yeah, the North Cocoa, North Indian River, every river drive out of Cocoa. So we have county projects that are in unincorporated cocoa. And then the city of Cocoa has septic sewer projects in the city limits. Yeah. And I know your money was in and out of that through time. And I'm just asking where it is now. Thanks. The Cocoa J and K project hasn't been contracted with us yet. Okay. I'll be reaching out to them soon to get an update. Okay. And that's, that's why I'm here in the figures. And just, just to clarify, that's a septic to sewer project area. That's not part of this. This is septic upgrades. So it's from a conventional system to an advanced nitrogen reducing septic system. That's kind of like a, yeah. And what they're telling me is that that's what they're going to do. But, uh, uh, I need to get into it from the cocoa side. So, okay. Thank you. So when we first, um, discussed this and put the pilot program in place, part of the driver there was the state funding. Um, the, uh, differentiation within neighborhoods based on the model, modeling results of, of, uh, nutrient reduction was one issue, which we all understand the prioritization. Um, but I think I heard you say that no matching state funds have been available in the timeframe that we've run this pilot. Is that correct? Yes. So we had, we had already allocated all of the state grants that we had for septic upgrades. So over this course, no new applications have been approved of state match. They weren't available. That will change here shortly. So we do have some legislative appropriations coming in once that's contracted and ready to go. There will be state match on septic upgrade applications. I don't know how many of that will end up going to minimum because it, it applies to the whole program on a first come first serve basis. But in this December through August period, only properties that were previously approved with that state match got revised up. So that's why it's about $15,000 spent everyone else. There was no state money to give them. So I think we were a little bit fearful that, um, the state funding would create perception and, uh, real problems for folks, um, with our program. Um, so the other question I have is, um, it, I think we were also fearful that one of the worst case examples would be that we would have a run because of the deadline, the 2020-30 deadline, we would have a run on properties that are in the watershed but not necessarily contributing as much, although we all know septic tanks in the watershed don't help the situation. Um, so the properties in the watershed, um, I'm hearing we're not having everybody's lining up for their $6,000 even with this 2030. It's a fairly small percentage of the applications we've processed so far that have gone to these, um, less, the properties that are contributing less. From what you've seen, do you have any concerns about that changing down the road if we were to continue this program? So the, with the 2030 deadline, what, what happens a lot, especially on lower loading properties. So, um, if a property is getting a $20,000 grant, that is close enough to what contractors are estimating that homeowners are moving forward much quicker because there's a chance they don't have anything come out of pocket. When homeowners know there will be an out-of-pocket cost, um, and they're, you know, told by the state and through our office that we don't know plans for enforcement on 2030, things like that, they, some of them are choosing to wait to see what the state does. So they're, they're calling back asking if the state's given more money, um, for the septic upgrade program or whether or not we know what the 2030 enforcement mechanism is going to be. So there's quite a few homeowners that are interested, are planning to move forward, but they're kind of waiting to see where everything shakes out. I don't, I can't tell you how many exactly that is, but I think that is probably a common theme among, especially low loading properties. So these are properties that through our program are eligible, you know, without the minimum for very little money, but are mandated by the state to upgrade. They are waiting to see if either the state, um, us through the County, or if the, you know, mechanism for enforcement changes that allow them to make that best decision. So I'm, I'm trying to weigh the downsides and the upside, the benefits of continuing this program versus, um, uh, the downsides to the program. I mean, obviously one thing would be if somehow this were taking funding away from the higher priority properties, that would be a concern to us. Um, so do you have an opinion on that or a recommendation on that as staff in terms of, um, how you see this affecting what we're trying to accomplish with the plan? I, I hesitate to give guarantees because like I said, I don't know what we're going to look like two, three years. As we get closer to that, I don't know how many homeowners are going to start calling coming in as of right now. I, I really have no worries. So any homeowner that calls, as long as they're eligible, there is funding for them. So, um, like I said, that, that short term, I don't think this is taking away from the higher priority properties. I just don't know what things are going to look like when, um, especially as homeowners start to get more notice, more awareness of that July 1st, 2030 deadline, I imagine their first or second call is going to be to our office. So I just don't know what that will look like. Well, based on that, I think I'd like to make a motion. Sure, you can. Is that possible? Yes, sure. I'd like to make a motion that we continue the program again for another year, but continue to evaluate the implications and the funding in light of the state actions, which we cannot predict. Do I have a second on that? Yeah, I can second it. Um, so we'll make, we'll open up for comments. Uh, my comment is, um, were, were you planning on already continuing this program? We were waiting for, um, our, your, your way. Okay. You were waiting to plan update or we're not waiting, but we were not going to make that decision without bringing it to. Okay. So you, this is appropriate right now. Okay. That was my question. I'd like to point out that my motion says we review it again in a year. Yes. Or with the, I could amend it to say, or with the plant update so that we're, we're overseeing any changes in the landscape regarding the replacement project. Yeah. No, it's important that we watch it financially and, and, and as far as, um, as, as how well it's doing. Any other comments? We have a, we have a motion and a second. You might want to open it up for public comment as well. Okay. Thank you. I always forget that. Any, any comments from the public at all? Come on up. Good morning. My name is Connie Schneidman and I live on South Tropical Trail. And I have to honestly tell you, I had no idea that there was a grant program and our property is actually bisected by Tropical Trail. So we are, we own waterfront property. And I was wondering what is, uh, what constitutes a higher priority property for that grant? Well, that's part of it is, is that's part of the mapping program that we've talked about already. You can view it on your mapping program, actually how on this mapping program, how much you would get, but Joel will explain it even further. Yes. So the, the model is on our website, um, both on our project mapper and then it's, uh, narrowed down in the septic mapper. What that model is looking at is general property location. Um, so it's looking at barrier islands on Merritt Island, on the mainland, and then it's going to look at your soil characteristics and your distance to water. And those three very general inputs go in. Um, and that's how the model determines nitrogen loading, that nitrogen loading value the model comes up with. That's what's multiplied by our cost share. And that's how you get the grant value. Um, so it's also color coded on our map. Uh, red properties are higher priority. The darker green are those low loading typically impacted by the $6,000 minimum. Okay, great. Because I'm also the secretary treasurer for our local HOA, which is of course of interest for all the properties of Egret's Cove. We're right on there. You know, it's the circle and there's a lot we have. Whoops. We own the HOA owns waterfront property on both sides. So the, it's the banana river and the Indian river. So it's an important thing. And we have a marina also. And, um, so the muck is, you know, is, is, is a big factor when it comes to, um, conservation, preservation, uh, property values. People move there for a reason. And we have boaters in the community. So when they cannot, or it's just one of those, uh, when, when they can't use the marina. So it's, it's just one of those things you want to take off as, as, uh, a board member when you have people coming at you with a boatload of questions. So I think I'm going to get in touch with you after this. So thank you very much for all the great information that you've been providing. So I would recommend that you contact Virginia or Terry and they'll assign a speaker or come themselves and speak about the program to you. Sounds great. And it's also with like the, what I saw on here with, um, the horseshoe crab and all that stuff. I mean, when you live on the river and you look out of it, out over it every morning, every night, and you see it in the mangroves and all of that stuff and how the weather impacts it, um, how the climate with the freezes and, and all of that. I mean, it's, there's quite a bit of fluctuation. We've, uh, we've been here since 2008 and, um, have been observing all of these minute changes. So it's actually, I think I'm going to have to get in touch with quite a few people here. For more information. But thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it. This is why we're here. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Don. Yeah. Did I have another one? Craig, come on up. Hello there. Craig Wallace, providing Indian River for Gloom Coalition. Um, this is a topic that whenever we go out and talk to the public, it's, you know, it's almost, like I said, a secret. You know, we're, we're unveiling something that they hadn't heard of before. So if we are going to continue this program, I would highly recommend that we have a, a significant promotional component associated with it to get the people that need to know. I know we're doing mailers and all that, but people still don't know about it. So it's a great program because, you know, we're never going to get all the, the septic systems connected to public sewer. We know that. Uh, and this is the best alternative we got. And we now need to get more state federal funding to, to help us out. So let's make a big deal out of this. We're, we are promoting this and I'll talk about it a little bit later. Um, but how we're doing this as we're rolling the campaign out there for renewal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Joel. Anybody else in the public? Thanks. Um, open it up to committee members again. Any, any comments? Yes. Sorry. I'll just add, we, we did have a legislative appropriation last year that was, um, vetoed by the governor. So we, we anticipated that there would be state matching for this, but then that, that didn't happen. But we, we do have funds coming this year. So that will make the next year a little, little different than this first six, eight months. We also, uh, like to make, so we have new yard signs for all the wastewater projects. So quick connect to sewers, private sewer, lateral septic sewer, septic upgrade. Um, we are, as of right now, handing those out to the contractors doing all of the work so they can put those on their projects. So if any of our contractors are listening and you don't have yard signs, come get them. They're in my office. Um, so we are trying to get that word out and we are hearing homeowners who are calling us and saying, I saw a sign in my neighbor's yard. What is this program? Am I eligible? Things like that. Yeah. So you're seeing pockets expand as you, as you, as you do a project. Contractors are very good about going door to door. So when they, when they have their first customer in a neighborhood, they typically knock on everyone's door. And so we'll, we'll get calls from the entire neighborhood and they're all working with the same contractor. Okay. Good. Thank you. So we have a motion and we have a second and no more comments. I would say we're ready for a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We're good for another year there, Joel. Thank you. We have a video. All right. So this video is the clam project that Terry was talking about earlier and they're using drone technology for dispersal. So we'll learn a little bit more about that. Florida, which is kind of the South end of the space coast. And we're putting out about six and a half million clams by drone. And, uh, it's a dream come true for me is we're just adding on to what we've already put in. And this year we're kind of projected to go over a hundred million clams that we put back into the estuary. Well, clams are really good for the Indian river lagoon for a couple of reasons. The first is they've been here forever and they were actually a really foundational piece of the ecosystem. And what they do all day long down in the, in the sediment is filter water. And so to a large degree, they were able to maintain the clear water that we were used to in the lagoon. Well, this drone is magnificent. This thing is huge. It's eight or nine feet across with eight propellers and it's got an amazing capacity. So it can lift 50 pounds worth of clams and take them out there. We put baskets out underneath the drone and with the rotor wash and how many clams get released. We call it the flying deer feeder because it spins the clams out in a, in a certain rate to where we're shooting for about 40 clams per square yard, doing it. So many times we figured out the right height, the right spin and the right amount to feed that spinner to get that 40 clams per square yard. And what that does, it separates the clams out enough where the predation, since they're so far apart, the predation, they might go to this one and go to that one. But by the time they get full, we still have a lot of clams out there. We're putting out clams at the size of one to two millimeters. They're really little. Traditionally, we put things out at the adult size, you know, but to do a million adult clams and the infrastructure to put them out, meaning nets and bags and markers and all those kinds of things, usually runs us close to a hundred thousand dollars. Now to put out a million little clams costs us less than $10,000. Well, all of this work that we're doing today, you know, this, this project, there's one project in Grant here and then one in Titusville and that is funded by Sorrel, Save Our Indian River Lagoon. So your, your half cent tax is allowing us to do this work. It's brackish water mix of saltwater and freshwater. However, too much freshwater going into the lagoon can have an impact on clams and other wildlife. One way that we can help to reduce this around our homes is to use things like swales, rain gardens, and rain barrels to reduce that flow. Additionally, making sure our sprinklers aren't directed onto driveways and roadways helps in keeping that freshwater out of the system. Equally as important is making sure we reduce the pollution that is being picked up by the stormwater as it flows into those storm drains. By reducing or eliminating the use of fertilizer, herbicide, and other chemicals on our lawns, we can make a big step towards reducing that pollution from getting into the water. Reducing freshwater pollution to the lagoon is one of many things we can do to help this ecosystem. You can learn more tips and tricks by visiting lagoonloyal.com. When are, when are we going to start seeing some monitoring from these projects? I can answer that for you. So the six-month monitoring for the grant project is going to start happening in October. So that'll be the first round of monitoring from UCF, the third-party monitoring. Okay, look forward to... They did pre-placement monitoring. Correct, yes. So UCF did do pre-monitoring before the project began. I am waiting for that report still to come in, but we were out there with them and didn't really find too much. We found other species of clams, but not the clams that they're planting. So, and then Titusville is wrapping up now, like you saw in the quarterly updates, that they're going to finish up soon with their seeding. So then six months from about now is when we'll go do that first round of monitoring with UCF. Good. Thank you. And we're doing six months, 12 months, 18? I'll get you next. Six... I could double check. I would have to double check. Are they doing any genetic testing on the clams? I mean, the broodstock is pretty small, so you have genetic markers for those parents. Because you could have clams of the same species out there that are just naturally recruiting, versus if you genetically... Well, you can genetically identify broodstock, and then the clams that you sample, you can test genetically to see if that's their offspring. Is that being done, the genetics? Not for our monitoring, no. In the future, I suggest adding that. Because, I mean, there's a... Coming from the fish world, there's a lot of fish stock enhancement that occurs in the marine systems. Overwhelmingly, it's a failure when they do test the genetics, for a lot of reasons that are too complex for here. But, yeah, I'd suggest in the future, asking for the broodstock genetic testing as part of the monitoring. And I can talk to you more afterwards for that, yeah. Charlie? Yeah, I was curious on that same type of question. Is the success rate, I mean, if we put out 1,000 clams, how many of them do grow to maturity? Or is that the data that you're going to be accumulating and looking at? That's what we're trying to get from our data collection. So, Todd's report from previous work was saying about 30% survival. And when the committee was, you know, agreeing to fund the project, there was maybe some concern. So, that's why we decided to do the third-party monitoring with UCF. So, Todd will be doing monitoring as well of his own project, but we have UCF doing third-party monitoring to get an idea of what that's going to be. And they're also monitoring control areas, right? Correct. Yes, yes. So, before, after control. Yeah. Right, that's helpful. I mean, just going back to, say, the oyster reed work, right, Brevard County put in a proposal a couple years ago, because some of their oyster reefs have done well with recruitment, others hadn't. And so there's hydrodynamics within the river that cause some areas to get recruitment and others not. And so, unless you know the hydrodynamics, a control site could be or would not be a good comparison. You know, just like you could have six seagrass beds and one of them produces a lot of trout and the others don't. Genetics can help kind of eliminate a lot of those questions. Any more questions? Go ahead and comment on how fantastic these videos are. Yeah. I mean, your team does a great job of making these, the quality of them, the content, really great job. Thank you. Thank you. One more question. Oh. I said it, you know, I'm sorry, about the clams. Do they, do they reproduce? Do they have a shelf life? Do they, do they like, you know, a couple years, then they're gone, and then we can, I'm just sorry, I'm kind of asking from the public, but. Yes. So the idea behind the project is that they would seed the clams, they grow to adulthood, and then reproduce is the goal. Oh, wow. Thank you. Next, we have old business. I don't think we have any old business. We have no new business. So next are general public comments. Uh, and I have one. I have one from Craig Wallace. Okay. So I haven't been here in a while. Uh, good to see all your faces again. Uh, but we have started a campaign. Now, hopefully some, most of you are aware of that for the renewal of the, uh, half-cent sales tax for this program. Keep it, keep it going. So, um, while I've been out, uh, we've been doing a lot of work, uh, with the help of many people around the table here. First thing I'd like to do is, is talk about the fact that in order to have a campaign, you got to have volunteers. So we have this little volunteer card. I'm going to pass these around. And what I'd like you to do is just, you know, there's a QR code on there, hand this to somebody. I know you, you cannot speak directly, uh, to support the, in this vote, but it's important that we get this message out to as many people as we can. Uh, so that's kind of the start. We, in mid, uh, September, we'll have a couple of coordination meetings to try to get the neighborhood walks going. Uh, one will be at the zoo. We'll have one, uh, up north in, uh, uh, Laura Lee's territory. And then, uh, we'll probably have one down south, but we'll, those will be in, like I said, mid-September and that will be announced on our website, uh, HelpfulLagoon.org. Uh, the other thing we've done is, obviously, if we're going to go out walking, we have to have a message to leave behind. So we've got these door hangers. The nice thing about the door hanger is two-sided, but, uh, it has six points on here that if, if all you do is emphasize those points, you'll get the message across that we're trying to get. So we're trying to kind of standardize the message. Once again, this will be, we need a lot of volunteers out walking neighborhoods to try to get these out. Um, we're going to have another form of this, which is just a card. So if you happen to be at an event and talking to people, you just hand these cards out. It's, it's, we're not getting into a lot of the details of what has been done in the program. It's more the fact that the program has been successful. We're seeing some successes, but we still have a long way to go. So that's the general message that we're trying to deliver. We need to continue this program on. So, and those, I can take, take several as many as you want. We have plenty of stock of these. Um, and the last thing, uh, we put together is a little bit more in depth. Uh, we've got this kind of, uh, handout card. We'll put them on, uh, racks and, uh, and hopefully people can get a little bit more information about some of the statistics on, you know, how, um, the, uh, you know, how the program is being funded, how those funds are being used and, uh, give people again, some more reference to get back to the, uh, the kind of websites that have all the, all the detailed information on that. So, so all these will be available to, uh, anybody and that's my three minutes. But, um, so like I said, we, we need the volunteers. So that's, that's the main reason I'm here is to try to make sure that you, you know, that we're, we are doing something. We are getting the, uh, starting to get the message out, but we've got a lot of stuff to do in the next two months. And a lot of that will be on, also on our website is all the events that we're going to be at, uh, trying to communicate this message out. There's four or five events. We have a, uh, sign waving, uh, at the, uh, this afternoon for fit, uh, 430 at, um, uh, in Indianmatic 192 and A1A. Uh, if you want to come up for that, we're getting a lot of response. We've got like 20 people at the last, uh, sign waving event. We kind of cover the street and get a lot of horn honking. And, uh, we got a press release on that. So a lot of these events, what we're trying to do is get them out to the press. So we'll have the press coming in. I think our next big event is probably going to be the, on the international personal cleanup on the 19th of September. Um, we want to do a hands across the lagoon type thing on the causeways, signage out there, get people out there. We did that in 2016. It's quite effective. Once again, we get the press involved in this process. So, uh, all the things we're trying to do, we're going to have an event in Palm Bay on the 4th of October. Uh, it's going to, it's going to be a family friendly type event. Uh, we want to get the information out on that. Once again, that's on our website and Palm Bay will be promoting that also, but we're doing across the counties, not just, not just down south, but Palm Bay is a huge segment that we need to get to. So any questions you have, uh, I'd be very happy to, to answer them, uh, after the meeting, whatever you want to come in. And, uh, the coordination events we're going to have, they will be publicized. We'll make sure you, you know when they are, uh, so you can come to them. But we want to really encourage you to talk to other people to get them to come, to come to these events. And so we can start getting people educated so we can get it out there, get the message out. Thank you much. Craig, we have questions. Craig, real quick. Uh, what was that date for the hands across the lagoon? The 19th of September. Excuse me. What time in the day? It's, uh, so that's the day that basically, uh, Keep of Our Beautiful does all their, uh, lagoon cleanups in the morning. So it'll be after that, it's around 10 o'clock. Uh, we'll get more information in the specific time, but it's going to be a lot of the volunteers are already out there. We want them to just kind of propagate into it. Thank you again for all your efforts. And then second question for the attorney and for the county. Um, I want to make sure that I step carefully and correctly in promoting or not promoting finding my position as the alternate. Um, what are we allowed to do? Can we just hand these out? Oh, can we? So, um, I figured this question was coming and if it wasn't, I was going to hit my button regardless. Um, so I know that this has been a topic that you guys have already discussed at length here. Um, and it's a big topic throughout the county for other, you know, ballot measures and stuff anyway. Um, but so, uh, previously you guys got the memo from Heather that goes over the advocacy situation in your capacity as committee members, um, that doesn't just cover, you know, verbal communications. That would also be, you know, actions like handing out a flyer that says vote yes, you know, uh, that would be advocacy, um, if you were to do that in your capacity as a committee member. Um, so I think generally I would say just refer back to the, uh, memo about advocacy, but of course, um, you know, factual statements and things are always, uh, fair game, you know, uh, so does that kind of cover a factual statements, you know, that aren't really, uh, saying vote yes or vote no, um, but are saying, you know, the lagoon tax raised X amount of dollars that were matched with funding from the state by another Y amount of dollars, you know, that's a fact. Um, so does that kind of help? So there's very, there's, so there's very much you can say. This one doesn't say vote yes. Right. The door hanger does. I haven't read the whole thing because I just got them. So I don't know if there's, I don't know if there's anything on here necessarily. I see, uh, you know, vote November 3rd. I don't know. I would have to say vote yes. No, only the door hanger says vote yes. I would say be, be very cautious about anything you're handing out because it's exactly the same as if you were speaking, you know, in public. So any of the advice that you've gotten before about advocacy, about speaking, uh, whether that be in public or private, you know, uh, that same advice would follow for any sort of, uh, paper communications, uh, you know, flyers are passing out Facebook posts and the like. So can you look at this and give us a review? Because my office can review it. Yes. And let us know. I mean, I'm, I'm going to two different speaking events this week and I'd like to know, and if you could resend Heather's, um, report out to us members, that would be helpful too. Thank you. Absolutely. So just speaking from, I'm sorry. Don, go ahead. So I do know, and Craig, you can speak to this, that the coalition has developed materials that are educational. This is one of the educational pieces. This is one of the advocacy pieces. So they do have information on the program in both formats, if you're concerned. And they have two separate funding sources too. Correct. And you, you can also go back to the presentation that I made working with Heather about what we can and can't do. Yes. Um, as individuals. And vote yes is really not something we can do, but we can, I think, hand this to someone else just to do. That, that is why I, I probably didn't explain that correctly. What I want you to do with these, which does say vote for, uh, is to hand them to somebody in your neighborhood and say, you know, here's some information. You're not, I'm not asking you to go door knocking and put, hang this on somebody's door. But if there's somebody in your neighborhood that's, you know, inclined to do that sort of thing, and there are people that are very anxious to try to get the message out. We get the messages all the time. This is the tool to do that with. The objective of this is to try to make it a common message so that people aren't going out and telling them, no, the loon's fixed. We don't need to, you know, we don't need to worry about it anymore, or the opposite. Uh, it's try to get, uh, and the other one, uh, is, is more educated, educational. Uh, and that's like, uh, when you're at events or something, you want to use that to just give a little bit more information, but not, not get too much in depth. So I think, um, I personally would not advise that you hand out anything that says vote yes, or is, uh, advocacy, because to me, a paper version is still the same as you guys speaking it. I think the law would apply the same way. Um, so I would have concerns about hinting out something that says vote yes in your official capacity as a committee member. We understand. Okay. What if we have it in our place of business? I mean, I think that there, there are certain things you may be able to do as your first amendment, right, as a private citizen. Um, and I don't know how much you guys have discussed that aspect of things here, but, um, you know, overall it's, it's something you want to just tread cautiously that you are not representing, um, these opinions as a committee member. You know, you're not saying as a member of the citizens oversight committee, you know, I'm saying vote yes, you know, that would not be permissible under, uh, the statute. So if someone else brings these and puts them out on the counter, at your place of business, you okay? We can maybe talk a little more offline about specific scenarios. Um, and you know, of course, since I'm just covering, I also don't want to lead you guys astray. I know this is a topic that Heather does, you know, back to front. So, uh, Yeah. I just want you to be very, very careful. Yes. That I think is key. And, um, you know, obviously we can have further conversations offline about specific scenarios or specific events, you know, anything that you guys, uh, want to discuss. I know my office is available to talk all the time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you, Craig. So we use that, that volunteer card. That's really the intent. If you can hand that out, it doesn't say anything about voting on that. Just a volunteer. We're looking for volunteers. Those are the people that we want to hand all the stuff to, not you guys. Yes. Thank you. Exactly. Thank you, Craig. Any other public comments? We'll open it up for public comments now, if anybody has one, if anybody wants to speak. Come on up in. It's just a thought, uh, in reference to before you spoke up, I said, why don't you put it out in the restaurants, you know, put the information out where people actually go because there's a lot of bulletin boards. And so maybe because you're a member on the board, um, I don't want to interfere with the legal advice here, but because you're a member of the board, keep it to the educational, but your friends who are not members of the board, they might be the ones who can assist. So, I mean, I was just thinking because the restaurants we go to, there's a lot of stuff for local businesses and that is most certainly a worthwhile cause to, to protect all of that. So the education and the advancement of information is very important. So I would, I would look at those public places. I would suggest you, you speak with Craig there. It's just an idea because I'm the end consumer. I speak from a, uh, perspective of the end consumer between government and business, you know, just one of those things where you weigh. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? We're going to open it up to the committee and I, and I, I do have a couple, just a couple of comments. Um, uh, this would have been a good month for presentations from the, from the committee members. Uh, you can see that we're going to end early here today. So it would have been a good month to, to get some of them out of the way, a couple of them anyway. Um, and then please review this ground rules and, and we're going to start, we're going to start an important part of our, really what we do with, with the projects and the next plan. We're going to be starting that next month. And so our, our real task is, is coming before us. And so really be prepared, be prepared to do that and be prepared. That's all I can ask you to do. So any other comments from, go ahead, Deb. I was so impressed by the connected by water video. It is amazing. Thanks to everyone, uh, especially our staff and committee members who are involved with that. It's spectacular and it is available. I had to find this out myself, so I'll share it. It is available on the St. John's river water management district YouTube channel. And, um, I'm planning to share it with a lot of folks. Yes. Yes. Go ahead, Charlie. Yeah. So I did want to mention, um, it's maybe a little indirect, but it does affect what we're doing is that the federal aviation administration has proposed to, uh, waive environmental requirements for space operations, commercial space operations, including the clean water act. And that doesn't really align with what we've been doing on this committee for 10 years now. Uh, really don't know what the negative impacts of that would be, but I don't say anything positive. So they're accepting comments up till the end of August. And so if you feel one way or another about that, I would encourage you to, uh, submit comments. And if you need more information about how to make those comments, uh, get with me after the meeting. Thank you. Anyone else? Go ahead, Nick. I got two for you this time, Doug. Okay. Uh, in front of everybody, you'll see the central East coast region environmental professionals community event. This is a new event. The treasure coast chapter of the association of environmental professionals is, is new and they're looking to create one to compliment the ones that already exist. Uh, so they reached out to me and I found them a spot. So they're going to be at Captain Hiram's on August 26th from five 30 to seven 30. If there are environmental professionals listening or folks here that want to attend, uh, you're invited to attend. It's a free event. Food and drinks are included. It's a little bit of a, like a, a mixer kind of situation where, you know, everyone's there to, to meet each other, to share ideas, to get together. They had one of these at Intracoastal a little while back. It was pretty successful. And it's, it's a way that we can communicate with each other and keep that message on brand and with the same language, which I'll be talking about as the speaker for this, uh, the topic of building stewardship through understanding, communicating conservation. So the idea of the language we use, the tools we use, sharing them with each other and making sure that we're all on the same message to the same goals. Uh, it's a, it's a really great organization with a lot of, a lot of great people. You can see the board of directors there on the left and it's going to be, uh, hopefully a lot of fun and informative and a way for people to kind of get to meet each other and see who their allies are. Just like in this room, I'm actually going to take a lot of the things we talked about today and bring them back to that meeting. The videos, the content and that, that kind of a thing are great tools. And even the, uh, the handouts, thanks to Craig, are good examples of what we're trying to achieve. Uh, number two is, uh, any river lagoon fest. Um, previously you've heard me talk about any river lagoon day, some of the video shots in the, in the video from the like event was actually at front street park from that very event. Uh, so we'll be back at front street park again. That's two two one zero front street in Melbourne, Florida, Saturday, October 17th from 9am to 2pm. Yeah. We moved it to October. So it's a little bit more of a, a fun kind of Halloween theme. Uh, hook kids on fishing. We'll be there. There'll be a rain barrel workshop. There'll be live music. Again, it's a free event, environmental exhibitors, arts and craft vendors, um, and a lot of great sponsors. I could go through the whole list, but it's a really good event. And if you have more questions about it, see me after. If you, uh, would like to be a vendor at it or attend it in some other capacity, let me know that I can connect you with the folks at the city of Melbourne who are, uh, you know, spear the tip of the spear on the, on this event. And, uh, yeah, hook kids on fishing starts at nine rain barrel workshop starts at one goes from nine to two on October 17th at front street park. Thanks. Hey, anybody else? Well, uh, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. I was second. Second. All right. All in favor. I was scolded about not doing that. So thank you all. We did end early. Yes. The opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the board of County commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast government television, or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter. The board of County commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast government television, and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any and all responsibility or liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period. We don't have though, is we don't have someone to serve if that secretary and treasurer is not here. And so the idea is that it would probably be good to have that redundancy in the system and have someone, uh, designated as a vice chair, uh, that would serve.