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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 04-14-2010 St. Lucie County Environmental Advisory Committee April 14, 2010 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM Environmental Resources Department Conference Room SLC Building, 25 St. & Virginia Ave. 1 Floor thst MEMBERS: R. Scott Taylor, Eric G. Haenni, Bob Bangert, George Jones, Edward Bowes GUESTS: Andy Brady STAFF: Amy Mott, Yvette Alger, Ed Skvarch, Jennifer Evans, Heather Lueke Roll call taken. Introductions around the table. Amy Mott - asked if the EAC Fertilizer Code discussions/decisions should be in a form of a letter from EAC to be sent to the Commissioners? Heather Lueke – Said that would not be necessary because she will submit a copy of the EAC minutes with her agenda package. George Jones – Asked if what he was receiving were the minutes of the last meeting. Amy Mott – What everyone was receiving was a binder which includes a copy of Chapter 6 of the Land Development Code “Resource Protection Standards” to be discussed at the May EAC meeting. What we are going over at this meeting is the Fertilizer Ordinance which was distributed at the March 18 EAC meeting, along with a summary of the Fertilizer Ordinance, the Irrigation th Ordinance, also an executive summary for the Codes, the orientation checklist, Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law Regulation. All of this information was discussed at the last EAC meeting and action on the two ordinances was tabled for further discussion at this meeting. George Jones – He read the notes from the IFAS public workshop on the ordinances and asked if anyone had brought up those comments. Heather Lueke – At the IFAS workshop there were objections to the part of Irrigation ordinance requiring businesses to turn in their clients, as if the contractors are now required to conduct code enforcement. They believe this would cause the clients to fire them. For the Fertilizer ordinance, there were a lot of comments to not alter from the state model required ordinance. There was much opposition to ERD’s recommendation to extend the boundaries of no spraying zones to 75’ feet stating that if not fertilized the lawns will die in areas like Indian River Dr., where the grass grows to the shoreline. George Jones - Said that they might need to take into consideration the fact that 90% of the audience were in the Fertilizing and Lawn Care business and that they weren’t exactly a diverse group of comments to the panel. Nine people were on the panel only 2 people had environmental background. The rest of them were people that are making a living supporting the industry. 1 Edward Bowes – Said that the city of Port St. Lucie had already passed these ordinances. Amy Mott – Asked if it was as is, not revised in any way? Edward Bowes – Said that he was not sure he had just seen it on TV. Amy Mott – Said that she was under the impression that any changes recommended now had to be reviewed by a Committee and the State. Heather Lueke –Doesn’t know what the final bill will be like. That the last time she saw it, they had taken out the committee. They were going to require that if counties wanted to do other than the state models, they had to form a committee, with representatives from the Fertilizer Industry and Environmental Groups. George Jones – this issue needs to be taken seriously because the water is green. Heather Lueke – Also saw another bill from the Department of Agriculture that would have prevented cities from regulating HB 1445. There are counties on the west coast that have sales bans. By not being allowed to do that, those bans would not be in affect anymore. As off the day before yesterday that was still alive but not yet approved. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if the state quantified the rain amount to really have significant rain. He also wanted to know where the line starts? Would that line start at the main top water or would the line start at the top of the banks? He agrees that 3’ feet is ridiculous and that 75’ feet makes sense based on what is going on in the existing code. Bob Bangert –he disagreed because he lived at the North end of the county and his back lawn form his house to the canal was about 75’ feet. St. Lucie County is very fortunate in the north end. There are 3 canals that lead to Taylor Creek. So many more come in to Taylor Creek. So what does the county do when they clean up Taylor Creek? The county only cleaned up the last 500’ feet. Why can’t we put up something to clear up the water from all these canals in the north end of the county before it gets to the Indian River? But 75’ feet back from all the way in to your back yard does not make any sense. Scott Taylor – He has the same issue. His back yard is 75’ feet as well and they wouldn’t let him plant Bald Cypress in the back yard. Bob Bangert – The Irrigation Ordinance was for new dwellings that required installing and only in the unincorporated County areas. George Jones – What he saw was that some of the technologies (re: rain sensors) were not keeping up with these regulations. On the night of the last meeting while he was driving through Indian River Dr. it was pouring rain and he noticed that there were 3 sets of sprinklers that were still running and he would like to see that stop, but then again on the other hand they should not mandate some things until the technology is caught up. Also, some of the other ordinances in the state that are working; they seem to be very well accepted by the public. These ordinances have 3’ 2 feet of water body; for example, Lee County, Sarasota County, and Tampa County. Lee County has a set back of a 3’ feet, Sarasota has a set back of a 10’ feet and Tampa also has a set back of a 10’ feet water body. He agrees that a 75’ foot is a bit much. George Jones – Another point that was brought up by the industry at the IFAS workshop, and that was very well taken, is that 80% of the fertilizers were being applied by the private homeowners and not by the commercial guys. The problem is coming from the general homeowners that do not realize that they are creating the problem. Most of the professionals do not want to waste the fertilizer by putting it where it doesn’t belong. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if there was a way to have a 75’ foot buffer or have a wetland buffer in place. Is it possible with potential elements for the future of that requirement with no fertilization within 10’feet of that buffer -vs.- somebody who has a 75’ foot set back from a river or creek? Amy Mott –With the feedbacks from the committees, the public, IFAS and everyone ERD is OK by pulling out the 75’ foot buffer. It was just easy for us to plug into the code just by going to the 75’ foot buffer because it was our greatest buffer width. In fact, there are properties around the Indian Lagoon that are not required to have any buffers. There are buffer along 5 to 10 mile of creeks that only required a 50’ foot buffer and then there is the 75’ foot buffer, and we started trying to bring all those little details into this section of the code, but then figured it would be easier to go with the 75’ foot buffer. As an ERD recommendation to be consistent with our greatest required vegetated buffer along with these water bodies. Even if it’s not vegetated we do not want to promote fertilizing right next to these water bodies that are all connected to the lagoon. That is where our recommendation came from, however, if this recommendation is causing this amount of heartburn for everybody, we will remove. You will see the section where it specifies the required buffers along the Indian River lagoon. There are a few different categories of buffers and certain activities within the maintenance areas. Where these new developments come in and we can regulate them. Bob Bangert – Asked if the ERD has ever done a survey on a lagoon on septic tanks. He knows of a small lake up north where they went around and put red dye in the septics to find out who was polluting the lake and who wasn’t. Amy Mott – ERD has never done that and it’s the health department that does regulate the installation and all septic tanks. She can also contact Jim Moses for more information on the matter. George Jones – Clarified that the 75’ feet will come out of the code and go into the chapter 6 where appropriate. Heather Lueke –they took out the word SPRING, because SLC does not have any. They also defined heavy rain (2”inches in 24 hour) period. They defined a preserve area, in which the fertilizer shall not be applied within 10’ feet or 3’ feet with shield in a preserve area. They also added more preserve areas to the fertilizer free zones and the penalty is different that the state models. Amy Mott – Asked the EAC to discuss and vote on blackout periods. 3 Heather Lueke – Asked if they wanted to ban certain kind of fertilizers from being sold all together in unincorporated counties, or if they wanted that the blackout periods to be more than just what they are now with the tropical hurricane season? By the way it is written one couldn’t fertilize this week because rain is likely. George Jones – Said that there was a guy at the meeting who had been testing yards in Florida for over 20 years and never found any yard that needed phosphorous yet. George Jones – Said that Sarasota County has a Phosphorous ban and that everyone is looking at nitrogen. You can fix 30% of the nitrogen to where you are not releasing it. This is the biggest problem for the lagoon right now. Phosphorous was bad, but that the nitrogen was worse. Recently you would notice all the brown algae all over the place and it’s not even wet season yet. Ed Skvarch – Said that it is difficult to find fertilizers in St. Lucie County because of the certain blends, 15-0-15 or 8-8-8. George Jones – Said that the HB-1445 was designed to stop any ordinance from being able to regulate mixes and no county would step up to the plate in an attempt to do that. Edward Bowes – Realistically, a ban in unincorporated St. Lucie County would not have an impact as people can go to the Lowes and Home Depot in PSL or Jensen. George Jones – There are 16 counties that have passed ordinance prohibiting this. He also said that he guarantees that there are a lot of people that are trying to kill the HB-1445. To assume that it is going to pass, it’s a mistake; to assume that we can’t do anything about it, it is also a mistake; and to assume that the city of Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce doesn’t have the ordinance to prohibit this, it is also a mistake. “We need to eat the elephant one bite at a time”. George Jones – Orange County had a good ordinance. What was said in the IFAS meeting, which he agreed with, was that we should rely on the commercial applicators to know what should or shouldn’t be done. Again, 80% of the problem is that the private homeowners are buying a bag of fertilizer and for a half time they burn their yards up trying to do it themselves in the first place. If we would write something that licensed applicators, some of these counties have a minimum test that they don’t even have to pay for they could come out and test it to see if the yards need Phosphorous and if it proves that they do need Phosphorous, then they can apply it. Bob Bangert – What about insecticides? George Jones – If you want to buy insecticides, nitrogen; if you want to talk what’s worse for the lagoon then like I said, let’s look at the 30% of nitrogen that is being dropped in the water. That’s a huge issue and most of the counties that have good ordinance don’t even address that. Most of the fertilizers are at 50%; for example, Sarasota County, Lee County, Tampa County, etc. Most of the fertilizer companies never consider that 50%, they don’t even want to talk about it. He was most concerned in the long hall was in the IFAS meeting to the South Water Management District will be coming down with other stuff. Cities and counties better start meeting these ordinances and it will cost a lot more money, thousands to be exact to take it out of the water, than it does to keep them from getting into the water in the first place. It will cost thousands of dollars a pound to take out and 4 it’s going to cost more as tax payers as these ordinance and numeric criteria come to play. So, let’s start getting it out by not applying it, instead of paying thousands of dollars in the back side cleaning it up. There is an entire industry that is getting a lot of money by cleaning it up as well. Amy Mott – Said, because of the EAC’s heavy agenda she hoped they could make a decision today. George Jones – Said that he found it interesting that they didn’t meet in about 8 months and now there was an agenda that need to move along in an issue that is as important as this one. Amy Mott – Said that she had to schedule Chapters 6 & 7 of the codes. Bob Bangert – Said that he had no problem by trying to adopted Sarasota County’s code. George Jones – Said that if we are going to adopted something, we’d better look in more than just the basics of the code. Eric G. Haenni – Said that for the correction he was hearing, if he were to offer a motion it would be that the endorsements of the fertilizer ordinance. He also said that if we are going to change some of the language and then go through the board for approval. After the language has been changed, he will like to know what’s going in front. Amy Mott – Said that if they could email her on this so that she can distribute it out. George Jones – Asked if we could propose some changes. He also said there was no sense moving forward while there’s a legislation that could trump everything we are going to do. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if it was possible that we could focus on chapter 6, modify the language, send that language to the committee members and then after May double back to the fertilizer ordinance. Amy Mott – Said yes; if you could just pull chapter 6 to the front burner. George Jones – Said that he could send Amy some of the ordinance to be distributed in some of the other counties. He will also send some of the other guidelines that they are working under. Amy Mott – Reminded Ed Skvarch about the ordinance from Orlando that she is going to send out. George Jones – He has sent back and forth correspondence to several commissioners that are aware of what is going on with HB-1445 and how it is progressing. Eric G. Haenni – He would rather pull back the motion and beef it up a bit. George Jones – He will distribute some other information to Amy, and then Amy can distribute that information to EAC. Also, he wants to wait and see what the legislation does as far as HB-1445 5 goes or any companion bills or any type of legislation that would trump any farther discussion. He also said that we have to see what Port St. Lucie did and if they adopted the DEP version. Bob Bangert – Said that the county can do a lot of good by educating the public about fertilizers. Eric G. Haenni – Said that there is so much that could be done from an education point of view and they can emphasize that as well. He doesn’t know how they dedicate the funding sources to do that, but that’s the way things are. Edward Bowes – Said that the Master Gardeners and Extension Services have been pushing this for a long time for all of in the organizations. George Jones – Said that the best management practice is by allowing the commercial guys to move forward. He thinks that this is an area that we need to explore and that’s a viable compromise to some of this stuff. There are options here that we can make it less onerous to everybody. Eric G. Haenni – Said that if you put forth the ordinance, if you educate the point source which is the distributors, by telling them what the county ordinance says and what they need to look for, for example The Home Depot. If the BMP’s commercial guys go out there and if they try to buy fertilizer but don’t have the card then they cannot purchase fertilizer, but we do have other products that are more suitable. Unless you’ve had this issue and you’ve been shown that you have this issue then you really don’t need this product. George Jones – Said that is and education point right at the point of contact. Eric G. Haenni – The person still can get the fertilizer, so you don’t have to go on the expense of putting pamphlets out and having educational seminars. It’s literally based on if they have the card or don’t have the card to purchase the fertilizer. George Jones – Said that most of the commercial guys have gone through the BMP training, in which they already have the education. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if the education is bilingual, because it is the biggest issue with Storm Water. Storm Water does not have a bilingual education; in fact they are now working on a Spanish version on the exams. Ed Skvarch – Said that he was in full education mode for next Tuesday. He suspected that he would have to be able to bring all the people that will need these BMP’s licensed applications. Eric G. Haenni – Said that they had the same master list as what everybody else had, what HOA is aware, and that there are always the usual suspects in the HOA. George Jones – Said that when he asked about the St. Lucie ordinance, if they adopted strictly the model ordinance, the basic ordinance does not prohibit fertilizer use in sales during the raining season and does not prohibit the use of phosphorous on soils already rich it and does not require any portions of slow release of nitrogen. Basic ordinance have no enforcement provision, yet local 6 government are being required by TMDL programs to reduce the nitrogen to phosphorous by 40% to 60%. Eric G. Haenni – Asked about the Irrigation ordinance. Edward Skvarch – Said that he would report and let the customers know that these are going to be the new requirements; telling the customers that if they run the sprinkler system when it’s raining someone could report them to the Code Enforcement. Edward Bowes – Said that the only thing he could think of was that instead of putting the burden on the customers by reporting them to Code Enforcements, they should be educated the right way. ? Speaker – Said that he was present in the last meeting and heard that the technology was not up to par. George Jones – Said that he had heard the same thing and that after that meeting was adjourned he went back and spoke with some of the members. He asked them if this type of equipment was all set to be rental, available and serviceable. He also asked them about how could the average homeowners put something like this and not get lost in the process? The technology is really nothing to the least of his understanding. Ed Skvarch – Said that the soil sensing devices are really expensive and not perfected. He spoke about the variables; for example, what if you go in and put the device in a low area where the customer has a down spout running off; it’s as simple as that. This technology is available and the cost is $35.00 to $40.00 dollars easily installed. Eric G. Haenni – Said that he didn’t install his sprinkler system and that it hadn’t sensed rain in about 5 years. He feels that his system is almost moister sensitive. He has watched it dead on mid cycle and that he can’t imagine that the device is so expensive. George Jones – Said that the definition of it was that the rain sensor is a low voltage, electrical or mechanical components placed in the circuitry. Bob Bangert – Said that the problem is that some of the people don’t water their lawns on the right day or right time. Edward Skvarch – Said that in the research that he did at the university, it showed a 35 to 40% reduction of irrigation devices, soil devices. By his understanding we need to educate the customers on how to use the sprinkler system’s time clock. Eric G. Haenni – Said that if you empowered the commercial person on doing the installation or maintenance of someone’s sprinkler system on a regular basis, then that commercial person has to tell the client that the county just passed out an ordinance, a rule that says that I’m supposed to report you if they’re any violations. 7 Edward Bowes – Said that the commercial guy should only have to say that there is rule and if it’s raining and I see that you have your sprinklers on, that’s a violation and I’ll have to report you to the Code Enforcement. The city of Port St. Lucie is one of the greatest violators of that. Eric G. Haenni – Said that he doesn’t know how many Code Enforcement Officers are left in the county. If it’s something as soft as self enforcement neighbor to neighbor and just saying that I want to make you aware, this is who you need to call. Edward Bowes – Said that if you get 5 violations then you know that you are going to get a ticket. Eric G. Haenni –The reality is that self regulations turned on or off will be like, for example, when rain that is happening takes out the gauge, then you say, that you had a malfunctioning gauge out as an excuse. So there has to be an enforcement that can’t be delayed and can tell you if you have one or three strikes, or to the point when you have 4 reports and you’d have to pay a finance fee. Where does that money go to? What do they use it for? ? Speaker – Asked if we could take the rain sensing device out of the ordinance. Heather Lueke – Said that no, because it is mandated by the state to have it in the county’s ordinance. Bob Bangert – Said that the rain gauge are absolutely necessary because we have a lot of people in Florida who are gone 5 months of the year and they don’t know if it’s raining here or not; they need the rain gauge. Eric G. Haenni – Said that he guarantees that the rain gauges will malfunction from time to time and that the people who are gone 5 months of the year are going to have problems with them. Bob Bangert – Asked if there was really that many malfunctioning rain gauges. George Jones – Said that he heard of rain gauges that required a lot of bells and whistles. Ed Skvarch – Said that the other thing is that they can override the systems, that you can snap the wires and override the system. Eric G. Haenni – Said that he agreed with Ed. And that it might just work. George Jones – Said that he had no knowledge of this and was reluctant to make comments. Eric G. Haenni – His understanding was that there was a cord or membrane for that. George Jones – His understanding on this matter, it was like a sponge that dries out and rehydrates affecting the system. George Jones – Read the Purpose and Intent (1-6.8-32) of the Florida Friendly Irrigation Ordinance. It says, “This ordinance requires the proper installation, repair and operation of moisture sensing devices on automatic lawn and landscape irrigation systems by licensed 8 contractors and homeowners, provides for licensing of contractors that work on such irrigation systems, and provides penalties”. George Jones – Asked if anybody knew what the other counties put in place in there Fertilizer and Irrigation Ordinances. Eric G. Haenni – Said that he didn’t know of any irrigation ordinances outside of what the district came up with for their requirements. George Jones – Said that they should go back to the fertilizer ordinance and take a look on what the other counties are doing. He also said that he will contact the Water Management District to verify what the counties are doing with their fertilizer ordinance. Amy Mott – Asked if this ordinance was mandatory as well by the state. Heather Lueke – This one is not, so there are not going to be a lot of people doing anything with this ordinance. Eric G. Haenni – Said that in affect this unfunded mandate was unfair for the industry folks. George Jones – Said that he honestly could deal with some of the complications of the equipments and the sensitivity of the rain gauge sensors, but he could not deal seeing the contractors turn in their clients. Eric G. Haenni – Said that the other reality they needed to consider was that the contractors overall loose out because they believe that they can go to Home Depot and buy the rain gauge system and install it themselves, but most common contractors put the system in and they never hook up the wires. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if the golf courses use them as well. In a different scale, but the visible reality, potentially and specifically from the district wanted to look at somebody who is doing it; for example if you drive by St. James Community Golf Course or somewhere else, it’s pouring rain and you are an enforcement person for the state; that would be an opportunity to physically say that they are in violation of the code. George Jones – Said that a lot of the other counties like for example Manatee County, are either re using them or they use self irrigations. They design the courses of all their collections that run back to the lakes and then they have consumptive use permits. A lot them are way beyond with evapotranspirations, and that is why they have green maintenance people. They have experts that manage all of those things. They test their soil moisture all the time; not because it is the conservation of the golf course, but because it is in the most playable conditions. Also, I would motion that we table action on the Fertilizer and Irrigation Ordinances until we gather some more information on what the other counties are doing. Bob Bangert – 2’s the motion. nd 9 Amy Mott – Explained what was in the package distributed at today’s meeting. This included the Chapter 6 Revision and the intent is to vote on May 19 2010’s EAC meeting. The first 114 pages th are the Code and what you’ll see next is the companion document called the Administrative Manual. Eric G. Haenni – Asked if Administrative Manual has to go through public hearing for future revisions. Heather Lueke – Said that the board will approve the specific administrative guidelines and requirements. Amy Mott – Said that there will be guidelines and requirements on this Administrative Manual; for example, the first section is the Environmental Impact Report, the second section is the Preserve Area Management Plan, the third section is the Sea Turtle Protection Plan, then there is the Conservation Easement, then the Improvement Agreements, etc. Eric G. Haenni – Said from his point of view, how does he know by moving forward with the development approval that his copy of the Administrative Manual that he got in the beginning of the process is going to be consistent in the same that was submitted in the criteria and specific guidelines? Amy Mott – Said that perhaps we could add language to the Administrative Manual that version received at the time of their official submittal will be in effect for their entire process. Edward Bowes – Asked if the Administrative Manual was online. Amy Mott – Said that the Administrative Manual will be online once it is approved but right now everyone was getting the draft. Eric G. Haenni – Said that if it takes 4 or 6 months to approve a development through a review, that online version will have about 10 permutations based on the changes the staff will approach with, because the online community needs to have an assurance that says, “This is what we are working on, these are the rules that we have to follow. Those rules will be carried on through the process of our approval. He suggested the application should be stamp as submitted, and it should be stamp as the staff manual copy that will operate with. He also said that there should be something in there that says, “If a new development or project comes in for approval and they want to go through reproduction within their team, then that’s fine, but it will be easier to say, here is the disk, and the date, instead of giving them the entire manual. George Jones – Wanted to know why the Sea Turtle protection plan section was struck through, and the Manatee Protection Plan was not. Amy Mott – Said that there was a reason that the Sea Turtle Protection Plan was struck through in one place was because it was moved to the Coastal section where it is shown as all underlined. With the Manatee Protection Plan it is all new LDC language & therefore shows as underlined. A motion was made to adjourn. 10 Meeting adjourned at 5:00pm. 11