Water For Fighting

Lisa Moore

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In the season four finale of Water for Fighting, host Brett Cyphers heads to Crystal River to sit down with community champion and fourth-generation Floridian Lisa Moore — a teacher, advocate, and the driving force behind Save Crystal River.

Lisa shares what it was like growing up on Florida’s Gulf Coast — childhoods spent jumping into spring vents, fishing off docks, and roaming the river by boat before she could even drive a car. But over time, that paradise shifted. Storms, invasive vegetation, and declining water quality turned Kings Bay into a murky, oxygen-starved system smothered by algae.

Instead of accepting the loss of a place she loved, Lisa and a handful of neighbors formed Save Crystal River — determined to restore the ecosystem one spring, one canal, and one grant application at a time. With help from state leaders and restoration experts at Sea & Shoreline, they launched a massive effort to remove decades of muck, open spring vents, and plant vast meadows of native eelgrass.

From removing decades of muck to re-establishing native eelgrass and restoring spring vents, the project has transformed Crystal River into a model for grassroots environmental action. Manatees have returned, the water is clearer, and the community is proof that big change can start small.

This episode is part inspiration, part behind-the-scenes look at how a determined group of locals helped bring a river back to life.

Save Crystal River’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the continued support of local and state leaders who championed the restoration of Kings Bay and consistently believed in the mission. Special thanks to:

County Commissioner Rebecca Bays, for her unwavering support both locally and in Tallahassee
Charlie Dean, Wilton Simpson, Ralph Massullo, and JJ Grow, for their advocacy and commitment to protecting Florida’s springs
Deputy Secretary Adam Blalock and the entire team at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, whose partnership and guidance were instrumental in securing springs funding over the years
And a sincere acknowledgment to the Governor, whose support allowed this restoration to move forward at the scale needed

Their collective leadership helped turn a grassroots effort into a nationally recognized restoration success.

This episode is brought to by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

RES is the nation’s leader in ecological restoration, helping to restore Florida’s natural resources with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer communities guaranteed performance and outcomes. Check them out at www.res.us

This episode is also brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Sea and Shoreline is the Southeast’s leading innovator in protecting coastal communities from devastating storms and restoring ecosystems that once faced ecological collapse. Visit their website at www.Seaandshoreline.com.

Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and myself as part of a new venture where we’re striving to become Florida’s first source for environmental news, educational tools, and unique perspectives on our state’s natural environment and the events that shape it. To learn more about its flagship print publication and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach me directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and/or what you’d like to know more about.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

And finally, a very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free, and you should check out the band live, or wherever great music is sold.

Adam Blalock, Omar Franco, Kim Shugar

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

This special joint episode from Water for Fighting and the Florida Specifier Podcast—a product of the Specifier Media Group—was recorded in front of a live audience at the American Water Resources Association’s annual conference in Key West. Host, Brett Cyphers sits down with three of Florida’s most influential voices in water policy and advocacy: Kim Shugar, Senior Advisor and Environmental Policy Lead at the Arrow Group; Adam Blalock, Deputy Secretary for Ecosystem Restoration at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; and Omar Franco, head of Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.’s federal lobbying practice in Washington, D.C.

Together, they traced their personal paths into public service and policy, sharing how early experiences shaped their commitment to Florida’s waters. From childhood fishing trips to navigating the intricacies of legislative chambers, each guest offered a unique perspective on how decisions at both the state and federal levels ripple through local communities.

The discussion tackled some of the most pressing issues in Florida’s water future, including the state budget, Everglades restoration, basin management action plans, nutrient reduction challenges, and the complex balance between federal funding, state priorities, and local responsibilities—all while highlighting the importance of mentorship, persistence, and partnerships in tackling long-term environmental challenges.

This collaboration offers a window into the strategies, struggles, and successes of those working every day to secure Florida’s water future.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

RES is the nation’s leader in ecological restoration, helping to restore Florida’s natural resources

with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer communities guaranteed performance

and outcomes. Check them out at www.res.us

This episode is also brought to you by our friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Sea and Shoreline is the Southeast’s leading innovator in protecting coastal communities from

devastating storms and restoring ecosystems that once faced ecological collapse. Visit their

website at www.Seaandshoreline.com.

Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and Brett as

part of the environmental news and discussion brought to you by the Florida Specifier. To learn

more about our flagship print publication, weekly newsletter and more, visit The Florida

Specifier.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach us directly

at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who Brett should be

talking with in the future.

Huge thanks goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the show. The song is called, Doing Work for Free, and you can find it anywhere great music is sold.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of

what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Mandi Rice

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode of Water for Fighting, host Brett Cyphers sits down with longtime friend and colleague Mandi Rice, Assistant Executive Director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, for a wide-ranging conversation that weaves together her personal story and her professional journey in Florida’s water world.

Mandi shares how her upbringing in Palm Beach County and her family’s deep connection to Florida’s coast helped shape a lifelong passion for water. From her early days as an engineer to her pivotal role at Tampa Bay Water during the height of the region’s “water wars,” Mandi reflects on the enormous challenges that came with building projects like the Bill Young Reservoir and the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalinization Plant, and the lessons learned from both success and setback.

Now leading at one of the state’s most important water management districts, Mandi offers candid insights on the future of Florida’s water supply — from the promise of potable reuse to the importance of sustainable planning as growth accelerates across the state. Along the way, she talks about the people and mentors who influenced her career, her move to Citrus County, and what continues to drive her commitment to public service.

The discussion brings together Mandi’s family background, career experiences, and perspective on the future of Florida’s water.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES). RES is the nation’s leader in ecological restoration, helping to restore Florida’s natural resources with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer communities guaranteed performance and outcomes. Check them out at www.res.us

This episode is also brought to you by our friends at Sea and Shoreline. Sea and Shoreline is the Southeast’s leading innovator in protecting coastal communities from devastating storms and restoring ecosystems that once faced ecological collapse. Visit their website at www.Seaandshoreline.com.

Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and Brett as part of the environmental news and discussion brought to you by the Florida Specifier. To learn more about our flagship print publication, weekly newsletter and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach us directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who Brett should be talking with in the future.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Temperince Morgan

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett Cyphers sits down with Temperince Morgan, a fourth-generation Floridian who brings both personal roots and professional expertise to Florida’s most pressing environmental issues.

Temperince shares her story, beginning with her upbringing alongside a father with deep roots in ranching. Raised in Jacksonville and spending time with family in Lake Okeechobee, her love for nature was shaped by family trips around Florida. Her childhood was deeply connected to water and land—where cattle ranches, the St. Johns River, and Florida’s state parks sparked a lasting bond with the landscape and laid the foundation for a career dedicated to its restoration and protection.

She walks Brett through her time as a biology major at Florida State University and how that led to a career in environmental science. The conversation explores her roles at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District, where she helped lead early efforts in Everglades restoration. Now, as Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Southern U.S. Division, she oversees large-scale environmental strategy across 10 states. They also dive into projects close to her, like the Pensacola East Bay Oyster Project.

Rich in personal insight and professional depth, this episode offers an intimate look at one of Florida’s most respected environmental leaders—and what it takes to protect the state’s natural future.

To explore the broader mission behind the work Temperince leads—conserving lands and waters across the U.S. and beyond visit The Nature Conservancy

To hear more about the Florida-based initiatives Temperince references, including coastal resilience, water management, and Everglades restoration visit The Nature Conservancy in Florida

To take a closer look at the project that Temperince highlights as an example of measurable, on-the-ground restoration visit Pensacola East Bay Oyster Project

Temperince discusses values that are essential to future conservation success; this center reflects TNC’s focus on science, outreach, and education. Find out more here Center for Conservation Initiatives

As discussed in the episode, long-term land conservation is key to protecting Florida’s water—to learn how TNC is doing it click here Florida Land Protection | The Nature Conservancy

If Temperince’s story inspired you, consider supporting the work she and her team are doing to build a more resilient Florida by visiting Donate Now to Protect Nature | The Nature Conservancy

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

One Water Conference

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett takes the show on the road to moderate a discussion at the OneWater Summit in Winter Haven. His conversation partners included Lynn Spivey, the City of Plant City Utilities Director; David MacIntyre, the President of AquaSciTech Consulting; and Frank Bernardino, Partner Ameritus with Anfield Consulting.

They discuss the definition of One Water; how the regulatory structure of water in Florida may be exacerbating its resource issues; what’s missing in how environmental issues are being communicated to policy makers and the public; what the real cost of water and environmental restoration is; and even some talk about how to pay for it all.

Special thanks and recognition goes out to Gary Hubbard and Amy Jenkins with the City of Winter Haven for organizing the summit and to Eric Draper for allowing Brett to hijack his panel for the show.

To visit the OneWater Summit website and see the agenda and panels, go here.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by our friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Adam Putnam

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this special episode, released under the Water for Fighting as well as the Florida Specifier banner, Brett gets to sit down with Bartow’s favorite son, Adam Putnam. At the time he served, Putnam was the youngest person ever to be elected to the Florida House of Representatives at barely twenty-two years old. He would go on to serve as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms, becoming the 3rd ranking member of that body, and he was elected statewide as Florida’s 11th Commissioner of Agriculture where he served two terms. He is now the CEO of Ducks Unlimited but still splits time between Tennessee and Florida.

They discuss his deep roots in Imperial Polk County; growing up in the family’s citrus and cattle business; his long-term, successful participation in the 4H Club and Future Farmers of America (FFA) and the leadership tools he developed there; how he drifted into politics at such a young age; how he brought the character and challenges of his community to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. as he pursued fresh perspectives on old problems; his appreciation for the expansion of the Rural and Family Lands program; his frustration with the federal government’s opaque and overbearing nature as it relates to Waters of the U.S.; and what it’s like to have one of the coolest jobs you can imagine.

This episode has plenty to capture the attention: a story about how his grandparents kept truck tires inside with them because they were so vital to their livelihood; some incredible stats on what Ducks Unlimited is accomplishing; a University of Florida shoutout (if you’re into that sort of thing); flashbacks to the citrus freezes from the 80s that captured hearts of area communities; a solid Alexis de Tocqueville reference; a simultaneously optimistic and realistic view on the future of citrus in Florida; and how he has no plans on getting back into politics again (see above re: coolest job ever).

To visit the Ducks Unlimited website, go here.

To learn more about Florida’s Rural and Family Lands Protection Program, go here.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach me directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who I should be talking with.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Eric Sutton

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett sat down with his friend and fellow Southwest Florida Water Management District alum, Eric Sutton. Before his current role, Eric has spent his entire career in public service. He’s worked for Sarasota County; the water management district where he and Brett met; and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where he would eventually get to serve as the organization’s Executive Director. He’s currently a Vice-President with Garcia Land Management and Environmental Services.

They discuss his family’s deep roots in rural Western Kentucky; a childhood spent outdoors; how he changed paths at the University of South Florida and wound up working in the natural sciences; his desire to learn, improve, and take on new challenges; his management philosophy as his responsibilities grew; the love he had for his staff, board, and organization – and when he knew it was time to move on; his new role with Garcia and the challenges of working in the private sector; and a flirtation with the “RV Life”.

They also share a glass of whiskey from the Green River Distillery, an historic institution in Owensboro, Kentucky, near walking distance from his childhood hometown of Henderson. Did we mention that Eric is a long-time musician and jingle writer, and a one-time professional elephant washer (we mean, zoologist) at Busch Gardens as well? Well, he is.

Special Note: To our fellow Floridians (and even to our listeners and readers in Georgia and North Carolina) who are recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, our hearts are with you, and we won’t forget you in the hard months to come. The Florida Specifier/Water for Fighting team is pulling for you and hoping for a safe and speedy recovery for your families and communities. If you’d like to share your story with us, we’d love to hear from you. Just reach out to Brett at flwaterpod@gmail.com or Patrick Gillespie at PatrickGillespie@floridaspecifier.com.

To visit the Garcia Land Management and Environmental Services website, go here.

To check out the Green River distillery, go here.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by our friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Water for Fighting is part of the Specifier media family – Florida’s home for environmental news, discussion, and personalities. Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and Brett as part of the environmental news and discussion brought to you by the Florida Specifier. To learn more about our flagship print publication, weekly newsletter and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach us directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who Brett should be talking with next.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Andrew Ketchel

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 07:00:00 +0000

For this episode, Brett sat down with his friend, colleague, and fellow DEP alum Andrew Ketchel as Hurricane Helene barreled toward its collision with the Southeast United States. Andrew is a former Legislative Affairs Director for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; college football player for the University of South Florida; and an Eagle Scout. He’s currently a partner with Capital City Consulting, one of the largest lobbying firms in the state of Florida.

They discuss his parents’ forays into national and local politics; growing up in a military town; why he chose USF for college; the challenges of a student athlete who sees a life after football; how he ended up in the “family business”; how lobbying government is different than lobbying for government; and his philosophy for how to be an effective, and more importantly - ethical, lobbyist.

Special Note: To our fellow Floridians who are recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, our hearts are with you. The Florida Specifier/Water for Fighting team is pulling for you and hoping for a safe and speedy recovery for your families and communities.

To visit Capital City Consulting’s website and find out how to reach Andrew, go here.

Watch Andrew score a touchdown versus the Florida Gators here.

This episode is brought to you by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and myself as part of the environmental news and discussion brought to you by the Florida Specifier. To learn more about our flagship print publication, weekly newsletter and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram @flwaterpod, and you can reach me directly at FLwaterpod@gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who I should be talking with.

Mark Merkelbach

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett has a conversation with Mark Merkelbach, the CEO of Green Earth Operations and COO of Sustainable Water Infrastructure Group (SWIG). Mark has dedicated his career to water quality improvement all over the world including India, Mexico, Haiti, and China. He’s now using his creativity and experience to solve water quality problems right here in Florida.

They discuss growing up around the Jersey Shore; a love of the outdoors passed down from his father; a professional wanderlust that has taken him all over the globe; his need to solve environmental problems; the secret sauce that he and SWIG are using to impact water quality in Florida; and of course, they talk about the Merkelbach family’s rescued one-eyed and three-tooth Shitzu name Button.

To visit SWIG’s website and find out what Mark and his team are doing to make Florida (and the world) a better place, head here.

To see more information about SWIG’s Doctor’s Lake project as reported in the Florida Specifier, head here:

To read the Florida Specifier article that introduced the work of SWIG to Florida’s environmental scene, go here.

This episode is brought to by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

David Rathke

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Season 4 kickoff features Brett sitting down with his friend and former boss, David Rathke. David is currently the Executive Director of Resiliency Florida and Executive Director of Florida Association of Mitigation Bankers, but he has decades of experience working in many facets of state government. That experience includes working for former Congressman, Dan Miller; working as an aide for former Senate President, John McKay; a community affairs role with The Peace River Manasota River Water Supply Authority; a sixteen-year stint at the Southwest Florida Water Management District, culminating in his service as chief of staff; and leadership roles at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Florida Department of Management Services.

They discuss his early life in the outdoors; the gift of music given to him by his mother and grandmother; the winding path that led him to government service; how he has used his experiences to learn and create successes later; his theory for success in government relations which includes community and the importance of friendship; how he has overcome life-threatening strokes to end up better than ever; and of course, Brett makes David explain what a Hammer Dulcimer is.

You still have time to attend the 3rd Annual Florida Resilience Conference starting on September 11. To learn more and get registered, go here: https://floridaresilienceconference.org

To get involved in Resiliency Florida’s mission, visit their website here: https://www.resiliencyflorida.org

To learn more about the Florida Association of Mitigation Bankers, why not visit their website here: https://floridamitigationbanking.org

And because we know you’re going to look it up anyway, here’s the Smithsonian Institutes page on the Hammer/Hammered Dulcimer.

This episode is brought to by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES)

This episode is also brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Drew Bartlett

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett closes out Season 3 with former Deputy Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and current Executive Director of the South Florida Water Management District – Drew Bartlett.

While Drew was born and raised in Georgia, he has made a real name for himself in the water management and environmental restoration world here in the far superior state of Florida. He was pivotal in the creation of Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs), and a new path to success, in some of Florida’s most impaired waters. He’s also been a catalyst in the continuing effort to restore iconic places like the Florida Everglades, Biscayne Bay, and the Indian River Lagoon.

They discuss his pedigree for public service passed down from his parents; how his career brought him to Florida; his need to be challenged and overcome challenges; the challenges he’s tackling with his incredible staff, board, and wide array of communities and stakeholders; what South Florida looks like with a rising ocean and aging flood control system; and how he leans on science, experience, confidence, and boundless optimism to face the future.

Drew is one of the absolute best at what he does, and we’re happy that he agreed to share his experience and insights with us.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

To learn more about what the South Florida Water Management District is doing to serve its communities and make the world a better place, go here: https://www.sfwmd.gov

To learn more about Drew’s work at DEP, especially as it relaltes to Basin Management Action Plan, head here:https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/basin-management-action-plans-bmaps

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

And finally, a very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free, (Apple Music | Spotify) and you should check out the band live, or wherever great music is sold.

Holly Raschein

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett sits down with former four-term member of the Florida House of Representatives, Florida Keys champion, and current mayor of Monroe County – Holly Raschein.

Holly was born and raised in Alaska, but she has ultimately made her home over 5,000 miles away in the Florida Keys. Holly got her start in the legislative process working for lobbying legend Bob Levy, working with now-Florida Senator, Ana Maria Rodriguez. She would go on to work as an aide to two House members from Monroe County (Ken Sorensen and Ron Saunders) before staking her own claim on Florida’s Southernmost seat in the legislature for four terms. In addition to being a county commissioner and the county’s mayor, she is also the Director of Government Affairs for AshBritt, a well-known operator in the world of disaster recovery.

They discuss her parents’ individual journeys to end up in Alaska; her childhood amongst the moose; the decision to head for the opposite side of the country for college at Florida State University; how she ended up in the “Fabulous Florida Keys”; the interesting and quirky similarities between the Keys and Alaska; how she decided to run for state office and the massive impact she made there; what the passage of the Florida Keys Stewardship Act means for the future of her community; what she brought back home to make her more effective as a county commissioner; and the challenges that lie ahead for The Keys.

Holly is as active as ever in her many philanthropic endeavors, and even with an incredibly busy life, she still makes her son her biggest priority. If you want to find out what makes the Keys special and what it takes to make a difference there, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss. Plus, you’ll get some advice on what to do if you get chased by a moose.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

To check out Holly’s Wikipedia page, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Merrill_Raschein

To see what’s in the Florida Keys Stewardship Act, head here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/721/Florida-Keys-Stewardship-Act

If you’d like to know more about Holly’s important work at AshBritt, go here: https://www.ashbritt.com

While you’re here, why not check out a few fun facts about Alaskan Moose here: https://www.alaskatourjobs.com/blog/useful-tips/five-fun-facts-about-alaskan-moose/

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

David Sedlak

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett sits down with professor, researcher, and award-winning author, David Sedlak to talk about his latest book, Water for All – Global Solutions for a Changing Climate. David started his career as a researcher looking to solve our world’s water quality challenges but eventually shifted his focus to working on how to cope with, or even prevent, water scarcity in the United States and throughout the world.

They discuss the “Six Water Crises”; the “Great Acceleration”; the difference in the scope of challenges between rich and poor countries, as well as rich and poor within a country; the role of dams in a post-Acceleration nation and world; salinization of farmland soils out West and what we need to do about it; and his artful distinction between optimism and hopefulness as it relates to the future of water.

To buy Water for All, try here before you go to Amazon or the other big guys: https://www.midtownreader.com/book/9780300256932

You can get his first book, Water 4.0, there as well. Here’s the link for it: https://www.midtownreader.com/book/9780300212679

Why not check out David’s TED Talk. It’s really good, and it’ll give you a sense of what he’s about while you’re waiting for your copy of his books to arrive. Find it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_sedlak_4_ways_we_can_avoid_a_catastrophic_drought?language=en

David talked about what got him interested in working on water issues, and one of the motivators was an environmental disaster that was discovered in the late 70s, known as Love Canal. If you’re not familiar it, here’s a decent place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal

To keep up with the other good work David is doing, including as director of the Berkeley Water Center at the University of California, Berkeley, check out his page here: https://ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sedlak

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at RES.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Collins Land Services.

When it comes to your disaster recovery and land management needs, you’re looking for the perfect combination of competence, reliability, and affordability. And that means you’re looking for Collins Land Services. Check them out at www.collinsland.com

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Bob Martinez

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett had the privilege of sharing some time with Tampa and Florida legend – Governor Bob Martinez. He was Tampa’s 54th mayor and Florida’s 40th governor; both positions held as the first of Spanish descent. He also has deep roots in Tampa, his grandparents having immigrated from Spain at the turn of the 20th Century during a great boom in the cigar industry there. His father worked in the restaurant business, including as a long-time employee at the famed Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, and then later at the family-owned Café Sevilla in West Tampa.

Martinez was a star athlete at Jefferson High School, a graduate of the University of Tampa, and got his professional start as a classroom teacher before becoming the Executive Director of the Hillsborough County Classroom Teachers Association. He was called upon by Governor Ruben Askew to serve on the Governing Board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District and chair three Basin Boards there: The Hillsborough River, Northwest Hillsborough, and Alafia River.

They discuss his childhood in Old Tampa where he enjoyed school, excelled at sports, and spent his free moments fishing with his father and his friends; how Café Sevilla became the birthplace of a mayor’s race and the campaign to be Governor of Florida; how his service as head of the teachers union gave him his first taste of real politics; his time at Swiftmud gave him a taste for the water and environmental needs of a region; and a mayorship that gave him the opportunity to restore, innovate, and move his home city forward.

His term as governor would be marked by enacting some of the most consequential environmental policy in Florida history including the enactment of the Preservation 2000 conservation land acquisition program, the Growth Management Act, and the Surface Water Improvement and Management Act. He also implemented the Florida Lottery, created Florida’s Turnpike Authority, and created Space Port Florida.

There are a few other achievements in particular that hold a more personal value to Brett including Martinez’s restoration of the Lowry Park Zoo from the ground up as mayor; the creation of Florida Prepaid College; the rebirth of Nature’s Classroom in Hillsborough County; an amazing nearly 70-year (and counting) partnership with his beloved wife Mary Jane; and of course, his analysis of why the Tampa Cuban sandwich is superior to the one from Miami (it’s the bread).

He’s still as active as ever, serving on many boards and clubs, is a Senior Policy Advisor with the Holland & Knight Law Firm, and at 89 years-old, you can still find him on his daily walks or on the tennis court.

We hope you enjoy the conversation!

To visit Governor Martinez’s page at the Holland & Knight law firm, go here: https://www.hklaw.com/en/professionals/m/martinez-bob

To see his useful, but woefully incomplete Wikipedia page, head here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Martinez

To see a decent history of Florida’s land conservation programs, including Governor Martinez’s efforts which led to Preservation 2000, go here: https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/IR/00/00/19/42/00001/FE33100.pdf

To see an image of the menu from the Governor’s family restaurant, check it out here: http://ciadigitalcollections.culinary.edu/digital/collection/p16940coll1/id/14253

The Governor was a star athlete at the University of Tampa, and the sports facility there is even named in his honor. To get a look at that, head to their site here: https://www.tampaspartans.com/information/athletic_info/facilities/Martinez/index

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Hugh Thomas

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett got to share some time with a true gentleman, friend, and public servant – Hugh Thomas. Hugh has been the Executive Director of the Suwannee River Water Management District for over seven years, and he has brought a wealth of experience to that role which was earned in the private sector as well as his various roles at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

He’s a big believer in the innovative work of the Suwannee River Partnership, and he shares some insights on how the “Fifth Largest Water Management District in Florida”, is tackling the water quantity and quality challenges of today and tomorrow.

They talk about his family’s roots in Gilchrist County; the shocking news that Hugh was born in Tampa; how his professional path has crossed a few times with mutual friend and guest of the podcast, Ann Shortelle; his philosophy for partnership with the agricultural community; his appreciation for governing boards, and his in particular; his questionable advice on whether to build a house with your spouse as a young couple; and of course, his likeness to the mythical lumberjack – Paul Bunyan.

Hugh was generous with his time and insights, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

To find out more about the Suwannee River Partnership, head here: https://suwanneeriverpartnership.com

To learn about the Suwannee River Water Management District, go here: https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com

To see the cost-share opportunities available through the District’s portal, go here: https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com/366/Agricultural-Cost-Share-Program and here: https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com/374/RIVER-Cost-Share-Program

And because you probably don’t know where Bell, Florida is (or that the town was named after the winner of a beauty contest, Bell Fletcher), check out the town’s website here: https://www.townofbellflorida.com

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:28:02

Speaker 1

Welcome to water for fighting, where you discuss the past, present and future of water Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. This week’s discussion is brought to you by Sea and Shoreline and Resource Environmental Solutions. Since shoreline is the southeast leading innovator in protecting coastal communities from devastating storms and restoring ecosystems that once faced ecological collapse.

00:00:28:04 – 00:01:01:12

Speaker 1

Visit their website at blue Dot. Seeing shoreline.com. And of course, rez. Rez is a nation’s leader in ecological restoration, helping to restore Florida’s natural resources with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer communities guaranteed performance and outcomes. Check them out at rescues. All right. This episode’s a real treat for me, because I get to sit down with a true gentleman and my friend Hugh Thomas, in addition to being an all around great guy.

00:01:01:12 – 00:01:23:21

Speaker 1

Hugh is the executive director of the Suwannee River Water Management District, where he has been since 2016. In fact, he served Floridians throughout North Florida for over 20 years, including 14 years with the Florida Department of Consumer Services in the Office of AG Water Policy. Hugh and I overlapped our service to North Florida at adjacent water management districts for five years.

00:01:23:21 – 00:01:30:05

Speaker 1

He had Suwannee in me at northwest, and I’m happy to get to hang out with him again today. Hugh, welcome to the show.

00:01:30:07 – 00:01:32:08

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brett. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

00:01:32:10 – 00:01:51:23

Speaker 1

Yeah. It’s great. It’s great to have you. I’m going to come in with the first big curveball, because it’s kind of like someone telling you that the Pace Picante sauce is from New York City. You’re a North Florida guy at heart. That’s all I’ve ever known you in the context of is North Florida. But you were actually born in Tampa.

00:01:52:04 – 00:02:00:11

Speaker 1

In fact, in a hospital that no longer exists. So the question is, what did you do to break the Good Samaritan hospital?

00:02:00:13 – 00:02:22:17

Speaker 2

Well, my memory doesn’t go quite that far back, but I do remember actually going to the hospital when I was about five years old to get some stitches. I get three brothers and a sister. And growing up as the youngest of the family, you know, I often encountered physical ailments from that one time that I needed stitches. So I do remember going back there, but thankfully hadn’t been back since then.

00:02:22:17 – 00:02:35:16

Speaker 2

But I had no clue what happened. I think it was just progress. and that area, it’s over on the western side. Or was on the western side of Tampa. And, like the remainder of the state, it has grown. They needed something else here.

00:02:35:18 – 00:02:54:19

Speaker 1

I assume is like a Paul Bunyan esque story. Like, if you don’t know, Hugh Thomas, Hugh is about the size of Paul Bunyan. He looks like a lumberjack. And so my assumption is that they couldn’t handle him at the hospital. But we’ll take we’ll take his story as a as the gospel there. But like I said, you’re a Norfolk guy through and through.

00:02:54:19 – 00:03:00:14

Speaker 1

So I mean, tell me about your parents. Like where are they from? And then what took them to Tampa?

00:03:00:16 – 00:03:25:17

Speaker 2

Well, what I would say I do call North Florida home and kind of a fifth generation Floridian. And so my parents were actually from North Florida. They moved away for about 30 years and then moved back up into that area. and so they were gone. And North Florida, Gilchrist County, primarily, and they’re in Bell, Florida. It’s a very rural area, very small county.

00:03:25:22 – 00:03:50:12

Speaker 2

They moved for work and they live down in the Lithia Springs area. Okay. But at one point my dad worked on the dairy farm and opportunity presented itself after three of my brothers moved out. Opportunity presented itself for my parents to move back up to North Florida. I’m glad they did. And we got a lot of relatives that part of the state, so it’s enjoyable for us.

00:03:50:12 – 00:03:56:02

Speaker 2

My wife and I’ve been able to raise our three kids there, and we’ve really enjoyed living in North Florida.

00:03:56:04 – 00:04:13:15

Speaker 1

So you use Tampa in the same way most people do with, say, Tampa, Orlando or Atlanta, which means you didn’t live in Tampa. I you know, I do the same thing if somebody doesn’t know where Stephanie is, and if you’re talking to somebody, they almost never do know where Stephanie is. It’s actually a little bit north of Lithia.

00:04:13:15 – 00:04:20:06

Speaker 1

I grew up going to Lithia Springs as a kid. Was it the the Carey Cattle Company back in those days or someone else over there?

00:04:20:09 – 00:04:22:22

Speaker 2

I’ll be honest, my memory doesn’t go that far back either.

00:04:23:00 – 00:04:24:01

Speaker 1

That’s our that’s I.

00:04:24:01 – 00:04:38:16

Speaker 2

Don’t recall what the name of the cattle company was that they that he worked at there. He had already quit by the time I was born. Think he was. Oh, he was working for Altman truck lines down through there. And, he was able to retire from there. And we moved to North Florida.

00:04:38:18 – 00:04:41:14

Speaker 1

So how long did your family live down in under?

00:04:41:18 – 00:05:02:14

Speaker 2

They left of North Florida. They were going for about 30 years. They lived in the Tampa area there at our residence on Walters Avenue of all places. Wow. They were there for, I want to say it was about 18 years. Okay. They had lived over in Lithia Springs. The notice assets at the time, my dad was working at the dairy there.

00:05:02:16 – 00:05:19:15

Speaker 2

My mom was a stay at home mom, you know, with five kids. You know, that lot in that time frame? Yeah. I mean, we’re talking 50 years ago or longer and it it was a lot in that area. Yeah, I’m glad to. Nothing wrong Brian. With the Tampa area. But I like to think I’m more influenced about North Florida.

00:05:19:19 – 00:05:25:00

Speaker 1

Yeah. No that’s in that’s great because you I mean your parents graduated high school in Bell, right?

00:05:25:05 – 00:05:26:13

Speaker 2

Oh yeah.

00:05:26:15 – 00:05:32:20

Speaker 1

How many kids? I mean, your dad’s a question. I know it’s rules. Like how many kids were in a in their class in those days. You even know. I mean.

00:05:32:23 – 00:06:01:00

Speaker 2

There were six kids whenever my parents graduated in high school. Conversely, when I graduated in 80 from Bell, there were 33 in my graduating class. You you tell someone that nowadays. And I mean, but that’s just speaks to the rural nature. And sure, in Bell and, Gilchrist County, we I think Bell got a caution light probably about for somewhere close to about 45 years ago.

00:06:01:02 – 00:06:22:01

Speaker 2

And that’s all they still have right now. But if you look at the school system, they’re they’re an A-rated school. They have been for several years. Both school systems. you have Trenton and Bell, both school systems. They are rated very highly. And when you speak to people that have moved into the area now, that’s one of the the criteria that they’re looking for are good school systems.

00:06:22:07 – 00:06:27:23

Speaker 1

Yeah. I mean let’s talk about that a little bit. First. Were you always the size of Paul Bunyan?

00:06:27:23 – 00:06:50:12

Speaker 2

No I wasn’t yeah. Like I said I am I will tell you I am the tallest of any of my siblings. Okay. That unfortunately didn’t do me much good until after they had already moved out. But it’s, you know, growing up in a rural area, I was really able to enjoy a lot of the outdoor activities. Gilchrist was and still is primarily agriculturally based.

00:06:50:14 – 00:07:17:19

Speaker 2

And so I did grow up on working on a lot of farms. We had cows at our place ourself and, you know, just grew up in high school. That was the thing at the time is you spend your summers working on the farm, whether it was harvesting peanuts, it may be pitching watermelons. It’s interesting you think about it, I remember and Short Tail and and I went out to a watermelon grower one time when she was director Swanny and I took her out on a tour.

00:07:17:19 – 00:07:38:07

Speaker 2

And now the majority of what are grown are small, personal size melons. Well, back then you had 50 and 60 pound gres or crimson sweets that were grown, and it was a workout. And it was great for the football team for prepping for fall football practice because you got to work out during the summer. That is a, you know, it was enjoyable.

00:07:38:07 – 00:07:44:17

Speaker 2

I really enjoyed my childhood and I’ve tried to preserve some of that for my kids growing up because I think it’s a it’s a good lifestyle.

00:07:44:18 – 00:07:48:08

Speaker 1

Let me ask you this. You met your wife there, right in in Belle.

00:07:48:08 – 00:07:48:20

Speaker 2

I did.

00:07:48:20 – 00:07:51:14

Speaker 1

Right it. Was she in your graduating class?

00:07:51:20 – 00:08:19:09

Speaker 2

No, she was not. I ironically, her oldest brother and I were classmates, and she was a nuisance. And I’ve told her this. She was a nuisance then. But after I graduated and went to community college, my now brother in law, he went to school over at the university right away and just kind of lost touch with him. Didn’t see her for probably about 2 or 3 years.

00:08:19:11 – 00:08:34:14

Speaker 2

And all of a sudden whenever I was back in the area more often, it regained my, my interest. And has held that ever since. So now she is she does have a lot of family in the area there. Okay, girl, having grown up, since she was a young child as well.

00:08:34:19 – 00:08:41:05

Speaker 1

Yeah. And you eventually get married around the time you were at the Lake City Community College, right?

00:08:41:07 – 00:08:44:18

Speaker 2

Actually, it was shortly after I finished up at Lake City.

00:08:44:18 – 00:09:02:17

Speaker 1

I mean, the reason I asked is really to talk about the two of you. Talk about you two as a couple later on. So after you get together, whether it be, you know, just before marriage or getting married, you talk about starting, starting that family in that place. That’s a small one that you’re working to preserve.

00:09:02:19 – 00:09:26:23

Speaker 2

We had a nice, long honeymoon. It lasted about 12 years, and that was by choice. We wanted to do some traveling. She always enjoyed camping, as did I. Growing up. We did a lot of a lot of camping up in the Smokies, and we had a good time with that. During that time frame, we built our first house over on the east side of the county there in Gilchrist County, and then kids came along.

00:09:26:23 – 00:09:45:09

Speaker 2

You know, kids always change your outlook from then on. But, you know, we worked together a lot. She’s a great work partner. We built the house ourselves, contracted out some of the specialty work that was done, but that was a good exercise. I highly recommend it for couples to build a house. You probably never do it again. Well.

00:09:45:11 – 00:09:53:05

Speaker 1

I mean, I read the you were actually in construction in some of those early days. Was that at that time that you were building the house or did you that before?

00:09:53:06 – 00:10:20:06

Speaker 2

Actually, the working construction predated us building our house and had been in construction for about two years, and then prior to us getting married, I had actually purchased some property, over on the eastern side, seven acres. And, we decided that we wanted to build a house over there. So we did over the course of about probably about 8 or 9 months, we constructed the house, and I was still working in construction at the time.

00:10:20:06 – 00:10:47:20

Speaker 2

And then I actually left private construction and went to work over at the University of Florida and worked there for a couple of years with the Division of Housing and Construction. Edward got to work with Edward Foster. He’s now retired from over there. Great gentleman. He taught me a lot about masonry work such that at the time, and it had come in handy several times, actually, even up until last year of doing tile work and renovations, interior renovations.

00:10:47:22 – 00:11:06:22

Speaker 2

So that’s that’s still handy. I enjoy doing that. I enjoy working with my hands. Woodworking is a hobby of mine as well, so it worked out very well. While I was at the, the division of housing there in Gainesville University. And then in year three, I decided I wanted to go back and get my degree. So we did.

00:11:06:22 – 00:11:13:10

Speaker 2

My wife was I was working over at Shands there at the time. We carpooled back and forth together.

00:11:13:13 – 00:11:15:09

Speaker 1

What was she doing for a living at that point?

00:11:15:11 – 00:11:33:22

Speaker 2

At that point, she was working as a secretary for the Department of Neurology. Okay. There. And so, you know, it gave us a good, good ride back and forth, the commute time going over there. It’s interesting to see how over the years that commute time has stretch. Now is about an hour and a half, from where it would have been.

00:11:34:01 – 00:12:03:11

Speaker 2

And so, you know, it just speaks to the amount of growth that’s occurred, on the western side of Gainesville there. But I remember giving a keynote speech to, graduating class there in Trenton a few years ago. And one of the things that I spoke about was determination. And whenever my wife and I were both in school, there she was going to school at at Santa Fe Community College, which is kind of the North Gainesville, and of course, the university.

00:12:03:15 – 00:12:25:07

Speaker 2

It’s located where it’s at. Well, it’s about 14 miles between the two and so we would walk in or we’d ride in together. My wife would drop me off at work, unload my bike. We had a small pickup truck. We drove back and forth and, I would unload my bike and I would go to work, and then she would go on over to class.

00:12:25:07 – 00:12:43:00

Speaker 2

Well, then in the afternoons, she would take the vehicle and go out to Santa Fe Community College, and I would take off work because I was working full time. Still, I’d take off work and then I’d go to class at night, and then I’d bike out to Santa Fe. That’ll help your health out. Yeah, yeah, I need some of that now.

00:12:43:00 – 00:12:50:16

Speaker 2

I don’t know that I can hold out for that type of ride, but it was it was a good friend. About the time I would get out there should be getting out of class and we go on home.

00:12:50:16 – 00:12:52:11

Speaker 1

And that’s hilly territory as well.

00:12:52:12 – 00:12:53:19

Speaker 2

Well it is, it is.

00:12:53:19 – 00:13:06:06

Speaker 1

So was it always your plan to work and go to and finish school at UF, or was there something there that was happening? Is like, was it working there and saying, I can do this. You actually these kids out here, I can do this?

00:13:06:07 – 00:13:32:04

Speaker 2

Well, my oldest brother is he retired as a school teacher several years ago, but he taught down in Hernando County and he retired out of it. And he loved teaching. And I’ve always enjoyed teaching or speaking about something that, you know, and trying to trying to train or mentor someone with it. And I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and biology.

00:13:32:05 – 00:13:55:10

Speaker 2

So whenever I was at the university, I pursued a degree in zoology with a minor in biology education, because that’s where I wanted to be wanted to go to. I realized when I was at Lake City Community College, I was on a civil engineering track and I really enjoyed parts of that. But physics with calculus just, I learned, just was not my strong point.

00:13:55:12 – 00:14:20:03

Speaker 2

You know, I just realized I wasn’t a numbers guy at that point. And anyway, so whenever I was at the university did, pursue their zoology track and, biology minor, and whenever I graduated, there weren’t any teaching jobs locally for biology teachers, which is not unexpected at that time, but an opportunity provided itself at a local consulting firm.

00:14:20:03 – 00:14:38:22

Speaker 2

In fact, at that time it was environmental science and engineering. And and so when I graduated, I went to work there. Great job. I worked for ten years. The biggest drawback that I had about working as an environmental consultant at that time was the number of name changes that we went through in a ten year, which.

00:14:38:22 – 00:14:39:22

Speaker 1

Is just happens.

00:14:39:22 – 00:15:13:16

Speaker 2

Yeah, it does. That’s part of it. But it enabled me to meet a lot of great people, environmental scientists and engineers as well, working in that field as it was known at that time. That was actually one of the first engineering environmental engineering companies in the Gainesville area. And so with that, I was working in the I was hired in the toxicology lab that we had there and worked my way through there over the course of ten years working in toxicology lab and then also doing risk assessment and wetland delineations, wetland certifications on there.

00:15:13:20 – 00:15:23:07

Speaker 2

Great opportunity. I learned a lot, gave me a lot of exposure with it. And and I really enjoyed that type of work. And that’s always helped me over the years.

00:15:23:09 – 00:15:52:05

Speaker 1

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00:15:52:07 – 00:16:16:20

Speaker 1

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00:16:17:01 – 00:16:40:13

Speaker 1

To find out how you can partner with Sea in trying to protect your community, visit them. Dot sea and shoreline.com. You’ll be glad you did. All right, let’s get back to the conversation. Let me let me pause for a second, because there are a couple of things, like I get folks that ask me about some of the technical aspects of some of the things the that that guests do.

00:16:40:13 – 00:17:05:02

Speaker 1

And so there’s two that I want you to talk a little bit about. And folks that aren’t familiar with engineering firms don’t realize that it is pretty circular. It is. It’s a life where folks tend to move around that businesses tend to buy other businesses. Right. Is that can you talk a little bit about that in those in those early years?

00:17:05:02 – 00:17:29:22

Speaker 2

To me, over the course of that ten year period, as you stated, there was a lot of transition between companies being bought out and sold. There was a lot of streamlining that occurred at that time. Whenever I first went to SC, there were about, I want to say, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 550 employees here because they had a large analytical lab also, and they did a lot of Department of Defense contracts with that.

00:17:30:00 – 00:17:51:13

Speaker 2

Well, there were some transition. Some of those contracts were lost at the time. And so the the company downsized. It also was sold at that point when I left that company, I want to say there were an analyst in Shoretel was still at that company at the time. That’s where I first met in. As I recall, they were somewhere in the neighborhood of less than 100 employees there.

00:17:51:13 – 00:18:15:05

Speaker 2

They had downsized kind of to a bare bones environmental firm at that point. Mark Giblin was working there. And I think, Mark, if I recall correctly, we’re going back a few years now, but I think Mark was the office manager at that point. Whenever I left no fault of his right. But it is people in those fields. They do tend to operate for one or, you know, another company over time.

00:18:15:06 – 00:18:36:08

Speaker 1

It’s what creates, I think, that maybe unique among the types of work that one can do in Florida is it’s it’s such a small world. It is like if you I didn’t realize this, if you’d asked me, you know, ten, 15 years ago, I would have never known that this, that that’s how you all got to know each other is because everyone eventually works with each other.

00:18:36:10 – 00:18:37:17

Speaker 1

It seemed. It seemed like to me.

00:18:37:21 – 00:18:52:17

Speaker 2

No, you’re right, it is. And, you know, I think I think back now, some of the engineers that we have that work for the district, some that have worked for some of the other districts and even while I was at the department, they are all people that I had worked with previously whenever I was in consulting.

00:18:52:17 – 00:18:58:07

Speaker 1

Well, let’s get to that, that job itself. Because what does someone who works you said the toxicology lab.

00:18:58:07 – 00:19:00:04

Speaker 2

Toxicology lab. Been there.

00:19:00:06 – 00:19:03:11

Speaker 1

What is what do you folks do in the toxicology lab?

00:19:03:11 – 00:19:33:10

Speaker 2

Well, it’s as with the regulatory program, you know, at the water management district, we work with environment resource permits within the regulatory realm. Also, you have what’s called National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits in PDS that industrial operations have to have even within the agricultural fields, dairies, large dairies, CAFOs, confined animal feeding operate have to have in permits, and they’re within the state.

00:19:33:12 – 00:20:01:15

Speaker 2

DEP has regulatory authority over those. So with that, if there is a discharge of wastewater from that particular industrial operation, commercial operation, they have to meet water quality standards for that. And so with that, there has to be sampling that occurs. And SC they actually provided those sample sampling activities to gather those samples in. Then you utilize biological animals.

00:20:01:16 – 00:20:24:19

Speaker 2

It could be minnows could be the blue crabs depending on what the permit calls for. And then you do a chronic and acute toxicity to determine what the lethal concentrations are of a pollution discharge. And the effects of that could be reproduction. it could be some type of chronic illness. One of the most interesting things that we that projects that we did was actually with blue crabs.

00:20:24:19 – 00:20:36:01

Speaker 2

And we looked at the influence of a, a discharge within an estuary and the effects that it had on the number of moles that we blue crabs go through. So it was kind of kind of interesting for me anyway.

00:20:36:02 – 00:20:54:18

Speaker 1

Yeah. No it is. And that’s I mean, that’s why I asked I like I think it looks like, oh, that sounds like, that sounds like a job. And I want to get a little deeper and, and for folks out there that you know that don’t know about, I guess I’m speaking to Gail Halpern. So when you’re listening out there, Gail, I can you can give me your follow ups later on.

00:20:54:20 – 00:21:11:07

Speaker 1

So tell me, tell me about our mutual friend Doctor and Shoretel who’s who was the executive director? the Swan River Water Management, and also Saint John’s later on. That’s right, that’s right. Oh, I mean, she was my boss at DC. Tell me, how long were you at SC together?

00:21:11:13 – 00:21:37:00

Speaker 2

Well, as I recall, and was there whenever I started, she was working in another group. She was in the risk assessment group. I started out in the Environmental Assessment and Toxicology Group, which is a separate, separate area, probably 5 or 6 years. I mean, I knew Irvin and we had some encounters, them via projects, but probably about the last four years, I actually had good opportunity to work very closely with her.

00:21:37:02 – 00:21:58:08

Speaker 2

I consider her as a friend. She’s been a great mentor over the years. I remember one of the jobs that we had that was her project. It was a DoD project that we had up at Eglin Air Force Base, and we had some, a couple of other staff from SC up there. And she was there was a project manager, and we were doing some assessment work, and it was hot.

00:21:58:13 – 00:22:26:06

Speaker 2

It was hotter and blazes. One of the pictures. I still got it somewhere. We are all out on this range and the only shade around this was like in August and the only shade around was from the telephone poles that were there. And so there’s like four of us lined up in the shade of that power pole while we were waiting on an activity there, just trying to find a cool spot with it, but had a lot of great interactions with and over the years.

00:22:26:06 – 00:22:45:02

Speaker 2

And as I said, she was a great mentor relative to risk assessment. Certainly on the wetland evaluation, wetland criteria, work that I was able to do and getting my certification for that. And over the years when she went to DEP, I was happy to see her there. And I was thankful whenever she came over to Suwannee, I had the opportunity to work with.

00:22:45:02 – 00:22:58:07

Speaker 2

There I was at that time, I was working for the Office of AG Water Policy, Department of Agriculture, and so I was able to work very closely with her at the Water Management District, and we’ve remained friends over the years with it.

00:22:58:09 – 00:23:08:14

Speaker 1

Well, talk and talk for a minute then about that work at the Department bag because you left USC or if, if it was still named SC when you left.

00:23:08:16 – 00:23:15:01

Speaker 2

No, it was not actually Mac tech, which I think I think it’s still today. There you go. There you go. It’s a around.

00:23:15:01 – 00:23:20:21

Speaker 1

So so you left Mac Technical to talk about why you left and talk about your work there.

00:23:21:00 – 00:23:54:07

Speaker 2

Well I left my priorities changed a little bit. As with most environmental consultants and engineers can tell you there’s a lot of travel involved. And I decided that I wanted to be more engaged with my kids. And so, you know, an opportunity provided itself. The Lord blessed me with being able to have an opportunity to go to work for the Department of Agriculture and Office of Water Policy and work to develop best management practices, and also to work on a program called the Swan River partnership.

00:23:54:07 – 00:24:25:20

Speaker 2

And I’ll come back to that in a minute. But my work at the at that time with the Department of AG, I was hired as a coordinator for the the Santa Fe and Lower Suwannee Basin for the Swanee River partnership. Well, the partnership is a it was actually a both a private and public entity that was started in 99 and the department of the Suwannee River Water Management District and also DEP headed up the coordination of that.

00:24:25:22 – 00:24:55:12

Speaker 2

Well, they decided, due to some foresight with doctor, Martha in her last name, evades me at this point. And also Jerry Brooks, he, if you recall him, do Martha Roberts is what I’m thinking them and also Jerry Scarborough, who was at the Swan River Water Management District for a number of years. It was their vision to have shared positions between those three agencies to work together primarily at that time for with agriculture.

00:24:55:14 – 00:25:22:13

Speaker 2

And so I was hired in as a Dak’s employee and was able to work in that capacity. My office was located at the water mains Swanny. And then opportunity provided itself. Later on, I got to work with Daryl Smith. he was the one that actually hired me, and I’m not going to say recruited, but he made me aware that the position was open, but he was aware of my work in the consulting industry.

00:25:22:13 – 00:25:49:08

Speaker 2

And so anyway, I was able to get hired and worked there for, 14, 15 years with a swag water policy. I really enjoyed my time there. Got to see a lot of progression with the BMP program and, the innovation that has come about relative to the implementation of BMPs and be able to work with agriculture, agriculture and make such a large footprint in the Suwannee District.

00:25:49:10 – 00:26:11:20

Speaker 2

And so, you know, it was very instrumental trying to work towards water quality goals. Right. initially and then more recently towards water supply concerns that we’ve got a lot of great people there as well and the Swag water policy, and I’ve continued to stay in touch with them at this time. 2016 I got to go over to the water Management District.

00:26:11:20 – 00:26:36:13

Speaker 2

Daryl had moved over to the Water Management District in 2015 at the time, and between he and Noah Valentine, who was an executive director at Swansea at that time, I was going to say I would was recruited at that point to come over to the water management district and it provided a great opportunity for me to kind of go back to the home area, because the last five years, I think it was about starting in 2010.

00:26:36:14 – 00:26:51:23

Speaker 2

I was an environmental administrator for the Department of Bag in. That was a lot more traveling. That’s when you and I had our first, encounters in northwest, because I was in charge of the programs in northwest Swansea, in Saint John’s.

00:26:51:23 – 00:27:15:00

Speaker 1

I’m not asking you to say like, well, this is worse or this is better, but the difference in having something that’s it’s kind of new and fresh, which is this one river partnership back in those early days. And you do that for a while and you’re narrowly focused on, hey, we’re going to fix we’re going to fix this thing and, and solidify these relationships between not just agencies, but between agents, the government and, and farmers.

00:27:15:02 – 00:27:30:15

Speaker 1

and then and then you go from that to guess what? Now you’re in charge of all of North Florida. You know, I was I was glad to meet you, obviously. But tell me about the the difference in change in your scope to something much broader.

00:27:30:17 – 00:28:01:11

Speaker 2

Well, it one it allowed because my focus had primarily been on agricultural practices in the Suwannee District, although I was aware of the parts of the state and even across the nation, it allowed me to see firsthand, particularly out in the Panhandle, because the amount of agriculture that goes on out there, the different practices and challenges that producers in those areas have, a lot of it is due to the soil, that are out there in the types of crops that are grown with it.

00:28:01:11 – 00:28:47:12

Speaker 2

And it it enabled me to make a lot of great acquaintances yourself included with that, and to really broaden some of the opportunities where we had started programs in the Suwannee Basin. I think Brian predated us with the farm programs. Right. They have down in the Swift mud area, but Suwannee utilized funding from all three of those agencies that I mentioned previously, and to develop cost share programs and try to be innovative with technology and making fertilizer use and water use more efficient, and to try and be able to expand that out into the northwest area and even over into Saint John’s with their cost share programs and assistance programs that they have now.

00:28:47:14 – 00:29:10:01

Speaker 2

To me, was it was very satisfying to be able to bring those types of practices, you know, with best management practices. The intent and definition of those is to try to get a practice in place that’s protective of the environment, and it’s practical to implement. And not everything is that way. And so that’s why the Department of make tweaks as BMPs from time to time.

00:29:10:05 – 00:29:10:12

Speaker 2

Sure.

00:29:10:16 – 00:29:27:20

Speaker 1

So you kind of take the at least very familiar faces. You work with these folks a lot and I’m thinking Daryl and and and so you all know each other well. And so you put this dream team together. Now that I mean, you’re not together for very long at the district. Where are you when you’re in about 20 years?

00:29:27:20 – 00:29:29:08

Speaker 1

Only a handful of years.

00:29:29:08 – 00:29:54:14

Speaker 2

Well, Daryl was actually in Tallahassee working with the Office of Water Policy. Right. He said whenever Rich Beadle stepped down as director there in about 2010 timeframe, he Daryl filled in that role right there for some time and and was hired in 2012 right at the water management district there. Swanny. So, you know, we had probably 3 or 4 years here together.

00:29:54:16 – 00:30:06:02

Speaker 2

and that respect and is an idea person always has been that can create a rub sometimes to get to the details. But that’s okay. He’s got to have an idea person there. Yeah. And she, she provides that role very well.

00:30:06:08 – 00:30:32:00

Speaker 1

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00:30:32:02 – 00:31:00:23

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00:31:01:01 – 00:31:30:17

Speaker 1

Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida’s communities and the environmental challenges they face by visiting Dory’s. Discuss. All right. Now back to the conversation. You mentioned, Brian, and you know, it’s absolutely right. It’s like when I looked at at northwest at the Water Management District, looking at how our relationship with agriculture would be in in the types of practices that we wanted to get into in a program that we wanted to have.

00:31:30:22 – 00:31:57:11

Speaker 1

We looked at two places, though, and one of those places didn’t happen to be the Department of Agriculture, although we were familiar with from my Swift, my days with those programs and how they they matched up sometimes with where swift mud in their their farms program. But I looked at southwest and I looked at Swanny because at that time Swanny had the extra, the extra benefit of understanding in my mind.

00:31:57:11 – 00:32:22:16

Speaker 1

It’s the understanding that if you want to go solve a problem, sometimes it means that you got to do a little bit more than your finger fair share when it comes to the cost share. And so that’s why we chose the. The numbers we did was to lean more on to the the Suwannee side of how they chose to do that cost share rather than say, Swift or even certainly even backs.

00:32:22:17 – 00:32:46:12

Speaker 1

And so I’m curious about because you were there right when you were really putting some of those things together at the Swan River Water Management District, right? Yeah. What was the thinking in your mind? Because you’re I mean, from a farm town, you’re around these folks. What did you bring to that as a group at that time? What was your thinking in developing your own program?

00:32:46:15 – 00:33:11:17

Speaker 2

Whenever you look at the practices across the district, certainly the soils. And if you look at the soil types in the northern part of the district and certainly the eastern part, you have more of a surface water control type environment. Whenever ordering, you’re below that Cody Escarpment, whether the geological feature that runs through the Suwannee District and then out into the Panhandle.

00:33:11:19 – 00:33:37:02

Speaker 2

When you get below that, you get a lot deeper sense. And so your farming practices have to change, and that that familiarity with those farming practices is kind of what I brought to the table and awareness of working with ag producers in those areas. And it’s a very collaborative effort. And one of the things that, and I can’t take full credit for it is the development and expansion of the Suwannee River partnership.

00:33:37:04 – 00:34:04:12

Speaker 2

As I mentioned, it was a visioning, and early on there was an advisory group made up of both private industry and you had the forest Service, you had the Florida Fertilizer Association, Farm Bureau that served in the steering committee aspect of it. But you also had your more progressive ag producers that were there wanting to put on the ground what works and being able to build those relationships there.

00:34:04:14 – 00:34:37:08

Speaker 2

And it served well over the years. The Suwannee River partnership is still viable today, and it’s in more of an advisory role. Early on in the years, we were working towards trying to address the Tmdl that were in place on the Suwannee and the Santa Fe and develop some reasonable assurance about, for those and then moving into the development of the B maps with it and working very closely with DEP and engaging, and then also in the stakeholder outreach associated with that.

00:34:37:08 – 00:34:58:03

Speaker 2

So I would say DEP relied heavily, at least in the Suwannee area. DEP relied heavily on us to help bring those stakeholders to the table from an awareness perspective. Even out in northwest, whenever you were there, I remember going out there and working with folks in the Jackson County area and went over the B map on Jackson blue was coming into place out there, right?

00:34:58:03 – 00:35:24:10

Speaker 1

And and just from my own perspective, it’s like those things the Swan River partnership existed for years and years before, you know, I was at northwest somewhere, and especially long before they were establishing the B map at Jackson Blue. And so I think probably some of the, some of the, the hiccups and discomforts and, you know, Charley horses that happened in Jackson Blue, it probably didn’t work through, you know, with, with all those folks were working together.

00:35:24:10 – 00:35:47:19

Speaker 1

I think underlying that is this philosophy of caring about farms and farming and farmers, but understanding that you’ve got a job to do on the other side, which is the state has rules and laws, you know, for not just, you know, water quality, but water quantity as well. And we’ll talk about that shift to water quantity for you.

00:35:47:22 – 00:36:15:13

Speaker 1

But what is I mean, is that something that you share in terms of how you approach that, which is you’ve got the absolute need for food, fiber, timber and the responsibilities that I just mentioned. Did you see that missing when you looked at Jackson Blue later on? I was like, hey, we if you had only done it this way, that you’d seen this rodeo before.

00:36:15:15 – 00:36:37:00

Speaker 2

I will tell you one of the first observations that I had when I went out there for the B map meeting, I had been asked by Farm Bureau as and I was at dak’s at the time, but I’ve been asked by Farm Bureau to come out and speak out there. Dak’s didn’t have a strong presence in the Panhandle at that time, and just from a field staff perspective.

00:36:37:02 – 00:37:06:23

Speaker 2

And so I was a little bit nervous going out there into a strange neighborhood. And I recall at at particular meeting, I don’t remember if you were there or not, but I recall at that meeting talking about some of the challenges that we had over in the Suwannee district, Springs protection and how this water quality, standard water quality goal would help preserve that spring or restore that spring back to where it was.

00:37:07:01 – 00:37:38:10

Speaker 2

And, you know, looking at it as it is across our state, agriculture is not the only influence from a water quality perspective with it. And so making agriculture understand that all the fingers aren’t pointing at them, that there’s a there’s a host of loading sources with this and that the need is to address all of them. Right. In some areas of our state, agriculture has the lion’s share just because of the land use, like in the Swansea district, per se.

00:37:38:14 – 00:38:10:04

Speaker 2

And so trying to finding common ground with those ag producers, I think that that served me very well in being able to engage with those producers going out and spending time with them. And I like to think that developing some level of trust with those producers, early on in my career at the Department of Egg, I recall going and meeting with the producer, and they had a one of these two seat large cab tractors, and I was talking to him about record keeping.

00:38:10:05 – 00:38:36:14

Speaker 2

And so he said, well, yeah, producers are busy from daylight to dark. And so he said, well, you know, if you can climb up in here with me and ride with me so we can talk about it, so I did. I’ve got up, got in the second seat and as he was planting peanuts across his field, I rode with him and talk to him, talk to him about the water quality issues and you know, what we were trying to do at the department to help agriculture be sustainable.

00:38:36:16 – 00:39:07:15

Speaker 2

And so with that, I think that spinning that time out on the farm and that’s one of the things that we have been very blessed with over at the Suwannee District, is a support from IFAs and from the Department of Agriculture and the Department Environmental protection for having technicians out on the ground, working in lockstep with these ag producers and meeting them on their terms, their ground and talking to them, not not asking them to come to a meeting necessarily at the district headquarters.

00:39:07:17 – 00:39:28:06

Speaker 2

They know now, if we call for a meeting at the district headquarters, if they can do it, if they can break away from what they’re doing in the field, they show up. They know it’s important that we have their best interest in mind. And I think that’s what worked out in the Panhandle and getting that, getting the trust of the producers out there and working.

00:39:28:11 – 00:39:43:15

Speaker 2

You know, we hired Dave Cameron out there. and then they went to work northwest. That’s right. And I think that serve the ag community very well served the district northwest very well. With that, him having that relationship developed along with the technicians out in the Panhandle.

00:39:43:15 – 00:39:58:14

Speaker 1

Right. And that, I mean, that’s precisely why I wanted him there was because of that or just like somebody that’s willing to stand on a farm and look somebody in the eye and explain things like, I care about what you do. It’s like, but we’ve got this. We’ve got this job that we’ve got to accomplish in the in the midst of that.

00:39:58:17 – 00:40:02:10

Speaker 1

Right. And you’ve got to be able to find that balance.

00:40:02:12 – 00:40:24:14

Speaker 2

You do. And and, you know, I speak to my staff now about this because we have some younger staff that are working at the office and texting or an email is so easy. I get it, you know, it is. It’s very convenient. If you want me, text me, you know, and and I can fit it into my schedule at that point.

00:40:24:14 – 00:40:54:03

Speaker 2

But ag producers certainly the younger generation of egg producers are incorporating that. And but by and large, ag producers want a phone call or they want a farm visit to do that. And I stress that to my staff, particularly our regulatory staff, is that, you know, if we have an issue with someone and it’s not necessarily just an ag producer, pick up the phone and call, talk to somebody, even if you have to leave them a voicemail, don’t just write them a letter and it don’t just send them an email.

00:40:54:04 – 00:40:56:09

Speaker 2

That’s challenging because that takes.

00:40:56:09 – 00:40:57:05

Speaker 1

Time, right?

00:40:57:07 – 00:41:01:00

Speaker 2

To do that. And you’re you’re getting into your personal space.

00:41:01:00 – 00:41:30:13

Speaker 1

I’ve always felt you have to allow yourself to, to do that because the dividends in the long run are are massive. And you mentioned before as like you said, progressive. I know you didn’t mean in the political sense, you meant in the way they look forward at solving problems, the visionary. Right. And it’s funny because, you know, you and I both know, you know, some of the big ones out there, Mr. Pittman and Bishop and Hall and Forester and a lot of folks that ran their farms from their iPhone.

00:41:30:13 – 00:41:49:20

Speaker 1

That’s right. But at the same time, when you’re talking about relationships, relationships don’t happen over your iPhone. They happen, 1 to 1. They are on your farm. Yep. I always wanted to make that a point for folks and have folks that work that would do that. That’s why I love having David at the district office, because they would they would do that.

00:41:49:20 – 00:41:51:16

Speaker 1

And I think and I think it does matter.

00:41:51:18 – 00:42:21:21

Speaker 2

It does. It really does. You know, when you think about the average age of our farmers, they’re 55 or older. And so when you look at that generation and, and I know how I am because I fit into that generation, they want that one on one time, you know, they’ll use a phone. They’ll know I got 65 year old producers and the Swanny district that utilize your iPhones to, see what their soil moisture probes are telling them, and they’ve adopted it, but they still like that interaction.

00:42:21:22 – 00:42:24:16

Speaker 2

Yeah, it’s just part of the way of life.

00:42:24:21 – 00:42:52:19

Speaker 1

Yeah. And so let’s move you into your position now as executive director. The district has seven years now, right? Seven years. Can you talk about pressure on the water sources in your region and how the pressure on those resources often comes outside the boundaries of your district? And sometimes that means north, which is easy to be mad at in Georgia, but sometimes that means east and God forbid, west.

00:42:52:21 – 00:43:26:11

Speaker 2

Right? It does. It does. And, you know, you have to to me, education about our resources, our aquifer, our water supply, the water cycle they teach in school. Tying all of that together is kind of where you have to start with someone, because in North Florida, the complexity of the geology that we have and how that affects our aquifer, how that affects our recharge and our water use, it’s critical to have an understanding of that.

00:43:26:11 – 00:43:57:06

Speaker 2

The onus is on us as a district to try and understand the connectivity of our aquifer better, and we’re still in the process of that. We’re still putting in monitoring networks and enhancing our monitoring networks to better understand how water moves within our district and what contributes within a spring, shared or a river shed. You know, I think about when Water Management District were first formed, they were formed and they still are today based upon surface watersheds.

00:43:57:08 – 00:44:21:20

Speaker 2

If you look at the Swanee, 53% of the Suwannee Basin is in Georgia. People always think about, you know, where the Swanny is, the Florida River. Well, it is, but it’s the smaller part of the storm, right? When you look at a watershed perspective. And so you have to look at all of those influences, and certainly both within our state and across the state, and then within our district and into the other districts.

00:44:21:22 – 00:44:48:15

Speaker 2

The geology allows for that water to be drawn or to be influenced from outside of the Suwannee district boundaries. And so with that, you have to approach it from a collaborative fashion, because like with Georgia or even internally within the state, nobody wants to wind up in the court system with this because that money does not do any good from rectifying the problem with it.

00:44:48:17 – 00:45:15:21

Speaker 2

So that’s one of the things in similar like but the Swan River partnership and developing incentive based programs or just knowledge in education, by and large, people want to do the right thing with it. And so making them aware of that connectivity and those influences that happen is a large part of it. We’ve been working with the our district and through the Department of AG, we’ve been working with producers, up in the Georgia Basin.

00:45:15:23 – 00:45:49:13

Speaker 2

Wendy Graham had a program for about six years. It was the facets program, and that was the areas of study where the Santa Fe Basin and also the Flint River basin, so that provide it a lot of collaborative discussions relative to what best management practices are, what innovative technology is out there. And so one of the things that I’ve had some discussions with others about in Georgia is the financial incentives to implement efficient technology are very limited.

00:45:49:13 – 00:46:08:21

Speaker 2

Most of that is federal funding. I think it would be beneficial. And those ag producers that have come over and visited us in Suwannee to see what soil moisture probes do, automated technology control, release, fertilizer, how can that be utilized. And so, you know, our problems are solvable.

00:46:08:23 – 00:46:09:09

Speaker 1

Right?

00:46:09:10 – 00:46:14:23

Speaker 2

It’s just getting everybody on board and and being able to implement the technology.

00:46:15:01 – 00:46:43:08

Speaker 1

And some of them aren’t that expensive. I mean, you look at I know in your district mine the same way. It’s like a mobile irrigation lab is not that expensive to operate now. And so to and to be able to go on some nice farm and just evaluate something and say, if you did it this way for almost no money, it’s like you can you’re not going to just save water and save, you know, nutrients, like you’re literally going to save money and you’re going to have the same production right now from from your acreage.

00:46:43:08 – 00:47:08:19

Speaker 2

And then, you know, again, it comes back to that education aspect, right? That I think is at the heart of of making people aware and, and showing them how to do the right thing and what to do with it. You mentioned the mobile irrigation, as I think about one of the one of the pieces of technology that’s been very successful in our area and other parts of the state that install moisture probes, your producers in the northwest started using them whenever I was with that.

00:47:08:21 – 00:47:33:02

Speaker 2

And just that simple piece of technology and it’s evolved over the years or but that that can allow a producer, depending upon the crops and the soil types, they can save 30 to 60% all over what their base irrigation was. And that’s a tremendous savings from a water aspect and just from the cost of pumping, right. Whether it’s diesel or electric.

00:47:33:05 – 00:47:49:14

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think people missed, the ideas like that, that farmers want to just put as much water as they could conceivably get on to a crop, and they don’t realize that it’s one of two ways those pumps and systems run on two things electricity or diesel. And both of those cost a lot of money.

00:47:49:14 – 00:48:15:01

Speaker 2

They do two really do profit margins. Similar to everything else with rising costs, profit margins have shrunk. And so producers are eager to implement where they are convinced and they they trust. Whether it’s true IFAs extension agent it’s your Suwannee River partnership technician Department of egg field set. They trust that what you’re telling them works and that you’ve got the research to back it up.

00:48:15:06 – 00:48:34:08

Speaker 1

So I’ve spent some time around you and your staff while they’re discussing some pretty innovative ways of expanding the water pie, as we like to say sometimes, while also improving water quality. Can you talk about maybe just 1 or 2 of those, just to give people a flavor for what you got going on?

00:48:34:10 – 00:49:09:00

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of opportunities to address our water supply concerns and addressing the water quality. At the same time, it just takes thinking out of the box a little bit and doing things maybe a little bit differently than what the way they’ve been done in the past. And and that’s one of the things that early on with the partnership, the effort was primarily oriented towards dairies and poultry operations, you know, and years ago, the dairy wastewater that was a liability, something to have to be dealt with.

00:49:09:00 – 00:49:26:21

Speaker 2

It was it. And producers now look at that is that that can be a revenue stream and it can be also a water supply. And certainly as the districts we can look at it and say, okay, there’s opportunity for reuse there. If we’re able to clean that water up a little bit. All right. And so I’m appreciative of the dairies.

00:49:26:21 – 00:49:57:10

Speaker 2

A lot of the dairies being proactive in stepping up and with a little bit of, financial assistance from the state and from the district, we’re able to assist as producers in filtering that water and being able to reuse some of that water from a flushing perspective, and then certainly putting it out for irrigation, utilizing the nutrients on their field associated with some of that not stuff specifically to dairies, are looking at denitrification structures.

00:49:57:10 – 00:50:00:06

Speaker 2

Did they have any of the did y’all do any of those in North West?

00:50:00:06 – 00:50:04:17

Speaker 1

Well, I don’t think so. That doesn’t sound describe it a little bit more for it.

00:50:04:19 – 00:50:15:08

Speaker 2

If you’re familiar with back when underground storage tanks. And then they would use air sparring to blow off the blocks out of there, you know, basically pulling the vapors up out of the ground with it.

00:50:15:08 – 00:50:16:06

Speaker 1

Right.

00:50:16:08 – 00:50:42:17

Speaker 2

Somewhat similar with this is that with the nitrification structures, you go into an AG operation. If it’s on a crop field, you can go in there and put in relatively shallow wells that intercept the surficial, because it says nitrates move down through the soil profile, they’re going to hit that surficial first. So you put in a small the small wells in there to pull that surficial nitrate.

00:50:42:22 – 00:51:09:23

Speaker 2

Yeah. Okay. Pull it back to the surface. If they’re actively growing crops that can be incorporated into their irrigation system and basically recycle those nutrients or utilize minus those nutrients out, if they’re not growing a crop, then they can actually use a carbon source and put in a small pond, fill it. And the ones that we’ve assisted with have been primarily woodchips.

00:51:10:01 – 00:51:37:07

Speaker 2

Although, doctor Mark Clark with IFAs was doing some work looking at different media to try to optimize the, carbon exchange and nitrification. And so they can put that into the nitrification structure, this pond that holds it, which it media, and then clean that water up and put it back out into the aquifer. So that’s, that’s part of and some dairies have done that.

00:51:37:09 – 00:51:41:05

Speaker 2

Some crop systems are just traditional crop growing.

00:51:41:07 – 00:52:03:21

Speaker 1

The first half that I had heard, you know, in a conceptual sense. But but the other things I’ve seen is not in not necessarily capturing it on the ground side, but looking at saying to your soils, you look at swift mud and orange groves, especially where they’re doing tail water recovery nurseries as well, where you can capture it, put it in a place and then recycle it back in.

00:52:03:21 – 00:52:07:08

Speaker 1

If it’s not, you know, if it’s not harmful to the plant itself.

00:52:07:10 – 00:52:31:14

Speaker 2

Right. Control release technology, that’s another innovative. We’ve just really started working with the IFAs and the Department of A in our district, the research firm that we have over there with IFAs, they’re very proactive. Bob Smith has done a great job leading that group there. At first they were doing work on the IFAs farm itself, and they had buy in from the fertilizer companies.

00:52:31:14 – 00:52:52:22

Speaker 2

They provide the, product. And it really comes down to where it’s it’s a conventional fertilizer. It just has a polymer coating on it that specific to the crop. And the control release curve that you need for the growth of that crop. And so Bob and his team did work out on the farm there for probably about four years.

00:52:53:02 – 00:53:18:20

Speaker 2

And then it came time to move it out on the actual farms themselves. And I think last year we had 11 producers across our district that grew corn and also grew watermelons, and they had interest in utilizing it. And the results were very, very good. Is it a cure all or a total replacement for conventional fertilizer? Not necessarily.

00:53:18:20 – 00:53:38:00

Speaker 2

Depends on the weather and the just overall growing conditions and the management strategy that’s put in place with it. But you can see anywhere from 50 to 80 pounds less nitrogen applied for a comparable or superior crop yield.

00:53:38:05 – 00:53:39:09

Speaker 1

And heavy from an acre, right?

00:53:39:14 – 00:53:41:07

Speaker 2

Yeah, that’s from an acre perspective.

00:53:41:07 – 00:53:45:03

Speaker 1

And for folks who don’t know, I mean, that’s a pretty good number that’s up for reduction.

00:53:45:03 – 00:54:12:12

Speaker 2

Tremendous savings. You know, it it gets people back with either two or below the IFAs recommended rates sometimes because you’re reducing the potential for that fertilizer to leach based off on the irrigation. And it certainly takes irrigation management that that we have learned is the key to all of it is irrigation management, because at least in our district, because of nitrate, nitrogen being the soluble contaminant.

00:54:12:15 – 00:54:46:09

Speaker 2

And so being able to manage your irrigation system is critical. That’s why the Suwannee District and Dak’s in our area has focused primarily on irrigation management tools. with that, and we’ve had a great symbiotic relationship with with Dak’s. I like to think that our AG team that was there prior to me coming to the district was instrumental in getting that on the ground, working to where you don’t necessarily have overlap, but you do have a collaborative approach to the agencies to get those efficient practices out on the ground.

00:54:46:10 – 00:55:07:17

Speaker 1

One of the things I’ve been jealous of when I was at Northwest of this wanting district, was the incredible job of highlighting recreational opportunities available to visitors in your area. You all happened to be as small as you’re having a really good at communicating. How big of a priority is that for you and your board?

00:55:07:17 – 00:55:31:05

Speaker 2

Well, communication is key and we have a great comms staff. Caitlin Potter makes up oversees that in Troy Roberts. We were able to bring Troy over from the Department of Transportation, and he’s done a stellar job for us as far as outreach goes and the the communication aspect of it, you know, relative to our public lands, it’s critical.

00:55:31:05 – 00:56:01:19

Speaker 2

And our board is is very serious about keeping our taxpayer lands open and available to the public. We’ve got better than 90% of our lands open for public use. And with that, we’ve got over 160,000 acres, and we’ve got about 390 miles of roads through there, 250 plus or minus miles of hiking trails. And with the Swanny, I like to think we’re the best district in the state.

00:56:01:22 – 00:56:35:06

Speaker 2

We are known as the Springs Heartland because the more than 450 springs that we have in our district, and as Steve Minnis, was always fond of saying, we’re the fifth largest district in the state geographically and the staffing in budgetary wise, it’s a great opportunity if you’re visiting our area to come out our our lands are so diverse and FGS just recognize our Ginnie Springs Bluff is is one of the unique areas in Florida that happened last year.

00:56:35:08 – 00:56:36:08

Speaker 2

it’s a designation.

00:56:36:11 – 00:56:38:15

Speaker 1

What makes it unique? What what do they.

00:56:38:20 – 00:56:48:19

Speaker 2

Just because of the disappearing river that we have here? Okay. and that, you know, that’s one of the things all have some of it in your hip in northwest. We keep saying your area butts Lyle’s area. And I.

00:56:48:19 – 00:56:49:01

Speaker 1

Know.

00:56:49:05 – 00:57:06:19

Speaker 2

One of the one of the more popular areas that’s known about is only in a state park when where you have a natural land bridge there and, and I’m kind of a history buff when it comes to Florida as well. And, you know, I think about the old Bellamy Trail that came from Tallahassee up this way all the way over to Jacksonville.

00:57:06:19 – 00:57:31:05

Speaker 2

Well, that natural land bridge right there on the Santa Fe was an area where pioneers could cross without having to, you know, take a ferry across the river, and it’s about three miles wide. Well, that the entirety of the Santa Fe River goes underground at that point. And then three miles downstream, it comes back up. The interesting thing that I’ve had, and I am not a cave diver, don’t want to be don’t have any interest in it.

00:57:31:05 – 00:57:55:15

Speaker 2

Thank you. But cave divers that I’ve spoken with, while it’s on the surface, it’s only three miles underground. They’ve got more than 11 miles mapped. And you think about that. And that just speaks to the complexity of our aquifer, you know, in our area and the and the uniqueness. with that, you know, I like to think of Suwannee as being one of the most in North Florida in this area, being one of the more unique areas.

00:57:55:17 – 00:58:15:11

Speaker 1

Yeah, for sure. No doubt about it. Going to speaking of your board again, can you give us an idea of like, I don’t think a lot of people, even I think even folks that that do what we do for don’t really spend much time knowing who they are, introducing themselves, what kind of folks that are on these boards.

00:58:15:16 – 00:58:28:20

Speaker 1

Let’s just talk about years. I mean, they’re men and women. They’re volunteers. And I don’t think people have a strong grasp of why they’re there and what and how important they are to your mission at the district.

00:58:28:22 – 00:59:08:06

Speaker 2

our board is critical. Our governing boards are critical, you know, to the development of our water policy. I am very fortunate. I love my board, got a great group of people with it, and they give me and our staff a lot of support with that. They don’t mind calling. We like to I like to have the relationship with our board for me and my staff, that if we have a question about something or if our board has a question about something, they can pick up the phone and call me or call the appropriate staff member so they, you know, when you think about somebody, volunteer their time and the amount of effort that

00:59:08:06 – 00:59:31:19

Speaker 2

goes into our board materials and attending a board meeting once a week, twice in September with a budget. It’s a lot to ask of somebody, right? And they all have a keen interest in our water resources. they have a keen interest in our public interest within the district. And so it takes a special person, I think, to serve on the board.

00:59:31:21 – 01:00:08:06

Speaker 2

our board members, they, they’re made up of currently made up of construction company own. We’ve got folks that work within the ag industry both in the supply and commercial leg operation, retail sales. It’s a diverse background and they tend to certainly support each other. But they it makes to me, it makes it a more rounded, developed board to look at all the water policy we’re developing minimum flows and minimum water levels, which are complex, and taking the time to learn about those so that they can make the right decisions.

01:00:08:07 – 01:00:30:20

Speaker 1

Yeah. And I think that’s something that I think people might miss is how much time they spend outside of those board meetings, you know, or workshops or what have you understanding these things that other people have dedicated their careers to. And now they’re now they’re being forced into position and making these, these broad decisions about those and how much, how much work and effort they put into to doing that.

01:00:30:23 – 01:01:00:10

Speaker 2

And a lot of times they’re the first line of encounter. Oh, out here within the within the communities, the you know, we’ve got some At-Large seats, we’ve got basins, specific seats. And they’re known within the community that they serve on the water management issue. So somebody has got a question about their environmental resource permit or, you know, what might be needed or something they saw in the paper relative to flooding or to a minimum flow, minimal water level development workshop.

01:01:00:12 – 01:01:02:00

Speaker 2

They’re going to get the call.

01:01:02:02 – 01:01:07:14

Speaker 1

How can folks find out more about what your district is up to, and how they can engage with the work that you all are doing?

01:01:07:20 – 01:01:29:18

Speaker 2

Well, I like to think that we have a great looking website now, and that our comms group has been taking care of that, along with our IT folks. Swanny my Suwannee river.com. You can go there and find a whole host of information anywhere from about our staff and board members to the activities that we’re involved in, our cost share grant programs.

01:01:29:18 – 01:01:59:01

Speaker 2

We have a grant portal that’s located on there that if someone has a proposal to submit relative to water quality improvement or water supply project, they can submit that information. There. We also have at that same link, my Swanee river.com. We also have an interactive lens, a district lens map on there that you can go in if you have a particular county that you live in or want to visit, you can click on that county.

01:01:59:03 – 01:02:16:04

Speaker 2

You can find out what district lands are there, what activities are allowed, what springs are present, what amenities there are, whether camping is allowed, whether hunting is allowed, horseback riding, what the trails look like. And you can go in and gather that information from that interactive map. So.

01:02:16:06 – 01:02:32:03

Speaker 1

yeah, it’s great. I encourage people to check it out. It’s really well done. All right. So when it came to your time inside government in the past, and now, is there something you feel left undone or something that you may have approached differently?

01:02:32:05 – 01:02:54:03

Speaker 2

Well, as a as I mentioned earlier, I’m kind of a history buff and I don’t know if you know Clay Henderson or not, but Clay is he’s been involved with I think he last retired from Stetson. but he’s doing a little bit of environmental consulting. He I saw him down at the wildlife corridor meeting, and I always enjoy talking with him and his latest book, Forces of Nature.

01:02:54:03 – 01:03:20:05

Speaker 2

It’s very informative relative to conservation programs in Florida, right over the history of Florida. And it’s been very interesting reading for me. When I look at that and I look at the history of Florida, to me, one of the things that I would looking back, I would like to have been a little bit better done has to be growth management and growth planning to try to protect our natural areas more.

01:03:20:05 – 01:03:40:08

Speaker 2

And when you look at South Florida Everglades and certainly our coastal regions there, and see the amount of growth, you have to know that you’re going to have growth. And we’ve had astronomical growth under current administration and just people wanting to move into into Florida. Sure. You know, when you have days like today, it’s no wonder people want to live in Florida.

01:03:40:10 – 01:04:25:06

Speaker 2

Certainly that growth planning and trying to have smart growth. And when you look at the land pie overall, it’s really split up between agricultural purposes, public ownership, or commercial residential. And so when you start thinking about how does that shape up from a pressure standpoint, agriculture generally loses out because of the other two interests. And so when you think about the benefits of agriculture, the greenspace that it provides in the ecosystem, the complete suite of ecosystem services that it provides that for so long have been taken for granted in figuring out where those green spaces need to be.

01:04:25:10 – 01:04:37:05

Speaker 2

And be maintained, and where development can occur without having as large an impact on the land surface in our in our land, resources that are limited.

01:04:37:07 – 01:04:41:07

Speaker 1

Are you optimistic about the future of the environment and water in Florida?

01:04:41:13 – 01:05:11:12

Speaker 2

I am, you know, I look at the I look at the amount of effort and funding that has been put in for trying to preserve and conserve green space and the technology that’s out there. I think that I think that we have or are getting the answers. The big thing is I think the awareness is there now. When I was growing up, there wasn’t there wasn’t a concern, there wasn’t an awareness of any potential water quality issues that we had not in not in our district anyway.

01:05:11:14 – 01:05:32:05

Speaker 2

And that was part of the education process that early on when I was with the Department of Egg, in talking with egg producers about Tmdl and B maps, they had no awareness in our area of what the terminology meant. And so sorry drew, but I could. I always use South Florida as, as an example with that in Lake Okeechobee area.

01:05:32:05 – 01:05:49:00

Speaker 2

Right. And so certainly I think that that is key in our education has grown so much. We still have a lot more to do, from an awareness perspective. But I think the legislature that we have has been very supportive. Our governors have been very supportive, of addressing those concerns.

01:05:49:00 – 01:05:58:01

Speaker 1

What advice would you give to young people who are just entering or have interested in entering the environmental field, whether it’s public service or the private sector?

01:05:58:05 – 01:06:25:07

Speaker 2

I would say get involved. There’s a lot of programs, there’s a lot of outreach efforts that are out there now. Our youngest daughter is attending FSU up here, and there’s some programs that she’s gotten involved with just because of her awareness of what we’ve had back home. And, and, and she likes the outdoors as well. Become aware of your surroundings, become aware of your environment, not just on the concrete side of things.

01:06:25:09 – 01:06:49:21

Speaker 2

Put your phones down, go out. And I know here in Tallahassee y’all have a number of parks that I didn’t even know existed until my youngest moved up here. But go out and enjoy the outdoors. Learn what you can about the environment. We have learned a lot about our water resources, our aquifer, our coastal areas, but we still got a lot to learn.

01:06:49:23 – 01:06:57:07

Speaker 2

Our climate becoming what it is. Sometimes it can be more challenging and so learn how to address those concerns as well.

01:06:57:13 – 01:06:58:18

Speaker 1

I that’s a good place to start.

01:06:58:20 – 01:07:06:05

Speaker 2

And the last thing I want to add is, yeah, we at Swansea River Water Management District are hiring. So come see us for a job.

01:07:06:07 – 01:07:13:21

Speaker 1

There you go. I mean, working for a really good boss out there, folks. And on on that endorsement. Q Thomas, thanks so much for being on the show.

01:07:14:01 – 01:07:16:05

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brett, I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

01:07:16:09 – 01:07:38:21

Speaker 1

Yeah. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to water for fighting. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe and whatever platform you use. And don’t forget to leave a five star rating and a review. You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram at FL Water Pod, and you can reach me directly at FL Water Pod at gmail.com with your comments and or suggestions about who or what you’d like to know more about production.

01:07:38:21 – 01:07:55:03

Speaker 1

This podcast is by Lonely Box Studios. Thanks to Carl Soren for making the best of what he had to work with, and David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bow Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song was called Doing Work for Free.

01:07:55:05 – 01:08:14:21

Speaker 1

You should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Ansley Tilley

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett goes on a deep dive with a friend who exemplifies what this podcast is all about – Ansley Tilley. Ansley is one of the most talented engineers in Florida who has a wide array of experience from her time with the United States Air Force, the City of Palm Beach Gardens, and the South Florida Water Management District. But her real talent and passion is for service and problem-solving, so they discuss how her experiences have culminated in her current role as the Director of Alternative Delivery Solutions with our friends, Resource Environmental Solutions (RES).

They delve into the “milk story”, and how her parents sacrificed to provide her with the tools to succeed in later life; her dream of being an astronaut and the early disappointments surrounding that dream; a change in heart while attaining massive success in ROTC at the University of Miami; her brief but poignant experience serving her country in Ukraine; the love of family and the heartbreaking losses that have brought her back home over the years; her philosophy for work and service that have carried her since childhood; and how a brain built for problem-solving approaches the challenges of an ever-changing environmental landscape.

This conversation was very emotional at times and dealt with some sensitive subjects, but the lessons that can be drawn from it on a personal and professional level are priceless. We hope you find it as meaningful as we did.

To learn more about Ansley’s work and how she can help solve your environmental problems too, go here: www.res.us or email her at: atilley@res.us

This Episode is brought to you by our friends at Collins Land Services.

Please be sure to check out the Florida Specifier Podcast hosted by Ryan Matthews and Brett as part of a new venture where they’re striving to become Florida’s first source for environmental news, educational tools, and unique perspectives on our state’s natural environment and the events that shape it. To learn more about its flagship print publication and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Ernie Barnett

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett sits down with his friend and Executive Director of the Florida Land Council, Ernie Barnett. Ernie has a wealth of experience from his days in leadership positions at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the South Florida Water Management District.

They discuss his long and consequential public service career; how a scientist ends up as an effective communicator and policy expert; his eventual shift into a successful career in the private sector; and Florida’s shifting understanding of the science behind water quality impairment in South Florida and beyond.

Oh, and did we mention that Ernie grew up in a friend group that included dolphins? More on that, too.

To learn more about Everglades restoration, head here: https://www.evergladesrestoration.gov

To see how the dolphins in Ft. Walton Beach are doing today, check out the Gulfarium’s website here: https://gulfarium.com

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at RES.

This episode is also thanks to my friends at Collins Land Services.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Estus Whitfield

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

This week, Brett shares some time with friend and Florida’s Environmental Curmudgeon-in-Chief, Estus Whitfield. Estus has a wealth of experience working for SIX Florida governors where he played an integral role in the creation of the Save Our Everglades, Save Our Rivers, and Preservation 2000 programs – just to name a few. In addition to his service to Florida, he also spent over thirty years serving his country in the Florida National Guard, U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Navy Reserves where he retired at the rank of Captain.

Estus offers a unique perspective from his time serving so many governors and provides his thoughts on them; the dawn of widespread environmental restoration programs; some thoughts on current water quality issues related to septic tanks; and his somewhat pessimistic view of the future of the environment in Florida.

Agree or disagree – Estus is never shy about his thoughts, pulls few punches, and is always generous with his time. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

To find out more about the Save Our Everglades Program and other Everglades restoration initiatives, head here

To learn about the history of the Preservation 2000 (P2000) land acquisition program, head here

To learn more about the Conservation and Recreational Lands (CARL) program, go here:

Because we know you want more Boggy, Florida history:

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Pepper Uchino

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett sits down with his good friend and Anfield alumnus, Pepper Uchino. Pepper is now the President of the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association, but he has a wealth of experience from his days as the staff attorney, and then Staff Director, of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

Pepper is unique in that he’s the direct descendant of Japanese Samurai as well as Mayflower passengers who landed at Plymouth Rock. They discuss his early life in New England as the son of an environmental activist; the health struggles that nearly derailed his future early on; the successful and growing Resiliency Conference he hosts; and they commiserate on the life of legislative committee staff and how laws are made from the perspective of someone on the “inside”. Did we mention his childhood home was haunted? More about that as well.

To find out more about FSBA’s 37th Annual Conference on Beach Preservation Technology National Conference coming up in February, head here: https://www.fsbpa.com/tech-conference.html

And save the date for the 3rd Annual Florida Resilience Conference coming in September. To learn more and get registered, go here: https://floridaresilienceconference.org

To keep up with Pepper’s old Senate Committee and their deliberations, visit the Senate’s website here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/Show/EN/

Pepper talked about his work with the Trust for Public Land before he joined the Senate. To find out more about what they do, go here: https://www.tpl.org/state/florida

When you’re in Connecticut, why not visit some of New Haven’s most haunted sites? Perhaps Pepper’s childhood home is on the list somewhere. To learn more about that, go here: https://blog.gardencommunitiesct.com/blog/most-haunted-places-new-haven-county-ct/

This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Sea and Shoreline.

This Episode is also thanks to my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

Elizabeth Fernandez and Doug Manson

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The long-awaited return of Water for Fighting is here!

In the first episode of Season 3, Brett travels to Tampa to record live in front of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary’s (NAALJ) National Conference. His conversation partners were Elizabeth Fernandez and Doug Manson. Elizabeth is the Deputy General Counsel at the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Doug is President of the Manson, Bolves, Donaldson, Tanner Law Firm.

They discuss Western versus Eastern Water Law, and where Florida’s water resource philosophy fits on that spectrum. They also talk about the genesis of conflict as it relates to water resources in Florida, and more importantly, the path to conflict resolution when stakeholders disagree.

To learn more about what Elizabeth’s great organization is up to and how they’re working to protect West Central Florida’s water resources, head here:

https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us

To find out how Doug and his partners can put their decades of legal expertise in water resource regulation and conflict resolution, visit them here:

https://www.mansonbolves.com/attorneys/douglas-manson/

A special thank you goes out to Judges Brian Newman, Bruce Culpepper, Francine Ffolkes, and Bill Horgan from the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings for inviting me to the conference and for supporting the mission of the show. To learn more about my gracious hosts from the NAALJ, please visit their website here:

https://www.naalj.org

To learn more about the Southern Water Use Caution Area (SWUCA) with Swiftmud, go here:

https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/southern-water-use-caution-area

Brett and his guests talk about the Polk Regional Water Cooperative (PRWC) and its goal of meeting water resource needs and protection goals in a place where the demand for water has outpaced supply. To learn more about that, go here: https://prwcwater.org

West-Central Florida has been a hotbed for water resource conflict over the decades, but the path to cooperative resolution really culminated with the creation of Tampa Bay Water over 25 years ago. To find out more about its creation, go here: https://www.tampabaywater.org/about-tampa-bay-water

This Episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions.

Please be sure to check out a relatively new podcast Brett hosts with his friend and colleague, Ryan Matthews, called the Florida Specifier Podcast. It’s part of a new venture that is striving to become Florida’s first source for environmental news, educational tools, and unique perspectives on our state’s natural environment and the events that shape it. To learn more about its flagship publication and more, visit The Florida Specifier.

If you’re enjoying this show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use, and don’t forget to leave a 5-star rating and review.

Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Karl Sorne for making the best of what he had to work with. And to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance.

A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free, and you should check out the band live, or wherever great music is sold.

Mary Szafraniec

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett gets to talk with Mary Szafraniec, a Florida scientist with a remarkable personal story. They talk about her grandparents’ survival in Nazi work camps during World War II and her parents’ eventual escape from communism in Europe to arrive in the United States, ready to start a new life; how a chance meeting at a music festival changed her career path toward environmental issues and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; how she moved into the Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) program at the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the importance of mentorship there; how her time in government created value in the private sector; and of course, her new role at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) and how she strives to do good by creating accountability in her work and measuring long-term outcomes for Florida’s natural systems.

To check out the things Mary and her colleagues at RES are doing to restore and protect water quality and habitat all over the U.S., visit their website here: res.us

To find out what Mary can do to help you and your community, email her at this address: mszafraniec@res.us

While Mary is batting cleanup for Season 2 of Water for Fighting, there’s a connect between her work partners and the first guest of this season, Steve Hawley. In Steve’s book, Cracked, he discusses the restoration of the Klamath River out west. To see what RES is doing to bring life back to that natural treasure, go here: https://res.us/home/restoring-at-scale/klamath-river-restoration/ and here: https://res.us/news/res-swiftwater-films-release-restoring-balance/

To learn more about Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) planning and implementation are going at Mary’s old stomping grounds at the Southwest Florida Water Management District, go here: https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/swim

Please support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Sea & Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that is on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at www.seaandshoreline.com

RES is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

[Music]

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Welcome to Water for Fighting where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. This week’s discussion is brought to you by Sea and Shoreline. Sea and Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that’s on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at seainshoreline.com. All right, I’m really anxious to get into this week’s conversation with my friend and one of my favorite scientists working today, Dr. Mary Szafraniec Mary is a veteran of state government and private practice throughout the state of Florida, including at one of my old stomping grounds, the Southwest Florida Water Management District.(…) She’s now the director of water quality initiatives at Resource and Environmental Solutions.(…) She also has an incredible life story that really captures the imagination. So let’s get right to it. Mary, thanks so much for being on the show today. Thanks so much for having me. I’m very excited to talk to you today. Yeah, I apologize if I sound sniffly throughout. That’s a warning to other folks as well, but these things happen. So you were born in Chicago, but your life story begins much earlier and across the world in Poland, doesn’t it? Yes, it does. It actually did with my parents actually coming from Poland and my grandparents being in concentration camps, essentially in work camps.(…) There was a lot that went on during that time in the 40s and World War II that actually brought about the whole story of myself and my family.(…) Yeah, were your grandparents Polish? I mean, I know the camp was in Poland, but were they Polish?(…) Yeah, my parents and grandparents all from Poland, they all came from there. My grandparents actually were taken to a concentration camp. It was a work camp in Linz, Austria, and they were there for five years. And that’s actually where my grandparents have met during the war.(…) Incredible.(…) Talk about them personally. I guess maybe the thing that I want to know most is, did they ever talk about how they rebuilt their lives after the war? Because I think your parents met during that time. But I want to hear a little bit about them first and in those circumstances, if you don’t mind.(…) Oh, sure. No. And I think it’s actually interesting. The time while they were in the camp is quite interesting because they always talk about the men being the breadwinners back then. But in effect, my grandmother was the “breadwinner” because she was bringing kind of smuggling food over to my grandfather after they had met. If he was kind of trapped in an area that he wasn’t able to get out. So he was working in an area like more of a machine type shop. She was actually kind of a farmer. So she was a growing the wheat, making the food for the Nazi. And then she actually would smuggle some and take it to him because they had met in the camp, actually. So I think it’s absolutely amazing that children were created in the camps. And somehow my namesake, my aunt Marisha, which is how you say my name is Polish, who I’m named after, she was conceived right after the war ended. So something went on during the camp. There’s some way that people were still able to do that. But my grandparents actually, after they were released from the camp after five years, they went back to Poland. And they sort of had a makeshift wedding near the Krakow town. So very large town in Poland, beautiful, if anyone definitely should go see it. But he kind of built a shack style house with a dirt floor that he had built with his own hands, essentially, basically no tools, just kind of built this thing and started their lives there with my aunt. And then my mom was born about two years after that. So this is 1947, two years after the war had ended. In total, they had about six kids. And my grandfather just started their lives in total disruption, you know, everything’s recently been bombed. And he became a postman and started delivering mail on a bicycle in a small village near the big city. And then my grandmother just started farming a few hectares in the area and was tending to all the livestock, pigs, cows and what not. And I think they had some chickens and things. But yeah, so she was the breadwinner. And essentially, my grandfather was the postman. So they just started this life. And they moved to another town in Poland on the west side and kind of had a bigger house there. So everything started to move along. However, communism got set in place. And that’s sort of where my family, my parents derived from that part of the time frame.(…) Yeah, talk a bit about that as well. You had a funny story, Yusa, I think you told me about how your father came to be really interested in your mom in those days. Can you talk about that? Yeah, so my parents, this is in the mid 60s, right? And in Poland, it’s full communism time, there was one theater within about a hundred mile area. And it happened to be in the town that my dad lived in, where my mom was working as a telecommunication specialist. So she was at the movie theater by herself, just standing in line very far back in line to the point where she wasn’t going to get in. And my dad being a little bit of a macho man walked up to her, essentially picked her up and said, I can get you a ticket. So he got her a movie ticket. And it was basically from there, you know, he was kind of showing off his motorcycle and all the things. So she saw that he was someone that she would be interested in. And they started dating. But they both came from farming families, my dad had a really large farm. And my mom basically came from a small farming family. So they kind of started helping each other with doing the farming. But yeah, that was pretty funny word. My dad just came in kind of swooped in, knight shining armor, got her into the movie. And then story goes on from there. Do they remember what movie it was? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’d have to ask my mom. I don’t know the movie.

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I’m sure it’s something in Poland. Yeah, probably Polish. I doubt it’s an American movie.(…) So your parents eventually get married and you have an older brother, right? And he was born, was he born in Poland? Yes, he was born in Poland in the late 60s. He had passed about four or five years ago. But he was born there and in Poland during that time frame. And then they ended up kind of living there. I think he was about five years old or so before they decided that they wanted to move on and leave there because of the political climate, which is not conducive to for them to raise him in that area. So they were ready to leave and ended up leaving to go to Denmark and Copenhagen through a travel visa, sort of like an escape route, first phase of the escape route for when they left Poland to go there. It was one of those things where it’s like a real defection or is this like escape in the middle of the night kind of situation? Yeah, it was a defection. Essentially, I mean, they had a travel visa to go visit for two weeks in Copenhagen because my mom had an aunt that lived there. So they said, we’re going to be back. And then once they weren’t back, people started coming after them. So they ended up leaving there. And then there’s a pretty crazy story that happened after that for them to move to Germany to leave to go to Germany. So there’s quite a bit of events that went through for them to be able to go there. Yeah, it sounds like this one was fascinating cloak and dagger stories from the old days. How long had they been in Denmark before realizing that they’re going to have to take off? I think you mentioned before, like the KGB was even involved. Yeah, they had, you know, so basically the communist government, soon as somebody is essentially defecting or not returning upon the time frame that they’re supposed to with their visas, they start to go after them and search for them. And then they would have probably ended up in jail. But they I think they were there for less than a few months. Like it was like a couple months. My dad had gotten a job working, kind of handing out flyers and things like that. And they my mom and brother were just essentially hiding in my aunt’s house. And at some point, she felt very uncomfortable with the situation and told them that they had to leave or would cause her issues. They ended up leaving after a couple months being there. And again, my father being a very good negotiator, and really good at kind of getting getting what he needs done, he actually got some papers for them. So this is all not real papers. It’s kind of stuff you see in the movies where there was some other Polish people that lived in Denmark. And this guy, he met this guy, and he gave him some papers for my mom and dad only. And they couldn’t get it from my brother, unfortunately. So my brother was still really young. He’s only five years old. And what they ended up having to do was take my brother and shove him underneath the front bench of a truck of these trucker guys that were offering to drive them over across the border from Denmark to Germany. So my dad had one foot apparently on my brother’s chest, the other foot on his leg, and squeezing him as they’re speaking to the security officers that were evaluating all the papers and wanting them to get out to like check the truck and they didn’t thankfully, but they made it across the border safely. But it was, it sounds like a very traumatic experience, my brother, and just super intense and dangerous. So they made it through though. They got to Germany, which is amazing, to freedom essentially. Yeah, it’s incredible. I mean, were all those worries gone when they made to Germany? I mean, there were parts of Germany, obviously, in those days where it was not safe. I don’t think the worries were gone. I think they’re full intent from the very beginning was to get to America. These other places were just like pastures. They wanted to they knew they had to make some different challenging stops. So Germany was another stop. However, Germany really did. They had a really good life there. He was trained as a German auto mechanic while they were there for five years. They almost received their citizenship. But at that point, they realized they’d made a decision. Do we stay in Germany? Or do we go to America? And they said, America’s a place. So they ended up packing up and leaving within five years. My dad, he was working and fully paid well and everything. And they had a house and everything. And my mom was a checkout girl in a grocery store called Super Spy Thousand, which means 2000 in German. So they had a good life. And my brother was in school and everything. So they just said, America’s a place. And my dad says, let’s pack up tips and suitcases. And they went to Chicago. Yeah, I guess the the training part that comes into play later on when your dad’s looking for for work, you know, going to third, completely new country and this one across the Atlantic. Him being an auto mechanic helped you and your mom start their new life in the US, didn’t it? Yes, very much so. I mean, especially in Chicago when they came, he learned German engineering. So basically the fancy cars, Porsche’s, and all the BMW’s. And they needed people for that. So luckily in Chicago, there’s a very large population of Poles. Basically, at the time, I think they said there was more Pollocks there than in Warsaw. So lots of Polish people, they were able to kind of integrate really easily and get work right away. People, they started their lives there. And I was born about a year after they moved to America in the mid to late 70s. But yeah, I think that that part of their story is nice because they actually were able to root in a community, you know, that was similar to theirs, not speaking English is was very difficult still, but it was a lot easier than if they had come to like straight to Florida or, you know, another state. Right. But that’s what happened after, right? So what, what takes you from, you know, such a large Polish community in the US, but you grew up on opposite coasts, you grew up in California and Florida, right? Well, how did that happen, first of all? Well, we, so we were in Chicago until about, I was six years old, I think, when we moved. And at that time, I think they also had some questioning entities that were appearing at the house, and they wanted to move on a little bit. So there was still issues with the whole collection and the asylum and all of that stuff. So without being a citizen right away, it is, it was difficult for a lot of families, they had to keep kind of moving along. But I was six years old, as far as I remember, when we left Chicago area, we’re in the suburbs, I just remember being really cold there. And I didn’t really speak English at all. And I just was hanging out my friends that were Polish, you know, my friends, parents, and their kids that were Polish. I think we did a road trip or something, and my parents saw California, and then that was it. That’s where they wanted to go. Because they just really wanted to get away from the cold and everything that could have, that I don’t know the details on as far as the legality of staying there. But I was an American citizen. So since I was born here, I was able to kind of root them a little bit more. But I do know that they ended up just realizing they want to be outside because Poland was very similar to Chicago area, as far as like the climate and everything. I think they were just ready for a completely new place. And to start a life for the family in an area that’s absolutely gorgeous. So that’s where I was in California for about 12 years, actually. Yeah, we’re in California was all in one spot. Santa Barbara. So it was there the majority of the time. We did bop around a little bit in the vicinity of Santa Barbara. But yeah, basically, they’re absolutely gorgeous water on your western side mountains on the Pacific Ocean and then the Sierra Nevadas. So lots of just beautiful areas to be around. And I think that’s where I started to really fall in love with water, because I’d seen the Great Lakes when I was in the Chicago area as a small child. And then as a starting to grow up and realizing like, this is amazing. I just loved all the beautiful natural areas around. Yeah, talk about yourself a little bit as as a kid, because I know you said you you moved to Florida when you’re I think like 12. Is that right? 12, 13, 14, somewhere in there? 14. I was almost 14. Okay.(…) Oh, so good. So a good long while that you spent in California. So that’s a good spot to hit then. Yeah, you like the kid, you must have loved the outdoors.(…) You know, the way you describe it, how could you avoid it? Talk about that. Yeah, I was I loved water from super early age, like I mentioned, you know, when I was swimming in the lakes in Chicago, and then when I moved to California, I was like, this is amazing. Look at this ocean. I could just be out here every single day. So we were outside all day, every day, anytime that we could during the summers, and especially on the weekends, I went probably to the beach every weekend and hiking every weekend. So just dependent on the weather and everything that was going on and who was going where. I’d say that I’m definitely an outdoorsy person. I was then my parents, sort of my dad, essentially, he always wanted to be outside. So we were constantly camping and hiking and doing all the fun things outside that sort of drew me into swimming and whatnot. So I kind of became a jock, like a nerdy jock. I did obviously love school and I was reading books every minute, possibly read a student learn how to read English. That was my favorite thing. So I started to read and was at the library constantly. If I wasn’t at the library, I was in the pool or the ocean. How long did the competitive swimming stick with you? All the way through school? Yeah, all the way through high school because I went to University of South Florida at Tampa for college. So I didn’t really go in. There wasn’t like a competitive swimming program there. And at that point, I was basically focusing on academia. And so you said you moved to Florida when you were almost 15 years old. That’s a tough age to pick up a move. Why did your parents move across the country at that point? My brother had bought a house that he wanted to renovate. And this is actually a year of Hurricane Andrew.(…) And they moved, I was already in Florida for vacation to spend with my brother. And they said, you just go ahead and stay there. So he had bought the house as a very large home. And my dad is very handy. So they decided to move to Florida to help him. Plus, California was very difficult for an immigrant family. Very expensive to live in Santa Barbara. Basically like living in down in Beverly Hills cost-wise, it was just a little bit unattainable for them. So they thought it was time to try something different. And we moved to Florida at that time. It was very difficult transitioning for me, for sure. Because it’s South Florida versus Southern California are two completely different areas. But I adapted.(…) I mean, it’s gotta be different culture as well, I assume.(…) Absolutely. It was so different. It was a struggle. I had some periods of time where I was very much missing my friends and everything. So I had been there basically, I feel like I grew up in California. And then now having to start my life as a junior in high school in Florida was tough. So for context, where in Florida did y’all end up? That was in Hollywood, Florida. So Southern Florida, which is between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. What was your outlook like at that point? Beyond being obviously a little homesick for California. Did you stick with the swimming? Did you stick with the reading? Oh, yeah, I was definitely a swimmer still. The nice thing about in California, I was a small fish in a big pond. And it kind of reversed when I came to Florida. So I was one of the bigger fish in the smaller pond, there weren’t as many people doing like being competitive swimmers. And there weren’t as many swim teams and there weren’t as many highly competitive people there. So I did pretty well. It was fun. I enjoyed it. I got right into it swam in a US team, essentially, not not like I want to get well, not like that, just the regular age group stuff, and started going to swim meets and meeting a lot of people, made a lot of friends that way. And a lot of us were very nerdy jocks. We swam whenever we could. And then we were studying the rest of the time. When y’all moved there, it was, was it just before or during or after Hurricane Andrew? So I was here physically. I got to Florida July of 92. And the hurricane happened in August of 92. My parents were still in California packing up a big U-Haul. So I was with my brother, and we were in Hollywood. It was supposed to hit Hollywood. And then he sent me down to basically south of Miami area with his girlfriend, which her family didn’t speak English. So I was in the house with them. They were thinking that I was safe, but it actually had turned and hit that exact area, Miami lakes, and Hialeah. Yeah. So that was a lot of fun because I couldn’t, I only luckily she spoke English, but I was just in this house with total strangers by myself at age 14. No parents, my brother stayed back with the house trying to take care of it, but it was, it was a very tragic kind of intense situation. I don’t ever want to go through again. My very first hurricane and the most powerful one I’ve ever endured that was basically directed. Yeah. One most powerful lover. I was actually in the National Guard at the time. I remember doing everything from guarding water to delivering diapers and formula to some of those stranded places. It’s, there had to have been a huge shock to the system. You just showed up from one of the most beautiful places in the country. You have this intensely powerful hurricane land. How did you feel after that? Where you’re like, I want to go home. Well, at that point it was weeks. I’d say at least a week I was stuck down there because we couldn’t go back and forth yet. My brother, I couldn’t even communicate. So I was literally just trapped in this family’s home and we walked outside and everything. I mean, there was just things flipped over. There was just screens all missing and pieces of house missing and stuff everywhere on the roads. I just remember thinking this is Armageddon. What happened? I’d gone through two earthquakes in California that were minor for me because of the location that I was in. It was nothing like that. Like this was just unbelievable destruction that I’d never seen anything like before. And I actually was really worried for my brother thinking it was just that here, what could have happened? We didn’t have any communication. We didn’t know. And especially since the radio was on a language I didn’t understand. I didn’t know it was happening the whole entire time. So it was crazy. I was shocked and I think I was in shock for a while. I told my parents I didn’t want to stay in Florida because I thought goodness, this could happen again. But they came in and brought everything and all the tools and my dad kind of helped my brother rebuild the home that they had already started renovating essentially. But yeah, definitely a lot of work had to happen after that. And that whole region was just really hurt bad that it was really sad actually.(…) Well, let’s get forward to a little happier time I am trusting. So you chose to study pre-med entering college. What influences your parents have on that? Talk about the decision to do that biology, that pre-med. Yeah, I definitely, I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician because since I was a kid I wanted to have fun games like Atari’s and different fun things to do in the doctor’s office lobby while you’re waiting.(…) And on the flip side of that, I know my parents wanted me to have the best life possible. So they did kind of push a little bit as immigrant parents typically do, where they’re pushing you toward like a doctor lawyer, higher status type job. So I just kind of followed that path to sort of appease them. I did love science. I knew I wanted to do something that was relevant to science and things like that. So and wanting to help people was a big thing for me as well. So I was ready to kind of do something that was impactful and I sort of stayed in that path through the entire time I was in college, essentially from a bachelor’s degree.(…) All right, let’s pause for a moment to talk about my friends at Sea and Shoreline. As we in Florida wonder what the future holds when we face the storm season ahead, Sea and Shoreline is working to protect our coastline communities against severe storms by installing a variety of green and gray infrastructure solutions to make our cities and counties more resilient. These solutions include seagrass restoration, mangroves, oyster reefs, riprap, oyster breakwaters, and something called a WOD, which stands for wave attenuation device.(…) By installing their patented WODs, Sea and Shoreline can help protect our communities against sea level rise and storm surges by diffusing wave energy, stopping shoreline erosion, and even rebuilding shorelines through sand accretion.(…) To learn more about how Sea and Shoreline can protect your community, visit seaandshoreline.com. All right, let’s get back to the conversation.(…) You even took a few jobs. I think you told me before that you actually, I don’t know if it was like during the summers or while you were in school, actually took some jobs that were kind of leading toward practicing medicine. When did that change for you to something that’s quite a bit different, right?(…) Yeah, so I actually each summer I was working in different hospitals and medical clinics, depending on where I was living, and like in high school and then during college. And I just kept doing these sort of side jobs. I work in the HIV blood clinic where I kind of ran samples there, just anything that relevant to the medical field that I could do to sort of feel out whether or not I liked it or not. So I did take some of those jobs. And then when I was actually done with college, sort of getting ready to prepare to take the test and everything to start either doing medical degree type work or a physician’s assistant, which is kind of similar to that. So I was like, okay, where am I going to apply? What am I going to do? So(…) in the meantime, I had went to a music festival over in Live Oak, which is essentially a bluegrass festival that you camp at and whatnot. And I met a whole new bunch of people there, a lot of fun people. And one of the women that I met was actually an environmental engineer that worked at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.(…) So her and I started talking and I told her I was struggling and not really sure why what I wanted to do, she could tell that I wasn’t into the whole medical thing. So told her I don’t like being trapped inside. This isn’t really my thing. But I feel like I have to go through it. She’s like, well, why don’t you try the environmental field? And I looked at her like she had three heads. I didn’t even know what that was. What do you mean? What is this? What is this thing? I don’t even know what this is. So at my at university South Florida, there really wasn’t like an environmental engineering program. There’s a civil one. And they didn’t really have like an environmental science and policy program yet. That was that’s showing my age, obviously. But basically, they had studied that much after I graduated. Biology was the only option. And most people were premed and if they were anything. So I talked to her a little bit more. And she said, I just got promoted, why don’t you apply for this position? And there’s two others available. So I applied for all of them. And I basically got two of them was offered two jobs. One was biologist, one was a chemist with the state of Florida in Tampa. This is a super similar track to your previous guest, Julie SP, because we took the biologist position like she did, and essentially went down the same track as looking at doing a lot of different types of aquatic biology type work, water quality collection, biological sampling for stream streams assessments, lake assessments. I did all the taxonomic identifications of the macro invertebrates that show water is clean or not vegetation. So basically just started my career similarly to Julie and think it’s a really good place to start, to be honest, when when I didn’t have any experience. And I didn’t learn any of that during my training under my bachelor program, I kind of learned genetics and all of the animal physiology and things like that. But I didn’t have any kind of background in environmental fields. I had to essentially learn that from the fresh go, you know, essentially at the DEP. So I was very thankful for that. Yeah, I mean, I think that speaks well of the department in that regard, they could take someone who’s obviously bright, who knows some of the basics, but doesn’t know how to do this job and to be able to teach you how to get there. I think that sounds pretty cool to me, actually. Oh, yeah, it was amazing. I had there are people there that were probably 15, 20 years into their careers that I was able to learn from. And the fact that I was able to get paid to be on a boat, and get in the water and be in the water all the time, even if there was gators around, it wasn’t a big deal to me, I just was super excited to be outside constantly. What year did you end up? I’m trying not to age you all the way through this, but it just comes, it comes with the territory with these.(…) You end up at SWFWMD, which is I think we overlap like a bare bit, I was out in Bartow, though. When did you go to SWFWMD? So I went to SWFWMD in 2006, I had gotten a job offer, and to be something a little bit out of my comfort zone, because here at DEP, I was essentially a sampler, I was doing monitoring, I had learned analyses, I started learning about how to take that data and interpret it. I wasn’t managing anything, I was just sort of doing the work, like collecting the samples, doing the analysis and understanding where the issues were, doing a lot of the total maximum daily load work. I was there in the infancy of that, essentially, when the TMDLs are being developed, and then the basin management act like I was there when they were being developed, really cutting my teeth on water quality at that time heavily. So when I got the job at SWFWMD to be a project manager, it was for the surface water improvement and management program. So SWIM, the SWIM program, and they, I knew, I absolutely wanted to do water quality restoration. I started to realize, okay, I get how to figure out where the issues are, but now I need to understand and learn how to fix them, and you know, how to address the water quality problems that we’re having everywhere, not only in the region that I was in. So I felt like it was a natural progression. I had a bunch of opportunities to, my other options were to go into permitting, in different types of permitting jobs at SWFWMD, I know. I had like three or four, but this was the one that I just felt like was the perfect track for me, and I needed to take that step to go into restoration.(…) Nice. And tell me a little bit about the timeline. Was it while you’re at DEP or SWFWMD that you got a master’s degree in something that is very much not biology, right? Yeah. So that was actually pretty funny. So I was new at SWFWMD as a project manager, and basically the first task I had was to review engineering plans for a constructed treatment wetland project that I had no idea what that even was. And I never had seen a set of plans in my entire life. And I was expected to learn how to understand that and review those and then actually monitor the construction. So doing the construction inspections of this massive three million dollar project. And I was just feeling completely out of my comfort zone. And at that time I realized, and of course I had a mentor, I had training, but it just when somebody says, “Hey Mary, here you go. You’re going to start doing this. And even though you’ve never done this in your entire life.” So I had realized that I probably should learn some engineering to know what I’m doing and why I’m even being involved in this and how I can just make sure that I’m looking at it from the right perspective. Because my science background at the time just didn’t seem to cut it. I realized at that moment, so that was a year after I got to SwiftMUD, I immediately enrolled in the Environmental Engineering Sciences Master’s program at University of Florida, which is incredible. And it was great because I could do some of it online and some of it was in person. And I took some courses at USF and transferred them in as well. So I just started working on engineering and learning everything I could about it. It took me about three years to complete while I was working full time at SwiftMUD actually. It was tough. It was not an easy thing to do, to be honest. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I managed to get through. But I will say I did get to learn everything I was wanting. So I was yearning how do you do design and treatment, well, and design and all these things. So then I knew how to actually evaluate and review plans and how to know whether or not the consulting firms that are submitting products and deliverables to me, I knew how to actually review them and help them sort of improve them if they needed to. Nice.(…) And you’re a big fan of mentorships and is part because you had such a good one at SwiftMUD? You talked about that a little bit already with me. Yeah. So I will say I have to tell Janie Hagberg, she is currently the chief engineer at SwiftMUD at the moment. At the time when I first started a very, very green non-engineer, just a scientist, she took me under her wing and really trained me. And she was the most amazing mentor I’ve ever had. She’s really the reason I went back to school for engineering because I wanted to be like her. And I just her ability to manage things and nothing ever seemed to phase her. Even when we had some pretty big issues arise during some of the project construction, she was handling everything with grace. And I was like, that’s who I want to be. That’s what I want to do. I want to be able to be an incredible engineer. So she’s amazing. We still collaborate from time to time on different projects. And it’s great to have her in my, she kind of was there to help me grow. Talk about your relationship also in the SWIM program at SwiftMUD. One of my absolute favorite people there. Now Jeanette Silverman, but back then the last name was Seacrest. Yeah. So Jeanette actually hired me at the district. She gave me the path forward to get down to restoration.(…) And so she was an amazing manager and she saw a kind of potential and saw that I can actually do things outside of my comfort zone. And she helped me achieve things that I would never have done actually. Pushed me pretty hard and gave me lots of great projects to work on and kind of let me do what I wanted to do. At the time, the SWIM program was heavily embedded on habitat restoration. They had some incredible scientists, Brent Henningsen and a couple others, Chris Kaufman and Stephanie Powers, all these people that just have been doing this. They’re really good at it and they do a lot of habitat related stuff. And I had noticed that there was a lack of water quality focused restoration.(…) And so sort of pushing that a little bit harder. So Jeanette really let me explore that and let me move our program and expand it into that to really focus on water quality restoration as well. Jeanette is obviously great, but she also ended up being the one that encouraged you to get your PhD, didn’t she? Yes, she definitely did. She was a big driver and that was a life-changing decision for me. She knew I had high aspirations in terms of wanting to learn all I could about what was causing water quality issues and the best way of addressing them. And she had a knack for the power of suggestion where she basically told me if I wanted to be the expert and then I needed a PhD in that. And I’m not saying that everybody needs a PhD, but for myself, to what I wanted to get to where I could actually lead the development of projects, she sort of just coached me into that and really had a lot of faith and supported me into it. So I decided to go after it. I’m really glad I did. It almost sounds like your approach is that you and I talked before and you said, “I hate not knowing.” Is that kind of the idea behind starting something, expanding, continuing, expanding on that and so on and so forth? Is that an app description of your approach to your career at that point? I would say so. I mean, I am definitely, I would say I’m curious to a fault. We’re deep down. I’m a researcher at heart. I don’t like leaving rocks unturned. I want to make sure that I’ve evaluated everything that I can before I move forward, especially when I’m proposing something that’s a little bit new and innovative, that it’s only been potentially applied in a research forum type thing. So it is, that’s difficult because you want to make sure that it works before you do propose it to a client essentially.(…) So I would say that just because something’s already been done, it doesn’t mean it’s been done correctly. And it’s not been, I’ll be all. And we definitely are able to improve upon our scientific understanding and the way that we actually approach the solution. So I feel like that’s been something, that’s a track for me. So I basically have seen things that are proposed and then attempted and they may not work at that moment the way that they were actually implemented, but if we modify something there and we monitor and look at it from the, you know, kind of a technical manner and see if it can work somewhere else, that there’s always an opportunity, I feel like, to really improve the way that something’s been proposed and actually implemented. Yeah, I guess maybe I chose an inartful way of describing it. It seems like with all of the different angles at which you’ve found yourself either studying in the university level or on the job, there’s almost nothing that you don’t have some expertise in or ability to know the different angles on a project, even things that are maybe not necessarily in your normal wheelhouse, right? Well, I appreciate that. This is very, very kind of you to say, I feel like if I don’t know something, I’m going to figure it out. I’ve been asked, I think a lot of it has to do with the three letters after my name. People expect me to know what spider is crawling on the wall because I’m a PhD. They think I know every single plant out there and all these things. I’m like, I don’t know what that is, but sometimes there’s things that I feel like it’s my duty to figure it out. And if it’s related to water quality or anything, ecological engineering style, I’m going to go out there. I’m going to read a paper. I’m going to find some, I just, I enjoy and I’m very resourceful. So I’d like to find out what it is. Before I say, I don’t know what this is. I’ll say, I’ll figure it out. If I can’t, I’ll let you know. But I’m not going to just stand there and say, I don’t know. I mean, normally I don’t think I do. Well, eventually you leave the district and the private sector. Why did you leave the district? When you are in a government entity or two of them, and I’ve made a lot of contacts all over the Southwest district in Florida. So I’ve made a lot of relationships at this point. And now if you pair a PhD to that with a technical ability, I’m now someone that a lot of people were recruiting. So I was immediately recorded as soon as my degree was in hand. I had a bunch of companies that were coming after me. And that was actually, I felt really good because I appreciated being finally recognized and respected as someone in the field that has a technical capability. And that I didn’t have that earlier on. And I kind of at that point realized I just need to try this out. And Jeanette maybe pushed me a little bit. She said, you should do this. You’ll be a great consultant. I was like, okay, well, let me see if I can put my teeth on this and see if I can actually cut it in consulting. Because I knew I was going from a 40 hour work week to potentially 60, 80, get this becomes, it’s a whole nother life. The reason I was primed for that was because I just finished working full time and getting a master’s and a PhD. So I was used to working 60, 80 hour week. Okay, this next transition, next step, next phase. And the main reason to be honest, I love working for the government. I think it’s incredibly important. We have to have smart technical people that work in the government. But for me, I was ready to actually implement the projects and to develop and conceptualize. So when I was at the government, I just had to take a project deliverable that a consultant gave me, I look at it review say, okay, I think this looks good. And then we move on. And then the next one comes in, I don’t get to actually develop anything. So at that point in my life, I was ready to lead and I wanted to create teams, I wanted to develop staff, I wanted to become in a senior level professional, sort of understand a lot more about everything and wanted to actually see if I could do this consulting gig where it is definitely a lot faster paced. And a lot is involved. So you’re not only doing your job, you’re doing many, many different levels of work. So I had to basically do business development, project management of a lot of 30 plus projects, sometimes developing staff, and then, you know, continuing to grow the whole entire product lines or whatnot, or whatever we were working on at the time. So it was difficult, but I absolutely enjoyed it because I kind of do fuel on a lot more activity and enjoy kind of a fast paced environment. That experience that you developed at DEP in the district had to have made you more dangerous in terms of, you know, what folks are looking for, in terms of how do I implement this project, you know, the angles from the other side of the table in terms of what they want, right? Oh, absolutely. That was so helpful for me. Yeah, whenever I would talk to clients, so essentially, the client, the people that were my cooperators when I was at SWFWMD,(…) which were cooperative projects, funded projects, those immediately became my clients, because we had projects that I was able to assist with, because I already knew what their issues were, I already knew what they needed. And we’ve been working on that for eight years. So at that point, I was like, let’s start doing work together. And that was very helpful, because then they really trusted me into kind of leading them down different paths. So I had a couple very progressive clients that were previous cooperators and stakeholders where we just jumped right in and were able to move forward with doing some really cool projects, actually. You do that for eight years in one spot right out. You end up joining Res, a name that ought to be really familiar to listeners, Resource Environmental Solutions. What drew you to Res away from a place that you’d been for eight years?(…) Well, I think everything did line up pretty well, where I learned the assessment part in the government, and then I was able to apply solutions that weren’t really done on a regular basis at the company that I was with before that. And then Res just really had this outstanding program where I felt like I was ready to apply what I learned at the other places at a grander scale. So instead of doing these smaller 50 to 100 acre projects, which do, you know, they’re important, they have to happen. And most of those are limited to working on public lands. I just knew that we had to do something bigger with the way that we’re developing and have developed already the lands for urban and agricultural use and everything that still has to maintain and continue. We need a new structure. We need a structure that allows for larger projects and they have to be regionalized. And on the scale of hundreds to thousands of acres, not just smaller ones.(…) And you can’t do that on a public piece of land. Typically, some of them, yes, there’s some in the northern part of Florida that still exists. But then you look at urbanized areas like Pinellas County, Sarasota, Manatee, down in South Florida, there’s not a lot of space left, but there are in terms of public lands, but there are private lands that can still be utilized and brought into a project. So I was really excited when I met with Res to be able to do these larger regionalized projects where we can actually move the needle on improving water quality. Because a lot of these projects have been done for habitat restoration or ecological restoration, which is important, but they’re not focused and designed for water quality restoration. So the turnkey approach that Res can actually deliver through a public-private partnership, that is, in my opinion, the way to achieve those kind of really lofty goals of meeting TMDLs and all the BMAP allocations and basically the amount of nutrient load that needs to be removed from a water body through these types of larger type projects. Yeah, I think that’s what it’s a thing that probably people miss. If you’re not dealing with everglades level projects or nearby geographically, I don’t think a lot of folks get the lift that’s necessary for the nutrient reduction to meet these water quality goals. Therein lies bigger projects that you get involved in, but there’s an actual difference, like in Res’s approach to that environmental restoration as well. I would say it’s in the engineering, but I think it’s almost in the not engineering or not over engineering. Is that right? Well, I think that the approach is different because the company is different. They’re not a consulting firm. They have consulting capabilities, but they’re basically what is so different and unique is that they’re a fully integrated operating company. They’re capable of financing and bringing money and investments and invest stores to do big projects and that are fully dedicated to doing environmental restoration.(…) So, Res in my opinion is completely advancing all these different techniques and project approaches. That is what they call alternative delivery. So, that’s the soup to nuts turnkey project approach that I kind of mentioned already. You can incorporate land acquisition into that as well. They also are able to, which is incredibly unique in my opinion, to provide that financial assurance to really support a project and the performance metrics. We all know that there’s been projects out there that we know were designed on a perception and on a perceived modeled approach, but not a lot of people and agencies and companies and all the basically project providers are not able to demonstrate that this project outcome is actually doing what we all said it was going to do. So, how many of those have you heard of? I don’t really, that’s where I wanted to be. I wanted to be with somebody that says, if I’m telling you this is going to reduce X pounds of nutrients or pollutants of any kind and I’m just modeling it and then never proving it, how do I know that’s actually going to happen? And normally it isn’t. Unfortunately, the fact of the reality is the majority of the projects are not actually achieving those outcomes and that’s why I came to Res. I want to show, I want to prove that we’re doing it and that we are demonstrating that actual project outcome and proving it with performance metrics that are actually part of the actual project. So, the way that we do that is that we’re able to institute that Florida statute, if anyone’s interested 255.065.(…) Florida’s incredibly lucky to have it because I also work outside of Florida in the Midwest and California and other states and different Carolinas. They don’t have that type of a public-private partnership statute that allows private and public to work together to do massive projects in a partnership. That’s how Res. is able to basically own and restore massive amounts. I’m hundreds of thousands of acres of restoration of floodplains for wetlands, hydrologic functions. They’re providing regional water quality improvements and conserving lands at the same time. It’s quite incredible. In Florida alone, I think Res. owns like 6,000 acres that they’re restoring. Huge amounts of property. We’re an owner, we’re a stakeholder, we’re a steward in land. The reason we’re able to do that is because we can do a full delivery project by acquiring the land in the place that the project needs to happen and not really where the public land is available, maybe not going to provide us the best outcome.(…) That also requires a lot of the technical needs such as the assessment analysis, modeling, design permitting, all of that. We also provide the maintenance operation and monitoring after we do the construction. We’re like a full package thing, which I think is quite unique. Then we’re backing everything with financial surety, which doesn’t exist really. There’s a few other people that can do that. You named a handful of things that don’t exist, Mary. I’ve been on that proverbial other side of the table where you know this thing that you’re supposed to get. You have a project you’re going to do. You pay engineers to design and construct the thing that you believe that you need.(…) You don’t know what’s going to happen when it’s done.(…) It doesn’t matter. The folks that you work with are on to the next project. I understand that.(…) That’s what I mean, that you’ve turned it on its head. You’re not just building something, but you’re literally managing that same project for years and years even.(…) Oh my gosh, we have projects that we are committed to maintaining and operating and monitoring to prove that they are still functioning the way we said they were for 25-30 years.(…) Some of these are in the 10-20,000 acres and 600 miles of stream restoration. It’s not just a small little dip in the bucket. We’re managing a lot of area and have the technical staff in-house and also our partners. We have a lot of firms that we work with. We don’t do all this in-house. It’s a team structure. I really appreciate that as well. I think that the monitoring end, the accountability end, is a thing that my mind goes to when you look at the TMDLs throughout the state of Florida. These B-MAPs that are in effect. House Bill 1379 that has just been enacted by the legislature. All of them are pointing at very specific targets. When I think of the position that DEP is in, the water management districts are in, in terms of meeting these goals when they’re supposed to be met,(…) knowing that something works has got to be an enormous relief for them. I know it would be for me. It’s like if I was fixing and I was in charge(…) or being a part of that team, as you describe it, for cleaning what we call a spring and getting it below its total maximum daily load.(…) To know that you’re going to hit a target would have been a great relief to me to know when that was going to take place exactly and not just theoretically. So that’s really cool. We haven’t talked about any specific projects. Give me something that you’re working on right now. Okay, so specifically I’m not really able to tell you that because right now we’re working under the P-3 format, which is the turnkey. It’s basically where we provide an unsolicited proposal. So I can’t specify where and who and whatnot, but I will tell you I’ve got a bunch of stokes in the fire at the moment and they’re ranging from spring, lake and stream restoration all the way to groundwater recharge because some areas in the Suwanee River water management district, even the northwest, we’ve got a long way to go to meet minimum flows and levels, especially the levels in the aquifer.(…) So there’s many varieties of projects. They’re not only water quality, but they all sort of stem from that. There’s also flooding attenuation projects that I’m kind of tying in the water quality as well through constructive treatment wetlands, kind of taking the stream restoration format that’s been done in Florida by several amazing practitioners and furthering that in the larger concept level. So in terms of water quality restoration, right? So a lot of this has been done like in the Chesapeake Bay area already and we’re trying to apply something similar and so that it’s Florida specific and making sure that we’re addressing the issues here and fitting projects into the spaces that we have left. Mostly the projects I’m working on are still in conceptual phase. I’ve only been at REZ for now, I think it’s seven or eight months, but we’re already in conceptual phase. So that’s pretty quick. We’re able to move very quickly because we have the ability to work at risk essentially. And so we’ve already cited projects. I’ve already found the problems, found the locations, put them and provided the conceptual kind of ideas. And now we’re moving into the point where we’re going to provide these proposals that people are looking at and then we can actually move forward with kind of doing the projects. So the funding component is also a big one there, which we’re able to assist with and help different clients get the funding. Since I’m working all over Florida, I’m sort of all over the place. Like I mentioned, I’m also doing stuff in other areas in the United States, trying to apply similar type techniques and whatnot. Some areas aren’t as keen on water quality, but we’re sort of trying to flip the script on that. But there are definitely other areas that are very, very keen on it. So we’re making big strides and definitely these areas, they all need help. And it’s not only urban areas. This is urban, this is remote areas.(…) Every district has something that they were basically touching at this point.(…) How does Florida shape up in terms of its approach to water quality issues, you know, writ large? I know there are other issues mixed in the flooding, resilience sorts of things, but how does it shape up when you’re looking at it compared to those other places? Okay, so I want to commend all of the previous, the people before me that started like the T&D process, the numeric nutrient criteria, BMAPs, because it’s something that’s leading towards improvement in water quality. When you look at other states and examples like California, you would imagine everyone thinks when I talk to them that they’re so far along with water quality. Well, they are in some regards, but they’re not for nutrients. And Florida is super advanced in that regard. And it’s actually helped me quite a bit when I’m working in other areas like the Midwest and California, where people in those regions are actually very focused on flooding attenuation. That’s like the number one issue, and especially Midwest, for example, last weekend, Chicago got several inches of rains that caused major issues there that then led to flooding and then water quality issues. So they’re starting to realize there’s a connection, but the ultimate funding and everything goes to flooding. And I understand that, but there’s definitely other issues and benefits that could be gained from working like a multi benefit structured project. In California, a lot of the entities there are very hyper focused on metals, so selenium and zinc and things like that, because it’s impacting the biota in the bays. However, they’re not looking on all the nutrient issues that are already there. They kind of don’t realize that they’re there yet. So when I was there recently, I was meeting with quite a few people and we’re starting to change that as well. So there’s improvement potential all across the board, even in Florida. But Florida, I think, just like the mid-Atlantic is much more advanced in terms of water quality from a nutrient perspective.(…) So now we’re going to get into your speed round. And so hang on tight, Dr. Szafraniec. Okay. It’s not that bad.(…) What professional accomplishment are you most proud of so far?(…) Oh, that’s a difficult question to answer. I could look at it from many different angles, I guess, but I think honestly, helping to bridge the gender gap in the engineering field, by mentoring women in a field that’s still dominated by mostly men. It was a really tough go 20 years ago, to be recognized and respected as a woman in the environmental engineering field. Hate to say it, but it’s the truth. I think we’ve come a long way, though, and we’ve been able to show a little bit more and there’s a better balance between that. But we need to get to a point where equality shouldn’t just be a thing. We shouldn’t have to continue to pursue it. We should just have it. It should be a basic fact and not just some platform that we’re striving for. But from the technical perspective, I feel like I was able to kind of help advance the field of ecological engineering science so that we can actually get closer to meeting these water quality goals. But we have to look at it from an ecological perspective. There’s a lot of ways to look at engineering and there’s civil and all these other things. But if we can kind of blend the science and the engineering, which I feel now I’m a hybrid engineer. I’m not just a scientist. I’m not an engineer only. I’m an ecological engineer. And I think that is definitely one way if we can sort of adopt that practice a little bit more into the way that we implement projects, then that discipline is really going to help shape the future for water quality restoration. Okay. When it came to your time inside government, is there something you feel that you left undone or something you would have approached differently if you had to do it over again? Yeah, we did touch on this already. I absolutely would have loved to be able to do more performance efficiency monitoring for projects. I think executives cringe at the thought of that because they want to just put things in the ground. Right. And I know you as an EV, I don’t know if you’re in monitoring, but if you had a certain amount of money, you wanted to probably put something in the ground. And then maybe monitor if you had the extra cash on hand later on. However,(…) sometimes if we would have put the monitoring in, we maybe would have been able to preempt some issues down the road. Because I know we’ve spent millions of dollars constructing projects that have a perceived impact, right? And then like I already talked about, are they meeting those goals? We don’t really know because we’re not monitoring them. And we would have learned from our mistakes if we just would have spent some money figuring out if those things actually worked. That’s something I really wish I would have screamed even louder about wanting to monitor more when I was, you know, my younger days.(…) Well, despite some of the old lack of monitoring, are you optimistic about the future of the environment and its natural systems in Florida? I am optimistic. I think I see a lot of these state agencies recently have actually started coming together to make bigger impacts. I’m not going to name them. But before it used to be one state agency only cared about one thing, the other state agency only cared about it. They didn’t really want to talk to each other. And I did quite I thought that was just a little bit silly sometimes, like we could work together and do a lot more together. But I’m still a little reserved, because I know that some of these things are definitely they need to be separated out. But if we could somehow I would be more optimistic, I think if we can somehow move towards a regional type scale for projects that are providing those measurable benefits, because we don’t if we if we start measuring, see if it works, like I mentioned, that we’re not going to do the wash, rinse, repeat over and over again, and still end up with a product, you know, where there’s what somebody would look at and say, that’s dirty water, I can’t see my feet. There’s algae all over me when I’m in the bay, I feel like if we are going to come together with agencies sort of working together, and realizing and not pointing fingers anymore, then then maybe and also, like you mentioned earlier, which is a huge point, having that accountability for these these environmental restoration projects, there’s tons of them going on. And they vary. They’re not just natural systems. They’re like we do at res, everything is very much nature based. However, there’s way slower facilities that need to be updated and all these things, upgrades and whatnot, everything should have some form of a performance criteria so that we can say that what we did actually is working. Yeah. What if anything keeps you up at night regarding Florida’s environment? I think you may have touched on a little bit there. But yeah, I think that resiliency is a huge factor. And I think about that a lot. How do we implement resiliency and making sure that all of our outcomes are resilient and sustainable? That’s always on my mind, because I think back to the days of my earlier career, how I implemented projects that are very localized. So we looked at this small watershed, 200 acres is feeding this area and this this lake. But now I think we have an opportunity to go outside of that and go a little bit bigger. And think about all the things that we can do to improve and think about it from the future perspective, you know, and how things are going to change. So like I mentioned the example in Chicago, I think this area and then places in Florida for sure have the opportunity to not just think of this neighborhood is the issue. We have a bigger watershed that’s always been involved there. And then we also have other resources like groundwater and then things that have already been put in place that we just have to start looking at internally. If we have a lot of different types of stormwater resources that need to be updated, we should start looking at those. I know there’s so many problems that need to be addressed, but it’s like which one do we attack first? You know, can we do them all at the same time somehow? How do we just make sure we’re thinking outside the box, getting everything addressed and not just cover it up with a Band-Aid each time? Because I feel like we’re still in Band-Aid and immediate address mode at the moment, kind of that reactive, but we need to be able to more proactive.(…) What advice would you give young people, maybe a young woman who’s just entering or they’re interested in entering the environmental field, maybe engineering through public service or in the private sector? What would you tell them?(…) Well, you know, that is another tough one because there’s so many things that I would love to tell them, you know, I can talk forever. So I would actually, I would think either a man or woman, you know, just suggesting that they learn how to collaborate and not only internally where they’re at, but also across disciplines. So if a scientist is thinking something, a lot of times you’ll have an engineering scientist kind of not really talking to each other. I think putting those two together is very important. Learning each other’s disciplines to an extent that you can cross training.(…) So when I was mentoring and fostering kind of growth and development with staff, I never just taught them what their discipline was. I wanted to make sure that they knew stuff outside of that.(…) That gives them a lot more perspective to kind of work outside of their little silo. Computer model is only looking at the model that they’re looking at. They don’t even know why there’s a lot, there’s potential for disaster. You know, we have to explain to them, why, why are you learning this? Why are you, why are you looking at this? Why, what else are we going to be able to do here? So I think getting out of that silo mentality is really important. And then flexibility, realizing you’re not the best and the smartest in the room each time. Because some people, you know, they just think this I’m the best, I’m the one, this is, this is the best thing here. And don’t recreate the wheel, just modify it maybe so it doesn’t squeak anymore a little, and then they can improve it each time. So there’s definitely been a lot of work already to date completed. And I always want to build on what others have done. So I think that there’s still a lot of building that has to happen. We have to do it collaboratively. I think there’s some really good nuggets of wisdom in there. And I think that makes it a great place to stop. MarySzafraniec thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you. Really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water for Fighting. This week’s discussion is brought to you by Sea and Shoreline. Don’t forget to check the episode notes to visit their websites and learn more about how they can help you. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use. And don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn,(…) Instagram, probably even Twitter at FL WaterPod. And you can reach me directly at flwaterpod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and a Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bow Spring from the Bow Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called “Doing Work for Free” and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold.(…) Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Jeff Littlejohn

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett heads to the empire headquarters of Florida’s most prolific environmental professional, Jeff Littlejohn. Jeff is a principal at the National Stormwater Trust, OnSyte Performance, and the Florida Environmental Network (host of the Environmental Permitting Summer School in Marco Island); a Senior Advisor with the Adams and Reese Law Firm; and the Founding Editor of the newly revamped Florida Specifier.

They talk about growing up the son of Florida environmental royalty; how Top Gun and his step-father influenced his decision to attend the U.S. Naval Academy; what brought him back to Florida to work as an engineer; his sometimes controversial tenure at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; and whether he’s the Nicolas Cage of Florida environmental entrepreneurs.

To check out The Florida Specifier – Jeff’s latest endeavor, visit the website here: Floridaspecifier.com

To learn more about what Jeff is doing at the National Stormwater Trust, go here: Nationalstormwater.com

To find out how if Jeff can help you from his chair at the Adams and Reese Law Firm, email him here: Jeff.littlejohn@arlaw.com

If you’re looking to see how Jeff and his team at OnSyte Performance are innovating the way we think of wastewater management in Florida, go here: www.onsyte.com

If you want to see what’s going on at the 37th Annual Environmental Permitting Summer School, look here: www.floridaenet.com

Please support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

[Music]

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Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida, what the people will make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. This week’s discussion is brought to you by Sea and Shoreline and Resource Environmental Solutions.(…) Sea and Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that’s on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at seanshoreline.com. And of course, REZ. REZ is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us.(…) Alright, I’m happy to introduce this week’s conveniently timed guest, Jeff Littlejohn. Now, when I met Jeff, he was the Deputy Secretary for Regulatory Programs at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He’s now a principal at, and this is a long list everyone, National Stormwater Trust, a principal at On-Site Performance, Senior Policy Advisor at the Adams and Reese Law Firm, part owner of the Florida Environmental Network, and is now the founder of the Relaunch Florida Specifier. Now, that’s a mouthful, and we’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get right to it. Jeff, welcome to Water for Fighting. Thanks a lot, Brett. I’m really excited to be here. I typically move from birth forward with podcast guests, but part of your childhood, and nearly every year since, is intertwined with the events of this week. It’s Environmental Permitting Summer School Week in Marco Island, or as I sometimes refer to it as, the Super Bowl of Environmental Professionals here in Florida. Your father, Chuck Littlejohn, started it all. And now you’re carrying that torch all these years later. Talk about summer school’s inception and what it means to you. It’s really meaningful to me and my whole family, Brett. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be in this position now to kind of carry the torch that my dad lit so many years ago when he started this whole thing with the chamber back in 1986 or 87, I believe. You’re right. It’s been part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. It was always billed as a family-friendly event. A lot of people that have been down there many years, if you’ve gone through a part of your life where you’re having kids, it’s a great place to bring them. And I think a lot of people have taken advantage of that. And we’ve really encouraged that over the years. And I was certainly part of that from the very beginning. I think the very first year would have been 1987 because I was 16.(…) And I remember that summer getting to go down there, and I got to hang out at the pool and the beach. And I never really understood what my dad did. So he was inside doing his thing, and I was just out by the pool. But there were always a lot of kids there, and it was always easy to meet other kids who had parents at the event. And it was really cool. I don’t remember Ryan Matthews early on, I think, in those first couple of years that I went before I went off to college. Because I think he was a lot younger than me, so he might have been in the kiddie pool. But I do remember, I just remember thinking, as Ryan and I have been talking about this lately, how cool it is that he remembers growing up there too as a kid and his dad going. And we’ve had those experiences and kind of bonded over that shared experience. And it’s really meaningful that we get to do it together now, knowing that our fathers were involved from the very beginning. And now we’re doing it together. It’s pretty cool. Yeah, I think that is cool. And myself off and on for the last 21, 22 years have gone. I find myself not on the beach or in the pool because obviously we’re down there to work more. When it comes to you, was there a point when you were younger, what was that point when you started to pay attention to what was going on inside of the building rather than out back? Oh, it wasn’t until I came back later as an environmental professional and went as an attendee. I mean, as a kid, it was just a fun place to go. Nice. Okay. Let’s press the rewind button a bit. Now back to standard operating procedure. You were born in Melbourne here in Florida, but you grew up in a bunch of different places, right? Yeah, that’s right. See, yeah. And I want to talk about not just your parents, but I also want to talk about your step parents a little bit. Because based on your choices of career, it seems like they’ve had a significant impact to you all the way around. First, let’s start with your dad and mom. Where are Chuck and Donna from and how did they get to Florida? Yeah, that’s an interesting story. I ended up calling my mom this week to make sure I had all the details right. She’s going to listen to this, I’m sure, and she’ll fact check me if I’m wrong about something. So my dad’s family is from Western South Carolina, Greenville, Clemson area. And if yes, if you Google it or didn’t know the Little John Coliseum, they’re at Clemson University is a relative. Oh, yeah. But anyway, that must of my family’s from there. But my little John Klan originated from there. But my grandfather moved my dad and his two sisters and my grandmother down to Fort Lauderdale in would have been the fifties for work. He was a World War Two Navy guy and ended up working for Sears as a store manager and opened up a lot of different Sears stores for the company. And one of those brought him to Fort Lauderdale. And that’s where my dad grew up mainly in his kind of middle school, high school years, graduated from high school down there. And and even after he went off to college and I got older and started coming home. And when I visit my parents, I got to go see the house where he spent most of his life down in Fort Lauderdale. It was pretty cool. My mom is from Waco, Texas. She’s from a large Catholic family. She was one of eight siblings. She’s got a very interesting story, too. She’s the oldest. So she tells me that growing up there, she almost felt like she didn’t have much of a childhood. She became a babysitter as far back as she can remember. So I think by the time she got ready to graduate high school and look for what to do next, it was get as far away from Waco as possible and have a different life. So after high school volunteered to go on a U.S.O. tour and she ended up going to Europe and all kinds of places, sing for GIs around around the world. At some point, she met a boy and followed him to Atlanta, Georgia, and he ended up being a roommate of my dad’s.

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He also ended up having a fiance. Oh, yeah. But anyway, this was I forgiven him because it got my mom to meet my dad and they ended up hitting it off. And she might say he was a rebound. I don’t know. I think that’s probably accurate.

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They started dating and she got a job there. And when he graduated, he took her back to Waco to get married in her hometown and home church. And then after that, they went down to Florida. Is your dad Catholic or no? No, it was my mom’s family. OK, they went back to Waco, Texas to get married. At what point you were I think you were. Oh, I wasn’t born yet. Yeah, no, they they just got married and then my dad got a job. This was in the late 60s, maybe 70. And he got a job at Harris Corp. Working in the Apollo program. So that’s what got them to Melbourne. That’s that’s how I ended up being born in Melbourne is he was working at Harris Corp. At the time as an engineer, you know, he just graduated from tech. He was doing kind of that industrial engineering thing. And I learned later from him that that just wasn’t just didn’t it wasn’t interesting to him. I think he thought he wanted to do that, but he didn’t like it for some reason. He ended up going back to college, went to UF to study environmental engineering. And so that’s where you know, you said I moved around a lot. I did. I think I moved two or three times while I was still in diapers. So went from Melbourne to Gainesville. He got his master’s there, I think, either right after he graduated or maybe even right before he was he graduated. He was recruited in the Law and Child Administration to come up to Tallahassee and join. I don’t think it was DER was his first job. I think he he was at a predecessor agency, but he was there right near the very beginning of the establishment of DER with some of those other old timers you’ve heard about Jay Landers and that he worked for Jay Landers. Okay. And so that brought us all up to Tallahassee. So I was still very young boy and up here in Tallahassee. He had the state job. My mom was going to FSU trying to get a get a degree in nursing. That’s kind of I think when the wheels fell off and our little family. Not that those types of things are fortuitous necessarily, but it does bring your stepfather Mac into the story. Sounds like an interesting guy. I know your dad. I do not know Mac, but I think he’s part of why you spent a lot of time moving around and also your attachment to the Navy, right? Yeah, that’s right. So he is very different from my father. He had been a corpsman in Vietnam deployed with the Marines. He was definitely his big guy, tough guy, wore a lot of that experience on his sleeve. He was a Navy guy for sure. So he came back from there and went to FSU on the GI Bill. His family is from the Panhandle. So I think he just FSU was a natural place to go. He was also in the nursing program. So yes, he was a Navy nurse. But I think if you were to try to imagine what that’s like, he was more his personality was a lot closer to the to the door gunner in full metal jacket than to like Gaylord Fokker. All right. That’s a picture. Yeah. Yeah. So a little closer to the door gunner. They both were in the same nursing school.

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Class.(…) And so they knew each other only because they were going to school together, taking classes together. But they were not together until after my my mom and dad had separated and divorced and a couple years later. And they were getting close to graduation. And I think that I made a connection. And it wasn’t long after that that we all got shipped off to San Diego, which was his first duty station after graduating became an officer. And they got married out in San Diego. And I went with them.(…) Well, let’s let’s try to contextualize your life in the middle of that now, because I mean, all that’s like, I love family dramas and and how how where people come from. And it informs how their their minds work a lot. But I want to focus on you a little bit in the midst of that. What were you like as a kid? What activities did you enjoy? I remember not having a lot of close friends. We moved a lot. You know, I was in San Diego as a six or seven or eight year old. We went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, nine, ten, eleven, went to Pensacola, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and went out to Houston, Texas for the rest of high school. And so I never really stayed in one place long enough to have very close friends. I’d meet some people in school or neighbors or whatever. And I end up having some friends. But I think because maybe because of all of the moving around or just my personality, I was kind of a bookish type. Right. I like to read books. I like I had an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64 and an Intellivision and a Betamax. So like I was in the like that’s the that’s your house was the place to be. Oh, in the 80s, we had all the all the latest tech. So but I played a lot of games. I read a lot of books and I don’t think you should cut this out. But I played Dungeons and Dragons. I mean, I was definitely a nerd. Yeah, I think it’s cool. But the academics, I think, was a huge part of how you ended up at Naval Academy. Right. I mean, they don’t let people like me in the Naval Academy.

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Yeah, I didn’t get a Dungeons and Dragons scholarship. No, I also didn’t put that on my application, though. I think that might have been a negative with my dad and my stepdad in the in the Navy and mom always working as a nurse. I was a latchkey kid and I don’t remember a lot of vacations. So yeah, schooling was was always relatively easy for me. I think I probably in a lot of places like my teachers more than I liked most of the kids I was going to school with. I wasn’t terribly outdoorsy. I did play soccer growing up and I was good enough to be kind of a bench warmer on the varsity team and in high school. And I think that helped round me out just enough to maybe be socially acceptable at some point later in high school. And that helped that helped with my application Academy.(…) Did you already know before you went to the Academy what you want to study in college?(…) The path that brought me there, obviously I was experienced or had some exposure to the Navy through my stepdad, of course, but it was really the summer of eighty six when Top Gun came out that I that I got the bug. Right. I just knew I wanted to be a pilot in the Navy and I wanted to have I wanted to be an engineer and and I wanted to relive that movie. Right. I mean, it was just it was a childhood fantasy for a 15 year old at that at that point in your life. I got a chance to go to summer camp for nerds basically at the at the Naval Academy the next year. And that just sealed the deal for me. I got to see the campus and it was a great experience. And but yeah, so I came home that next year going back to high school and immediately applied. I was appointed in eighty eight and then graduated from high school in eighty nine. Yeah. You mentioned the pilot thing and I think I’m not sure any 15 year old or or in that age range that saw Top Gun when we were kids had any other idea and they wanted to be a fighter pilot for the Navy. Your eyes had other ideas in that sense, right? Maybe genetically or maybe just because of all of the studying. But my eyes went bad. I think my sophomore year and not terrible, not not like disqualified from active duty kind of bad, but disqualified from pilot capability. You had to have perfect vision back then and you couldn’t get them your eyes surgically corrected back then. So yeah, I dropped out of the candidacy for for aviation. I think sophomore year. Not that you had to declare that early, but that was just my that was my calling back then is that’s what I wanted to do. And yeah, that changed when my site failed. That’s how I understood the policy to be used that you had a perfect eyesight and it can be corrected. Is that different? Yeah, I think it is. I don’t know when it changed exactly. But I do remember hearing later with a lot of disappointment, of course, that look at these lame kids now they can go in with crappy eyesight and get cut on and they’re they’re fine. They can become Africa. So yeah, it’s a little bit of if you can tell that yeah, there’s a little sour milk there. Definitely.(…) So you can’t be a pilot. So naturally, you choose the job that’s the exact opposite of flying around the air and that’s hanging around underwater. So I was I was a little disappointed. And when I learned from the docks that I couldn’t fly and of course, I knew the Navy had ships and that was the natural backup plan for 75 80% of the kids they’re going on ships and or submarines or something like that. I just didn’t feel like something that it was an exciting to me. And so I was looking around for other things to do and other opportunities. And there was a chance to compete for a spot to go to dive school as a midshipman, you know, as a student at the Academy. So I went the summer between my junior and senior year, I got a spot to go to Panama City Beach, Florida and go to to Navy dive school and it was it was a just a very, very cool experience. It was tough. It was a lot of fun to and I just really liked it. I liked the culture. They never made any top gun movies out of it, you know, about it but but it was a lot of fun. The culture was great. And I just liked the guys and the missions and it called to me from there. So that was what I pursued from that from that point on and a year later when I graduated I got a spot to go to to go back to dive school and become a dive officer. I want to take just a moment to talk about my friends at res. 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Cleansing water sheltering wildlife buffering storms and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Join res on their mission to restore and uplift Florida’s ecosystems. Visit www.res.us to learn more about res and their commitment to creating a resilient future for Florida. Alright, let’s get back to the conversation.(…) And talk a little bit about your jobs your duties in the Navy you were in EOD right that’s an interesting choice of jobs there. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I didn’t tell my mom that that’s what I selected for for maybe years later till it’s too late for her to intervene. So when the in the dive community in the Navy, you can you can choose to go on to additional training and learn how to diffuse military ordinance and going from kind of what you call salvage diving or traditional ships husbandry diving into into explosive ordinance disposal and again, I think it just the challenge and the, you know, being young and believing you’re immortal.(…) It just seemed exciting and I signed up for it and got a spot and went to that training and that led to all kinds of just, you know, fantastic adventures and stories and the training was was great, the opportunity to legally set off explosives, you know, for a job, I mean, just never seem real, most of the that experience, I had to pinch myself because it just it just felt like it’s too much fun to be deserving of that. I got to spend a lot of time overseas. I served in Europe, mainly in that in those in those jobs and got to go into Bosnia and clear land mines and pick up unexploded ordinance and, you know, got to do a lot of diving get to parachute. I mean, it just it was just it was awesome. Yeah, it has to be like super rewarding. Your mom does know that that’s what you do. Yeah, sorry, Mom. I withheld that from you. I survived it. So she doesn’t care anymore. So raise the question.(…) Why leave the Navy? And I think I know the answer. I think one point you said that you left for a girl. Did I get that right? I left for reasons.(…) The the next job that the Navy told me I was going to have was a what I considered a desk job in a in a pretty bleak part of the world in the Middle East. And this was in 2000. And I just thought, well, that’s the last place I want to spend the next three years of my life. Now,(…) you know, not knowing that the next year would become the epicenter of all kinds of activity. But but at that time, that just did not appeal to me. I also I served with a lot of guys who were married, some of whom had children. And I don’t remember a lot of very happy families. Yeah, you know, they and I, you know, and I grew up in a similar lifestyle. My dad didn’t deploy as much as as we were deploying, but moving around all the time and spending time from home. You know, they were very happy. Happy marriages and happy families. And I thought I knew I wanted to have a family. I, you know, I did meet my my future wife back then. And not that I necessarily knew. I mean, she would call me on this if I said, oh, I knew I was going to marry her. I knew that I wanted to have a family one day. And I knew that that that was not going to be pretty if I stayed in the Navy and in the Navy just it wasn’t exciting. Like the next thing for me wasn’t exciting. And I hate the way that sounds, as I say, because it almost sounds like I’m being selfish. Oh, it’s not fun anymore, Jeff. So okay, do something. You know, anyway, I, I also really wanted to become what I call a real engineer. I got an engineering degree from the Academy. But you know, when you’re in the Navy, you’re not, you know, with with few exceptions, you’re not using your degree. I mean, they’re, they’re, you know, English majors that fly airplanes and engineers that just fool around with the fact that they’re not going to be able to do that. I mean, it still looks like it’s an machinesative melody. I mean, so I, I spent my first kicked under like, oh, I you, people don’t even know me. They’re trying to be more that my science engineer it’s that just fool around with explosives and play. I saw myself as an engineer, I wanted to become one and I wanted to go home to Florida.

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But I think the that last one finally got my mom is where I’ll be stuck in in Hillsborough County She’s like, I don’t want to I just don’t want to move anymore And he loved it. I you know the dollar of the world. He said, you know, maybe I like yourself, but it gets tough I mean after after a while So you wind up back in in Florida and you want to do some real engineering was family The reason why you chose to come to Florida for sure. I mean I was born in Florida You know, I can’t say I was raised in Florida like in a traditional sense But my dad had always been in Tallahassee and you know, we didn’t really talk about this much But one of the things that I that I remember very fondly growing up is in the summer times I would always look forward to the chance to go and my dad would get me for a month or six weeks in the summer and And so I would fly from wherever we were living at the time back to Tallahassee And so if there’s any place that really felt like home growing up It was Tallahassee when I left the Navy edit and moved back to Tallahassee But I kind of knew I wanted to be in Florida. My my dad was still in Tallahassee He he married Cindy when I went off to college And so he was there with with Cindy’s daughters Jamie and Tracy. They were all in Tallahassee My mom and stepdad settled in Tampa where I had a brother who was still in high school at the time Uncles and aunts and so I just have a lot of family in Florida and it it felt like the place to go so yeah, when I got out of the Navy, I went back home and Stayed in Tampa for like a week before I just had to get out of there so I had done my resume already and sent it out everywhere and I just got a did a road trip and met with a bunch of engineering firms and I think I picked my firm and Agreed to a you know a start date in about a week and I think I was working like the next week Yeah,(…) and I guess I don’t want to gloss over too much of that because I mean it’s the reason why you came back was to to to do engineering but But I want to talk about your transition from being a working engineer to the that world of policy because your father(…) Famously involved in environmental policy in Florida for many decades. When did you start feeling?

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That need to edge in that direction. It wasn’t for many years later I was doing engineering for for company called isominger and stubs engineering in Palm Beach County You’re very niche a small engineering firm is a great fit for me I don’t think I would have done well going to a big production engineering company because I was a brand new engineer at 30 years Old right? I would have been in the cubbyholes or cubicles with with 22 year olds and and I don’t know that that would have gone Well, but but Charlie isominger. He was my mentor my first job my first boss out of out of the Navy and(…) And he was great. He just threw me right into into project management and and and helped me become a real engineer He was not I shouldn’t say it’s not fair to say he wasn’t a policy guy But I think he was focused on serving the client in engineering But he did encourage me to get involved in professional associations And so I joined the Florida engineering society very early and(…) To my in my career and and then I volunteered on one of the committees there’s a policy committees at Florida engineering society and one of them was an environmental committee called CEQ conservation and environmental quality committee and I and and and so Here’s kind of the the part of the connections that begin to happen. So my dad was a lobbyist at that time. He had left DER left it was(…) doing lobbying for the chamber and for lots of other folks including Florida engineering society and He served the conservation environmental quality committee as a policy and advisor and lobbyist when I joined that committee I got to see my dad as a as a lobbyist and I begin to really understand for the very first time What it meant what policy meant and and I begin to slowly Understand the benefit maybe in client service Knowing what maybe changes are happening at DEP or things like that And I you know I would pick those up at those at those committees and then what it meant When I would see him over Thanksgiving or Christmas is now I could have a conversation with him and it wasn’t just complete Chinese arithmetic coming out of his mouth. I could start to understand what he did started to make more sense Still wasn’t terribly interesting to me though at the time I didn’t want to become a lobbyist or become a policy guy What I wanted to be is a regular engineer and have a family It wasn’t long after I moved to Palm Beach County that the January came, you know came home Our family was from South Florida. We we reconnected down there and started a family down there How did you end up in? Tallahassee eventually was it when you ended up at DP or was it before? No, it was actually before then(…) This would have been 2007 or 8 maybe a year earlier than that but right around then we had a client in North, Florida We were spending some time up in North Florida working on that project was actually showpoint Marina Not too far from here And I think we had had one kid Maybe just had our second kid and we had decided that she went to FSU and and you know I’ve got lots of family in Tallahassee We both decided it seems like at the same time that hey Wouldn’t it be better to raise a family up in Tallahassee than down here in Palm Beach County? No offense to the Palm Beach County folks, but we like the small town feel better and yeah My Charlie Aseminger supported the move and we opened up a small Tallahassee office a one-man Tallahassee office And I was working up here What kind of projects were you working on when you when you had your office up here in Tallahassee? Well show show point Marina was was a big project that occupied a lot of my time I spent my time between design and permitting and and that that project needed a lot of both But I was still working on projects that I’d started in South Florida And I picked up a little bit of work here and there up here But that was if you remember back in that time frame That was when the real estate economy was really starting to slide into the ditch and there weren’t a ton of Development projects up here and so did it you know just kept chipping away at at the work And so at some point you end up at DEP. I spent a little time there We were there at the same time with Herschel Vineyard who recruited you to do that How did that happen? Was it him or was it someone else? Yeah, that’s a that’s a great story You remember that committee I mentioned earlier that conservation committee at FES So we had an annual meeting We Florida Engineering Society had an annual meeting of that committee up here in Tallahassee And people that served on that committee around the state would drive up and and we did that So we could have a face-to-face with with some of the leadership of DEP And so this was the the CEQ meeting in early 2011 I think it would would have been February Herschel Vineyard had been appointed maybe a week earlier And I don’t know if you remember but the transition team I think accepted Most of the resignation letters from most of the senior leadership at DEP So he he basically inherited an agency with not a lot of of the leadership positions filled And so he he came to the committee meeting and kind of introduced himself and described his vision For the agency and made an appeal to those of us who may be interested in in serving May have been because he was talking a bunch of engineers, but he also said I’m looking for some Engineers I want to you know want to do some good work and describe that vision and it called to me So after the meeting was over I I picked up the phone and called my boss and told him what I had Heard and told him that I really liked what I heard I kind of described it and I said hey Would you support me throwing my name in the hat just to you know I might get an interview I might get to meet the guy no chance he’s going to hire me I think I was 39 and had no gray hair And I was sure that he would want a gray haired wiser person than me maybe with with a more even Temperament than me I don’t know I didn’t know what he was looking for but I threw my name in the Hat and got an interview and that’s how I actually met him was it awkward I was there a little bit Later I think it was a year after he started at at DEP was it awkward going into a place where You’re kind of playing that whole turned over apple cart rebuild it back into something that Functioned differently I never thought about it that way Herschel and I have shared lots of those Memories of those early days at DEP and the way the way I think I would characterize it I think The way he would characterize it too I think we both felt like I don’t know why wide-eyed or Kind of deer in the headlights we didn’t know what the rules were neither of us had spent any time in State government I think I think when I interviewed that was my first time in the douglas building I mean I didn’t know anything about DEP and suddenly I’ve got that job and I think Secretary Vineyard kind of felt the same way like wow this okay so this is the restroom you know how does This work you know what what is my day supposed to be over here so I think we I think we we had an Understanding I know he he spent some time with the newly elected governor Scott about his vision Herschel had a vision for what he wanted at the agency in it again that was a vision that Resonated with me he expected us to find ways to reduce unnecessary burdens not not enforcing Environmental laws but finding ways to enforce them more efficiently so that those those burdens could Be lowered focusing more on you know the outcome than the process and those were you know as an engineer All of that stuff I just I ate that up all right let’s pause for a moment to talk about my friends at sea and shoreline as we in florida wonder what the future holds when we face the storm season Ahead sea and shoreline is working to protect our coastline communities against severe storms By installing a variety of green and gray infrastructure solutions to make our cities And counties more resilient these solutions include seagrass restoration mangroves oyster reefs riprap oyster breakwaters and something called a WOD which stands for wave attenuation device By installing their patented WODS sea and shoreline can help protect our communities against sea level rise And storm surges by diffusing wave energy stopping shoreline erosion and even rebuilding shorelines Through sand accretion to learn more about how sea and shoreline can protect your community Visit sea and shoreline.com all right let’s get back to the conversation(…) And I guess maybe that’s why I perhaps attribute that that potential awkwardness is neither one of you were government folks or a lot of those government people that have been around for a bit before then and so you walk in it’s like you have an idea what you want to do is like but you don’t know how to do it I think interestingly I mean that became the subject of depending on the week it seemed like the subject of some controversy for you for Herschel what was your approach because I don’t think it was like you were being intentionally controversial like hey we’re going to do this thing that’s going to make someone upset on a on a given moment what was your mindset going into some of the changes that you specifically were working on at the department well you’re right and your characterization of kind of how we were I think covered sometimes by the media but but our our attitude my attitude I’ll speak for myself I was focused on how to get to answers faster you know yes or no I felt like you shouldn’t have to you know get into an unending back and forth with the agency trying to get to a permit decision so you know I also learned through that process with the difference between something that I could just say by decree and it could happen and then and then things that the lawyers would say oh no that that would take rulemaking so you can’t do that so anyway I did I did stumble around a lot in in that world but one of the things that I learned that I could control I tried to pull on those levers and one of the one of the very earliest ones and I think it may still be policy today is on the request for additional information I said all of the the permit processors you get one and then your second one needs to be signed off by your supervisor and you know by the time we get to the third one I’m asking a division director to sign off on it and and I’m the only one that can improve a fourth RAI and I there were no four RAIs that never happened so I think that sent the clear message that I wanted you know I wanted us to get to to answers faster I wasn’t putting my finger on the scale I never asked anybody to you know say yes more often I just wanted to get them to get to answers another thing that we did is we really looked hard at where we were spending our time and energy and one of one of the areas that I felt like we were really spending our wheels is pursuing what I would just call paperwork violations you know folks that had filled out their annual report incorrectly and we would launch the the salvo at them and send lawyer letters and and drag them through the knot hole and charge them 500 dollars and I thought that that didn’t it just didn’t sit right with me there wasn’t any environmental impact associated with a paperwork violation but we were spending the majority of our time maybe 80 of our enforcement effort was on those types of activities so I said let’s get out in the field and communicate with the folks that we regulate we called it compliance assistance and and that was one of those things that I think became controversial I was convinced I continue to be convinced that that’s a better way to regulate if folks that have questions feel like if they call the regulatory agency and it may result in a bad letter from a lawyer you might not call anymore so you just don’t felt like a cops and robbers type of type of relationship but when we got out in the field kind of put our left our enforcement or inspector hat in the car and just started working with people we found that there was just a lot of confusion and a lot of of lack of knowledge about what was expected of them by us and in that interaction I think we we improved our relationships with the folks that we regulated and and I and and that was one of those things that for some reason you know was controversial the fact that we had less penalties or less fines collected or the the feeling that if you go out in the field and meet with a mom and pop and help them understand what the paperwork requirements were that that’s somehow being too cozy with the regulated I never understood why that was controversial but that was controversial yeah I think it was and and some of that carried over to our work at the northwest water management district I think maybe incorrectly people were correlating the number of fines and maybe those decreasing with a correlative decrease in compliance with the rule of law and I don’t think that was the case I know it wasn’t the case at northwest florida no but I don’t think it was a case of dpi no definitely not and and I really was bothered by that characterization of our mission as if our job was to penalize people and and I think I even was allowed once to write an op-ed I think it was my one and only op-ed when I was when I was a dv but I I remember writing an article about equating that to and the you know I’ve never been a teacher but in the in the profession of education you certainly wouldn’t reward teachers on how many f’s you hand out right it’s you’re going to measure your performance as a teacher by how successful your students were and and I felt like that a regulated community that had a close working relationship with the regulator that worked together on solving issues that worked together to avoid violations that would that would create better outcomes for the environment and I and I think that that that bears out and even as I was leaving we started to see some changing in the discussion at epa for example they they began a compliance assistance program not not long after I left and I was happy to see that I think it is a better way to work with the regulator and the regulated other they’re just so few I mean this is not the 1970s with the rivers on fire and people intentionally piping their wastewater out into the environment this is a day and age where the vast vast majority of people and companies want to do everything they can to maintain compliance but we have a very complicated set of environmental regulations and not everybody has a full environmental staff or can avoid or can can afford a high-priced environmental attorney or consultant to help them and and in those cases they sometimes just make mistakes because they don’t know yeah and when did you leave the department I forget which which year it was I think I was already gone by then almost certainly it was 2014 so I joined right before the session in 2011 so it would have been March of 2011 and I left in June of 2014 was that how it was always going to go that you want to go in and get a get a taste for it have a you know maybe have a little fun possibly and then move on or was your expectation I’m gonna do this for for a long time if I enjoy it I didn’t really have a set expectation on how long I would stay I mean I told secretary vineyard you you can count on me for at least two years I’m not going to just come in and leave in six months I think I had convinced my family and myself that I could gut it out for at least four years I didn’t quite make four years but it was definitely hard I mean we as much fun as we had it was constant activity a lot of travel a lot of time away from the house and the family and at that time I think my kids when I when I left the ep I think my kids were five no seven five and three so we’re very they were all very young and my wife was at home with them and I was just away a lot it was it was hard on the family there there was another component to my decision as well you know the governor was coming up for reelection I think secretary vineyard I’m not sure that anybody in the public knew at the time but I think he’d pretty much let everybody know he was done at the end of the term so there wasn’t much time left for his term either my dad had been telling me for a year or so that he he was really ready to retire and I wanted an opportunity to work with him I never worked with him I mean I’ve worked around him I’ve been I’ve seen him work but I as a kid I got to see him in the summers but I never really had a time where I could spend a lot of time with him professionally and and I wanted to have that experience before he retired and so you know he and I talked at some point after session and and we just decided this was a good time did you enjoy that I really did I think I had about a year before he hung up his spurs and and really wrapped everything up his partner Doug Mann was still he worked for several years after that they were fantastic mentors I I’d never intended to become a lobbyist I’m not sure that I could even say I ever really became a lobbyist and certainly not in the way that my dad or Doug Mann were right but it was very cool to have a chance to work at little john man and associates that have been around for at that time maybe 30 years and and learned that trade from them before before he left uh and then you know it was just it was a great experience well lobbying or not you’re easily the most prolific person I can think of when it comes to the number of businesses side hustles full hustles I don’t even know what you call them that you’ve gotten yourself involved in I ran through some of them I think most of them in the intro did I miss any other secret businesses you own or or jobs that you have not that I’m willing to disclose in this format there you go no that was everything so individually you know I think they’re all interesting um some of the things that you’re working on I think are really cool is there a theme to the the collection of them or is it kind of like that Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage thing you don’t know how to say no to a job I have I’m really blessed with the opportunity to do things that I want to do and that I like to do and I rarely work long on things that I don’t enjoy and and I and I realize it’s a luxury I mean I try even when I’m tired or I feel like I’ve got too much on my plate I I try to remember I reflect that a I chose this you know this is my fault there’s nobody else who said yes but but these are things that I am passionate about and I do truly enjoy and it helps me stay energized which is why I think I am doing as much as I’m doing is I’m having a lot of fun I’m working with people that I really respect and I really enjoy working with and I really enjoy the issues and so I’m there isn’t a thing I’m working on right now that I could happily say bye to so I so I don’t I just I just work for you just add on to it well I mean let’s I mean let’s run through at least some if not I want to at least a little bit on all of them because I think they’re all worth talking about first what’s the National Stormwater Trust and what makes it special I really love this company so National Stormwater Trust as the name implies it it’s a stormwater focus company I spent a lot of my time working on this issue I think a lot of people that would listen to this realize that stormwater is a hot topic in Florida and we we’ve recognized that and I think a lot of people in our industry recognize that we’re not going to be able to develop Florida the way we have the last 40 years and so we really do need new tools in the toolbox National Stormwater Trust brought a pretty cool new tool to the toolbox in Florida that we call smart ponds and so we we we got a smart pond technology approved by the water management districts and DEP and we’re starting to add that type of technology into stormwater facilities here in Florida I think our claim to fame where we really showed up on the map is when we approached DOT in 2019 and won a big contract to upgrade DOT’s existing ponds into smart ponds and people are still surprised when I tell them that we have that that opportunity so so now we lease ponds from DOT take those pond permits to the water management districts ask for the upgrade to a smart pond get all of that entitled in a permit and in doing so we are we’re also generating water quality credits that we have arranged a way to transfer those credits to third parties through it through an ERP and we were the first folks to figure out how to make that happen and I think it’s it’s a pretty cool new tool it gives us an opportunity to upgrade a big regional DOT pond and make it more efficient and generate regional water quality benefits and then and then transfer some of those to folks in the watershed and it’s been fun working on on that because it’s kind of groundbreaking and on the cutting edge of I think where we’re going and I’m happy to see that provision is built into the new generation of stormwater regulations and so that I think that’s a an endorsement in some way by by DEP that this is a this is a way that we can really cost effectively lower nutrient loading and when a watershed through through programs and projects like this it is but I think for me personally it’s the the next one that captures the imagination for me more and not just because I work with you a little bit on it and that’s on-site performance talk about that a little because it was one of the the the great white whales of springs and we had a huge number of springs in in north florida you know in northwest florida as well and dealing with septic tanks dealing with wastewater utilities in sparsely populated areas is a real challenge in terms of making it worth the cost talk about on-site little and how it’s kind of changing the way that people think about that I I do love what we’re doing at on-site and if if I could go back to my DEP experience for just a second one thing that I was certain I never wanted to get involved with when I was a DEP is anything to do with septic tanks I just I knew and this is a like you said a white whale really tough issues right you’re talking about folks that you know have a septic tank they’re legally entitled to it now we find out because we’ve allowed too many in a given area we’re creating problems and now we we as a government are asking them to come back and change and that that’s really tough and this company is a wastewater technology company that really is just marrying existing types of technologies in a new and unique way and bringing it to the marketplace in a in a really novel way and and I’ve enjoyed becoming a part of it so the short version of what it is and how it works and why it’s cool is the company has miniaturized a wastewater treatment plant into a form factor that can be used or sized for a single family home and and so this is not an advanced septic tank this is a miniaturized wastewater plant and it is it is controlled in in real time remotely through a connection the internet in a SCADA system by a licensed operator just like a large wastewater plant when we piloted the technology with DEP we were talking with them about the opportunity to permit a system of these individual units in the hundreds or thousands potentially by virtue of their network connectivity and their central control and their and in a common ownership arrangement you know could you DEP permit or issue a permit to a city municipal utility and under that permit allow them to retrofit hundreds or thousands of septic tanks under a single permit and DEP love the idea because I think they recognize this this puts a professional operator in charge of that of the compliance of that unit in a in a wastewater permit that gives DEP a lot of enforceability to ensure that the the effluent limits are met and all the conditions are met and they were very comfortable issuing permits to wastewater operators you know to municipal wastewater utilities they were struggling with how to deal with you know homeowner owned equipment like septic tanks so so the the model just fit and we’ve enjoyed some success getting that model out in the field places like the city of Apopka or Lake County it’s been a lot of fun. One of my own misconceptions going in learning more about what you were up to is the comparison to the typical modern but we call it you know the advanced on-site septic unit and it sounds for someone like myself who is going into it as layman doesn’t understand the distinction between the two but there’s a huge difference and I think you talk a little bit about that in terms of there’s a centralized brain are there any other distinctions and the treatment itself is also better right? I don’t think it would be fair to all of the equipment technology companies the technology companies in the space to say that we are head and shoulders higher performing. I think there are some units out there that have done very well in testing comparing test numbers to our results I think there are some that are that are pretty close but I think the main difference is we are continuously monitoring and operating the equipment and every month sampling the effluent and taking the the grab samples to a lab and having it tested by the lab and turning those lab results to dp so it just it has to do with how much testing we’re doing and how much verification of that performance. It’s one thing to go through a testing program achieve high marks in a controlled environment and then go deploy those units out in the field not knowing how the homeowners are going to actually use them and what we learned as we’ve deployed units in the city of Apopka homeowners are amazingly varied.(…) How much wastewater they generate even you know from home to home certainly and even at the same home from from week to week or month to month and and being able to have a computer on board that’s seeing all of that and making those changes in real time and then having a real human professional operator that oversees it we’re making changes to the to the plant recipe and process all the time. Okay job number three is your senior advisor at the abs and reese law firm with a mutual friend of ours and former secretary your former boss and mine Herschel Vineyard. How did the two of you get hooked up? That’s also a little a little bit of a story well first I greatly respect Herschel Vineyard and I’ve always enjoyed every opportunity to work with him for him. My job number three before I joined Adams and Reese was I was still at little John Mann and associates only there was no Doug Mann anymore and there were no associates it was it was just me and I haven’t ever been a 100% full-time lobbyist but I had a handful of clients there including the Florida Engineering Society and the Florida Ports Council those are fantastic clients and I want to continue to help them but I was a solo practitioner in a lobbying firm of one and also trying to do other things too and administrative and kind of you know paperwork burden associated with owning a lobbying company is it’s not it’s not insignificant so when Herschel joined Adams and Reese he let me know that they could find a home for me over there even with my kind of unusual work situation(…) they were not afraid of me having you know other things going on at that firm and and that was really different I’d been approached by a couple of other firms over the years about maybe joining them or bringing my book into another lobbying firm but there was never it wasn’t just that there wasn’t an appreciation for what I was doing there was really a kind of an intolerance for this idea that I can do all these other things on the side but but at Adams and Reese they’ve got a very entrepreneurial mindset and I think the head of the government relations practice group at the time happened to be a professional engineer that owned an engineering firm as well as working at Adams and Reese and that really appealed to me and of course working for Herschel appealed to me so yeah I closed the books on Little John Mann and essentially just moved everything over to Adams and Reese and I’m doing the same thing there as I was at Little John Mann. Okay now now I’m gonna move on to job number four where you decided to dive straight into the multimedia news business by buying the Florida Specifier pretty well known it’s been around for I think like four decades maybe even more it’s a you know an industry paper for environmental professionals here in Florida and now you’re trying to work with a a crack young team of folks to work with you to expand its reach expanded utility as well what on earth were you thinking when you said let’s do this? The way you described that or asked that question I’m not sure yeah I’m not sure I really did fully think about it. I certainly didn’t need more on my plate but I will confess that Ryan Matthews and I who are both partnered on at Florida Environmental Network where we produced the summer school with that company you know we’ve been thinking over the years over the last few years about how you know is there anything else we can do to grow the summer school and the answer as long as we remain in Marco Island is kind of no you know we’re really kind of busting at the seams down there there there’s no way that I’m you know want to continue to grow that thing to the point where we’d have to move it to Orlando or something like that so you know how do you how do you do more fun stuff like that and you know I didn’t want to do a second class in Marco that didn’t make any sense but we we were trying to you know we were brainstorming and this we learned from the the then current publisher of the specifier that there was an opportunity to to get involved in that paper talked to Ryan and we thought sure we could we could maybe maybe there’s some synergy here with the types of issues that we talk about at Marco and the people that were that are involved in communicating those issues and topics through panels and panelists and speakers and and get them involved in you know providing content and essentially doing kind of what we’re doing in Marco but have that content delivered every other month to your mailbox and that was kind of the kernel of the idea still not sure it’s still not sure sure yeah I think it reinvented itself every few days or so right but it seems like kind of how I’ve seen it in you know my the small part that I play which by the way listeners if you’re not enjoying the sound of my voice you’re going to be in real trouble because in addition to taking over the the print edition the editorial board of the paper which I’m a part of with you and Ryan it’s going to do another podcast but it’s going to be more direct issue related news related and and so I think the maybe the idea is as we add things to it that you want to see as you said before you can only have environmental permitting summer school once a year or it’s too much but can you do these other bits where you kind of have summer school all year round where people have these things that they can turn to for Florida professionals to know about what’s going on and what people are up to yeah I think that’s exactly right Brad I’m I’m very excited about what we could the potential to provide content like this have you really because you’re you’re the the one with the talent and the and the great voice for this format you’re you if you can get really compelling content by talking to people and and through conversation you know whether it’s one-on-one or in groups like we have down at Marco I think people really appreciate the when you’re when you’re done with all the powerpoint presentations and you’re just having a conversation yeah right you’ve got experts maybe they come from different different parts of our industry and they all have their expertise they all have an opinion and through those conversations I think we we can really unpack some some issues and and I think just think that’s very valuable I think that’s one of the reasons people like to go down to Marco is they want to have that time to meet with people and and it’s not just the networking I think it’s really just that unscripted those unstructured conversations in the hallway and things that happen after again after the presentations are over and you’re just in a discussion mode with the panel and if we can create place where people can go online and get that kind of content we can push that kind of content out to people I think I think I think people would appreciate that I know I would yeah I agree let’s move to the the kind of closing out you and I you know spend a fair amount of time I think it’s important though and I think that it’s your fault because you have like 7500 jobs but let’s get to that final race to the end what professional accomplishment are you most proud of so far it definitely has to be my time at DEP I thoroughly enjoyed my job as a consulting engineer at the time I was in it I had no idea that kind of my horizon was limited by where by where I was and when I went to DEP just the opportunity to work the issues I was working and meet the people that I had a chance to meet there and then work with those kind of high quality people there and and the people we got to to work with in that role there’s just no substitution for that kind of experience there would be no other way to go from where I was 10 years ago to where I am now without that job and again the the the issues and the people and the the kind of the mind expanding experience that that was it’s hard to imagine a better place in my career than that and I looking back I mean it was definitely hard but it was also it was hard work but it was a lot of fun I like the positive outlook there and so I focus in on that for for a second for the next question which is of that time there as fruitful as it was was there was there something that you left on the table that you wished you’d either done differently while you were there and had the choice or that if you’d been given a little bit more time that you would have done a little differently oh that’s a hard one I I think that jobs like that at least the way the way I experienced it it felt like we were always dealing with issues coming from every direction and and it almost felt a little bit like crisis management all the time as opposed to being able to set the team you want create a very high functioning cohesive team we were we were trying to do that in the face of a lot of just kind of constant distraction I learned a lot about leadership at that job I mean I had spent some time in the navy but I never had an opportunity in any prior role to to work with and serve and also supervise that many people and I I think back to the those deer in the headlights moments when I felt overwhelmed and I had a I had a mentor at DEP I haven’t mentioned his name yet I want to make sure I do Mike Halpin I don’t know if you remember Mike I do he was such a great man and just a wonderful resource really a fantastic and intuitive leader and he he was the difference between me kind of struggling that whole time and not having any fun and not getting nearly as much done as I wanted to and and getting I think we got a lot done could we have done more absolutely maybe I put a should have put Mike in my spot and I could have I could have done something different you know I wanted to get the 404 assumption program done while we were there I don’t think we had an EPA that had any interest in that but we took a run at that I mean there were a few things that I I certainly might have done differently knowing kind of how things went but no I don’t really have any regrets and and I don’t I don’t think I I don’t think I had any left in me by the time I left so I’m gonna say no that’s a fair answer okay it’s a long way of saying that but it’s fair answer are you optimistic about the future of the environment in Florida I am no I am I I know that humans are very innovative and as long as you don’t prevent them from thinking creatively and working the problem I think we can do a lot of great things and I and I think this is a what Florida has it’s really great I mean I know we have environmental issues here but we also have a very enabling environment for problem solving and I think we’re going to solve a lot of our a lot of our own problems I mean if humans can solve the great horse manure crisis of 1893 I think we can we can manage to find a way to clean up our water(…) is there anything that keeps you up at night about the environment that you don’t know I mean engineers are great at solving problems is there something out there that you’re I don’t know how we’re gonna do that yeah I’m afraid about the way we talk to each other nowadays I’m afraid of that in the public discourse we are not being effective I don’t like inefficient or ineffective policies that are being driven by either ideology or being driven by a public perception rather than than reality right I so I do hope that we can find ways to communicate with each other more effectively I don’t think you know hot topics in the media are the best way to do problem solving I think we have to roll our sleeves up if we’re going to actually solve problems we have to actually talk to each other in a in a meaningful and productive way and I think that’s that’s hard what advice would you give to a young person who’s thinking about entering or has just entered the environmental field that’s another good one never stop learning I think you should get out on the skinny part of the limb and try new things I don’t again I think we’ve got to innovate our way through a lot of the issues we have and I think that humans are really good at that and and you should encourage young people in your organizations wherever you are to to think outside of the box maybe talk to people that you disagree with but really talk to them don’t just disagree with them if people are interested in learning more about how you can help them which of your three odd thousand emails is the best one for folks to reach I’ll put it I’ll put you know all your info on the episode notes but which one do you prefer probably Adams and Reese is the easiest place to get to me uh Jeff dot little john at at arlaw.com there you have it and I’ll put it out there for you folks as well Jeff little john thanks so much for coming on the show I’ve enjoyed it Brett thank you well that’s it for this episode thanks for listening to Water for Fighting this podcast has been brought to you by Res and Cn Shoreline don’t forget to check the episode notes to visit their websites and learn more about how they can help you if you’re enjoying the show please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use and don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review you can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, probably even twitter at FL WaterPod and you can reach me directly at flwaterpod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance a very special thank you goes out to Bow Spring from the Bow Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast the song is called “Doing Work for Free” and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State until then keep your whiskey close and water closer

Carter Henne

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett gets a visit from his friend and President of Sea & Shoreline – Carter Henne. They talk about growing up outdoors and on the water in Polk County; how his desire to create sustainable marine ecosystems drew him first to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and then Sea & Shoreline founder Jim Anderson; the things we’ve been getting wrong about seagrass restoration in the past and how that’s changed; and a look at some of the work he’s doing to now to protect coastlines and natural systems that extend far beyond just seagrasses.

On a lighter note, they also discuss the importance of securing boat’s motor before reaching the middle of a lake as well as the world of competitive underwater bicycle racing (yes, that’s a real thing). If you want to hear Carter’s alligator stories, you’ll have to ask about those in person.

To check out the things Carter and the good folks at Sea & Shoreline to make Florida better, visit their website here: https://seaandshoreline.com

To check out some stories about the great work Sea & Shoreline are doing to restore manatee habitat in the Crystal River, go here: https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/full-circle/saving-our-springs-a-day-with-the-underwater-gardeners-at-sea-and-shoreline and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HscircgSUFU and here: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/gma3/video/rehabilitation-efforts-protect-dying-groups-manatees-98730763 and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwANZ9GOI2Y and here: https://www.chronicleonline.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-l-state-officials-tour-waterways-under-restoration/article_bd29bf3b-bcca-5cf4-9900-c35af44b7d40.html

Want to see Carter’s team feed manatees? Go here: drive.google.com/file/d/1QmpruTsRWwX8TsejsopOgj0-Hhf6EH5C/view

You can also see what the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are doing to restore vital habitat here: https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/impaired-waters-tmdls-and-basin-management-action-plans

What is the Southwest Florida Water Management District doing to help this habitat? Plenty – so check out their partnering efforts here: https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/swim/crystal-river-kings-bay

Please support this episode’s sponsor, RES.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

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Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida, where the people make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers.

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This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by Resource Environmental Solutions. Res is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us.

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Alright, I think you’re all going to like this week’s guest a lot, Carter Henney. He’s a Polk County guy who I describe as a cross between Jacques Cousteau and Steve Irwin. He’s a marine biologist with an entrepreneurial spirit. He spent some time in his early professional life working at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. Carter’s now the president of Sea and Shoreline, and I’m psyched he agreed to give me some time while he was in town.

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Carter, it’s great to see you here in Tallahassee. Welcome, sir. Hey, happy to be here. Thank you. So, you were born in Winterhaven, and we have a lot of Polk coming through this, I’m using my quote fingers here, studio. But your story, like many people’s, like my family’s as well, did not begin in Polk County necessarily. Talk to me about your parents a little bit. They’re from Indiana, or at least they met in Indiana? That’s right, and it’s not surprising that you’d have people from Polk. It’s pretty much the center of the universe, according to us. Yeah, so family, my parents met at Indiana University. My dad was going there for optometry school at the time, and my mom was going through law school. And, you know, just like every good college romance, they met in the laundromat and struck it up, and that was it. I want to go back just a little bit further, just because it’s an interesting story, and I’ll tell people as well, it’s like, it’s a long winding tale for you. But I liken you kind of to a mix I was thinking about the other day, I was like, how to describe Carter Henning. I think it’s a cross between Jacques Cousteau and Steve Irwin. And we’ll get to some of that later. But I think some of that personality comes probably from your grandfather. He was a professional baseball player and a bunch of other things as well. Tell me about him a little bit. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s actually how my dad was born and grew up in Polk County. My grandpa was hired on as the first faculty member of Polk State College, Polk Community College at the time, now Polk State College. He went on. So my dad grew up in Polk County, went to Winter Haven High School, went to the same high schools as my dad. My dad actually went to Polk State College or Community College at the time, then to USF. And then I guess there was only two or three optometry schools in the country at the time. And one of those was at Indiana University. And that’s how he ended up there. And then my mom, she’s from, I think it’s Kindleville. My little sister’s Kindle. And then she grew up basketball fans, whole family, big Bobby Knight folks. And it just was a natural fit for her to go to Indiana. Yeah. And it’s funny. It’s like obviously, you know, basketball is life up there. But you and I talked not long ago about yourself. And you played some sports, but basketball wasn’t one of them. Is that sacrilege? Like was your mom heartbroken?

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Yeah, no, she wasn’t heartbroken because my older brother, he was good at it. So he played basketball. I played some sports, obviously, baseball, basketball growing up. And we would go, my grandpa would take us up to the University of Kentucky where he played for basketball camp. I remember just long, long, long road trips going up to Kentucky with him in the fast lane, everyone going around us in Atlanta traffic.

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But we got to play with the players and because of his relationships at the time, I think Calipari was the coach there. And just got to see the behind the scenes aspect of it, which was really nice. Nice. But let’s get to you a little bit. You mentioned a little bit of sports, but I want to talk about what you were like as a kid. Beyond the sports, you had to spend a lot of time outdoors. So I’m the middle child. My mom or my parents had three children and she affectionately refers to us as the three black sheep of the family. I’d say I’d probably take most of that honor. Yeah, she wanted us outside. So I was the youngest kid in the neighborhood. I was the middle child of our own family. And all the other neighborhood kids were, I don’t know, probably two to 10 years older than us and or older than me. And so it was just general goofing off. There was a cul-de-sac. And at the time in central Florida, not every lot was developed. Some had trees on it and there was some swamps behind it and some retention areas. And we go back in and tree forts and just general little kid stuff. It was on a big hill. Surprisingly, it was on the edge of Eagle Ridge. And so we’d get skateboards or bicycles or roller blades and figure out how fast we could go and what we could break and just general messing around. At some point, though, I think you’d mentioned I think you were about maybe 11 or 12. You said you moved to live on a lake itself. Which one was that? Yeah, that was Lake Daisy. So that was awesome. So growing up on a neighborhood off the lake was fun. My dad would take us down fishing to the local boat ramps. But then it was in your backyard and you could do it. And then that’s when it became something that I not only liked to do, but I could do it whenever I wanted to. And I could get good at it. And so I was just constantly in the water. Started out with a John boat. Had a John boat with a motor for about three days and or see me three hours and the tiller handles PSA. If you put a motor on a boat, make sure it’s all the screws are tightened down so it hangs on to the transom.(…) But yeah, so sank the motor and I was back down to Ores. So now it’s like I’ll skip I’ll skip board real quick for that. It’s like, do you the folks that you work with now, you all spend a lot of time on boats. Did they have to double check when when you’re in charge of a boat that you use draft motor on? Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve been known to mess one up. Right. So speaking of water, speaking of fishing, speaking of being on the boat, you actually started you say the first fishing club ever. And it was in Florida or is it beyond that? So going back to sports,(…) I always our entire family is incredibly competitive at weird things. And I’ve got that competitive gene. All my friends were going to play football in high school. And I said, well, I’ve never played football before. All the cool kids are doing it. There’s cheerleaders. Let’s let’s do it. So bad idea. I remember being on special teams of defensive end and special teams. I really just defended the water bottle mostly. But the special teams was just a kick in the pants. And I remember going south. This is ridiculous. You better pick a sport that you’re good at. And the only thing I was good at was fishing. And so I went to the I think it was Dean of Students at the time and a couple of buddies. And we started the first high school fishing team or club in the country at the time, which was just a ton of fun. We would go out anyone from canoes kayaks to full scale bass boats. We had cheerleaders the way the fish in the Dean of Students would boil peanuts and drink Bushlight on the edge of the bank. And it was just really, really good. And it went from just our high school to the following year. We got other schools in Polk County and then regional and then statewide. And then some of the folks actually that were original members went on to professional bass fish. And some started teams in colleges. And now it is where it is today, which is really cool to see. Yeah. I mean, we talked about that a little bit on the phone. I was most astounded by how much the purse was of this fishing competition. You said some guys wanted to be pros. Like being pro at fishing happens to be pretty lucrative if you’re any good at it, right? Yeah, it’s crazy.(…) You’re in high stakes. I mean, it’s just man versus beast out there. And it’s just it’s awesome. What was that? What was that first, like three and a half million dollars? Two point eight. Two point eight. Two point eight.(…) So you can read more about it on it’s been all over Barstool Sports. It’s been over all kinds of different magazines lately and a couple lawsuits filed out of it. But we’ll see.

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So speaking of your time on the wire, this is in high school, even a little bit before, did that have an impact on your mindset? Was there something going on at the time where you’re like, hey, this may be something that I want to do for a living, not just the fishing itself, but in terms of how you saw the natural world around you? Yeah, that’s a great question. So I’ve always been a little bit quirky and always excited about the outdoors and really curious and trying to understand it. And when you’re fishing, fishing isn’t hard. It’s just recognizing patterns and then recognizing with enough conviction that you’re changing what you’re doing. So it’s just really repetitive. And growing up in Polk County, the mantra was we had 100 lakes within city limits and you would see lakes in some sort of development or natural or whatever the case may be. And you got to see these repetitious cycles of clean water and habitat being overly developed and poorly managed. And so you get to see all these different cycles. And that was always really curious to me. I knew I wanted to work outside. I didn’t know what that looked like. But just the beauty of what we do and working in the environment is there’s really no right answers. There’s less wrong answers and then just figuring out teasing away the gray. And that’s what I love to do. Is that what took you to USF then? You studied biology at USF, right? Right. Was that something that fed you into that or was it still, hey, biology gives me some options in terms of just being in a scientific field? Yeah, so my dad’s an optometrist.(…) There was a heavy campaign pressure to become an optometrist. There’s nothing wrong with the sport or the profession. I’m sorry, dad. It just wasn’t for me. And I knew that in my heart of hearts, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be outside. And one of the smartest things I’ve ever done was a ridiculously stupid thing is just sit in my dorm room by myself, probably with a couple libations. And just like every other college student trying to figure out what they want to do with their life. And what I did was I started with a blank sheet of paper and started at the top. And I kind of wrote what my attributes and what I was good at and what I was passionate about. And then on the next line, I would try to write jobs that I thought had those qualities. And then I just kept going down into a triangle, upside down triangle, lower and lower.(…) And I got to the end and became a professional fisherman or a farmer. I really didn’t have a conviction on whether I wanted to be one or the other. So I just googled fish farming and just fell in love with aquaculture and farming fish. And I knew it would take me outside. I knew it would feed my creativity side. I knew it would from my intellectual side. And it was a growing industry and I thought I could make a mark at it. And so through school, I didn’t specialize in marine bio or botany or environmental. It was kind of, hey, if I can’t get this aquaculture thing going, then I can fall back and become an optometrist. And really that helped me out in my career because I took a lot of intensive chemistry, biochem and a lot of those courses. And also I was like, I’ll tell people, if you see Carter in person somewhere, I want to get into too much for now. But I asked a question because I’m talking about your time in college. And I talked to one of your colleagues before you and I sat down to talk. And they said, hey, ask Carter about the alligator story. And I said to you on the phone, hey Carter, tell me about the alligator story because I want to talk about that. And you said which one?(…) And so folks out there, if you get a chance to, I don’t know what the statute of limitations is for alligators situations. But if you see them, make sure you ask Carter about to tell you about at least one of them.

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So back to the story of large, you’re finishing up at USF. You’ve decided the kind of person you want to be professionally.(…) And then it took you to, was that Fish and Wildlife right out of college? So it was actually during college. My second junior year, I was reading the high school news or the college newspaper. I saw that there was a scuba diving tournament that was coming up. So I participated in this scuba Olympics tournament. And there I met a lady that was, her name’s Maki. So shout out to Maki. That was the microbiologist at FWC down in St. Pete. She introduced me, just kind of telling her what I wanted to do, like big picture. And she says, oh, my roommate is the intern coordinator for FWC’s fish hatchery down in Port Manta T. I’ll introduce you. And I just kind of sleep at night. I was just beside myself, excited, doing all the research. Lo and behold,(…) I ended up being an intern there. And then they hired me shortly thereafter. Had a job coming out of college, making just all kinds of contacts from around the state and globe. And it was just incredible experience to learn aquaculture from just true masters at it. Yeah, I like how you tried to gloss over that competitive scuba diving as though I had no idea this was a thing. I thought competitive scuba diving was trying to find sunken treasure or something like that. Tell me, because you won an event, right?(…) Tell me about what competitive scuba diving is and the competition that you were involved in directly.

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Yeah, that’s so I have no idea why the spirit moved me on this. It was a one and done. It was the gold medalist for underwater bicycle racing. So you got that on the mantle. So the underwater scuba diving was Olympics was swim across the pool and not deviate. You’d swim through hula hoops. And so you had to get your buoyancy right. There was a blow up balloons and lift something. And then there was a tow, where you had tow an unconscious diver. And then what I was in was the underwater bicycle racing.

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True story throughout my life is if everybody’s playing one game, I’ll figure out some other game. And so I was watching these guys, guys and girls trying to ride their bikes underwater. And they can’t get any traction because there’s no, there’s no buoyancy. And so I stood up out of the water on top of the bicycle, got traction. And by the time anyone figured out what was going on, I was three quarters of the way through the race.(…) Yes. So you described several events, all the ones that you didn’t win that I can see the the real application of it. What’s the real world application of the bicycle race underwater? It gives you something to talk about on podcast.

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Yeah, I say congratulations to you, sir.

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So, how long did you spend at Fish and Wildlife? A little over two and a half, three years. I think the entrepreneurial spirit, which you always had, I think it was you meeting someone in particular that you’re still involved with to this day, wasn’t it? That’s right. Working outside and had a little bucket full of fish, feeding redfish, and I just love it. I still love it. It was such a cool job. This older gentleman in a semi truck pulls up and waves me over and I thought he got stuck or something. I didn’t know what was going on. He rolled down his window and he said, “You’re the only one I ever see running around out here. Do you want a job?” I said, “How much you paying?”

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And he told me it was a little more than I was making a state. I said, “Well, what do you do? What do you want me to do?” And he goes, “We grow seagrass.” And I said, “Holy cow, this could be really, really fun. Get to travel around.” I knew I wanted to work out in the outdoors and I knew I wanted to make a difference. I thought by farming fish, you take pressure off wild caught fish and jumped on it. I’m a kid. I love boats. I love barges. I love equipment. I love habitat and being outside. The job kind of entailed melding all of those skill sets together and just never looked back. How wide was that? Because you were still in the Port Manatee area with Fish and Wildlife at the time? Correct.

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Was Jim working beyond that area? I know he’s in, would Apollo Beach or Ruskin? Right. Ruskin. So he was leasing out some sod farms from Tico at the time, growing sod, and doing some seagrass experiments at the time. So Port Manatee had great salt water and he was trying to figure out, or I don’t want to say perfected, but he was well on his way to becoming…no one else was growing seagrasses at the time. He just dug a hole out in the middle of his sod farm, pumped seawater into it, and started growing seagrasses. So he was a great mentor. There is no box even to stay within the lines. So he’s just a super creative guy and able to tie just so many different facets together. It’s just really cool to work with him. He was like a literal farmer though by trade before. Beyond just the sod and experimenting with the seagrass, it’s kind of interesting. You talked about your checklist and I don’t think that’s by accident that you mix farmer and fish together. So tell me about the evolution of…it’s no accident that you had farming and fish and then you end up with Jim Anderson. But tell me about the evolution of that technology. How involved were you with him? How long was he at it when you joined the scene? Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it would have been…I joined the scene probably in 2012 and he started in the mid-90s. And we’re not even close. I think we’re pioneers of it and some of the world leaders. We’ve been growing corn as a civilization thousands of years and yet it’s still so risky that the Fed subsidized crop insurance for it. And we’re not there with corn and we’re darn sure not there with native plants and seagrasses. I think it’s just incredible.

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Our organization is spending so much time trying to hone in on our craft and just apply it from a multidimensional vector. Whether that’s water quality or wave attenuation or light. There’s so many different variables out there. It’d take many people, many lifetimes to really hone it down. And Jim, he’s got a bug for it. He can’t help himself. He’s got a tinker with it and it’s really cool. Were you kind of the educated salesman under that scenario when you were teaming up with him? Well first, let me start at the beginning.(…) You mentioned the technology that he was working with in terms of breeding seagrass to be better and better. Talk about those activities, what he was up to, the breed of seagrasses to make them feel better. Can you talk about the evolution of that and what he’s using? And then talk about how you work to move that forward into wider use.(…) All plants act a little different, just like anything. There’s short people, there’s tall people, there’s wide people, there’s skinny people. Some of that is learned over time, but some of that’s in the different genetics.

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Jim kind of took a Mendel’s Peas approach to it, kind of basic and rudimentary. But then we started learning that, man, some of these plants grow in different conditions. We’re always trying to further the science, trying to de-risk this occupation and looking for plants that grow in poor water quality conditions, bringing them back to the nursery, and then breed them, cross-breed them, whatever. With other plants, based on whatever conditions they are, I’m really excited we’re dealing with native plants, right? We’re not doing anything crazy here. I’m really excited to see where that goes. It started mostly in the freshwater side. It’s moving more and more into the saltwater side. It makes a difference. One example is about four years ago. We did a job and we planted seagrass in, I think it was about 68 to 72 parts per thousand salinity.

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We guaranteed our work and planting in saltwater that’s double the strength of the ocean.

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We bombed. Man, we crashed. We did not do good at all, but we warranty our work. We went back to the drawing board. What the heck happened? We’re not going to do the same thing again. We started looking in that watershed and we found plants that were growing under those conditions. We brought those back to the nursery, grew those plants out, then planted them back out at scale and had great survival rate. So it’s just one example. I’ll give you dozens of others. Let’s stick with that for a minute because I read plenty of articles and columns. I’ve even heard people in person here in Tallahassee say the survival rate of seagrass planting, whether it’s for mitigation purposes or restoration purposes or otherwise, is exceedingly low. I think I was hearing something like in the 30s. I’m not sure if I remember anything. But the work that you and Jim have done to that point,(…) you’re getting much better numbers than that, right? 100 percent. Not 100 percent survival, but much better numbers. So our survival rates are really dependent on the project. So what we try not to do is we are a scientific organization. Yes, we love working with scientific partners. That’s not our goal. Our goal is not to produce white paper research, even though we’ve been involved with many papers. Our goal is to get plants where they’re currently not. And in doing so is you’ve got to figure out why the plant is not there to begin with. It makes no sense to plant seagrass where it’s not there already without knowing why it’s not there. It could be a recruitment issue. It could be a wave issue, light overgrazing, sediment issue, agronomy. It could be a million different things. But if you’re not addressing the root causes of why it’s not there, you’re not going to have any success. Just going beyond the narrative that it’s all one thing or, you know, it’s a game of net sums. One factor that kills seagrasses and it’s not one factor that’s going to get seagrasses back. There are no silver bullets when it comes to biology. If anyone tells you there is, hold on to your wallet. But that’s one of the struggles that folks in government have. I spent 20 years looking after taxpayer dollars, spending taxpayer dollars. And in the end, I think people are OK with money being spent, but they want to know that they got what they paid for. And the danger there is spending millions of dollars on something that doesn’t make it. But you’re saying a lot of folks are just looking at it the wrong way in terms of how they employ those things. You were dealing with underlying causes before doing it? Yeah. So, scene-shoarline, fast forward now, scene-shoarline started off in 2014.

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We’re primarily doing, I call it 90 percent of our business with seagrass mitigation. Mitigation seagrass planting is much different results on hold than restoration. And the difference is it has to be there. So it causes practitioners to look at those underlying causes. Right. The problem with it, though, is it’s expensive in a lot of cases. And so now fast forward to today, we’re 90 percent restoration and 10 percent mitigation is because we’ve solely focused on bringing costs down by looking at what factors and what projects are good to where you can fix minimal, you know, small, small dollar factors to get seagrasses back. And so when we’re talking about restoration or planting seagrasses as a whole, it’s just looking at those underlying causes and figuring out how bad do you want seagrasses there? You know, what what links are you going to go? And if seagrasses, if you’re planting projects like that project that described with really high salinities, how do you have those reasonable assurances that you that you are going to be successful? And that’s the fun part of the job. What do you what do you attribute the more recent advancements or recent attention toward this type of restoration? It’s not something you know, and you and I have been around each other for about a year, even during that period of time, it seems like that people are thinking about this type of restoration as though it were second nature, whereas before it may not have been. And what do you attribute the kind of increasing success, whether it’s you or anyone else, like the increased success in terms of getting folks to pay attention to what you do? It’s just a business decision at the end of the day. In mitigation, you’re not in control of whether some entity is going to impact seagrasses in some way. So the projects being so spread out, it’s just a high dollar amount. And so what we did is we made a conscious decision, hey, we’re going to lower our costs and we’re going to make up for those net margins by doing a lot of restoration projects and doing them very, very well. And by lowering the cost, I remember doing seagrass mitigation projects for half a million dollars an acre. And you’re not going to fix anything from a rest restorative impact. You just can’t make that return on investment work. But sub 100,000, sub 50, some 30, you know, depending on what the project is, well, now you’re talking about single digit return on investments between three to five years and sooner than a lot of cases. And that is why that business, conscious business decision is why we started to just do more restoration.

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Talk about the improvements in how you deployed the seagrass. I’ve seen your operation in person where you’re dealing with substrate that shouldn’t be there in advance. You’re using interesting new tools. Talk about that kind of technology, not just we’ve talked about what Jim Anderson did in terms of the right plant and bending it to the right place. Talk about like some of that technology as well in terms of like how you plant it, the secret sauce, at least for seagrass, if you can. First and foremost, every project is different. They all have different parameters around them. We’ve had a lot of success just focusing on the agronomy. Tell me what agronomy is first. Yeah.(…) So soil sciences. So getting your soil right, you know, if you get the ground right, it becomes a lot, lot easier. And at the end of the day, seagrass is still a plant. It’s a cool plant. It’s hard to grow. And it’s really important. Provides a lot of ecosystem services. But at the end of the day, we shouldn’t overcomplicate it. It needs nutrients. It needs substrate. And it needs light. That’s the three things. And so looking at the substrate as a parameter that we can control, whether that’s bringing the dredging or vacuum dredging sediments out, in a lot of cases, in soft sediment, manatees, turtles, ducks, deer, cows, people trampling, you name it, they’ll break the rhizome or the roots of the plant and cause it to wither away. And if in the case of manatees, if it’s really, really soft ground, well, the manatee just pulls the entire plant out instead of the leaves breaking off and then sprouting new leaves. And so just really paying attention to that mindset of get the ground right and make sure everything else is fine. And it all comes together. Is that a part of the days when there were worse success rates? Because people didn’t deal with those underlying conditions to make sure that they were right. So when you planted, manatee didn’t just come by and pull it straight back out of the… Yeah, exactly. And so we’ve been really working hard on figuring out what soil compaction levels are necessary for seagrass or submerged aquatic vegetation as a whole. So it doesn’t rip out and it doesn’t create anoxic conditions. In a lot of these areas, they’re not fun areas to work in. They’re upland cut canals. They’re canals that get just inundated after every red tide. They get a fish kill in there, creates anoxic conditions, low dissolved oxygen, creates fish kills, creates conditions where you get these cyanobacteria blooms and it builds up over time.

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And without restoration, those problematic areas become regional problematic areas because, hey, nutrients, but mostly the cyanobacteria blooms, they drift out of there and they colonize new areas. And it just spreads like wildfire, like a cancer. Yeah. Tell me some more about that because you’re doing some work in and around the Indian River Lagoon area. What’s your take on the thing that’s the biggest problem? Is it things like that, that what you just described? How do you view the way forward there beyond the type of work that’s the direct work that you do? Is it those places, those tributaries that lead to lagoon? How do you see it? Yeah. The Indian River Lagoon does not have a 256 mile long problem. It has 256 one mile long problems. Thinking about it from a segmented standpoint is really important. For instance, Sebastian Inlet, just north of Sebastian Inlet. Beautiful water quality. Seagrass isn’t above a quarter inch tall. You can’t blame it on water quality. And there’s a couple other spots like that in the Indian River Lagoon. But in other areas of the Indian River Lagoon, you can’t see your toes at the beach. It’s just really poor water quality. What’s really interesting is talking about it from a, traditionally, it was a chicken or the egg. I think of it as a chicken and the egg issue. So I think without some sort of habitat or seagrass is out there, no matter how many water quality projects you do, the seagrass just doesn’t magically pop back. If it did, it would already be in Sebastian Inlet. However, if you don’t do those water quality projects, then seagrasses aren’t going to come back on their own regardless. And so we spent a considerable amount of effort and time and working with partners on the Indian River Lagoon. We had teammates out there planting today around Tucker Cove and Fort Pierce and setting up seagrass nurseries over there(…) to better identify where recruitment is the rate limiting step for seagrasses out there. And we can’t control the spigot coming out of Lake Okeechobee as seeing shoreline. But we darn sure can find and identify areas that are ready to be restored and start working on them. Like the old adage, when’s the best time to plant a tree? 50 years ago. Right. Right. So what are we waiting for? Let’s go. Talk a little bit about that in the meantime, because some people are like, great, the plant a tree method of great, we just need 50 years. But you’re not waiting for that. There are folks that are doing work now. There’s been legislation in the past, House Bill 1379 is the most clear example of efforts to restore Indian River Lagoon and other places as well in terms of water quality. But in the meantime, you all have actually done some work in terms of from your own nurseries and feeding manatees. Right. I know there was trouble with getting enough biomass to manatees in some of these areas. Were you all involved in some of that work? Yeah, it was actually a ton of fun. If you had told me in college, we’d be feeding manatees. I’d tell you crazy. But, you know, all these systems interact with each other. So when a lot of the manatees or a couple of the manatees that were cold stressed from the Indian River Lagoon got transported to Homosassa State Park. And we have a flagship project going on there between Crystal River and Homosassa. We now have so much grass growing that there’s just abundant and the manatees we would bring plant or leaves to Homosassa State Park, feed manatees and set up a schedule. And it was really cool to give back and participate in such a way that it was just a feather in the cap, I guess. It was fun. Sure. I think in terms of and I saw the place myself when you talk about the right conditions for the SAVs to flourish, you got that, though, in that Homosassa Springs area. Right. In terms of you, you get the substrate right. You get the plant right. You get the conditions right. And you plant and you get better off in the end than when you when you start. Like it’ll propagate itself after a while. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s that’s part of what we’re trying to achieve is a snowball effect. So no matter how low we can reduce our costs for planting seagrasses, if it doesn’t do its thing on its own, it’s never going to be cost. So Crystal River, for example, they set out to do 92 acres of upland cut canals just completing that now over a period of seven years.

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And right before their 100 year anniversary as a city. Now the grass is spread to over about 350, 350, 400 acres of 800 acre bay. And that’s awesome. That’s what you want. You want to double, triple, quadruple the investment. And if you design the project, right. That’s what’s supposed to do. Yeah. No, that’s and that’s at least in my mind when I put on my government agency hat is like, hey, what am I getting for the expenditure? And you tell me I’m going to keep getting a positive impact. And at least it certainly keeps the conversation going the right way. Let me get away from seagrass and SAVs for a bit and manatee and fish and inverbit habitat into what you are doing to help protect. I’ll call it human habitat in terms of wads. Tell me what a wad is and tell me how the work you’re doing there is helping to protect communities and for. Yeah. So it’s funny in an effort to protect and grow more seagrasses, we’ve gotten ourselves into all kinds of predicaments. So in the beginning, we were just a seagrass planting company and then we realized we had to do more sediment amendments. And so now we do tons and tons of high area, low volume dredging. Well, in some areas, they don’t need dredging for seagrass recruitment. They’ll need wave attenuation protection. So one of the things that we’re really excited about is working with wave attenuation devices, creating longshore or offshore breakwaters, planting seagrasses or incorporating some natural habitat behind it and spacing it out at a distance to where boats and can still pull up to the sandbar and then providing that green, gray engineering with nature, whatever you want to call it, whatever the buzzword of the year is, providing that clean infrastructure to protect, to A, increase sediment behind them. So protect, get more sand back and then protect, wave it from hitting the shore all while having sea turtles or terrapins, everything fish, everything moves, passes through them, but you still get that offshore breakwater. I’m excited about it. I think it’s probably, it’s coming up as beach renourishment projects become trickier and trickier from a sediment acquisition standpoint. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to bulkhead the entire state of Florida off. Right. And then I don’t think it’s the solution everywhere, but I think it’s a big solution in a lot of areas that the state of Florida and the world’s changing and it’s moving faster and faster. And what we did in the past isn’t going to be necessarily the roadmap for the future. I’m not saying that we should throw out the entire playbook, but we need to start really thinking about new technologies, new platforms that are going to protect us and then still have some semblance of habitat and recreation. So we’re really excited about them. What is a good example of one of those kind of success stories where maybe you used the wads where you got some of that sand accretion because I look, I saw a lot of places. We have a lot of coast in Northwest Florida where I’ve dealt with where you’re losing significant amount of, I’ll call it real estate. It’s not for sale, but actual land that human and land animal habitat that’s disappearing. Is there a place where you’ve done work where you’re starting to really start to see some of those successes?

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Yeah. A couple areas that I can think of is one Simmons Park in South Tampa Bay.(…) One is Sunken Island. Sunken Island was a bird rookery that every time the beach nesting birds would lay their eggs on the beach, another ship would come in and all the eggs would wash off. Where’s Sunken Island? Oh, sorry, Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay as well. And then right now there’s one being put in actually for a seagrass mitigation at the Skyway Pier or Skyway Bridge right there in the mouth of Tampa Bay. Got a couple proposed in all around the state and throughout the Southeast right now. It’s a new emerging technology that’s gone through all the peer review literature and wave modeling and all that. So if you want to see one, please just let us know and reach out to us. We’d be happy to show you around. Yeah, the cool thing about them is that they’ve got a relatively small footprint with the ground, so you don’t have to have all the sloping you need for a traditional riprap. So the seagrass mitigation or impact, potential impact is a lot less. So that’s what turned us on to them.

(…)

Yeah, and I’ll definitely put your contact stuff. We’ll put the website, all that in the episode notes. I’ve seen some of it firsthand, but I’m looking forward to seeing the living shoreline, the barriers, the wave attenuation. I want to see that in person. I haven’t had a chance yet, so I’m looking forward to that. What’s the professional accomplishment? It may be philosophical, maybe an actual project, but what professional accomplishment are you most proud of? By far and away, it is going from a staff of three to around 100 in a short amount of time, less than 10 years. I love hiring people, and I know as a business owner, you do more with less, and we certainly do that. But when we hire, it means that we’ve got the biology right, we’ve got a clear roadmap, and we’ve got a pipeline to continue that out. And we are lean and mean and bootstrap this thing since the beginning to 100 people now. And so every time we take a hire very serious, we want to hire super confident people,(…) really top notch people, and just feels good that you’re on the right track. I could talk all kinds of projects, but hiring is it for me. I like it. What, if anything, keeps you up at night in terms of Florida’s environment? Is there something out there that you’re like, gosh, I’m not sure how we’re going to tackle this one? You know, Florida’s environment is kind of the tail of two cities. I think that most people in Polk County don’t know what a gopher tortoise is, and they never will. And it’s not great. We’re developing at such a rapid pace. On the flip side of that, there’s plenty of conservation land, never enough. We would love to have more. I’m terrified that if folks at an early age don’t appreciate the natural resources, they won’t, when it comes time to purposefully tax themselves for restoration or conservation. They won’t, because they have no background or no history into it. But on the other hand, I think water quality is going to work itself out. I think there’s so much glaring need for it that there’s going to be more emphasis on public-private partnerships, on creative funding, on whatever that mechanism is.

(…)

It’s going to come along. And when private sector, the public sector, and the NGOs, and the community and public all get around trying to solve this mission, which it seems like this governor’s spent an incredible amount of time, energy, and effort and money on water quality environment, I think we’re marching in the right direction on that. But yeah, it’s probably not going to be a whole lot of gophers. Yeah, I mean, I guess you answered two questions. One, because the other question is, are you optimistic about the future of the environment floor? Sounds like you’re both. So I think that’s, you know, a lot of folks that are similar to being in your shoes, which is like, hey, there’s some real challenges. Obviously, Govertors is a huge one, especially where you and I grew up, but certainly beyond. It’s like, but are you really optimistic about that? The funding speaks for itself, right? But are you optimistic about how things look 10, 20 years from now? Yeah, it just moved, right? Like old Florida, you know, I grew up in Polk County when the citrus industry was still around. There’s no relative citrus industry now. And it’s just different. There are, are there a bunch of clean lakes in Central Florida? Yeah. Are there a couple of dirty lakes? Yeah. And that could be said throughout the state. What’s that book? Elaine Remembered. They talk about chasing the fog. Florida’s started out changing a long time ago, and it’s going to continue to change. If the residents aren’t enjoying Florida’s beauty, you’re not going to drag me out of the state kicking or screaming. I love Florida. I was born here. I’m a Florida guy. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just moved. What advice would you give to young people, young Carter Henny, that’s looking at or thinking about going into whether it be public service in the environmental sphere or the private sector? What do you tell them? Go. Do it. I can’t tell you how many times I tell people what I do. And they say, Oh, I wanted to be a marine biologist, but found out name your answer.(…) And that’s fine, right? I think more people don’t become it or follow their dreams is they, they just don’t get those internships. They don’t apply themselves. They don’t go and try to do it and figure out what they want to do. And so they settle into the path of least resistance. So if you want to do something, go do it. Good answer. Any good place to finish? I think Carter Henny. Thanks so much for being on the show, man. Thank you.

(…)

All right. Carter has left the building. One thing that I forgot to ask him that I usually ask my guests was how people can find out more about what he’s up to and how folks can reach them if they want to learn more about sea and trolling. Of course, you can always go to their website that’s sea and shoreline.com.(…) And as luck would have it in Carter’s case, he and his team will be down in Marco Island for the Florida Environmental Networks permitting summer school. That’s next week. So if you want to find out in person how sea and shoreline can help improve water quality while making shorelines more resilient or you just want to hear some really cool alligator stories, be sure to stop by their booth. That’s going to be right across from the registration desk down there.

(…)

Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water for Fighting. This podcast has been brought to you by Res and Sea and Shoreline. Don’t forget to check the episode notes to visit their websites and learn more about how they can help you. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use. And don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, probably even Twitter at FL WaterPod. And you can reach me directly at FL WaterPod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about.(…) Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bow Spring from the Bow Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called “Doing Work for Free” and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold.

(…)

Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Matt Leopold

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett gets to spend some time with the former top attorney for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Matt Leopold. In addition to his time at the EPA, Matt served as General Counsel at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; handled environmental issues for Governor Jeb Bush; and was an environmental attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

They talk about growing up in West-Central Florida; split(?) allegiances between his undergrad and law schools; his consequential tenures as the top environmental lawyer on the state and national stages; what happened in the Sackett v. EPA case; and what the Supreme Court’s decision means for regulators and the regulated moving forward.

If you want to get in touch with Matt, email him here: mleopold@hunton.com

To check out the Hunton, Andrews, Kurth Law Firm, go to their website here: https://www.huntonak.com/en/

To read the Sackett v. EPA decision, go here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf

To get a quick view of how the United States Department of Justice’s case against BP turned out in relation to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, follow this link: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/bp-exploration-and-production-inc-agrees-plead-guilty-felony-manslaughter-environmental

Please support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Matt Posner

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett travels to Pensacola for a conversation with the prolific Executive Director of the relatively new Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program – Matt Posner. They talk about growing up in Pensacola; the value of the education and experiences he gained on the way to his current role; the importance of fostering partnerships as the head of a small agency; and the exciting new programs his team is spearheading that could breathe new life into the region’s estuaries.

See for yourself how things are going at the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program

Check out the remarkably well done 2023 State of the Bays webpage.

See how the Estuary Program’s work relates to that of the Northwest Florida Water Management District, and here.

You can also review the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s interactive map showing the water quality challenges in the Pensacola and Perdido bays area and beyond.

Please support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Jon Steverson

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett is joined by lobbyist, consultant, policy expert, and former Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection – Jon Steverson. They talk about growing up the son of an accountant and an English teacher; working for three different governors; his unintentionally controversial tenure as the DEP Secretary; and his approach to working in the legislative process. And of course, no conversation with Jon is complete without a mention of the Williams/Steverson Family Reunion and the Bonifay Rodeo.

Learn more about Jon’s work as Senior Policy Advisor with the Holland & Knight law firm and how he can help you.

See what all the fuss about the Bonifay Rodeo is.

Jon talks about his time with the Florida Association of Counties. See what those good folks are up to.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s State Parks website

Please support our partners, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Greg Knecht

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Learn more about the work Greg did to help restore the Everglades and its associated natural systems with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. L earn all about The Nature Conservancy’s presence and mission in Florida. Learn more about how you can help support the mission of The Nature Conservancy Please support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline. Sea & Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that is on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at www.seaandshoreline.com RES is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us. Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora) Transcript

: Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers. This week’s discussion is brought to you by Sea and Shoreline and Resource Environmental Solutions. Sea and Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that’s on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at seainshoreline.com. And of course, RES. RES is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us. I’m so excited to introduce this week’s guest, Greg Connect. When I met Greg, he was at the Department of Environmental Protection where he worked for two decades on some of the most consequential environmental restoration programs in the state. He’s now the newly minted executive director of the Nature Conservancy in Florida, which is why I’m so grateful to have stolen a little bit of his time for this conversation. So let’s get right to it. Welcome to the podcast, Greg. Thank you, Brett. Honored to be here. Nice. I usually start at the beginning with these conversations, but since it’s so fresh for you, let’s start with how it’s going with the new gig you’re just named in March, right? The executive director. Seven weeks ago. Yep. Okay. First of all, congratulations publicly. And second, have you had a chance to come up for air yet? It’s certainly been a whirlwind since I started the interview process was, was pretty intense in organization like TNZ that’s, it’s global. And in this case, you know, we have 50 state directors. I’m one of 50, but Florida is an incredibly important state for the organization. So it’s pretty rigorous. They take it very seriously. And so one of my commitments. as part of the interview process was to get out on the road and meet our board of trustees and meet some of our donors and get out and meet staff. So I’ve kind of been on the road the last seven weeks out meeting people and including partners. That’s awesome. Now that we got that part out of the way, and then we’ll talk more about, obviously the conservancy later on, but I wanna start and get back to the beginning for you. You are a Polk County boy, right? I am a Polk County boy. Winter Haven. Is that where that’s, okay. Yep. And like our mutual friend, Jennifer Fitzwater, your family’s actually from Missouri, right? St. Louis, Missouri, or the outskirts, yeah, I guess. What brought your parents to Florida? Great question. My father was a chemical engineer, went to school in Missouri, met my mother, his wife, there in Missouri, graduated from Missouri School of Mines. with a degree in chemical engineering and got a job with US AgriChem. Ended up with a job here in Florida, in Polk County specifically, Winter Haven, working as a plant manager for US AgriChem, in Fort Meade, in Wachula, in Bowling Ground, the metropolises of those back in the 60s. Yeah, and those are my old stomping grounds when I was at Swift Mud, and I know that those are not what you would call your typical bustling metropolises. So you live in Winter Haven, which I guess like almost dead center in the county, right? Pretty much so. Yeah. And going down south to Fort Meade and Wachula where your dad was working, it sounds like an interesting backstory. Tell me a little bit about him personally and why he made some of those choices. Well, I think at the time, I’m guessing it was probably about a 60 minute drive, depending on where he was going, which plant we moved to, to Winter Haven because it was. I’m gonna say metropolis. There wasn’t a whole lot in Winter Haven at the time either, but it was a larger city. And so he just decided even as his job kind of went further and further south or the mines expanded further south just to not move the family because we had already put in roots in Winter Haven. I’m so glad that I literally went to elementary all through high school and still meet people that were like, oh. I went to Winter Haven High School. And so there’s, being in one place for 18 years, or in my case, going to a community college there really did kind of form a long bond with a specific place that you watch change just over time as well. Yeah, I guess getting that obligatory, anytime I talk to someone else, we spent the, till I was about five years old in South Lakeland and grew up in East Hillsborough County. So I’ve got, anytime I hear somebody from Polk County, it’s the obligatory, can you believe how huge Polk County is now population-wise? I mean, it’s enormous. I think we’re 700, maybe pushing to 750,000 people. I mean, when I was there, this is 2015 to 2005 to 2007, it was probably 400,000 people, 450,000 people, incredible. Yeah, it’s definitely changed when I, even in junior high and high school, I worked. citrus and cattle after school or you know with a friend of mine is he was in the citrus business and you know all those places I drive down there now and they’re you know they’re all gone and they’re you know they’re subdivision so yeah it’s definitely changed. Is it I mean is it weird for you I guess that’s I mean that’s the description is the same you know same with yeah I think anyone that you know grew up in these kind of suburban areas is how much it looks different than the place you grew up. And I grew up in the middle of what used to be orange groves and strawberry fields. And it’s just, it’s houses. Yeah, I mean, there’s that, right? So there’s just kind of the stark contrast. And what I would say is it all kind of at least ties back to the nature conservancy or conservation for me in thinking about those places that the pastures I worked in and those orange groves and the importance of agriculture. my afternoons when I wasn’t working fishing specifically, you know, Lake Roy, those places really had an impact on me. And as I see those going away and recognizing that we’re losing more and more, you know, natural spaces and agricultural spaces, it’s a great concern. And we’ll get to, I think, a little bit more of that later because I think it speaks to a broader conversation. I would say. interesting, somewhere between interesting and exciting things going on in that regard. It seems like it’s getting some significant attention, but let’s stick with a bit with those early days in Winter Haven and what Greg Connect was like growing up. If someone follows you on Instagram, they know that you spent an immense amount of time outdoors. Was that always your MO? Oh yeah. I was, like I said, fishing. You know, a friend had a John boat, pretty much water-oriented during dove season, hunting after school with my buddies, between that and then, you know, getting the car and that side of things. Probably typical smile, what I would say small town, America boy and his, you know, that had access to the water. You couldn’t beat it. I could walk, every day I could walk halfway around a lake just with a fishing pole and just have a. Yeah, it’s one of the interesting things. It’s been such a while now that I forget the stat, but Polk County has something like 550 odd lakes. I’m like, you know, beyond the other, you know, gorgeous natural features, like that’s an enormous number of lakes and places to recreate and be around. So very cool. When you were a kid, did you have any idea what you want to be when you grew up, so to speak? Did you know what you were going to study in college? Do you know what the plan for your life was? Did it have to do with the outdoors? Well, certainly had, I have vivid memories of getting National Geographic magazine and looking at, and it’s still kind of that way today, especially now that I know people who actually work with National Geographic like Carlton Ward, it’s pretty cool, right? But I think back in those days, and I would see these articles, and one that had a… pretty formative impact on me was, I can think of actually too, that my father was wonderful about having an evening conversation at the dinner table or after dinner, kind of sitting there chatting and asking me how my day at school was, blah, or what’s new. And I remember one, in this National Geographic, and I had to have probably been, I’m guessing 10 or 12 years old, but it really shaped the way I think about things. It was an article about shark fishing in the Sea of Cortez. And, you know, this, of course, National Geographic, the photography was amazing, you know, had this pretty graphic photograph of sharks, you know, in nets, you know, hundreds of them. And I was just devastated about this impact and went to my father and said, “‘Oh my God, we have to stop this. “‘This is just terrible.'” And I remembered my father saying, these people who were fishing for sharks to do, they have to eat. There were multiple of those conversations, whether it was National Geographic or other things like that, that as an outdoors person, I had this direction towards the outdoors and critters and all of that. For me, it was principally thinking about it from the wildlife standpoint and my father everything we do has an impact and it’s not as easy as just always thinking about in this case, the sharks or polar bears or whatever. And it seems like that’s kind of your, your general attitude, at least as, as long as I’ve known you is things are more complicated than just black or white. And so is that, is that kind of, that’s where it comes from is your dad’s on your shoulder, you know, so to speak, you know, in your ear saying, Hey, it’s, you know, look at, look at all the angles here. Yeah, certainly. I mean, he at least taught me to, you know, to walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes, if you will. And I would say that it brings back good memories of, you know, there were also conversations that there was that point that we just philosophically disagreed on how much impact was, you know, was okay, right? Right. And so, but again, what I would say he taught me was that… Everyone you meet in this case it happened to be my father isn’t always going to agree with you, right? and so you either have to figure out a way to work with those people or You know, you can just you can you can write them off But the you know, the outcome is probably not gonna be good certainly with family. Yeah. Oh definitely Although, you know Thanksgiving it’s weirder and weirder every year doesn’t yeah I want to talk about something for a minute because you and I were talking about how you were massive poor decision maker. I’m gonna lead that with saying that you were a cave diver. And I want you to explain to me, because I’ve asked this question of a couple other folks that I know that have done that, is are you crazy and why did you do that? Well, you know what I would say is, one, it’s not really dangerous if it’s done appropriately. I started diving in about 1983, and much like everything else in my life, Once I decide to do something, I mean, I don’t have 15 different hobbies. I really have, and my father actually said, you don’t have hobbies, you have, you know, they become passions. And so with diving, I didn’t go, you know, just learn how to dive. Then I actually started helping teach from the same person who taught me and then, you know, took more and more. And so it was just one more thing, one more place when you couldn’t go offshore or I didn’t have access or couldn’t make it to the Keys. It’s like, well, wait a minute, there’s really pretty water here in Florida. Why can’t I just figure out how to go do that safely? And so on top of that, like I said, once I kind of start something, I wanna kind of, I probably take it to the extreme. And so it was like, oh, well, not only did I learn how to cave dive, then it became Like, well, what’s the cutting edge? And so literally, you know, started doing, you know, mixed gas and all kinds of stuff. And the amount of effort that it was taking became too much, but it was amazing. And I’m so glad people are still doing it. Yeah. And I mean, you ended up teaching diving, right? And ran a shop as well. Was that all down in Polk County? Some of that made its way up here. I ran a shop in Winterhaven that was a water sports store. you know, when you’re young and you kind of think, oh, well, I don’t really need much to live on. Gee, if I can go diving every weekend and take people to Cozumel or whatever, what else could you ask for? And then, you know, at some point it starts to dawn on you that, yeah, but living in your parents’ home until you’re in your 40s, you know, it’s gonna be harder to find a bride. And so, you know, my wonderful now wife convinced me that, well, You know, she actually said she was coming up to at Florida State University. We were dating at the time and she said, you can come with me or you can, I’m going to use her words, you can stay here and be a bum. So anyhow, all of that to say, I came up to FSU and, and taught scuba here. And it was a, you know, it was a perfect opportunity. I want to take just a moment to talk about my friends at res. Florida is a treasure trove of natural wonders, but the cost of that treasure is our collective responsibility to restore. and protect its ecological and water resources. That’s where my friends at RES, the nation’s leader in ecological and hydrological restoration are at their best. With an extensive Florida-based team, RES provides top-notch nature-based solutions that uplift Florida’s ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. From water quality to hydrological restoration, wetland mitigation to coastal resilience, RES addresses the complex challenges facing our state with our unique operating model of taking full responsibility. for their project’s performance over time. Working with both the public and private sectors, RES is tackling the issues affecting Florida’s water and land resources the most. Their long-term, cost-effective, and sustainable projects rehabilitate impaired ecosystems, helping them do the work nature intended. Cleansing water, sheltering wildlife, buffering storms, and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Join RES on their mission to restore and uplift Florida’s ecosystems. Visit www.res.gov. dot us to learn more about res and their commitment to creating a resilient future for Florida. All right, let’s get back to the conversation. Yeah, I mean I didn’t want to let to go unmentioned you and angela you know kind of the environmental power couple because she’s at Dp still um, and you spent many years there and was she a big part of influencing you in terms of professionally when you got past the diving Well, yeah, I mean, like I said, she’s the one who convinced me to finish school, has supported me ever since, including I joined TNC about 11 years ago. And so I’ll let you take us there in a minute. But you know, when I was contemplating leaving DEP after 20 years, like you mentioned, Brett, you know, I was hemming and hawing and you know, holy smokes, this is such a difficult decision to make. She was. And, and is amazing. She finally, one morning just said, would you stop, you know, this back and forth and just do it, everything will be fine. But you’re no stranger to changing things up. It was just at DEP for many years, right? You, I mean, you started out at, you know, gosh, this is about as bottom as you can get. I think an OPS job you had said before all the way, all the way up to, to where you were talking a little bit about that decision tree that got you to, to the end of those 20 years and then. and then beyond. Talk about some of those early days. You know, my very first job was as an OPS person, and this was kind of connected to teaching it, you know, teaching scuba at FSU and also cave diving at Wakulla Springs. I met the park director at Wakulla. His name was John Dodrill. And he said, hey, I have this, you know, this project on the river here, mapping aquatic vegetation. And the guy who was doing this project is in the Marines and got called up, could you finish this for me? And I said, well, sure. And it paid again, at the time, what seemed like a reasonable amount of money. And I got to spend every day or as much time as I wanted to on the Wakulla river downstream of where all of the boats could go. So I was pretty much all by myself on this incredibly beautiful place. And so I started there and finished that project and ended up getting an environmental specialist one job on water, working with what was at the time the point source section, like looking at point source discharges from wastewater, domestic wastewater and industrial wastewater plants, power plants and other things. And then- Well, hang on now. Let’s circle back to that first one again, because the unnamed Marine who would later on become- the secretary of DEP. And my boss, that unknown or the unnamed Marine was Mike Soule. I didn’t know it at the time until later on, he and I were actually talking and I said, you know, I did this OPS project at Wakulla Springs and he kind of gave me this look like, what are you talking about? I said, yeah, this. You know, I was told this guy ran off and left this project and it was just kind of a chuckle. Again, back to the small world of, you know, he and I working on this project together that years later he would be my, you know, would be my boss and I actually literally worked directly for him in the secretary’s office. Did in between job, you know, first job and him being in the secretary’s office and you and being directly under him, did you have, did your paths cross at the department much Not really. My career was always on the water side, both in the water quality standards program, what’s called the 319 program, which is the non-point source stormwater program at the time. At some point, I’m going to put in quotation marks, was fortunate enough to be asked to review this plan that was coming out. by the Army Corps of Engineers called the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or actually at the time it was the re-study, asked to review it, right? And it’s this foot and a half thick set of documents and blah, blah. And I read it and made comments, but also thought, nobody’s ever going to do this. This is just the, I can’t imagine the restoration project this is. What year was that? Was that like 98 or something? Well, probably 98 when the re-study came out. The plan was authorized in 2000 by Congress. So, and that’s at that point is when I really got sucked into, you know, Everglades restoration. And that became pretty much my big part of my later part of my career. Let’s talk about that because obviously when you talk about, you know, foot thick plans, you’re dealing with something significant. You really did work on some of the most consequential restoration projects, probably in the world. I mean, certainly when you look at the Everglades, it’s enormous. But I want to talk about the first step in the North to South chain a little bit because I think it’s instructive for, for folks that don’t know or not familiar. You have the Kissimmee river, which had been straightened by the Army Corps of Engineers many, many years ago. And the state decided that. Hey, we need to do something to restore this to slow down the silt, the nutrients that are making its way to Lake Okeechobee, which then make their way to the Everglades. Were you involved at all with the Kasemi River restoration as well or did your milieu keep you farther south than that? You know, it’s like the system. It’s all connected. You know, the restoration of the Kasemi River had already been authorized and was ongoing when I, you know, kind of got… got involved with the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. But I would say that was really what kind of, I think, gave a lot of people comfort that we could restore the Everglades. The Kissimmee was clearly not as big of a project, but there was and is recognition that if you help things along, you can. And I would argue the Everglades is another example of… With time and effort and money and all of that, we can do some pretty amazing, amazing restoration. Are there any connections in your mind? It seems to me like there’s this natural nexus between the Kissimmee River restoration, which required a lot of stakeholders working together because you’re going to need a bunch of land to, to rebend a river and what you’re doing now, which requires that kind of working together for. that common goal of protecting and preserving a place. I wasn’t a part of those projects or those conversations. I’m curious if you were able to draw anything from that. Oh, for sure. And I think that, and it’s been demonstrated over and over again, I mentioned this, you can either try to be collaborative and work with partners, or you can try to… essentially tell everybody how to do it. You know, the Kasemi is a great example of working with agriculture on putting the bins back in the river where landowners, a certain, you know, thing, right, you straighten it out and you said, well, we’re going to do this and here’s your new boundaries and now we’re going to go back later and say, oh, nope, we’re going to take that back from you. And what I would say, including, you know, the same thing with SERP, the Conference of you’re much better off working with the people who are going to be impacted and coming up with a plan that may not be the perfect plan, but it’s the plan that’s going to get you, you know, most of the way there and everybody’s going to get something out of it, then taking, or maybe never ever getting there because of litigation and other concerns. So, yeah, I want to, I want to ask about that in the, in the realm of imperfect plan surface certainly has to be at the top of the list as important as the work is, it does not look the way it did 20 years ago. What is that process like? And you might tell a little bit about how you have to adjust on the fly when you talk about things like storing an immense amount of water to make sure you’re removing nutrients and, or redirecting water to make sure it’s going to the right places. Well, yeah, I mean, there’s certainly lessons. to be learned and continue to be learned honestly that I actually am excited about being able to translate to other parts of the state because the scale, on one hand, it’s a pretty big experiment. The original stormwater treatment areas, constructed wetlands of the size that we have in the Everglades was never done before. And there was science and of course, there’s lots of opinions on, well, we should do this or we should do that until you really do it, until you construct it. and operate it and you think about what the operation and maintenance costs along with things are. And then there’s the unintended consequences of species moving in that you never thought would happen. I would say that what’s happened with the Conference of Everglades restoration plan is that while taking probably longer and being more expensive than anybody ever thought it would, I would say that we’re on a pretty good track. The amount of resources, especially lately, that have going into it. give me hope that we’re gonna get there. And it’s also taught us that we can take some of the things that we’ve learned about water and water management and hydrology and water quality treatment and transfer anywhere in the state, anywhere in the country. Yeah, I mean, and that idea on certainly on a much smaller scale is done all the time now. Right. To improve water quality. Is that… extra time and expense, how much of that is owed to federal and I’m using my quote fingers here, partners and lawsuits in that process. I mean, how much did we lose in your mind? Was that a huge factor or how much, you know, how much, yes. If you ask Henry Dean, he would say, I don’t know what, gosh, I don’t know what you guys are fighting over. It’s like, we’re trying to, we’re trying to fix something and all we’re doing is slowing ourselves down. What do you think about that? Well, it’s easy, right, to kind of point fingers. I would just say a couple things. I think that any government, you know, and the bigger the government, the more steps there are, whether it’s, you know, any federal agency has a lot of, you know, hoops they have to go through. And if anybody asks, you know, the Nature Conservancy has its own hoops that would probably, you know, quite frankly, irritate somebody who didn’t have. 50 state chapters and then was in 76 countries, right? I mean, we have legal conversations that I never ever thought the Nature Conservancy would be having. And so, and that’s because we are in different countries and you know, so there is that, there’s no doubt. And Henry and I are, I certainly, you know, even using my name in the same sentence as his, you know. Makes me feel really good. There’s no doubt that Litigation and some of these other things have just slowed things down tremendously And made it much more expensive. It sounds like in you tell me if it’s a function of your personality or just reality is You don’t with those frustrations You never struck me as someone who was to the point of say exasperation or cynicism Is that a fair description? Sure, yeah, because it’s the same thing. If I can’t help fix it, then it’s pretty much, well then why should anybody else? And I won’t pretend like there weren’t ever days of frustration where you spend a lot of time talking about, no offense to my lawyer friends, that you spend a lot of time talking about a may versus a shall. But as a whole… I think if you can get 95% there and really focus on that and not get down into, you know, and that’s not to say you can’t always do that, but holy smokes, we miss an awful lot of big opportunities because we’re, you know, we’re stuck on that, that 1%. I’ll save, I’ll save the big question relating that entire topic until later on. I want to, I want to switch now to that decision point. You talked about your conversation with Angela. 20 years is a long time. to be somewhere, you’ve gotten used to something, you’ve gotten really good at something, and something else comes along. What was the actual trigger point in your mind saying, was it just, hey, this is a great new challenge, or I believe in that mission, I wanna explore that? Yeah, let me give a little bit of backstory if I can. So, at the time, You know, I was, I was going to say knee deep, probably much deeper in the conference of Everglades restoration plan. I was working for directly in the secretary’s office representing the state on that with the army corps and department of interior and all kinds of stakeholders, you know, those meetings. And they still do probably have 20 plus entities sitting around a table. And one of those happened to be a representative from the nature conservancy, her name’s Jenny Connor. And she was the Nature Conservancy, the Florida chapter’s lobbyist, essentially. And she saw me one day and said, Hey, Greg, you know, we have a position open in Florida chapter, I think you should apply. And I said, you know, Jenny, you know, I, I’ve been with DEP 20 years. I’m really happy. I’m, you know, I’m working directly for the secretary. What else could you really add? She being a great lobbyist, which, you know, those people who are lobbyists are in are good at it, know that you don’t take no for an answer. Right. And. She kept at me and I think I actually thanked her when I got this new position as the executive director, but she wouldn’t leave it be and said, just apply. And so I applied and I, you know, they reached out for interview. And then it was kind of like, oh, this is kind of serious now. I, before it was kind of like, well, never hurts to apply, blah, blah. And so I got online and started looking at what all the nature conservancy did. Now remember this is a. a conservation organization that I had a history with here in Florida working with for many years. I kind of thought I knew what the Nature Conservancy did. I think you would find that same thing with most people that you talk to. The Nature Conservancy, they’re like, oh yeah, I know them. They buy land. I got on the website and started looking at all the things that the Nature Conservancy did and got really, really excited. Huh, maybe this would be interesting to, uh, what would that look like? Alright, let’s pause for a moment and talk about my friends at Sea and Shoreline. As we in Florida wonder what the future holds when we face the storm season ahead, Sea and Shoreline is working to protect our coastline communities against severe storms by installing a variety of green and gray infrastructure solutions to make our cities and counties more resilient. These solutions include seagrass restoration, mangroves, oyster reefs, riprap, oyster breakwaters and something called a WAD, which stands for wave attenuation device. By installing their patented WADs, Sea and Shoreline can help protect our communities against sea level rise and storm surges by defusing wave energy, stopping shoreline erosion and even rebuilding shorelines through sand accretion. To learn more about how Sea and Shoreline can protect your community, visit seaandshoreline.com. Alright, let’s get back to the conversation. What was that first job and what did you do? Well, my first job was indeed as, you know, the title was Director of Protection. And it was working with landowners and other constituents trying to protect their land through either Florida, you know, the existing land protection programs we have like Florida Forever, or the Department of Agriculture’s Rural and Family Lands program, or other programs like under the Natural Resources Conservation Service under the Department of Agriculture. So. you know, working with landowners to get their property protected. So it just kind of started there and grew as my career seems to have done. I kind of get someplace and I’m not satisfied with just the current role that I’m in and start asking questions or start saying, hey, what if we… And that’s, I think, how I ended up literally in this seat here. Nice. For folks that don’t know… And you can probably count me as one of those folks that is somewhere between don’t they buy land and, Hey, there’s some other cool things going on here. But I want to start with that land buying part. Cause I think a lot of people may not be, unless you, you know, work in some place or had a job in a water manage district or DEP or someplace like that, where you were buying land or working with trying to buy land from willing landowners, how does that work for the Nature Conservancy, talk about that process a little bit about how, because you are a lot of times the hinge point for landowners being willing to work toward protecting that property in perpetuity. Yeah, and so the Nature Conservancy as an organization started back in the mid 1950s and that’s how we came to being. We came to being in New York State actually with a group of folks who were concerned about a piece of property that was potentially going to be developed. And these are just regular people like you and me, weren’t even in the conservation world or anything else. And they actually mortgage their houses to get enough money to be able to purchase this piece of property. And so the Nature Conservancy as an organization kind of grew organically, state by state, with folks. kind of saying, hey, we could do the same thing. And then at some point they recognized that, well, if you’re gonna do this and you’re gonna get big enough to do that, we need to have some paid staff and blah, blah. And so, like I said, the Nature Conservancy in Florida was founded in the 1960s. And our primary role for many, many decades really was in the land acquisition business. We did that in multiple ways when the Florida Forever and before that, the P2000 program, we and our trustees said these are great opportunities for us to leverage public slash ad valorem and other dollars to put back into the landscape. And we can help determine where that should go. And in many cases, we can actually be the entity that brings landowners in the door. can help negotiate. Sometimes we bridge the financial gap. So we do lots of roles and we have a pretty phenomenal group of folks who are so well versed in incredibly complicated land transactions. And I’m proud to say, here in Florida, we have our actual fingerprints of the a little over 9 million acres that are in conservation, mostly public lands. We have about one point, about a 1.3 million acres have our fingerprints on them. Wow, it’s a big deal. You mentioned your trustees and you mentioned funding sources. Talk about that relationship. I had nine board members at a water management district. There are places where you have a secretary and a governor and whatnot when you’re at DP. Talk about them and talk about their relationship to the overall mission. The Nature Conservancy as an organization, we are one 501c3. So we’re kind of one nonprofit that’s governed by a board of trustees, a global board of trustees. And then underneath that, like I mentioned, we have 50 state chapters. Our trustees don’t really have a fiduciary responsibility, so to speak, but they do have an overall responsibility of making sure that we’re spending our funds wisely. I am so fortunate to have an amazing, absolutely amazing board of trustees. I have 22 trustees from all across the state, from Apalachicola all the way down to Key West of all walks of life. And I will say, because it’s such a broad group of individuals with different expertise, that’s wonderful. And as you can imagine, 22 individuals all have 22 positions and ideas and they’re all willing to give. It’s just finding out what that right space for each of them is. Nice. You mentioned, I think you talked about the difference in the approach of choosing properties to go after. When, you know, whether I was at the district or other folks, when you look at buying property, there were essentially two ways to do it, right? You either have a willing seller and so that’s place and time, you know, dependent. They say, yeah, I want to talk about that. Or people talk about. eminent domain when something is quote unquote necessary, but you’re finding this spot in the middle. Is that right? Where you’re able to go after say things that are priorities for a natural system and then go approach landowners like that? Or how do you decide the places to go after? That’s a good question. And I would say there’s more places than there is. ability, whether that’s financial ability or in the case of the Nature Conservancy, we can only be in so many places. It’s pretty cool. We get phone calls almost every day from a landowner saying, I have this piece of property that I would like to see protected. Like I said, we can only be in so many places. But the great thing is there are now here in Florida so many… smaller land trusts that have that opportunity to think very locally. And so we try to connect them with those kinds of folks. For us, it’s where do we have history? Where do we have relationships? Where do we bring value? We don’t want to just be one more voice in the room or one more entity trying to scramble for dollars. If there’s already somebody there, then we don’t need to be there. And where’s the most threat? And then probably the one where we do. The Nature Conservancy kind of has a unique niches on really big land transactions. There’ve been some recent transactions within the last few years where we’ve brought our own philanthropic dollars to the tune of over a million, million and a half of our own dollars to the table. And that’s not bragging, it’s just we’re so fortunate as a large organization to be able to, to oftentimes be able to close some of these gaps that smaller organizations just can’t do. Yeah, and it was a significant purchase. I’m a Northwest Florida guy now, I’ve had it for many, many years. Is that how you got to that Bluffs property? The Bluffs of St. Teresa, yep. Yeah, talk a little bit about the players there, just to kind of give people an idea of. the scope of the things that the Conservancy works on and how that came to fruition. Yeah, and that’s an interesting property. One of several properties that was, when St. Joe decided to divest in some of their properties, St. Joe Paper Company, there were several properties that they divested of. And we at the Nature Conservancy, even before that, had our eyes, I bet if you went back 20 years, you could find plans of ours that identified the bluffs of St. Teresa, Lake Wimico, kind of that whole panhandle coastal connectedness. So we’d been talking about this for many, many years and made multiple runs in different ways of trying to get that property. But the bluffs was available. There were Gulf oil spill funds available, but not to cover the complete purchase. And we worked with DEP. and brought some of our own money to acquire that. And again, now it’s partly DEP property that’s State Park and partly Florida State Forest. And it’s an amazing piece of property that I’m just so happy that TNC can play a role in getting that piece of property protected. And that would have been effectuated, you would have already been in more of the… government affairs, communications side of things by that point, right? Yep. Yeah, I was, you know, so for the probably past four years, I was the deputy executive director and had government relations and conservation underneath me. And so that was, again, one of those opportunities of it’s been on the list. We know that this is one of those coastal properties that honestly, you know, will rebound. and we’ll go. And so taking advantage of, like I said, working with all of the partners to, I like to use the word cobble together, the funds to make it happen, and then have someone like the state being willing to manage the property. And I’ll just tell you, I mean, we continue to work with both entities, the State Park Service, as well as the Florida Forest Service on the restoration of that piece of property. And it’s… a decade or two decades from now, it’s going to be unbelievable. And some of those, I would say normally, you’re going back to a place at DEP where you have a division of state lands and it’s like, hey, we’re gonna go back and see old friends, but those are some different faces though than when you were at DEP that do that kind of work. Is it building relationships with those folks, the people that are in charge of helping the bird dog and closed land buying deals as well that you’re… that you’re working on, talk about those relationships a little bit. Yeah, it’s interesting, like I said, being on the other side, right? So when you’re in the DEP chair in a non-profit, whoever it is, reaches out to you and says, hey, have I got a deal for you? Or I have a suggestion of what you should do. It’s a little bit different, I’ll just be honest. It’s like, okay, we’re the state of Florida, we’re the federal government, or whoever. And so… We try to be thoughtful about what it’s like to be on that side. I would hope that the Secretary, Secretary Hamilton, or any of his folks would say, the Nature Conservancy always approaches us from the standpoint of being a partner. We offer to help a lot. I hope that if they don’t want our help, they would be honest and say, hey, we don’t need your help. Because it is, as I mentioned earlier, you can get short-term gains or you can get long-term gains and the Nature Conservancy is here and has been here and it’s all about those long-term relationships. Do you have a guiding philosophy or maybe a set of principles that you rely on, whether it’s Division of State lands and partners like that or convincing legislators, the public at large, at the importance of not just a particular purchase, but the mission of Nature Conservancy as a whole. I think, and our polling has demonstrated this, not just our polling, most of the polling, right? The public, and you can use that however you want, but the public believes strongly in several things. They believe in water, right? In clean water, in abundant water, and that’s played out in Florida many, many times, many, many polls. They also believe strongly in conservation and in green space. And so, from my standpoint, called a philosophy or a tenet, first you gotta be willing to have the honest conversations. And once you kinda can get to that point of, well what is it that we’re trying to accomplish and why do we think it’s important? then I think you can actually start having the conversation of how do you do it, right? And it all goes back to your earlier question, Brett, of if you just assume that everybody needs to think the way that you do, whether you’re a small county who’s trying to grow your tax base, for me to drop in there and say, oh, you guys should do X, and you shouldn’t want to be like some other county. So my point is you really… For me and the Nature Conservancy, I mean, we are a nonpartisan group. We’re non-confrontational. And so we know that the way to do these things is with partners. And those partners include everybody from, you know, the legislature to state governments, to landowners, to others in the conservation world, because that’s the only way we’re going to get it done. So take me from the silo of that mission, because it’s more than just that. at the conservancy, but take me to the outside of the silo into the larger realm of restoring natural systems writ large. And the one that comes to my mind most immediately, because in the news quite a bit, is Indian River Lagoon. If my old friend Paul Thorpe at the Northwest Florida Water Management District hears this, and I hope he does because his face will melt off, for me it’s always been fix the problem at hand. And so he and I would always have these, you know, these discussions, sometimes spirited, sometimes not about what, you know, what to do first, you know, do we deal with a stormwater runoff and septic tanks and advanced treatment of wastewater treatment facilities, or do we, do we buy land and it took him a while, you know, over the years and I’m a bit stubborn. And so for me, it was like, Hey, maybe it’s both. Is that, is that the approach that the conservancy takes to things like that? Or is it really, how can you fit in that less broad mission into a broader mission? Or do you do the whole thing? Good question. And I would say we sometimes still struggle with, what’s that balance? I mentioned we were, and we started in the land acquisition business and then we recognized that just buying land and not doing land management on it was important. So we kind of expanded to a land management and we have a, you know, an amazing prescribed fire crew, and we train, you know, folks on prescribed fire and invasive exotic removal. You know, and then we started looking around and saying, okay, that’s great, you know, for the uplands, but now what other problems exist? And we’ve done coral restoration in the Keys. And, you know, part of that was, as I mentioned, looking around and saying, well, where isn’t there somebody and can we, or is there a philanthropic? opportunity there to kind of try something. And so, you know, we’ve kind of continued to do that. We do freshwater work and we do climate work and we do marine work and, you know, of course, do land work. You know, sometimes it can seem like we’re trying to do everything, but we try to be focused on where can we bring value. And, you know, I would argue that the Indian River Lagoon is one of those places where we think we can bring value and focus, and there’s lots of opportunity there. And I do think it’s both. I mean, I don’t think you can just say, oh, well, we’re just gonna deal with septic tanks and we’re not gonna deal with stormwater. I wanna talk a little bit more about that, but I wanna pause to give credit to or point out one of those things that you talked about, you talk about land management. And from my perspective, we deal with, you know, 200 at the water management district when I was still there, 225,000 acres of natural area, most of it around water, but some of it in Upland. And the Nature Conservancy is considered very well respected, part of broader teams that include both government and non-governmental entities, but you’re the major non-governmental entity doing the, whether it be the day-to-day activities, but also those more difficult tasks of prescribed fire and things like that. Is that something that the Conservancy takes a great deal of pride in or effort? Was it, was it by design or is it, Hey, we ended up being good at this. I don’t really know the history from the standpoint of, I think a lot of it was, as being a big landowner ourselves, so in Florida, we own over 40,000 acres ourselves, right? So when you own it, you also have to end up figuring out how to manage it. And fortunately, we do have the resources and ability to kind of start figuring some of this stuff out. And as an example, the- goes kind of hand in hand with the prescribed fire, certainly here in Florida, is our longleaf pine restoration that we work with the district on as well. And in addition to, I mean, I think many of us figured out how to plant longleaf pine trees, but then it became the, okay, well that’s not really necessarily the system we’re trying to restore. We’re trying to actually restore the system, right? Which includes ground cover and native grasses and… And how do we do that? And we have, again, the Nature Conservancy, because our donors honestly trust us to make good decisions with their money. And we think very, I mean, that’s a pretty big tenet for me is to make sure we’re spending it wisely. So we can think about how can we, and I would say we’re innovators in that way, and we have been innovators on ground cover restoration in longleaf pine. And now we have to figure out how do we scale those things up? Much, much broader. Yeah, and it doesn’t stop there, right? You mentioned, and I didn’t know about the coral reef before, what I do know about is going beyond the grasses, the trees, into the actual things that inhabit those places, right? And at least in Northwest Florida, that includes gopher tortoises. That includes the indigo snake, which had almost completely disappeared from North Florida. How is that going, the indigo snake? I think we’re on year, so we’re working with other groups. We’re not growing the snakes, but there’s a group that actually grows the snakes up, along with other researchers and of course FWC and the Fish and Wildlife Service, because they’re endangered and super wonderful snakes. And so we volunteered at our Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines property. to be essentially a site that we could do releases and also some of those snakes or actually have a transmitter. So we can start learning, what is their range? How many of them are being successful? I think with this, we actually just did a release about a month ago, you can find it on the website, that was the seventh year in North Florida that we’ve released indigo snakes with the hope of, again, rebuilding that population. What I tell my, especially my, my marketing folks is that’s all part of this wildlife corridor story. It’s not just this and what Carlton and Mallory and others have done, you know, for recognizing that, you know, the, the need for a corridor is amazing. And you’ve got to be able to tell those stories like the indigo snake of, you know, that’s why we need it. Yeah. And there’s a lot to that subject. There’s a lot of push now folks like Wilton Simpson, who was the the state’s ag commissioner for those wildlife corridors that includes not just wild places like the conservancy land or water management land, but, but agricultural land, right? How, how involved is the conservancy in helping to pull all of those things together to, to help form that corridor? I would say we’re one of many partners, obviously, working with President Pasadomo and Speaker Renner and what they have done, again, in their first term here has been amazing, supporting land acquisition programs. They recognize, again, that the agricultural community is a key to recognizing… or realizing maybe I should say that the Florida Wildlife Corps or the only way it’s going to happen is by protecting. And again, when I say protection, it doesn’t necessarily mean that us buying, it may mean easements. It may mean something completely new that we haven’t thought about, but how do we keep those agricultural lands in agriculture? And as you mentioned, the commissioner is key to that as well. Jumping back to Indian River Lagoon, I don’t want to leave it unsaid because significant legislation has been passed. House Bill 1379 that deals in a broad range of subjects, but I think the central theme there is the Indian River Lagoon restoration program. Are you satisfied with the end result of that product? Do you think there’s something missing there that you still want to work on? Well, what I would say is there’s something that we are working on and, you know, I think it’s, it’s probably, you know, the funding and there’s lots of plans, right? I mean, there’s, there’s multiple plans. They’re good plans. Certainly we, I’m gonna use the we as the collective we recognize that, you know, septic tanks all across Florida, you know, are an issue in, in places, especially close to. to water bodies. The one thing that we’ve been thinking a lot about, and I am pretty excited that we’re gonna be able to help happen is looking at stormwater, which really hasn’t, the actual stormwater treatment side of things hasn’t really changed in decades, right? I mean, it’s, you build a pond, you collect X amount of water, and you put in a fixed crest weir, and when it fills up enough that it spills over, then it discharges, and then the next storm comes. Well, we’ve been working with some folks on changing or at least evaluating, I will say changing because the technology is demonstrated and we’ve done this, the Nature Conservancy has done this in a few places across the country including in the Chesapeake and changing from this passive kinds of stormwater treatment to an active stormwater treatment and what I’ve kind of the way I’ve explained it to lay folks is. We have so many smart technologies now, like your thermostat now can tell you, not only does it tell when you’re home, but it actually can tell, oh, if you change the thermostat X number of times, it starts figuring out what your comfort zones are. We have all of these other technologies. In this essentially, in a very simplistic way, instead of just accepting that we’re going to have a stagnant pond, can look at weather. and determine, oh, it’s gonna rain, and I am gonna likely need capacity, I can go ahead and discharge some very, very clean water and not let it mix with water that’s gonna be newer water and discharge it and actually free up more capacity, right? And so it’s pretty, it’s wonderful. And why I’m excited about it is all across the state, we have these places that are, there’s not much opportunity because they’re They’re fairly built out. So what are we gonna do? I mean, if we wanna get nutrient removal out of these places, we’re gonna have to think new. And this is one of those ways of doing that. And so we have some potential for some philanthropic dollars to demonstrate and work with some local governments on retrofitting some existing stormwater ponds. And then my ultimate hope here is that once we demonstrate and show people that this is a technology that… It’s demonstrated now it’s just how do we get it to go? We like to use the word viral, but you know, essentially there’s no doubt in my mind, we’re going to see active stormwater management across the state of Florida. And it’s going to provide lots of benefits, but I think the Indian river Lagoon is the first place we’re going to focus. Sure. Yeah. I think a lot of exciting things to come there. I’m going to run you through, I’ve kept you a while, but I want to get my, my usual questions in. So. You’ll have to bear with me. Let’s start with one that’s a weird question to ask, but I always phrase it this way and then rephrase it differently. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of? It doesn’t have to be a thing itself. It can be your impact on someone else, something else’s impact on you and how, how you operate anything in that, in that realm. Wow. That’s a, that’s a good question. You know, I, I would say, and it’s, you know, sometimes you lose sight of those things, but The Everglades, and I’m going to focus specifically on the stormwater treatment areas because there was really not much known about them. The fact that we went from one test, the STA-1Es, to the rest. Now we’ve got hundreds of thousands of acres of stormwater treatment areas. That was a pretty big deal. In figuring out water quality treatment and what it looked like and all of that. and working with my colleagues at DEP during the time was pretty cool. When it came to your time in government at DEP, was there something there? We all make decisions and you were there for 20 years. You moved to TNC doing great things there. Was there something there though that you felt maybe was undone or hey, it would have been nice to have seen that finish? Was it the Everglades? I would never say that because you know, that’s just… I would like to see it done in my lifetime, but that’s such a big thing that I don’t know about that. I would say that just a recognition that water, and maybe what I would say is really bringing a, and it’s much easier said than done, this kind of comprehensive view of, and I’m only focused on water since this is a water. podcast. Even at DEP, while they all kind of talk to one another, I would still say it was siloed then and it’s still kind of siloed. And so how do you get to that, to your point, Brett, if we’re talking about Indian River Lagoon, how do you get all of the folks, whether it’s the funding folks and the regulatory folks, and all kind of together and say… What’s the one thing that we, if we all kind of row in the same direction, we can all get done instead of saying, oh, well, no, that’s your program. Your words to God’s ears there. Are you optimistic about the future of the environment in Florida and why? Oh, yeah. I mean, most definitely. That’s the only, I mean, I couldn’t get up every morning if I, if I wasn’t optimistic, you know, where there’ll be changes. Yeah. Will it all be the way I want it? Definitely not. But I do believe, and I’ll continue to say this, that at the heart of it, people care. And I think if we can figure out a way to capture, and this is just a side note that one day, on one of your future podcasts, you can ask folks to come talk more about this. But if we can really capture all of the benefits that our natural systems provide. then we’ll be much further along, right? Instead of whether it’s just aesthetics, it doesn’t matter whether you like critters or you don’t like critters or whatever, that our natural lands, not just lands, natural landscapes are providing all kinds of benefits to all of us, and so my optimism is we’ll recognize all of that and that will, that’ll move us much further along. What keeps you up at night? regarding the environment. Is there something that’s like, gosh, I don’t know how we’re going to fix this. I don’t know that actually what keeps me awake at night, especially being new in this position, maybe it’s going to sound corny, is not wanting to disappoint both my spouse, of course, and those people who got me to where I am, right? All of those leaders, including you and others who I have tremendous respect for, my staff, you know, my board of trustees. You know, to me, that’s what keeps me awake at night is, you know, I have a lot of smart people that I rely on and that, you know, advise me. And so to me, I’m not worried about whether we can do it or not. I’m just worried about whether I can help them and enable them to do it. I don’t think that’s corny at all, man. What advice would you give to young people who are either entering or maybe interested in entering, whether it be public service in the environmental field or the environment? from an NGO standpoint, what would you tell them? So what I would say, again, I’m only going to talk about TNC, would be do it. There is, again, I recognize I’m biased, but as an organization, I mean from the top, Jen Morris, our CEO, all the way down to the land steward who’s got the drip torch and his lighting prescribed fires, the passion and commitment is absolutely unbelievable. And it’s not just Florida. I meet people from all over the globe, and that commitment is to a person. And they’re your friend right off the bat. And so what I would suggest is if you’re interested, find somebody, ask them, get involved, volunteer, figure out how to do it. And then on the public side, I would, the same thing, say that we need people who are passionate. not necessarily looking to, you know, to, to get wealthy because you’re not going to do that anywhere. And, you know, in the public sector, if you want to help make a difference, you know, you can, and it just requires, you know, working hard. I think that’s a perfect place to end. Greg connect. Thank you so much for being here, man. Enjoy it. Thank you. Yeah. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to water for fighting. This podcast has been brought to you by rez can see in shoreline. Don’t forget to check the episode notes to visit their websites and learn more about how they can help you. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use and don’t forget to leave a 5-star rating and review. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, probably even Twitter at FLWaterpod and you can reach me directly at FLWaterpod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called Doin’ Work for Free and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Mike Register

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett travels to Palatka to sit down with the Executive Director of the St. Johns River Water Management District – Mike Register. They discuss how a young engineer out of the University of Florida charts a path to a more than three decade-long career at the agency he now runs; his approach to solving problems and working with stakeholders; the complicated processes involved in the development of Regional Water Supply Plans and Minimum Flows and Levels; and his thoughts on the future of water in Florida.

Learn more about Regional Water Supply Plans.

Learn more about how the District is working with farmers to meet their needs and the needs of the environment.

Learn about the Indian River Lagoon, its challenges, and the District’s role in restoration.

If you want to find out how you can protect drinking water supplies in the St. Johns River and beyond

Don’t forget to support our sponsors, RES and Sea & Shoreline.

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Dean Saunders

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 29 May 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In Episode 2 of Season 2, Brett travels to Lakeland for the opportunity to hear from the person who brought the idea of conservation easements (they called it something different in the early 90’s) to Florida: 8th generation Floridian, long time real estate broker, and former member of the Florida House of Representatives – Dean Saunders. They talk about his time with Senator and then Governor Lawton Chiles; how conservation easements and Bright Futures were born; and how a young pancake dinner salesman became one of the most prolific land brokers in the state.

If you’d like to learn more about conservation lands in Florida, including easements, check out the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI)

Learn more about the Bright Futures Scholarship program.

Get to know who Senator and then Governor Lawton Chiles was.

If you’re buying or selling real estate and want Dean’s help, find him here: https://www.saundersrealestate.com

You can also reach Dean directly by email

If you’re interested in finding out more about my day job and the amazing folks I work with, head here: www.anfieldflorida.com

This season of Water for Fighting is brought to you by my friends at Resource Environmental Solutions and Sea & Shoreline.

Transcript

Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers. This season of Water for Fighting is sponsored by Sea and Shoreline. Sea and Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that is on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at seainshoreline.com. The season is also brought to you by Resource Environmental Solutions. REZ is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to Florida and its environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us. More about these good folks a little bit later. As advertised, we’re continuing to broaden our horizons a little bit more this season and today’s guest fits right into that philosophy. I’m so excited to be joined by a former member of the Florida House of Representatives and the founder, managing director, and senior advisor for Saunders, Ralston, and Dantzler, Dean Saunders. Dean served in the Florida House for two terms between 1992 and 1996, where he was instrumental in the creation of legislation that served as the foundation for the development and expansion of conservation easement programs here in the state of Florida. Since then, he has brokered some of the most consequential conservation purchases ever made in the state of Florida. Dean, thank you for joining me on the podcast. It’s good to see you. Yeah, good to be here. Let’s start at the very beginning. You and I talked for a few minutes before I got here, and you said that you’re an eighth generation Floridian. Is that right? That is correct. So tell me about your parents then, I guess, and their parents and parents and parents. Oh. So my parents, my dad, the Saunders side, were really cracker conks. Actually, the Saunders helped found the Bahamas in the 16. 1649 when the Lutheran adventurers left the Bermuda and went to the Bahamas. And then from the Bahamas they made it to Key West in about 18… between 1845 and 1847. And then migrated up the coast and then settled in the Dunedin area, a little community called Curlew, settled by the Saunders and then by ultimately my other side of my dad’s side of the family, the Sutton’s and Bechtons and a whole bunch of… names over there. And my great-great grandfather founded the Curlew Methodist Church, which at the time was the second oldest church in what was then Hillsborough County. Wow. So now of course it’s Pinellas County. Right, I was going to ask about that. Yeah, yeah. And then my mom, she came from Michigan. She was adopted and so her adoptive mother moved to Dunedin and that’s how she met my dad. My mother, actually her biological father is Native American. He was in Ottawa. I think Ottawa and Chippewa from Michigan. And so I’ve actually located her half brother. She never knew she had and he never knew he had a half sister until about a year ago. Wow, that is that is recent. Yeah, so is that the I had a friend who calls them I guess you purrs are they the you purrs the ones that are not the north side of Michigan or is it a different part of? Michigan that well, well, no, they were not part of the Upper Peninsula, but good catch I mean there were there’s several bands of the Ottawa and I think it’s the Little River Band that okay My folks were part of interesting So then let’s go back to you’re now here in Florida. Your parents, where were you born? So I was born in Claremont. Okay, which is much different now than it was when you were born there. True. But what were you like as a kid? What did you like doing? What did your dad do for a living? So my dad managed some groves for the Artie Keene family, a big citrus growing family out of Orlando, and he managed about thousand acres of their groves and a lot of them were in and around Claremont. Had he always done that from when you were in Dunedin? So dad went to University of Florida, majored in citrus and then he actually moved to Lakeland. He was working for the Soil Science Foundation here in Lakeland and then he got a job with Mr. Keene to be the manager of his citrus groves and so he moved to Claremont. So did you grow up in the groves with your dad? Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, as a little kid, I mean, fishing, swimming in the lakes, playing baseball. When I was 13, I started working in the Orange Coast. I remember it was, Easter break was coming up, and it was, so we had Thursday, Friday, and Monday off for Easter. I mean, back then, you could still call it Easter break. But now we call it spring break. And I remember it was a Wednesday evening, and Dad said, oh, by the way, you’re going to start working in the morning, so you need to make a lunch tonight. 630 in the morning. I did that until I graduated from college. I would come home in the summers and I’d work in the orange groves. So I started working 10-hour days in vacations and summer and whatnot. But it’s interesting. You have people that have different stories and some folks intentionally avoid the things that their fathers did before them or their mothers did before them. And I didn’t want to assume you’re one of the most significant land brokers in the entire state, probably the Southeast. And so I didn’t want to assume that, hey, just because you’re buying and selling doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily, it’s part of who you are. But it sounds like it is and has been. Well, yeah, yes and no. I mean, so my grandfather was a commercial fisherman. And so my dad’s on the Saunders side. Ever since we came from the Bahamas, we were either farmers or fishermen, right? And mostly fishermen. But my dad went on the agricultural side. the next Jaco Stowe, you know, at the time. I wanted to be a marine biologist, but later realized that there weren’t that many jobs at the time in that field. And so I migrated into majoring in citrus and agriculture and thought I would be, I’d always enjoyed sales. And I can remember when I was eight or nine, my dad was a great grove manager, but sales were not one of his things. And the Rotary Club was having pancake supper and they had tickets, right, to sell. So I took my dad’s tickets and I walked all over Claremont selling pancake supper tickets. And he was the top salesman. So he sold the most tickets. And it was actually me that had sold them. And he got a little black and white, 8-inch black and white TV as his prize for selling the most tickets. And he gave it to me. I enjoyed the sales. I enjoyed getting around and meeting with people and talking to people. You know, is Dean again, you know, what are you selling now? Do you know? Right. What do you attribute that to? Is it that, that persistence or were you always an extrovert? Is that kind of your thing? I, yeah, I just think, you know, yeah, I was, I, you know, enjoy people and enjoyed sales, I mean, it was a, just something to do, I don’t know, I just liked it and so I always thought I’d probably end up in fertilizer sale or chem, chemical sales or something. I was really thinking more national chemical companies at the time, ag chemicals. But when I graduated in 82, was a farm recession. Now the country in general was doing okay, but the farm community was not. And so I ended up going to work for Golden Gem Citrus Growers. And I know that one of your next questions is gonna be, well, how did I get to work in for Lawton Childs? So just to go to that story, I came home from work one day and I’d been at Golden Gem for about three months. Is this after college that you’re talking about? This is after college. After, you know, so 1983, my dad says, This guy called, his name is Charles Kennedy, says he’s administrative assistant to Lawton Childs. He called and I said, well, okay, do you have his number, Dad? I can return his phone call. No, he just said he’d call you in the morning. I said, Dad, what? So, sure enough, at six o’clock in the morning, he called me, I was already at the Golden Gym offices and he just said, Dean, I know you’re at work and you probably can’t talk, so just listen. He said, I’m. Charles Kennedy, administrative assistant to US Senator Locke-Chiles. And the senator would like to hire somebody to work agricultural issues for him. He’s looking for a cracker with a background in agriculture, preferably in citrus, who enjoys politics. You were referred to us by the University of Florida. Would you be interested in discussing this with us? And I said, yes, sir, I would. And I went down to Lakeland that night, and two weeks later I was working for Long Chiles. Wow. So that’s what brought me to Lakeland. Okay. So, I mean, you glossed over it a little bit, but you mentioned you were referred by the University of Florida, but you actually went to the University of Florida. Correct. And so while I was at Florida, I was very active in student government and my fraternity. I was a member of Alpha Gambrough Fraternity. was president of AGR and I was president of the Student Senate while I was there and member of Florida Blue Key and all the kinds of things that one does to be in leadership positions, never thinking that I would ever use that in any political fashion after school. Yeah, that’s the part I was curious about is the University of Florida, even in the A’s, it’s an enormous school now, but it’s always been a big school in Florida, and so Dean Saunders or you ask the president of the university, like, oh, you need to call this kid Dean Saunders. Yeah. So they reached out to the lobbyists for IFAS, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, who were looking for somebody, and if you all got somebody that you would recommend. And so there they recommended me. Right, so then let’s talk about then your time while he was Senator Lawton Childs. What did you do for him? How did that work? Lakeland, I assume, the entire time? So we were headquartered in Lakeland and I was here. So I was working administrative kind of issues, mostly. But he wanted me to be a, my title was agricultural liaison. I went to meetings with Florida Citrus Mutual or the dairy farmers or the, actually the sugar growers had an association at the time. They don’t anymore. It’s been disbanded. Or the cattlemen’s meetings or farm bureau meetings. Association meetings. I mean Busy is what you were. Nursher Men and Growers Association. All of the agricultural groups in the state, I got to know the leadership of those organizations. And that’s what the Senator wanted me to do. He wanted me to be out and meeting with those folks. So they knew they had an advocate and a voice in Washington for their needs. And so that’s really what I did. And then at some point, Mr. Kennedy came to me and said, like for you in addition to doing the work that you’re doing with the agriculture community, we would like for you to travel with the Senator, advance his trips, do the follow-up, and conduct town hall meetings on a regular basis in a 20-county district. So I was the quote, not only the agricultural liaison, but then they called it I think, Central Florida District Assistant. Okay. So when the Senator was in any of my counties, I’d pick him up at the airport, I’d That kind of thing. At that point, I mean, you’re working for who become probably one of the most famous, if not the most famous politicians from Florida, at least in the modern era. But did you consider yourself getting deeper into the political side of thinking at that point? Or do you still think of yourself as an ag person, an ag liaison, a person that wanted to work around those issues? No, I saw myself latter, really more, I was still an ag guy. I was, I’m working for the senator. I was very loyal to him, worked hard for him on his behalf, and did what he asked me to do, right, and represented his interest. But at the same time, I was an advocate for the agriculture community. And he knew it, they knew it, but I never really thought of me in that light, right? Right. That just wasn’t my particular interest at the time. I was interested in doing a good job and really being an advocate for agriculture. That sounds great. Talk about that transition then from Senator Childs to Governor Childs and then how you fit into that picture. So you asked me earlier was I always in Lakeland and I was always in Lakeland, but I had an interlude. The Farm Bureau, Florida Farm Bureau Federation hired me and so I took a year off from service with Senator Childs. to work for Florida Farm Bureau in Gainesville, which is where our oldest daughter was born. Okay. And so I did ag issues again for Farm Bureau, more national sort of issues. I did some state lobbying. And then in 1986, when the Democrats took control of the Senate again, Lawton became chairman of the Budget Committee. And he called me shortly after that and said, Dean, I’d like for you to consider coming back. Actually, we had dinner. And he said, I’d like. I’d like for you to come back to work for me. I’d like for you to come to Washington and handle ag issues for me. I’ll have more money, I can pay you out of the budget committee, go on staff and whatnot. And I said, well, I said, Senator, let me think about it and pray about it, visit with my wife about it. And I came back about a week later and I said, as much as I would find the opportunity exciting and to work for you again would be phenomenal, I just don’t want my opportunities to be in Washington. Because I know if I move to Washington, future opportunities will be there. And we really want to live in Florida. We love our state. We don’t want to be that far away from our parents. And I now have a daughter to consider. So he said, okay, well, how about if we just let you work out of the Lakeland office and you fly up to D.C. to do the work you need about once a month? And he said, but listen, if I make this trade off with you, you’re going to have to travel with me again. So that’s what we did. Okay. And then so what year was that when he took over that committee and asked you to come back? That was in 1986, right after the election. So I came back and I was on staff. So, 87. So then he decided not to run for reelection. He was up for reelection in 1988, but he made the decision, actually on Pearl Harbor Day, not to run for reelection in the Senate. So he made it in 1987 that he wasn’t going to run. So, and so I approached him and I said, well, I’d gotten my real estate license when I was a senior in college. And so I said, would you all consider cutting my hours in half and my pay in half and let me see if I can’t make a living with this real estate license? Because the Grove Market was really on fire. And I knew Citrus. I mean, I majored in Citrus in school. I knew Orange Grows. My dad, I worked in them. You know, since I was 13 years old, understood it, liked it. And there was demand because of all the freezes of the 80s, the early 80s, the 81 freeze, 82 freeze, 83 freeze, 85 freeze, all created a huge demand for orange groves south of Polk County, in Polk County, and south. Just kind of south of I-4. And for land to plant groves. So. They agreed, and I was able to make a deal that replaced my entire salary that I lost. And then the day after we closed the office, I got a deal done that replaced my entire year’s salary. And so I never looked backwards. I just saw it. You know, this is God’s, you know, providential hand here directing me. I never would have ever imagined that I would be selling real estate. It wasn’t like something I said, oh, wow, I just want to go sell agriculture real estate when I grow up. Never thought that in my wildest imaginations. And I remember my mom saying, You’re going to sell real estate? We put you through college for that? Ha ha ha ha. And to which I would say, Mom, remember, I paid for half of my college. That’s why I worked in those groves. I paid, I paid for half of my college. So, yeah. Did that make you better? I mean, you know, obviously, you know, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a real estate agent, but, but your history though, in your education, your experience, you’re dealing with the folks, not just from university of Florida in your education, but with the, the work that you did for center of trial. It had to be invaluable. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so, so then not only was it just Senator Childs, but then, you know, when he ran for governor, I suspended my real estate practice and went. and helped him. When the day the announcement was made, I called him and said, I’ll see you in the morning. So I loaded up my little Bronco too and brought my computer and some clothes and went to Tallahassee. It was a little chaotic at the time, the campaign as most campaigns are. Nobody was raising money. But because I had been on the Senate staff, I knew so many of his friends and contacts around the state. So I just started got on the phone and just started putting together events to raise money to bring him into town. And so just started raising the money. So I raised the money for him in the campaign and then I stayed on staff with him. and then ran for the legislature myself. But all of those experiences put me where I was able to develop relationships with agricultural people all across the state and in various forms from dairymen to nurserymen to peanut farmers to citrus growers and tropical fish farmers, strawberry growers, I mean, fern growers, you name it, the gamut of Florida agriculture. to know a lot of that leadership. And so when I ultimately got out of the legislature, I was, what am I gonna do now? And I said, well, who do I know? Well, I know all these leaders in the agriculture community. I love selling land. You know, I’m gonna create a firm and we’ll start focusing on agricultural real estate. I wanna take just a moment to talk about my friends at REZ. Florida is a treasure trove of natural wonders, but the cost of that treasure is our collective responsibility to restore and protect its ecological and water resources. That’s where my friends at RES, the nation’s leader in ecological and hydrological restoration are at their best. With an extensive Florida-based team, RES provides top-notch nature-based solutions that uplift Florida’s ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. From water quality to hydrological restoration, wetland mitigation to coastal resilience, RES addresses the complex challenges facing our state with our unique operating model of taking full responsibility. for their project’s performance over time. Working with both the public and private sectors, RES is tackling the issues affecting Florida’s water and land resources the most. Their long-term, cost-effective, and sustainable projects rehabilitate impaired ecosystems, helping them do the work nature intended. Cleansing water, sheltering wildlife, buffering storms, and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Join RES on their mission to restore and uplift Florida’s ecosystems. Visit www.res.gov. dot us to learn more about res and their commitment to creating a resilient future for florida. All right, let’s get back to the conversation Well, let’s talk about that that transition. So you go from being, as you say, super loyal to to Senator Childs and then Governor Childs. At what point, because you you were elected to office, I think, is 1992. Is that right? That’s correct. And so some sometime between 1988 and 1992, something in your mind changed and said, I need to go do this. Why did you want to go do that? You know, that’s a that’s a good question. answer that. You know, I just enjoyed the public policy process. You know, I’d been working for Governor Childs at the time for almost a year and a half or so. And Quillian Yancey, who is a state senator from Lakeland, decided he was going to retire. He’d had enough, he was full of it, and he was going to retire. Well, that was going to create an opening for his Senate seat. And so I thought, you know, maybe I’ll run for that Senate seat. Polk County is where I am. I’m involved in this. Now I like it. Maybe I want to try my hand at it. So I approached the governor and said, I’m thinking about this. He said, well. then you need to get down to Polk County and you need to go bounce around and see what folks are saying. You need to go meet with some of the leaders down there and assess this situation. So I did. And it was a reapportionment year, and so the reapportioning the House and the Senate, but I came to the conclusion that there were others, Fred Jones being one of them, that were also considering running for the Senate seat. Fred had been in the house, who was a veteran of the house for 24 years, from Auburndale. I thought my chances probably weren’t all that good to take on that sort of a challenge, but he ultimately decided not to run. But everywhere I went, people I met said, yeah, there’s this guy in the house named Joe Vescusi. We’re not so sure about his brand of leadership, and we’d rather encourage that you run for .. Why don’t you think about running for that seat? So I did, and I made the decision to run. Joe was an incumbent Democrat. I was a Democrat. But we had a third party in the race, Gene Roberts. Gene was somewhat of a perennial candidate. He had run like eight times for office. And he was a great businessman, and he was well known in the community and well liked. He was also a Keywest or a clonk. Did he ever win? He never won, ever. But. What I realized then was, and we ran a strong campaign. I came in second and then Joe and I were in a runoff. This was when we still had runoffs in the primary. And what I realized is if you’re an incumbent and you don’t get 50% in that first race, if you’re in a runoff, you’re probably gonna lose. Because that really says that 50% of the people don’t think you should be reelected. So I was able to win in the Democratic primary. But it was the Ross Perot years. It was 1992. It was the Ross Perot years. And it was a throw the rascals out. And so highest voter turnout ever in Polk County. It was like 80% voter turnout. It was crazy. So all the polls were showing. My polls were showing me up. about 16 percentage points a week before the election. Republican polls were showing me up about 14% or 15%. So I felt, and I had kind of gotten word back on that, so I felt pretty good going into the race. But what I learned about polls is that polls poll the most likely to vote. Well, and most likely to vote is by past performance. Right. But in the throw the rascals out year of Ross Perot, that attracted so many people that weren’t most likely to vote. They were people that came out to vote. So there’s about almost a 20% pickup of those folks that would never poll. We never sampled their opinions because we didn’t expect them to come and vote. Sure. Right? So I won by five votes as it turned out. Five votes. And we had 10 days worth of recounts. We had six recounts, including a hand recount. Did the number ever change in there from the pot? Oh my gosh, it changed. Oh yeah, it’s a number of times. In fact, Brett, I went to bed that night. I remember calling my guy that was running my campaign. He was at the elections office. I was at our election party. And he said, Dean, I don’t know how to tell you, but I’m so sorry, but you lost about 220 votes or something like that. So I’m like, OK. So I called my opponent. congratulated her and I thanked everybody for their help and support and their friendship and my wife and I sat and we talked and said, you know, what an enriching experience this has been for us. Really, we’ve gotten to meet so many great people, got to learn a lot. This has really been an enriching experience for us. And you know what? The sun’s going to rise in the morning. We’re going to be fine. This is not. You know, not the end of the world. Sure. Disappointing when you’ve worked so hard not to win. But so we’re home in bed, literally. My I’m falling back on the pillow when the phone rings. It’s about two 30 or three o’clock in the morning. And it’s Bill Ruff. He, now Bill Ruff. He was a reporter, local political reporter for the Lakeland ledger. And he said, Dean, hey, this is Bill. What’d you think about the election? And I said, Bill, I lost. I mean, what do you think? I mean, I’m disappointed. He said, oh, you hadn’t heard? I said, no, what are you talking about? He said, well, they had a staff who at the elections office, they double counted the absentee ballots. And when they backed those out, you’re now 21 votes, but they still haven’t counted the military absentee ballots. So those have got to be opened up and there’s about a hundred of those. Well, I did that quick math. I said, okay, well there’s a hundred and there’s four districts in Polk County. There’s probably going to be 25 or 30 of those ballots. So probably go more to Republicans because it’s military and I’ll probably still be ahead. If I’m only ahead by 21 votes, I’ll probably lose about half that. And sure enough, when we counted them, I was up 11 votes. Then we did some machine recounts and whatnot. It varied. So we went from 11 to 7. Then we went into the canvassing board meeting. And the canvassing board said, hey, we’ve got a problem. We were canvassing the election, which is just a reconciling of ballots given to ballots voted. And we realized we were five ballots. too many, or five ballots short. And so when they explained it, what had happened was one of the precincts ran out of ballots. The demand in the voter turnout was so high, they ran out of ballots. And so, and they did not have time to drive to the elections office and get more ballots and get back by the time the polls would close. So they took some absentee ballots and had the people fill out absentee ballots. And there were five of those ballots. And they marked them and put them in a special box and put a note on it. And so when we went to the canvassing board’s meeting, the first thing was, well, how should we handle these five ballots? So they so bravely asked the candidates what we thought. And I said, well, listen, whether I win or lose doesn’t matter as much as the integrity of the election. And if they look like they are, I understand the explanation. I mean, it was an extraordinary voter turnout. They look like those are properly cast ballots, then we should count them, absolutely. However it turns out, my opponent didn’t think so. She thought we shouldn’t count them. And I think they broke three votes my way, two votes her way, so I net gained a one. But then she was demanding a hand recount. So we went in and I said, fine. I mean, again, the importance is that the election results of people’s voice should be heard, count them by hand. Well, what I didn’t realize at the time, Because we had a fill-in-the-bubble ballot. So we didn’t have hanging Chads like we later had in 2000, because we didn’t have those kind of voting machines. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that there are ballots that are not counted, because people fill out the ballots incorrectly. They bring a pen in, and they fill it out with pen, which isn’t read by the computers. Or they put in an X or they circle or they make other marks on the election ballot, but they’re not counted by the computers. And so the hand count and the computer count reconciled, it was the same. And now we come to the 25 or 30 ballots that were rejected by the machines and the canvassing board was then charged with determining the will of the voter. And they literally went through all these ballots. And so Saunders, Breidenbach, Saunders, Breidenbach, Breidenbach, Breidenbach, Saunders, Saunders, back and forth. And there was not a single ballot I disagreed with until the very last one. And I knew at that point I’d won because I knew there was no way the canvassing board would allow that ballot to be counted for my opponent. If it made a difference in the race and you could tell where somebody had put their mark, like they were thinking they were going to vote for my opponent. But then they lifted their pencil up and you could tell because their other ballots were bubbled in, right? But on that one, they decided not to vote. They abstained, but they called it for my opponent. And I figured, you know what? I must have won because there’s no way. they would let that because it was clear they didn’t intend to vote in my opinion. Right. And I won by five votes. So I think I, I think my opponent talked to me maybe eight years later. She never, she walked out and went to North Carolina and I never heard from her. She never spoke to me for eight years. Okay. So I mean, obviously that that requires the follow up of what was that conversation like eight years later? I can’t even remember. I don’t really care. All good. All good. So, we’re into metaphorical, skin of our teeth territory on getting into office. Did it work out easier the second time? These things usually are easier, I would assume, for an incumbent, but you served two terms. Did the second one go a little bit easier? Yeah, it was easier. It was interesting that the Democrat I had defeated in the primary race, Joe Biden, Nova Scusi changed parties and ran as a Republican and challenged me as a Republican. Interesting. But yes, I won. And so you didn’t spend a lot of time in the legislature, but you spent enough time dealing with public policy for years by that point. You’re still a really young guy. How old were you when you first got elected office? I was 32. 32, yeah. Super young. But you’d already been around these issues for a long time. And so it seems like you made really good use of the time that you had in the legislature. And I want to talk. little bit about that in particular because he’s largely a water and environmental podcast. The idea of conservation easements and the expansion of their use, you were instrumental in that happening. Tell me about that process. So yeah, so you know it’s funny, Brett, back when I was 24 years old and I was working for Lawton, newly married, and I can remember I’m not sure why my wife and I were in Orlando, but we were coming back to Claremont to go to my parents. This was in 1984, so this was after that 81 freeze, which had been devastating to Lake County, but then that 83 freeze, the freeze of Christmas of 1983, which coincidentally was also the week, the first night we spent in our new home in Lakeland was the freeze night. And the heater didn’t work. So here we are in 1984, and I’m driving back. And it looks like something you would see out of a dystopian novel. Just dead, gnarly orange trees everywhere. Wow. You know, because that drive used to be so pretty, you know, rolling hills, just nothing but orange trees and lakes. And, you know, we were called the gem of the hills. Claremont’s little mantra was, gem of the hills. That was our little thing. So I remember saying to my wife, I said, you know, this will all be houses one day, and I’m going to hate that. I said, you know, I wonder if we could pay landowners not to develop their land. So hence, the idea of the conservation easements at the time was born out of that. And so when I went to work for the Florida Farm Bureau between my stints with Lawton and when he was in the Senate, I started doing some research on the transfer of development rights because that was being used as part of the new… growth management legislation that the state enacted in 1985. Now the counties are having to do their comprehensive planning and all that has to get approved by the state. Well I started seeing… transfer development rights showing up as a way to offer a landowner a token, really, like oh, well, we’re going to allow you to transfer your development rights somewhere. So I started really researching that concept, and I found where there were some counties in New England. By the way, transfer development rights almost never works, because you have to have, government has to create a sending zone and a receiving zone. It requires the government to create the market. And that’s just something governments are terrible at. And so they really don’t work, was the conclusion I came to. But I also discovered that there were some counties in New England, Suffolk County in New York being one of them, that created purchase of development rights programs. I thought, oh my gosh, this is it. Where the government’s actually buying the rights to develop the land. And in Suffolk County, they were concerned about potato farmers. They wanted to continue to make sure they had people farming potatoes. Wow. And so. That’s Long Island, right? Suffolk County? Yeah. Right, yeah. Potato farmers on Long Island. Correct. And so I started calling some of those counties and I would talk to the people administering the programs. Oh yeah, this is how it works and whatnot. So I really had. I dove into it and really understood it. And so I said, I went to president of Farm Bureau at the time, Carl Lupe, I tried to pitch this idea. This is a great idea. This is a way to protect ag land, but still protect the integrity of private property rights. So it’s conserved, but the landowner gets to enjoy some of the appreciated value that he’s giving up to not develop the property. What was the initial reaction the first time you came back to Florida? You did all this research, you’re talking to these folks, you see that there’s something there. When you first said it out loud to someone, what was the initial reaction that you got? Skepticism. You know… But I was so enthusiastic about it. I remember when I talked to Carl, he was like, well, you know, that sounds interesting, Dean. You know? And so now, so fast forward to 1990, and I’m working for Lawton, but also on the ballot in 1990 was the constitutional amendment to create the Preservation 2000 program, which was an investment where the voters of the state said, we want the state to make an investment in our green infrastructure. We want them to protect some of our land. And so the concept was to spend $300 million a year to bond that money because the interest less than the appreciated value of the property. And so let’s buy land now and we’ll pay for it as we go. And we’ll pay for it from the documentary stamp tax, which was a beautiful nexus because it was, as real estate gets sold, houses get sold, part of that money goes for the doc stamps, we’ll use that money to pay back the bonds. So it was a great nexus. So suddenly now the state is buying a lot of conservation land. So here we go, 1993, and I’m like, you know, I had this idea when I was in the legislature. I mean, when I was a kid at age 24, I had tried to talk to the governor about it. I talked to the lieutenant governor, Buddy McKay, about it. I talked to Carol Browner, who had been head of the Department of Environmental Protection. I said, guys. This is a way we can make our dollars stretch further. We don’t have to pay as much. We don’t have to pay to manage the land. This is a great concept, and it protects the integrity of property rights. You know, they just weren’t, they didn’t disagree with me. It just was not a priority for any of them. Did they also think that it wouldn’t work, that landowners wouldn’t be interested, or was it really just, hey, we don’t know how to make that function? I just don’t think it was. A particular priority, it wasn’t like, oh, we’re against that idea. It was just, we’ve got so many other priorities and things that we’re focusing on. We’re not going to really worry about that. So when I got elected to the legislature, I said, you know what? I had this crazy idea, and I’m going to see if I can’t make it a reality. So I called the director of the Division of State Lands at the time, was Pete Mallison, and I asked him about it. And he said, well, Dean, he said, that is an interesting concept. He said, it’s one I think could work. He said, and I said, well, Pete, if I were to do this, how would you recommend we go about doing it? He said, well, I would find an area, and let’s see if we can make it work. Take a geographic area, and let’s set aside some money to do that only in that geographic area. And let’s test the efficacy of this before we go try to do it statewide. So. That’s what I did. So I crafted some legislation to do just that, to buy development rights. And that’s what we called it, purchase and development rights. So following on Pete’s suggestion, I said, you know, the Green Swamp area of critical state concern is about 320,000 acres area in Polk and Lake County. It was already designated an area of critical state concern. So it was already considered an important area. geography to protect. It was large enough in acreage that we would have. We could test the efficacy of the program, because we’d have enough landowners to pull from to see if they had an interest. And so. Right. But I also know landowners were skeptical of the water management districts. They didn’t trust Swift Mud, they didn’t trust St. John’s, they darn sure didn’t trust DEP or the Department of Community Affairs because remember, this was right after growth management got passed and landowners were feeling the impact of what they consider to be down zoning on their properties, where they might have had one unit to one acre that they could develop on their property. Now they went from one unit to five acres. one unit to 10 acres or one unit to 20 acres. And in the green swamp, they were talking about making them go to one unit to 20 acres. Because anything in the green swamp area of critical state concern, not only did the counties have to agree to, but the state got a say so in that as well. And not just through comprehensive planning, but because it was in an area of critical state concern. So the state was really holding their feet to the fire. All that to say, Brett, that it really created increased distrust of any of those state agencies. So I said if this idea is going to have any merit it’s got to be a separate independent body. So I wrote it so that it would be a separate independent body that Polk County would get three appointees by their County Commission could appoint three people Lake County could appoint three people and the governor could appoint three people. We’d have nine members and that’s so that way we’d have an odd vote. But they would be charged with hiring an executive director and coming up with their own rules and implementing the plan. And we took $10 million a year. Ultimately, it came from the Preservation 2000 monies. But a little different pots. There were separate monies set aside for areas of critical state concern. They got a little bit, so I took some of that from here and there, and we came up with $10 million a year, so $30 million over a three-year period. was how we did it. And I’ll never forget when I introduced it, the government guys didn’t like it. They didn’t like the idea of only buying an easement or stopping just the development. They wanted to buy all of the property. And they just thought I was a fascist in that regard. That’s how I say it. And the landowners… thought I was a communist. Um, and so, but most of them knew because of all my background and history with them, they knew, well, you know, Dean’s one of us. And I had been active in the Burt Harris Private Property Rights Protection Bill. I was one of the people behind all that to protect private property rights. Yeah, I had a lot of credibility with the landowners. And so they were skeptical as well. So I’d say it was met with skepticism on both sides. But I’ve always felt like the landowners and the agriculturalists had a lot more in common with the environmental community than either one of them would acknowledge. And I thought, you know, if you buy the development rights, that’s where the integrity of private property rights meets the protection of land. It meets conservation. You’re paying the landowner to give up the right to develop the property. Alright, let’s pause for a moment and talk about my friends at Sea and Shoreline. As we in Florida wonder what the future holds when we face the storm season ahead, Sea and Shoreline is working to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. by installing a variety of green and gray infrastructure solutions to make our cities and counties more resilient. These solutions include seagrass restoration, mangroves, oyster reefs, riprap, oyster break waters, and something called a WAD, which stands for Wave Attenuation Device. By installing their patented WADs, sea and shoreline can help protect our communities against sea level rise and storm surges by diffusing wave energy, stopping shoreline erosion, and even rebuilding shorelines through sand accretion. To learn more about how Sea and Shoreline can protect your community, visit seainshoreline.com. Alright, let’s get back to the conversation. You mentioned the landowners. What was the reaction initially from the environmental community at that time? Again, everybody was a little skeptical. And it depended on where you kind of came from. Some of the environmental organizations, the Nature Conservancy, and you had mentioned earlier, Brett, the gentleman, Eric Draper. Eric and I were good friends. And he didn’t really understand the agriculture community. And I always kind of considered it one of my jobs to educate people about agriculture. and being an advocate for how farmers felt and ranchers felt about their land. And I knew the deep love and attachment they had. And honestly, the state only has the right to argue about protecting that land because these people have protected it for all these years that they haven’t developed it. Right, right. So let’s respect and honor that. And so folks from different walks of life, but in this one area where we could conserve property, we really did have a meeting of the mind, so to speak, even if people were distrustful of the other. Right. And so I got earlier mentioned to you that I’d sponsored it in the house, but my sponsor in the Senate. was happy to sponsor it because it sort of begged him to sponsor it, but he suggested that I needed to be the one to come carry the load. and push it through the Senate, which I did. And when I went to the Natural Resource Committee to present the bill, the Florida Farm Bureau was, the lobbyist was on my right side in support of the legislation. And the Audubon Society lobbyist, Charles Lee, was on my left, appropriately positioning. But they both spoke in strong favor of what we were doing. And so it became law. We had a big bill signing ceremony here in the green swamp. The governor came in and it just enjoyed all kinds of success. People loved it. Landowners liked it. They were receptive to it. Do you remember the first easement that you executed or that was executed by the state or I guess that organization? There was a group. So in the first batch we did, I think there were nine that got done. They were called land protection agreements. At the time, we were not using the term conservation easement. where it was purchase of development rights, and it was called a land protection agreement. Later down the road, the name got changed to purchase of a conservation easement. And I remember people came to me and said, yeah, you know, I think it sounds a little more politically correct to call this purchase of development right. I mean, a conservation easement. And I said, I don’t really care what you call it, as long as the landowner. is remunerated and compensated for the rights he gives up in his land. Right. And this can take lots of different angles. So that’s kind of how that got born out. And I do remember, you know, you asked me how people responded. My biggest opponent, really, in this was Fritz Busselman. So Fritz was the land acquisition director for the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Fritz hated this idea. and the concept of buying and development rights. He hated it. And he tried to undermine me everywhere I went. He went to the St. Pete Times, I remember, and got them to write a scathing editorial, opposing it. And then later, it was the best idea Fritz had ever had. Sure. After we got a pass, after we’d had success, then Swift Mud started using it and doing, they probably did more easements than anybody else, and Fritz was at the head of all that. So sometimes you just got to have to prove it to people. Because Fritz would be a late convert. It was a later convert, but he later used it extensively. to protect a lot of land. And we talked about it before. It’s like from my end being at the Northwest Florida Water Management District, it was a huge tool for us to be able to use, to get that same protection that you were after, that the environmental community’s after, while making sure that we’re respecting someone’s property rights and making sure that they’re properly compensated for, for giving up those rights that they had before. Right, and you know, and from your perspective, double the amount of land you could protect with the same amount of money. That’s exactly right. And you didn’t have the long-term commitments to managing the obligate. You didn’t have the obligation to manage the land and pay for it. And it still stayed on the tax rolls and still stimulated the economy in some form or fashion. Right. Because if someone is using it to, and Northwest is more likely to be growing timber, it’s still something that’s part of the economy still. And you’re exactly right. That was a big, that’s a big thing, especially in some of the smaller districts. but it’s not unusual for these larger ones. It costs money to manage hundreds of thousands of acres of land. And so I think what you, you open a door that, that made it a lot easier for us to be able to manage that in the long run. And that’s a, that’s a huge deal. Yeah. And it was, so I remember the day, cause I’m sure at some point you want to know about my transition out when I, literally the day my announcement that I was not going to run for the was in the paper. I had a local rancher call me, Charlie McOverstreet, call me up. He said, Dean. You know, I thought you were crazy as a sprayed roach with your conservation legislation. But you know what? And he said, but I didn’t want to be critical because you’re my friend, and you’ve been my friend a long time. But you know, I’ve been thinking about this. And I think this is something that could help me. Why don’t you come out here and visit with me and Betty Kaye? That was his wife. I think I want to hire you to help me get this done. I thought, oh, okay. Charlie back needs help. There may be other landowners that need help doing this and I’m a big believer in it, you know So if you if you really peel me back, you know, I’m an agriculturalist and I’m in a real estate broker You cannot be either one of those without a strong sense of the protection of private property rights. There’s hygrosync to me. Now you can’t put a nuclear waste dump everywhere on your property, right? I mean, there has to be some regulation of what you do. That’s why we have zoning laws. That’s why we have growth management. That’s why we have some of the things that we have in place to protect against obnoxious uses. But you cannot come from either one of those facets of life. And I came from both of them. and not have a strong sense of private property rights. So, you know, if a man owns a piece of land and there’s development pressure and he wants to develop it, and he can, and there’s demand, you know, God bless him. That’s his right. But I’m an eighth generation Floridian. And you know, I love Florida, 18 million people ago. You know, but I can’t change the fact that they’re here. And so, but we can try to protect some of what’s here for it not to be developed. As long as we can do it in a way that protects the integrity of property rights. It doesn’t trample on that. So when he mentioned that to me, and I thought, you know, this would be something that maybe I could go pitch and talk to other landowners about. I understand it, I wrote the legislation. But I believe in it. I’m passionate about it, and I get to protect land. And so I’ve started doing a lot of that work, and I’ve done it ever since. And I’ve had the privilege of doing probably close to 100 deals with government and representing landowners and protecting land from being developed. It ends up becoming your long term, make a career of the pancake dinner from being a kid. Yeah. Exactly. Tell me about a couple, maybe one. I know the one that’s most recent, which was the Bluffs property at St. Teresa up in Northwest Florida. But tell me one of those is that maybe you’re the most proud of, or at least is significant in your mind in terms of bringing folks together, because that’s what you’re doing in the end, is bringing landowners. In this case, government together, sometimes like the Nature Conservancy is involved, and you make that happen. Tell me about that process a little bit. I approach this as an understanding of working with a buyer and a seller. I view my job is to really understand both parties’ needs. If I can meet two parties’ needs, that’s where we make a deal. It’s not always the highest and best price. It’s meeting needs. And so I focus my whole real estate practice, and I encourage my associates to, let’s really understand the buyer’s needs, let’s understand the seller’s needs, because where we get them to meet is where we get paid, where we make a deal. Right, right. So the state or any conservation group, and I’ve done deals with. the counties, I’ve done deals with all the water management districts, I’ve done deals with the USDA, I’ve done deals with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, done deals with the state of Florida, Florida Department of Agriculture, so there are so many iterations now of this concept. Because when I did it, USDA wasn’t buying conservation easements, they started that with the 1996 farm bill. They started buying wetland reserve easements. So these things have just evolved, and they’re different tools. you know some of the counties now are doing them. The water management districts have done them. So there’s different iterations and different goals and objectives and so I try to understand the goals and objectives. Like USDA’s, the wetlands reserve easement is to restore wetlands that might have been damaged or destroyed for farming, for agricultural purposes. And so one of the larger ones I did at the time represented Bluehead Ranch and the Westby Corporation with Mr. Carlton and we protected 25,000 acres of land at the headwaters of Fish-Eating Creek. And that was a huge project. It was the largest conservation easement that USDA had ever done. It involved three landowners and I remember going, we spent quite a bit of time in Washington. It was during the Obama administration and they had a little different angle and I was saying rather thousand acres there and 100 acres over here, why don’t we look at a watershed? I said here’s a phenomenal watershed and we can restore it. We got three landowners primarily to deal with. And Fish eating creek. is a natural course that runs into Lake Okeechobee. We want to clean up Lake Okeechobee, then let’s protect it. And here is a way to make sure that happens. So that’s an example of one I did. And you mentioned the Bluffs of St. Teresa was a 17,000 acre track in St. James Island. We called it the Bluffs of St. Teresa because it was a marketing name. Right. As you know, Brad, I sold the Latter-day Saints, the company they called reserves bought about 382,000 acres from St. Joe Timber Company. Back in 2014 we closed on the deal, but some of that land was surplus. And this 17,000 acre track on the Gulf of Mexico with over 25 miles of waterfront on it because it fronted on Oclochne Bay and on Alligator Point and you know the bay there on the Gulf of Mexico. So they hired me to sell that for them. because it didn’t serve their purpose. But it was, when I saw it, I thought, oh my gosh, this would be such a phenomenal piece to have in conservation. The state really should try to own this. So it took a while and we tried at one time and weren’t able to get there. And we figured out a way to get it done. And we, and we made it happen. And, uh, yeah, and I’m real proud of that. Is that that property really should have been in public ownership. It is special. And, and it’s, it seems to me as like you tell me where, where I may be missing this a little bit, but, but it is seeing those kinds of opportunities and be able to work with someone like ag reserves. Who has, who is now? I think the largest private landowner. They’re the largest private landowner in the state of Florida. They could have easily done whatever they wish, but they’re a cattle company, and at least that segment of their operations is cattle. And so seeing, is that part of the experience that you built over decades of seeing an opportunity where someone else may be like, oh, well, we don’t know exactly how to approach that with these folks? You know, yeah, I mean, it does come from having that experience, from just being comfortable enough in my own skin to ask the questions. And to start being so bold is to offer some suggestions. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? We could do this, position it here, position it there. And I really enjoy working with sellers and helping them accomplish their goals. And sometimes it’s not a straight line. And so in the conservation arena, these deals oftentimes take so long. to get done. Sometimes it can happen quickly, but normally it takes years to get them done. There was a period after the Great Recession when the state didn’t have a lot of money and they weren’t investing a lot of money in their green infrastructure. And so to get deals done, we had to be very creative. I did a lot of deals with USDA. But we also, I got the Florida Department of Agriculture and USDA together. And I said, guys, why don’t y’all partner? You’ve got a couple different programs. Why don’t you partner on some of these programs? And neither one’s carrying the main load. So I was able to get a lot of my deals done by just being creative and thinking out of the box. I did one deal where I sold a conservation easement to USDA, Wetlands Reserve easement. And my landowner wanted to sell the property, but I didn’t have any particular buyers. Because at the time, it was right after or during the Great Recession. There were no private buyers. People weren’t buying. I mean, they just weren’t doing anything. They didn’t have the money to do it. So we did an easement with USDA, Whitelands Reserve easement, and then I sold the underlying fee value once we sold the easement to Polk County and the SwiftMud in partnership. So they partnered and bought the underlying fee. So that was one of my more creative deals. It involved three units of government, Water Management District, United States Department of Agriculture, and Polk County. Interesting. Your folks have described you, or you’ve described yourself to your folks at least, or as a recovering politician. I’m gonna ask you to take one last look back into that life. Is there something that if, some I made you go back to do it again, that you wish you had done while you were still there, or something that you see over the years that you’ve been out, that you might like to go back and fix? Oh man. I mean, you know, there’s always things you see, but you know, I don’t want to have any real regrets of what I’ve done. I mean, in addition to the conservation easement legislation, I was also created the bright futures, authored the legislation that created. bright futures and authorizes existence. It didn’t get funded until after I was out. The year after I was out, it got funded. I think it’s a piece of policy though, speaking as a parent. I know there are a lot of parents out there that are listening to this as well. You know, you’re part of sending my oldest to college. I’ve got two younger ones that will continue to take their SATs and however many times it takes and do their volunteer work to qualify for bright futures. It’s been a huge part of a lot of people’s families. And it stood the test of time, which I think is important as well. You gotta be proud of that. Both of those things are, I’m incredibly proud of. Honestly, The Bright Futures has kept, it did what we meant it to do. Keep our talent, one of the goals, right? Keep people in Florida. Keep them going to Florida schools. And so the demand for schools in Florida is a lot higher as a result. But guess what? We keep a lot of those people here and keep our talent in the state of Florida. Yeah. I think it’s a, uh, a huge innovative piece of public policy. Um, and so, uh, well done there. And you know, that was one of those things, Brett, when I did it, that was some real heavy lifting. Uh, man, I had to work that thing in the house. And then my Senate sponsor at the time was in the doghouse with the Senate president. And every single one of his bills had six committee references. Ouch. Which, as you know, is your time in the legislature, was the kiss of death. Because committee meet about four weeks, and if you got six committee assignments, there’s no way to get through all those committees. So I was able to go and convince Don Sullivan, who was Senate, he was chairman of the education committee in the Senate, and I said, Don, you know, I’ve got the answer to the lottery. You know, because everywhere we went, people would complain to us about the lottery. And so we were all feeling that, you know, people were saying, well, it was a flim-flam. You promised us educational enhancement, but you’re just really filling budget holes with this money, you’re not really using it the way you said you were going to use it, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I spent some time, I spent about an hour in Don’s office. pitching him on this idea that this is an answer to the lottery. And what a great way we could do it. And we patterned it after the Hope Scholarship from Georgia. And so after I got talking to him and he said, you know what, Dean? I think you’re really on to something. I think you’re right. He said, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. He said, I’m going to take the bill and I’ll make it a committee bill. Said, I’ll take it from the member and we’ll make it a committee bill. So we did, and we got it, got it passed in the house and the Senate. And then I’ve got the governor. And so he didn’t like it. And so one of the things I knew about the governor, governor Childs was that he didn’t like entitlements and he was really concerned about. tying the hands of the future legislatures. But I kind of thought that was the beauty of it. It kind of did tie it, because I knew it would be so popular that they’d have to continue to fund it. And so he came in town, and he was signing it. And I knew he had a concern and was thinking about vetoing it. And I begged him, please, don’t veto this. Don’t, please. And he didn’t. He didn’t veto it, but he also didn’t sign it. He let it become law without his signature. Wow. And I think the only reason he did was because it was me asking. The next year, of course. was the big fanfare now that everybody’s funding it. And it just so happened providentially, I was in town and was able to attend the bill signing ceremony, and Ken Pruitt, who was one of my good friends, he said, Dean, you come get in this picture with us, because we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t done this legislation. So the governor signed it and handed me the pen. That’s really cool. Even though I wasn’t in the legislature at the time. If you’ll indulge me, we go into sort of a, a lightning round, but it’s more of a, you know, rote questions I ask everybody just to kind of to get their reaction, but I think it’s people seem to like it that that listens. So I’ll ask you this, you spent your career preserving some of these, you know, unique special places in Florida. Are you optimistic about the environment in Florida? When you say the environment, you mean land, these natural systems, that, that sort of thing? so grateful that our leadership and the voters have said, look, green infrastructure is important to us. And honestly, you know, some policymakers have had different priorities of emphasis on that, some more so than others. And certainly our current governor has had a very strong conservation ethic and is very encouraging of protecting land. And this legislature is following in suit. And so they have appropriated quite a bit of money. And so I think we, Florida, is a model for how this can be done in other states and is thing to do for development and for conservation. And so if you want to protect your quality of life in your state, here’s a way to help do it. Yeah, I mean, like we can always discuss issues. There are always things when you have 20, almost 23 million people living in a place, it’s going to provide stresses and strains and that that’s going to exist. Yeah. And that’s the other, that’s the, that’s the next question, which is, is there something that keeps you up at night regarding that subject matter? And if so, you know, you know, why. Well, you just got a lot of resources that get stressed. Water certainly is at the top of that stress, because we can’t live without it. And so there’s a lot of competing demand for those water resources and to keep water clean. I don’t know that it keeps me up at night, but I know those are important considerations. And some of that stuff’s above my head, above my pay grade, because I’m not in public policy anymore. And you’re right, I am a reformed politician, mind talking, but I do get to participate and work with landowners and I can do my fair share in helping protect this place. Why not? by reducing some of the stress on some of the land, right? By helping do the conservation easements that I’ve been able to help do. Right, and that’s enormous. I think I would agree in that you are, in fact, doing your part. What advice would you give to young people that are thinking about whether it be in the public policy arena or in land brokerage, in conservation easement deals? What would you say to them in terms of getting things. Follow your dreams. Chariots of Fire. in that movie, and I tell my kids this, you know? Eric Little in the movie is seen, you know, he’s a missionary, his family, missionary family, and of course he’s a famous Olympic athlete, chooses not to run on Sunday, and then later runs in a relay race, and England wins, and you know, it’s one of those things, but in the movie, it shows his sister saying to him, Eric. just wish you would get this over and that you would get back on the mission field and doing God’s work on the mission field. And he said, I told him, yeah, but I feel this pleasure when I run. He made me fast too, and I feel this pleasure when I run. So I’ve told my kids, I want you to do. where you feel this pleasure in what you’re doing, and where so where your passion, what do you like doing? Pursue that, but pursue whatever you do with excellence. We’re made in his image to be excellent at whatever we do. So do that, pursue whatever it is that you’re passionate about, be really good at it, and focus on it. That’s great. If folks want to know more about what you do and how you may be able to help them in general and more specifically with here at your brokerage, how can they get hold of you? and call us at 863-648-1528 or email me at dean at svn.com. There you go, you heard it folks. And I’ll put the website in our episode notes so they can find you there as well as the email address and other things about what we talked today. I could go on for hours with you, but Dean Saunders, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Brett, enjoyed it. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water For Fighting. This podcast has been brought to you by Rez and C&Shoreline. Don’t forget to check the episode notes to visit their websites and learn more about how they can help you. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use. And don’t forget to leave a five-star rating in review. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, probably even Twitter at FLWaterpod. And you can reach me directly at FLWaterpod at gmail.com for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called Doin’ Work for Free and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Steven Hawley

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 22 May 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In our Season 2 opener, Brett has a conversation with noted filmmaker and author, Steve Hawley. Steve has a brand new book out called, Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World. They discuss the mythology surrounding the benefits of many of the world’s dams; the benefits of restoring once-dammed rivers; Dam Removal 101; and why he’s cautiously optimistic about the future of the world’s natural systems.

Go buy Steve’s new book here:

Read Steve’s first book, Recovering a Lost River.

Watch Steve’s film, Dammed to Extinction

To learn more about restoration work being done on the Klamath River, check out this amazing video.

I encourage you to find out more about what my friends at Sea & Shoreline and RES are doing to restore and protect Florida’s natural places and communities here: https://seaandshoreline.com and here: https://res.us

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

00:07Welcome to the second season of Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida and beyond with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers, and I’m so grateful to be back with you for another season. I wanna start by thanking my new partners who helped make this podcast a reality, Sea and Shoreline and Resource Environmental Solutions, widely known as RES.

00:29REZ is a national leader in ecological and hydrological restoration, offering nature-based solutions with guaranteed performance through innovative delivery options. Discover more about their work and commitment to addressing Florida’s environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us.

00:47Also, Sea and Shoreline is a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm that is on a mission to restore Florida’s water bodies and to protect our coastline communities against severe storms. You can check out their projects at seaandshoreline.com. More on both of those great companies later on. But now let’s talk a little bit about the season in front of us.

01:07As implied by the Florida and beyond from a second ago, we’ll be broadening our horizons a bit on the show. I think you’re going to find the conversation lineup for this season to be both interesting and thought-provoking. I should note that much of the season’s lineup is thanks in part to the feedback I’ve gotten from you, the listeners, so please keep sending your suggestions. Let’s get on with the season opening guest. Our guest is a filmmaker, an author, who has dedicated an already storied career to making the case that we have been terribly misinformed about the benefits of dams,

01:37and even religious cost. His name is Steve Hawley. And Steve has a new book out called Crack The Future of Dams in a Hot Chaotic World. Steve, thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. You’ve written a well-documented and beautifully illustrated book, but this is a personality driven podcast. So if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to start by talking about you for a bit. That’s all right. Sure.

01:59Let’s start with where you live and where you were born and take it from there. Yeah, I live about an hour east of where I was born. I’m from Hood River, Oregon, and grew up in Portland. And I think maybe the most pertinent and interesting thing about my ever lengthening life history here, I’m in my early fifties is that in my formative years, one of my best friends growing up was a fly fishing nerd and

02:28energy and still is a fly fishing nerd as a matter of fact and introduced me to the world of Rivers and steelhead and salmon and quite clearly that’s shaped some of my career choices was that part of Growing up what were your what were your parents like were were they from Oregon as well or did they come from somewhere else? My mother grew up in Salem and Eugene my dad grew up in Berkeley, California and in outside of Boise, Idaho

02:57And they’re both school teachers. My dad is a PE teacher. My mom taught second and third grade. Okay. What were you like as a kid? You mentioned your, your friend who was the, the fly fishing nerd. Did you start fishing when you were really young or did you have other interests as well? I loved, I, I, I took to fishing right away. Neither of my parents were super outdoorsy people or fishermen, but my dad would always, you know, particularly on Sundays after church, if we wanted to go fishing somewhere, we’d hop in his old pickup truck.

03:25He’d take me to some spots out along the Clackamas River. That those were really formative experiences, but it really took off when I when I connected with this friend of mine who whose whose father taught a whole bunch of us skinny, you know, East County, East Multnomah County kids to really appreciate rivers in a way that I couldn’t have done without getting to know this family. How old were you at that point? When you when you started to connect with that one kid and his and his dad?

03:5516 maybe. Okay. It was high school. Yeah. So as soon as one of them had a driver’s license, then that really opened up doors as well, of course. Did that extend beyond high school into college, that sort of thing? Yeah, I had one of those kids, another friend of ours, pretty much designed his whole college career around getting out to fish. I lived with him in tiny little Ashland, Oregon, where I went to…

04:18college and this guy managed to get all of his classes into two days a week so he could have the other five days a week to fish. I didn’t quite have quite that level of dedication but it was truly the case that what we were taught when we were 15 and 16 is stuck with this sort of core group of friends who are who are still at it you know still out on rivers whenever we can get there. So you still hang out with him go fishing? Yeah a couple times a year. Awesome, awesome. Yeah.

04:44What were you studying in college? Was it something related to natural sciences or engineering or geology, something like that? Well, I still have ongoing case of math phobia. And so I have a degree in English, but I took every science class that I could that didn’t have a lab attached with it. So a lot of ecology, a little biology, some geology.

05:14Really, because of that introduction to the natural world through fishing, I became sort of fascinated with all of the facets of the earth sciences, I suppose. And that’s still sort of fascinating subject for me. We know what is, what is this place that we’re inhabiting? What is its history? What makes it work? What hurts it? What helps it? I’m always interested in, in kind of the origin stories of a sort, you know, with folks and.

05:42they get to a point in their career and they’re doing things that are really special. But for me, it’s the curiosity is where does that come from? And that’s a really interesting origin there. When did that start to stretch into thinking about dams, writing about dams, working on those sorts of issues? Was it from a personal experience or was it something that you got into from another direction?

06:11What I started considering at a relatively young age was just this massive transformation of the Columbia River system. The Columbia was once upon a time, relatively recently, one of the world’s top producers of salmon and was the world’s very best producer of Chinook salmon. And what we’ve done over the past three quarters of a century is transform that system, that natural system that existed for hundreds of thousands of years,

06:41That same river basin becoming one of the world’s top producers of hydropower. And so I started wondering what the trade-offs have been. And, you know, that’s one of the reasons I’ve spent so much time writing about this topic is those trade-offs are not often well considered. I don’t think over the long haul, I think the system that we’ve transformed is going to cost a lot more than it ever has come to. Yeah. I want to talk about that a bit because.

07:10You tell story after story of, and I’ll call it the false promise of dams, as it relates to the supposed economic and even cultural value. You tell that really cool story about the video that you show on the face of the dam. But you made some strong arguments that that’s not the case necessarily. Can you talk a little bit about some of those assumptions that we make about those benefits like hydropower, agriculture, and the reality that you ended up seeing as you researched it?

07:38Yeah, I think the trade-off to keep in mind is that the benefits that were promised have never quite been delivered. Maybe the second part of that is the ecological cost has been far higher than anybody has previously calculated. And that second part is especially true under any kind of climate change scenario that you’d want to consider. So, you know, recall that a lot of these projects were built…

08:02And I guess the big dam building frenzy was in the last century, starting probably with the depression and the federal programs to kind of put people back to work. And that’s an honorable motivation, but the benefits that were supposed to be delivered from water control projects were supposed to be kind of a rising tide that would lift all boats. And that’s not really what happened. For instance, the Columbia basin projects just west of me here in Washington state, the hope was to put 10,000

08:30families on their own working farms. And we never really got much more than a quarter of that. You know, it turned out that there’s about 2,500 families on some rather larger working farms. And so then the problem became, and this is something that the engineers never considered because what was really required was a type of social engineering. Where were you going to find the labor pool to work?

08:56you know, almost a million acres of newly irrigated land. And the answer to that question has been migrant labor. And there’s a, in the book, I outlined the whole kind of sorted history of our relationship with immigrant labor. And we’ve had kind of a Jekyll and Hyde relationship.

09:13with mostly Latin American and Hispanic workers. At first we invited them under a program called Bracero’s. And then a lot of the folks that we invited, we ended up uninviting in a rather unfriendly way. That kind of contrasting treatment of the labor pool that is still in this country, responsible for putting a lot of our food on the table, that’s never really been resolved. The immigrant issue that we have in this country is in a large part, particularly in the Western United States, driven by…

09:43the water projects that we built in the last century. You know, so that’s the economic cost. And we can talk a little bit about the environmental cost, which has been enormous. Sure. And you mentioned climate change, right? So at one point you talked about in particular methane and how these reservoirs on the backside of these dams are causing more methane thereby supposedly it would be counteracting the benefits of saying, using hydropower instead of saying, you know, coal or oil or something like that, right?

10:12Yeah, there’s a whole mythology around hydropower that borrows heavily on the virtuous intent, you know, of building large public water control projects. And part of that mythology is that

10:23hydro power is clean and green. It never has been. First of all, we talked a little bit already about the transformation of one of the greatest salmon-bearing river systems on earth into one that produces electricity. And so the loss of that resource, which has cultural, social, and even for indigenous people, religious implications, the costs have never really been fully calculated. And then you fast forward to our current predicament with climate change. In the book, I…

10:51talk about a researcher on the Washington State University campus who’s been part of this global team of scientists. And they’ve recently figured out that the world’s reservoirs, impoundments behind dams, have a greenhouse gas equivalent footprint, in other words, methane, that is equal to the greenhouse gas footprint of the nation of Germany, which is the world’s sixth largest producer of greenhouse gases.

11:21contribution to climate chaos, and yet we still have policies in place that say, well, hydropower can be part of the solution, but it’s not. The science tells us differently. All right, let’s take a quick break here to talk about my friends at Sea and Shoreline. Since its creation in 2014, Sea and Shoreline’s heralded experience with scientifically validated methods of aquatic restoration has proven successful across more than 150 environmental projects.

11:49The company continues to be the industry leader in rehabilitating threatened and corrupted aquatic environments, with proven success in places such as Crystal River, Homasasa River, the Caloosatchee River, and the Indian River Lagoon. I have seen firsthand how Seah and Shoreline completely reset the ecosystem in Crystal River, transforming it from an algae-dominated system to a plant-based system. The water used to be full of lingbia and hydrilla, with a thick bottom layer of muck that smelled like rotten eggs. Through muck removal,

12:18and planting of native eel grasses, the system is now beautiful and crystal clear with lush eelgrass meadows. The manatees are feasting, varieties of fish have returned, eco-tourism is booming, and property values have significantly increased. For more information about Sea and Shoreline and what they’re up to, visit seainshoreline.com. You mentioned the cultural and even religious aspect. Can you expand on that? Because you talked about the salmon a lot and obviously now I know why because you’re a big fisherman.

12:48And even beyond that, I understand that it’s an important issue to you. But those salmon are often a part of these cultures and even the religious aspects of some of these communities. Right? Absolutely. We’re the town where I’m.

13:04speaking to you from in Moscow, Idaho was no until the mid 19th century for thousands of years have been home to the Nez Perce and they were salmon people. They will tell you that they’ve been here since the beginning of time and that one of the foods that sustained their lives and their culture and their villages and their families for that.

13:24long stretch of time with salmon. You know, in their origin story and their creation myth, first there was water and then the salmon came. And you know, their relationship to that creature means almost everything to them. The only comparison I could make is it’s as important to the Nez Perce spiritual belief as the elements of communion are to Catholics. It’s that important. And one of the things that our government has done is disregard that.

13:51the belief that salmon are key to the spiritual as well as physical well-being of indigenous people in this part of the world. You wouldn’t do that if it was a mainstream Christian religion, right? You wouldn’t say, well, you know, the elements in communion just aren’t that important. So we’ll just do away with them and let people, you know, make their own way through an uncertain future. It’s really, it’s an environmental story. The disappearance of salmon is what I’m referring to here, but it’s also, this becomes a human rights issue.

14:22And I think that’s one of the more sort of fascinating and maybe hopefully will inspire some emotions amongst people who pick up the book because these people have been very patient with our federal government. And now we’re in a situation with climate change where time is running out to do something, to do the right thing. And hopefully we’ll manage to at least take a few steps in that direction.

14:48Yeah, let’s talk about the federal government for a bit. The Bureau of Reclamation comes in for some serious criticism throughout the book, obviously. But the politics of these dams in their construction, their removal, it’s all over the book. But it seems like these contentious places, it runs deeper than the typical partisan politics that we see on TV or read in the papers. Am I capturing that correctly? It seems like over that period of time.

15:17everyone has some blame there in that regard. Yeah, you know, what really I think is worth taking a closer look at in this scenario is the corruption of a few small branches of the federal government, the Bureau of Reclamation, the US Army Corps of Engineers. And I guess an apt analogy here might be to think about the way stolen property is treated.

15:43Right? So if I, if I steal your car and tool around here in Moscow, Idaho on a Saturday night, just given the nature of what happens when you steal somebody’s car, you’re not too concerned about washing it and returning it to the place you stole it from. Right? Right. And I kind of feel like on a much grander scale, that’s what’s happened with water resources in this country, particularly in the West is that the beneficiaries of that ill-gotten gains from water control systems.

16:11has made a very few people pretty well off and they’ve been very successful at maintaining the status quo that was established when these systems were built. And I’ll give you a quick example of that. I write about in the book the Westlands Water District in California. And throughout the Obama and into part of the Trump administrations, they managed to cut a deal where…

16:35They are going to get their water from the Colorado. I’d say that’s it’s not true. They don’t get their water from the Colorado system. They get it from the California state water system.

16:45And in an era of climate change where everybody in Southern California particularly is struggling to maintain a viable supply of water, Westlands has cut a deal where they’re going to take ownership of $3 billion worth of public infrastructure, the water control that delivers water to their fields. And they’re also going to be guaranteed water in a fashion that almost no one else in California will be.

17:13So while we’re talking about everybody else making cuts and conserving and just completely rethinking the way that we use water, this particular irrigation district has managed to sew up kind of a 19th or 20th century version of water rights that really doesn’t have any place in a warming, drying world. It’s a little different here. Florida is kind of a mix of that repairing water rights and then prior appropriation. But when we look at these types of…

17:41of projects where you’re talking about irrigating where there are a lot of rules and laws here to govern the more efficient use of it. When we talk about surficial storage for that use, usually it’s a double benefit. So you’re cleaning some historical water quality issue while also maybe providing some water supply. Did those kinds of restrictions exist in some of these systems that you’re talking about? Where they exist, they’ve been ignored.

18:09You know, and I think really, you know, the Eastern seaboard in Florida is definitely different, but the 20th century version of water control and the, off the top of my head, thinking of some of the major ecological disasters that Florida is dealing with at the behest of agricultural interests, I guess that’s what I’m talking about. That’s the commonality in this system is that, again, the virtuous intent, we owe a debt of gratitude to.

18:37farmers and ranchers for putting food on our tables, but they are responsible, just as the rest of us are, for managing water and land in a way that it can be put to good use for many generations to come. And I think what we’re looking at instead is, you know, all the signs are pointing to an agricultural system that is not going to last long into the 21st century unless we start rethinking the way that we do things.

19:06And federal water control has played a key role in sort of thinking about things, not in the long term, but in the short term. And, and so that applies whether you’re in Florida or Idaho or in the middle of the country and on a farm in Iowa or Kansas. It’s the policy itself of free water and electricity for farmers is something that has corrupted our ability to manage resources into the long term.

19:33Yeah, we see that, um, over here and, and, uh, you know, I want to focus on, on your, on your book and, and your experiences, you know, as much as possible. But I think maybe the, the equivalent here is, is perhaps we have a large, large river, the Kissimmee river that flows to Lake Okeechobee, a massive freshwater lake, and then ends up in, in the Everglades, but Army Corps of Engineers, uh, in that, in that, that mid 20th century wisdom, you know, straightens a river, creates a dyke. And then, you know, and the rest is history. And then you spend.

20:02hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions of dollars now here in Florida, undoing a lot of that well-intentioned mess on the part of the federal government. You talk a lot about that in terms of, and I remember one part, you were talking about salmon in, I think it’s the Columbia Basin, where they were trying to reseed or put salmon patcheries and the cost per salmon was insane, but that’s the price in order to get something

20:32to try to survive in a climate and an environment that is not meant for them the way it is with the dams. It was like something like, I wanna say 250 to $600 per salmon. Yeah, it gets higher than that too. Some of the, there’s a hatchery here in Idaho that was built in 2017 and was supposed to help sockeye salmon, which sockeye are a variety of salmon that spawns.

20:59part of their life cycle requires a freshwater lake. And so sockeye swim from the Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles inland and historically spawned up in the, up at six or 7,000 feet in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. And you know, the hatchery, I think they were well into the thousands of dollars per fish. And then they ended up not helping the naturally reproducing fish because as is often the case when you introduce a hatchery fish into a system.

21:26and those fish have been inoculated against specific diseases, they can introduce that disease to the naturally reproducing fish and wipe out part of the population. And that’s exactly what occurred in this hatchery down in Boise. And so not only was it a very expensive endeavor, but it ended up being a biological failure as well. And I think what we need to learn from those kinds of scenarios is that there’s a certain wisdom to…

21:54a natural system that is inherent simply because of the millions of years of evolution that go into the, you know, the development of a river system with its native wild creatures. And we haven’t yet really learned how to honor that inherent wisdom that you find all over the planet and that everywhere you look we seem to be hell-bent on doing away with. I guess to that point, the book seems at times to be both pessimistic

22:24and then hopeful, like all at once. Is that how you see yourself in some of these stories? Like, I want to talk about the Klamath River, but before I do that, is that the impression that you want readers to have? How do you see yourself in that regard? Yeah, you know, I have two kids. They’re gonna be adults soon. They’re both teenagers now. And I think the deal I made when my kids were born is that you give up the privilege of being a full-time pessimist when you have children.

22:53So the deal I made is I can be a pessimist only 20% of the time. 80% of the time I have to try to be optimistic. And my oldest son is going to study environmental science. He’s going off to college in the fall. And I appreciate his outlook on the future, because I think he has managed to cultivate some sense of optimism that these are giant problems, but that they can also be addressed. That gives me hope as well, if somebody from the next generation is already thinking like that.

23:22You have an entire chapter, it’s called, you know, Dam Removal 101, and you talk about a few of the success stories, and I want to talk about one of those, it’s simply because I have some familiarity, because I have some folks that I work with, at a company called Resource Environmental Solutions, and they’re working on the Klamath River Dam restoration, and not the dam removal part, but you kind of end that chapter about the Klamath River at the point of just prior to…

23:49the actual removal and then restoration. Can you talk a little bit about that success story and how you go from the disaster to the end result, which is hopefully the restoration of this habitat in these natural places? Yeah, the Klamath is really a blueprint for what could be done almost anywhere where there’s dams that need to come out because what you had is pretty contentious, drought-stricken river basin and some fairly entrenched water buffaloes as a…

24:19the former chief of the Bureau of Reclamation, Dan Beard calls them just people that, irrigators that have come to view the water and in a given river basin as their sole, as owning all of it, I guess, would be the easiest way to put it. And the first thing that happened is that those people were sort of thoroughly disabused of the notion that they own all the water. And so they got beat in court numerous times, and it turns out they don’t own all the water. So then…

24:46to jump over a whole bunch of things that happened. They were kind of forced to the negotiating table and then kind of a really beautiful thing happened and these commercial fishermen and a few conservationists and farmers found out that they actually like each other. So they, in earnest, sat down around a table and hammered out a deal and they got.

25:07a promise from actually my congressman, my former congressman in the state of Oregon, he is now retired. He told these people, you bring me a deal and I’ll push something through congress. Well, he was making a bet that these people wouldn’t come up with an agreement and he wouldn’t have to push a bill through congress. So they called his bluff and when it was time for him to do something, he didn’t do anything. But nonetheless, these people, again, the develop the relationship that they had developed

25:35dictated their next move, which was, we’re not gonna quit. And they figured out that they didn’t need Congress to take dams out on the climate, that they could make it happen just through the federal relicensing process. And so that’s what they did. They got together and sort of reworked that original agreement so that no congressional authorization was required.

25:58You had a utility company, Pacific Power, that was really interested in getting rid of what they saw as a stranded asset. And so it took 30 years, all told, but next year, all four of those dams are gonna come out. And the thing to keep in mind about that is that on the West Coast, the Klamath Basin was once the third largest producer of salmon along the Western coastline of the United States. The first was the Columbia, the second was the Sacramento-San Joaquin.

26:29And the third was the Klamath. So it’s daunting in an era of climate change to think that maybe we could have some semblance of that back. But one thing that I’ve learned over the years about all Salmonids is they’re way tougher than we give them credit for. And there are such plethora of little gem-like pieces of habitat in a Klamath basin that these fish are now going to have access to that you can’t help it again, be sort of

26:57at least cautiously optimistic that dam removal there is going to yield some positive results. Yeah. And you’ve seen that already, right? That you, I forget exactly which part of the book you talk about where a dam was removed. And even though it wasn’t the entire extent of the river, the amount of time it took for salmon to start making their way back up river was, I think you said like in the course of a year, maybe two at the tops. Is, am I remembering? Yeah. Well, let’s, let’s.

27:25Yeah, let’s talk about an East Coast river on the Gulf of Maine where there’s just been an incredible ecological restoration. The first dam to come out there was the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in 1999. And that’s kind of how I marked the beginning of what you might call the modern dam removal movement.

27:43And one reason that that’s considered the beginning is the results there were so dramatic. There’s a type of fish called, now they call it a river herring, it used to be called an alewife, and it’s an anadromous fish. It spends some time in the ocean and then comes back in freshwater river systems to spawn. And in the ensuing years, since Edwards Dam came out, there’s been several more on the Sebastica and some other rivers in the Gulf of Maine. And now you have…

28:08about five and a half million river herring that are returning to those Gulf of Maine rivers every year. They’re kind of the baseline of the ecosystem in that part of the world, the marine ecosystem in that part of the world. And you went from having probably less than 100,000 of them prior to 1999 to having five and a half million. You know, the turnaround was just remarkable when the Edwards Dam came out 24 years ago now. It marked the beginning of not only a transformation,

28:37for the river, but for the city of Augusta, which because they use the Kennebec River as kind of an open sewer for so many years, literally the backs of the town’s buildings had been turned away from the river. And in the last 25 years, it’s been remarkable to watch in Augusta as the city’s kind of turned to face the river again and make it a focal point of future development. Wow. So there’s been social, ecological.

29:05you know, and even economic returns on that investment. And that’s a story when you start looking at this, that can be told over and over again. It’s remarkable to watch particularly East coast cities where there’s a longer history of industrialization, reincorporate free flowing water into the architecture of the town. And to that end, like you provide an actual, it’s almost like a, here’s how you do it point by point. And working towards.

29:31dam removal. I don’t want to give away the entire book. I think everyone should read it. It’s a fantastic book. But talk about a little bit about how you go about the dam removal 101. Yeah. You know, the low hanging fruit, so to speak, of the dam removal movement is the thousands and thousands of small dams, no taller than 15 feet, that are not serving any particular purpose. And all they need to be removed is funding and a-

30:01and to go through a permitting process to do it safely. And so that was kind of the inspiration behind that chapter when you talk to a group like American Rivers that’s been played a central role in a lot of East Coast dam removals. They’ll tell you that it’s a successful endeavor and that the only thing we need is more money and a quicker timeline to get more of these dams removed. And so that was kind of, I thought.

30:25If we could include a 15 or 20 page instruction manual on how to get a small dam taken out that maybe that would help serve that purpose You know, it’s interesting to look at state like New Jersey and and look at the amount of river restoration that they’ve accomplished over The past 15 or 20 years it made it so that you know, it’d be a really interesting Adventure to fly into JFK with a three-weight

30:48fly rod and take a cab to take a cab to all the within an hour of the city. Whereas suddenly there’s some pretty good trout fishing to be had. And, you know, it’s one of those things that you can point to young people and say, you know what, this is a place that is much better off than it was when I was a kid. And I think in this day and age, that’s a really important thing to be able to, to, to tell young people. All right. Let’s take a quick pause to talk about my friends from res res.

31:16The nation’s leader in ecological restoration is helping restore Florida’s natural resources with water quality and stormwater solutions that offer resiliency for communities through guaranteed performance and outcomes. With its rich hydrological and environmental diversity, Florida presents challenges across its many ecosystems, diverse landscapes, and the many demands on the natural resources. RES actively restores habitats, hydrological regimes, and ecosystem functions across Florida from the Panhandle

31:46and the Heartland to coastal estuaries, and the Florida Keys. They focus on restoring floodplains and wetlands and improving water quality, benefiting numerous species that call Florida home. With an unwavering commitment to preserving the state’s unique ecological communities, RES confronts the complexities of Florida’s mosaic landscape with water resources head on. Their creative solutions and innovative approach are helping municipalities, agencies, and local water resource groups pave the way for a brighter future.

32:16With each project, RES upholds long-term stewardship practices, guaranteeing sustainable outcomes that endure. Discover more about their work and commitment to addressing Florida’s environmental challenges by visiting www.res.us. Yeah, I think on the other end of that spectrum, and it was something that I intended on asking earlier, but when you talk about the, you know, these small dams is you talk a little bit about some.

32:45high hazard dams. When you look at, you’ve mapped out, you actually have a map of the United States where you’ve mapped out where these dams exist. I think even a worldwide map as well, where you have high hazard dams. And some of the stories about when you have a failure of these sometimes century old dams that fail, there’s some significant loss of human life there. And so I know it’s a lot more complicated, but

33:06In terms of how to accomplish that, how do folks go about, you give a, I think you give one, at least one example of a place where you had a dam that was going completely defunct. Maybe it was the Klamath where it’s like, it’s becoming a hazard and it just becomes easier to take it down than to risk thousands of people potentially dying. Yeah. I mean, that’s happening all over the country. Remember that the…

33:31lifespan of concrete is no more than about 60 years and you have, you know, abandoned projects in places that are, that, you know, some of these structures are approaching twice that they’re potentially disastrous depending on how large the structure is. I, in the book, I write about an example, uh, in Italy, where a post-war project called Bionte dam was built in a, in a little town called Longaron. I might be screwing up the Italian on that.

33:59But the dam itself didn’t collapse, but the reservoir, the hydrostatic pressure in the reservoir played a role in causing a landslide. So a mile square slab of rock slid into the reservoir and created this super wave that washed over the top of the dam and took out a town of 2,500 people below it. And there was almost 100% mortality rate. And the violence of this collapse or the wave, I guess, that ripped through the town, look, I think there’s some pictures in the book.

34:28and it looks like a war zone. I mean, the wind that that wave created ripped the clothes off of people. As these structures age, you know, you look at…

34:38The snowpack, for instance, in the state of California this year, or in the Southern Sierra, they have three times the normal amount of snow. And all water managers and public safety officials are kind of waiting to see what happens in the first spate of hot weather down there, because these systems were not designed for the kind of sudden variability that we’re having in our weather these days.

35:00So there’s a huge amount of safety considerations. In the book, I interview this expert, the safety engineer from Berkeley named Robert B. And he, you’ll see if you pick up the book, he’s so alarmed by the lack safety standards that we have in our country’s water control projects that you, you know, for a guy who’s studied safety for an entire career, you’d think it would take quite a bit for somebody to just cover their eyes and look the other way. But.

35:26In the interview that I did with him, he said that’s kind of what he’s doing with dams. He feels like a major disaster at this point is almost an inevitability. And that should cause us a great deal of alarm. Well, let’s, if you don’t mind, let’s move down south quite a bit. You toward the end of the book, you the namesake of your publisher, Patagonia, you had to South America to talk about some of these these beautiful natural areas down there and, and the work to

35:54prevent dams coming in. So we’re dealing, you know, as you, as you note in, in the book elsewhere about dam removal in the United States, but there’s still places where, where folks are trying to put in, you know, incredibly large systems, right? Yeah, it’s happening all over the world. The heartening thing about South American dam development is in the nation of Chile. There was a, I guess an uprising that really caught the attention, not only of a lot of Chileans, but a lot of-

36:22people internationally. The short version of the story is that there was an Italian company that had proposed building five dams on the

36:31on the Baker and Pasqua rivers in southern Chile. And there was one person, it kind of started with one person. There’s a cowboy that lives in the Aysen region in Chile who was so alarmed by the prospect of losing the land where he grazes his sheep that he hopped on a horse and rode a few hundred miles to the regional capital, this town called Caique. And that caught the attention of media and they started doing kind of annual marches from their…

36:59part of Iceland region up to this regional capital. And the government wasn’t paying them much attention, but through a sort of series of both lucky and very much strategically planned events, these people, these kind of very rural, not very well resourced locals ended up preventing these five dams from being built. And so it’s kind of a story of what looks like an impossible task to begin with can actually.

37:28very quickly become something that is quite feasible and even certainly desirable. And I think the other part of that that’s been really heartening in sort of the post-Pinache era in Chile is that there’s been this national kind of youth movement. People are really falling in love with the landscape there and with what you can really legitimately term as their homeland, right? And I think that’s partly a function of a different economy than they had.

37:53in the 60s and 70s. But it’s partly because, you know, why does any sort of social movement happen? There was just a recognized need to experience what is beautiful. And I think the reason that I included the chapter on Chile is I sort of feel like that’s something that in this country, the conservation movement has started to steer away from a little bit, is that those aesthetic arguments, the human need to experience beauty, it should be really.

38:21what motivates a lot of our conservation work. It’s hard to get people excited about rising temperatures or a longer hurricane season because that’s just weather, it’s just numbers. But if you can contextualize people’s care for the planet in the places where they live, and so this particular place is worth restoring or defending, then I think that makes for a much more potent conservation movement.

38:47It seems like it and I mean the book alone with the number of the gorgeous photographs, not just of South America but all over the world of these natural places I think really begins to do that idea some justice. I know we don’t have a ton of time left but I’d like to shove you into a kind of a lightning round of sorts and I ask these questions of everyone and I think a lot of these answers I think people will be able to find by.

39:13by reading your book, which again, I encourage people to do, but let’s just, let’s roll with it and you, let’s see what we come up with. Hey, that sounds great. Yeah. What professional accomplishment are you the most proud of? Well, I quite suddenly in 2017 found myself fighting and co-producing a documentary film also, there’s a recurring theme here also ultimately about some dams.

39:39And the name of that movie is Dam to Extinction. It’s a documentary film about the plight of killer whales in the Eastern Pacific Ocean that have evolved to feed almost exclusively on Chinook salmon. And because of the transformation of the Columbia River system from what was once one of the world’s top producers of Chinook salmon into a top producer of hydropower.

40:04These whales are starving to death. And I think in telling that story, we stumbled onto the plight of one particular whale that they named these whales. A mother whale named Telequah pushed her, she had a stillborn calf. And the distress that she could, you could visibly palpably feel caused her to put this dead, this stillborn baby on her snout and push it around.

40:32the coastal waters off of Seattle and the state of Washington for 17 days. She swam over a thousand miles with this thing on her nose. She wouldn’t let it sink to the bottom, so it would start to sink and she would dive down and push it back up and the rest of her fellow whales swam alongside her. There was just a demonstrable show of grief, you know, from one fellow mammal to another and we were able to include that.

41:00footage of that in the film and it caused another significant uprising. I think some of the advocates for those whales started a petition that I think it was on change.org and it now has over a million signatures on it. And it is basically begging the government in the state of Washington to do something about the lack of salmon returning from the ocean to rivers in the Pacific Northwest. And we’re down to less than 1% of historic abundance. And so

41:29I think that’s the thing that is, you know, I’ve chosen to do the kind of work that I do because I feel like we’re in this unique time in history where we’re going to have to undertake some fairly dramatic changes from the way we’ve been doing things the last few hundred years. And if I, you know, if I could draw attention to these issues and make people or, you know, encourage people to have an emotional response, I think that’s kind of the basis of our, you know, activism is that you have to have a connection to the issues that you’re

41:58fighting for and if I’ve managed to do that with that film or in some of my writing and other places I think that’s that’s the thing that I’m most proud of. Yeah I guess that leads me to one of the other questions or you know it has some connection there is like is if you had a chance to go back to say the beginning of your adult life is there something that you would do differently is it to make that case earlier? Yeah absolutely it took me until I was into my 30s to step

42:27my current role as a writer. And, you know, now it’s one of the most heartening things that I get to experience is high school kids and even younger. I think of one activist up in the state of Washington who’s been advocating for salmon and removing dams and the wellbeing of killer whales since she was 10 or 11. And yeah, just sooner and more. That’s the only regret that I would have. I feel like this is vital and necessary work and I’m encouraged by the number of

42:56young people particularly that are recognizing that and taking it on in a much more effective way than I’ve managed to. You kind of nailed down really the last two questions and I’ll make it a two-parter in that regard. Sure. So you spent this part of your career helping to restore these unique and special places. Are you one, optimistic about the future of these places and the battles to come? And then…

43:22What advice would you give to young people who are just entering or they’re interested in, in the world of, you know, whether it be dam removal, advocacy, or environmental restoration in general? Yeah, I’m, I guess I’m like my son. I am cautiously optimistic that we’re going to address some of our major problems where what keeps me up at night is how much we’re going to lose before we get on with the fixing, right? I think if you could characterize.

43:51our species in maybe a sentence or two, it might be something like we’re not nearly as good at long-term planning as we consider ourselves to be, but we can be pretty effective in an emergency. And I feel like this long emergency that we’re still kind of on the front end of with climate change is going to really…

44:13catalyze a transformation of, and hopefully for the best, for our species, for humans, you know? The second part of the question, I would point young people to a quote that I included in the book by a famous Grand Canyon river guide named Martin Litton. Martin was the angel on David Brower’s shoulder as they were negotiating to prevent dams from being built in, on the Colorado River and in and around Grand Canyon in particular. There’s a famous fight that I…

44:42retail in the book about preventing a dam in what is now a dinosaur national monument. And Martin said, don’t ask for what is reasonable, ask for what is right. And I think if there’s a flaw in the modern conservation movement is that they’re not arguing and fighting passionately for what ought to be the world that they want to create. They’re sort of negotiating too meekly over what is. And don’t.

45:09The advice to young people would be don’t compromise that vision of what you think the world can be. And don’t let anybody else talk you into just negotiating over the crumbs of what is. I think that’s really important. That’s why I hope that’s why I wrote the book. And I hope, you know, the words of Martin Linton and some other folks that are in there will cause people to not let go of that more optimistic vision of what the world could be. Well, I think it’s a perfect place to close. And so I’ll once again tell people what the book is. It’s called Cracked.

45:38The Future of Dams and a Hot Chaotic World. Steve, where can folks find this book and your other work as well, including your film and your first book? Let’s see. Probably the first, let’s do the film first. It’s streaming on Vimeo and on Amazon Prime. The film has a website. It’s dam2extinction.com. My first book, I would encourage you to go to the website of any independent bookseller. My favorite is Powell’s Books, because that’s close to home in Portland.

46:08Uh, you can order it there. Certainly like most other books can be found on Amazon. You can, you can order it from there if you can’t find your favorite independent bookseller. And then this latest work, Cracked, you can find on Patagonia’s website. And it’s also for sale in a lot of their retail stores, as well as at a lot of independent booksellers. So I’m plugging your independent bookstore. If you’re lucky enough to live near a town that has a

46:33a bookstore support those folks. They’re the ones that are, you know, not only supporting authors like me, but supporting, I think, a finer vision of the world of literacy, right? I tell listeners, you heard it from Steve, you know where to buy the book down. I’ll put I’ll put links to all those, including your favorite independent bookstore, by the way, and we’ll put that in the episode notes as well so people can find it and find your other work.

47:00Steve Hawley, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a real pleasure. Hey, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. Hey, you bet. Good luck to you. Yep. Take care. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water for Fighting. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and probably even on Twitter at FLWaterpod. And you can reach me directly at FLWaterpod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Thanks again to my friends at C&Shoreline and Rez.

47:28I’ll have more information about them in the show notes and website as well. So please be sure to check them out. They’re doing amazing work. Production this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Soren for making the best of what he had to work with and Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring brand for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold.

47:56Join me next time for another amazing conversation with someone who’s helped shape how we think about water and the environment in the sunshine state. And at least for this episode beyond until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Ann Shortelle

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In the last episode of the season, Brett sits down with limnologist, business owner and two-time water management district executive director – Ann Shortelle. They talk about building a family and career in Florida; being one of only three people to serve as executive director of two different water management districts; how she wants young women and girls to embrace math and science more; Notre Dame super fandom; and how she became a “Lake Doctor”.

To learn more about the North Florida Regional Water Supply Partnership, go here: https://northfloridawater.com

To learn more about the Central Florida Water Initiative, check here: https://cfwiwater.com and here: https://floridadep.gov/water-policy/water-policy/content/central-florida-water-initiative-cfwi

To find out more about DEP’s Office of Water Policy and Ecosystems Restoration, head here: https://floridadep.gov/water-policy

To see what they’re up to at the Suwannee River Water Management District these days, check out their website here: https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com

To wade through the Wikipedia page on the Rodman Dam and Reservoir, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodman_Reservoir

You can email Ann directly here: abshortelle@gmail.com

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

speaker:Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers. I’ve decided to close out the season by talking to one of the smartest people I know, and easily my favorite limnologist, Dr. Anne Shortell. When I met Anne, she was just hired as the director of the Office of Water Policy at the Department of Environmental Protection, and she would go on to be one of only three people ever to serve as executive director of two different water management districts. She’s currently the co-owner 2030 Consulting out of Gainesville and even though we’re talking by phone, I couldn’t be more happy to have her on the show. So let’s get on with it. Anne, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I’m honored to be here and thanks for noting that I actually can’t keep a job. Oh boy. We’ll get to some of that. Trust me. Trust me. First of all, where are you at the moment? Dallas, Texas. And why are you in Dallas, Texas? Well, I have a daughter and son-in-law and twin granddaughters here and we are currently in the final days of Baby Watch for number three. Wow. Wow. That’s awesome. And we’ll get to a little bit more of that pretty soon, but I want to start with when you were born. And you were born in, let me see if I pronounced this correctly, Saul St. Marie? Is that right? Sue St. Marie. There you go. And that’s in Michigan. Yes. much about your beginnings because you’re an Air Force brat. So your family’s not actually from Michigan, right? Correct. They’re from upstate New York. Where in upstate New York? Because Ryan Matthews, who I spoke with last week, his family’s from Troy, New York. Uh, not too close to where my family is, has their roots, Janesden, New York is in the extreme western portion, close to Buffalo. really about 60 miles from Buffalo. Wow, cold times. And do you still have a lot of extended family up there? We have, you know, there’s cousins about and you know, once removed type family. It’s generally a fairly small family and most of my generation and the next generation have moved elsewhere. Okay, so do you consider yourself in any way a New Yorker or are you just, hey, I’m an Air Force brat And so I’m from everywhere. Air Force brat and no, I do not consider myself a New Yorker. Well, I mean, you’ve been in Florida for a long time. So I hate to try to bash you over the head with that, but sometimes it is what it is. So where did your parents end up after the Air Force days were over? Well, my dad’s last active duty station was Eglin Air Force Base out on the Panhandle. So he retired there. and my dad actually moved to Gainesville where we, Kevin and I were raising our family. Nice. So then tell me about young Anne. You end up as an accomplished academic, and I know for a fact that you’re a huge sports fan, especially Notre Dame football, but were you bookish as a kid? Did you enjoy the outdoors and sports more or was it both? Well, I always enjoyed the outdoors sports, but as a spectator, I’m not all that coordinated. And I enjoyed academics, but I don’t really consider myself bookish. Although, you know, I’ve read all the Nancy Drew mysteries from back in the day. So maybe I am. I think I started my scientific career when I was in grade school. Wow. Tell me about your, your favorite parts of exploring nature and the outdoors as a kid. Or was that, was that something that you like doing? So when we lived in Oklahoma, I could walk to school and you had to, you know, cross this little creek on the way to school. And in the, in the spring, I would pester my mom for mason jars and come home every day with tadpoles, probably decimated the population in the, in the creek. But for sure, I then spent hours, countless hours and days trying to rear these guys into little frogs, I admit to having lost some. But those, yeah, those were the beginnings. And by high school, we were moving around all the time. And by high school, nationally, we had the National Environmental Policy Act. And I kind of felt like I was an environmental sleuth. I mean, as a teenager, I probably arrested with my little brownie camera outside of, you know, outside the gates of some ne’er-do-well looking industries taking shots and speculating what was really going on there. Little did I know, right? Yeah, exactly. And so just to pull on that thread a little bit, was there a place that you were looking at that you were sleuthing out to end up being a ne’er-do-well? an exercise of that curiosity that stayed with you? For me, it’s mostly curiosity. There was one place in my high school days that looking back, I can see, well, I wasn’t far off on that one. But in general, most industries are trying to do the right thing. They’re trying to improve environmentally, whether it’s air, whether it’s water, all the different things. I mean, back in the day, folks were what was usual and customary and we didn’t understand all the consequences, you know, 50 years ago. So yeah, that seems fair. And we have tons of examples of that, you know, in Florida, where you had the, I think most specifically the federal government, you know, thinking you’re doing the right thing. And in the end, I’m thinking of straightening the Kissimmee River, you know, all the way down to Lake Okeechobee and what a mess that made. Absolutely. So where family when you graduated from high school? You mentioned high school? In Georgia, Robbins Air Force Base, one in Robbins, Georgia. Is that, gosh, was that Atlanta or Macon? It’s just south of Macon. Okay. And so you go on to study both biology and chemistry in college. And I was going to ask how you ended up at Mercer for that, but I think I know the answers because it was close by and it’s a really good school. Is that right? arrogance associated with it. It turns out, you know, back in the day we were we were schooled, you know, you can be anything, you know, study hard, the world is your oyster, you can do whatever you want. And I was just arrogant enough to assume that that meant I only needed to apply to the college that I wanted to go to. Go to the college of your choice. Well, I didn’t get in and by then it was It was so late. It was too late to you know kind of go away to school all all of these other choices that I’ve looked at And eliminated because of course I was going to the one school but Mercer had and it is a good school by the way But they had a reciprocal any of the counties adjoining they had you know kind of this admission policy I maybe they assumed you weren’t gonna live on campus I did but I mean Mercer because I had not gotten the college of my choice. You mentioned that three times now, not getting into the college of your choice. So you do not want to mention it? I was trying to avoid mentioning William & Mary, but now I’ve said it. Also a lovely school, but known for chemistry and biology or you want to study something else at William & Mary? years old, you’re not necessarily making these choices based on how the programs look. Grad school, yes. You know, undergraduate, not so much. I just fell in love with it when I visited there and eliminated all my other choices and that was not a good thing. Of course, I got my revenge, if you will, my admissions revenge when they, because I kept my application active. the first semester of my freshman year at Mercer and you know had a little party and burned the thing and As one does when they’re when they’re young. Yes, and so When did the plan to become as as our mutual friend John? Stevenson says when he refers to you as a lake doctor. So when did that materialize? Well, I had many wonderful teachers and professors along the way and in my sophomore year at Mercer, one of my professors who was a University of Michigan graduate said, you know, Ann, you ought to look at going to their field station. University of Michigan’s got this field station up at Douglas Lake. I think you’d like it. I think it broadened your horizons. Long story short, I applied, I went, took my first Limnology class, and I realized at that time I’ve found the career when in fact I couldn’t have articulated, I didn’t even know what a limnologist was. For people either who don’t know, I said lake doctor, but it’s slightly more complicated than that, I understand. What is a limnologist for folks out there that don’t know? Well, so classically, it’s the physical, chemical, and biological science of lakes and reservoirs, surface waters. including myself, are happy if our feet are wet. So we’ve branched out into rivers and streams and wetlands. You know, we pretty much stop at the estuary, you know, where as things start to get salty, we’re less in a comfort zone. Interestingly, it’s generally less about groundwater, or it was, radically over the last 50 years as we realized the interaction between the surface water and the groundwater. Yeah. And that’s especially true here in Florida, obviously, and especially true in two places where you headed up. We’ll talk about that pretty soon. But I want to stick for a second on your choices that you’re making here, which are endlessly fascinating now. So you have this professor you really like, and he says, you’ve got to go to Michigan and you say great, but what I’m actually gonna do is go to the school that is the arch enemy of the University of Michigan. I guess maybe second to Michigan State, which is Notre Dame, but there’s a lot of kismet, luck, fate involved in that as well, I assume? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and as you already mentioned, I’m a big college football fan, so that helped too. Although, you know, Michigan would been would have been a good choice as well. But I did end up doing my graduate studies at the University of Notre Dame. Yeah and so you’re at Notre Dame and that’s how I know you more than anything else is that you are all Irish and and so you went to Notre Dame and you meet a dashing young engineer there named Kevin has two degrees from Notre Dame. He went there as an undergraduate and became an electrical engineer, a systems engineer, moved away, worked for a while, came back to graduate school and that is indeed where we met. His family is from Connecticut. He had from back in the day, our girls just found his acceptance letter to you know Notre Dame. So he got into the college of his choice. Unlike me, but it was a match made in heaven. We dated and got married after I finished my degree at Notre Dame. So did you end up in Florida right after that? Tell me because I’ll give you where I’m at in terms of my knowledge of Anne Shortell and Kevin Shortell history. I meet you in 2011. I know you went to Notre Dame. two periods and that’s a that’s a fair number of years there. So what happened after you graduated and you both got married and moved on? So he had already finished and had moved to the Boston area and he was a little bit more of a homebody than me. Recall I’m an Air Force brat, I’ll go anywhere, right? Right. And he grew up in the same house in Connecticut, you know, for his entire childhood Boston, not far away. So I followed him there when we got married. That was a big career decision point, right? You know, do I do a postdoc, da da da da da? We made the decision, well, we’re going to start out in Boston. And we loved Boston. We were all over New England, having, you know, the time of our lives as newlyweds. And, you know, life just intervenes in those times. was skyrocketing, my mom got sick. I mean, you know, my dad and mom had retired to Florida. Our best friends up there at the time were Bill and Wendy Graham. Wendy Graham was, who’s the University of Florida’s head of the Water Institute there now. Back in the day, they had, they had come up and she was at MIT for her doctorate and Kevin and Bill you know, worked at the same small firm. And so we were all fast friends. And they were coming back to Florida and we were looking at the housing and saying, you know, we could do really well in Florida. And Kevin’s like, Florida? Are you, you know, what? But the rest is history, as they say. We moved to Gainesville and stayed there for the entire time we raised our family. And so, yeah, you mentioned raising a family. You have two daughters. What are their names? And So Janet was born in 89 and Jennifer was born in 91. And so you go straight to Gainesville. Are you living in the, or is the house that you have now, is that the same one that you’ve lived in the entire time or have you moved around a little bit since you were there? No, we found that house and that’s been our homestead all this time. Wow, that’s very cool. Yeah, exactly. I can relate, that’s for sure. I’m the son of two Navy brats. But I picked up from my mom the desire not to move all the time. So that’s kind of stuck. My dad used to love, boy, he loved moving. But you’re now both in the private sector, right? And so tell me a little bit about that. Tell me about the work that you did before you ended up in government service. You know, kind of for me, classic environmental consulting, developing clients, trying to help them be successful, mindful of choices that they need to make to develop their product or to deliver energy or whatever their particular challenges were in a cost-effective way, but also in an environmentally responsible way. France all over the country. And there were some fantastic folks that I met along the way, and really with very, very few exceptions, the folks that I was trying to do the right thing. So that was successful. I had fun for a long time. Nice. And then you decide to give all that fun up and come into government at DEP, no less. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you got there, it was, you know, the trumpets and bugles, a calling, and everyone is very excited to get you in the building, myself included. How did that happen? Yeah, well, serendipity is a real thing, right? Governor Scott was elected. I was invited to be on his transition team. He was looking for a scientist. He got me. Now what are the odds? And my eyes were opened during that time period of, you know, the whole government, the workings of government and the policy aspects. Just, you know, those doors kind of cracked open for me and I saw what some of the possibilities were. And I’m also, you already know this, easily bored. to work in that administration. And, you know, DEP would be the obvious place to start. But as you know, I went there as green as a turnip or something. I don’t think green, I guess the leaves are green. In terms of policy, and you and John Stevenson, who was not the secretary yet, affairs director, schooled me up and taught me everything I know. I mean, basically, you know, just tried to keep me from running my mouth too much in inappropriate times. We’ll get, we’ll get to a little bit of that as well. But I w what I remember the most was your sticky note whiteboard. So you have a whiteboard that people normally use to write on, but you decided to put what had to been a couple hundred sticky notes, a dollars all over it because you’re trying to work through some issues that the state’s been struggling with for many years, the biggest of which is consumptive use permitting. So water quantity. You also were worried about water quality, but the big thing that you were sticking in was the consumptive use permitting process as well as the Central Florida Water Initiative. Do I have that right? Am I remembering correctly? You are remembering correctly. the useful sticky note model is you can, the thoughts that are all on these sticky notes can still just be moved around. It was in part was an organizational challenge. How do we crack this nut? And you’re right, it had been avoided for many years. I mean, it’s one thing for government to recognize an issue. to actually wrangle the cats together and try and make progress to solve an issue. So sticky notes were useful to me and yes, a lot of people thought it was old school and of course that was also true. I guess that’s the benefit of being, as you say, green is you bring something completely different to some of these questions and maybe that’s exactly what it took. because you had some pretty good successes there in terms of dealing with Consumptive Use Consistency as well as the Central Florida Water Initiative, the CFWI. Do you feel like that that’s what happened in the end? That’s what it seemed like to me, but I want to get your take on that. Yeah, I think there were a lot of aha moments, both for myself, for our staff, groups that we were dealing with because we were posing questions in a, you know, not that these were radically new questions, but I think folks just hadn’t been facing them for a while or maybe ever. And sometimes fresh eyes can point out things that help the various entities that are impacted by rules and regulations and environmental advocates. fresh eyes and a fresh way of looking at things can sometimes be helpful. The one that sticks out to me is helping people understand that we didn’t need to fight to the death over every consumptive use permit. Right. You know, that there’s lots of perfectly appropriate, smaller consumptive use permits. People are doing the right thing. They’re conserving the water that they can. volume of the water coming out of the ground is tied up in a few big permits. And by a few, I would pose it as 20% of the permits as opposed to looking at the other 80%. Not that you don’t look at those, but your staff could spend literally all of their time on small permits. Do a fabulous job. move the needle on water supply. Right. And it just took some spreadsheet manipulation and a few bar charts to start to show people that you know we need to focus is is is off. We’re trying to we’re trying to be perfect with every single permit that we touch and we need to focus on a big picture and we moved the needle when we started doing that. Yeah I agree and and to the extent that that happened, you end up, I guess I’ll accuse you of it, because I think you left first, of breaking up the band. So you go to the Suwannee River Water Management District. I go to end up going to the Northwest District. And it seemed like you took that exact same attitude, that approach to some of those challenges and you’re having significant ones. It’s a small water management district, Suwannee, with enormous challenges. is water quality. Now, obviously water quality is a big deal as well, especially with how many springs there are in the Suwannee River District. But my memory of those days was you were always looking for a way to build better mousetraps, to work better with stakeholders, to find solutions to putting more water back into the aquifer than was there before without the giant battles. Am I remembering that correctly as well? And, you know, there were some bloodied encounters over that general issue. But yes, we’re not going to continue to make progress, you know, over and over time if we’re not continually looking for ways to build better mousetraps, do things more efficiently, look for dual benefits. Not just water quantity. resilience piece now and you add that in and water quality ever present in the work that we’re doing on some of these projects. But it was important to take the battle from, it’s not my water, it’s not your water, it’s my water, and move it to how do we manage the resource that we have and help nature replenish each year as the rains come and that there’s enough for everybody because that’s what the water laws of Florida intend. But in practice, it had gotten, you know, kind of swords drawn and, you know, people in different interest groups, you know, battling back and forth in a nonproductive manner. And I know that the minimum flow and minimum level laws and program can lend themselves to those kinds of fights, especially when things are getting scarcer in terms of water resources, but I think you really did a good job of trying to work your way around that. And that’s what I took away from, not just there, but also your work at the St. Johns River Water Management District as well. And so I want to just kind of segue into that and try to kind of get a sense of your overall philosophy and we’re getting a taste of some of that. But you moved to the St. Johns River Water Management District, which is bigger, more You’ve got a lot of moving parts, but in the end, I guess, let me ask you this first. Why did you take the St. John’s River job? All of those things that you just articulated were part of that calculus. But in reality, our leaders in Tallahassee understood that there were still issues, not only between Suwannee and St. John’s, but in the St. John’s footprint. that needed additional attention. And I was happy to go there because I think it’s important in St. John’s, especially in the northern half of that district, to have Suwannee’s perspective coming in. But yes, I’m sure you’re aware, I got a call from Secretary Stevenson, asked it a couple of governing board chairs, et cetera, et cetera. issue. That the reason for you being there, the perspective you bring going from Swinburne to St. John’s, because I think there are two elephants in the room there, right? You have one which is South Georgia, not just consumption, but also waste water coming down. And the other elephant in the room is an enormous place called Jacksonville and the consumptive use by perfectly decent folks, but heavy use nonetheless in that JEA territory. Am I capturing that correctly? Yes, there are utilities there, JEA being the largest one, but every all the utilities were trying to do their job. And we needed a regional solution. A secretary of vineyard at the time got that started very early on, recognized that and got those two water management districts together with their swords in their sheaths mostly. have water management leaders like myself that could articulate both sides geographically, if you will, of those issues. And because otherwise, you know, it’s just human nature. You get pretty myopic. St. John’s was doing a great job on so many things. But the groundwater doesn’t stop at the borders. And those highly professional scientists at both districts understand how it works together and that having two separate models that don’t get the same answers at the border is just not going to climate. Right. Yeah. And is that part of, I wanted to ask in the next few questions about your management style, but let’s pause there then. You have perspectives coming from two different places. You have a big task at hand. You have, I’ll probably screw this up. It’s another initiative. What is the… That’s close. North Florida Regional Water Supply Partnership. Okay. Now I know why I couldn’t remember it. That’s a lot of words. Okay. Did that predate your work over there? I’m trying to remember my timeline, but was that a function of Secretary Vineyard’s creation and your implementation? Yes. When I was at DEP, I mean, that came on early because JEA had, at the time, had a very, right before I got there had been successful in getting a giant large modification on their consumptive use permit. You know, the Swanny folks who were already very concerned about their water supply sort of lost it over that. And yes, wisely, Secretary Vineyard, who was from Jacksonville, was seeing the bigger picture there and got the chairs and the executive directors in and got that kicked off because, you know, it was just not a tenable position for the state to have water management districts at drawn swords at the borders. Right. He used to say, you got to have the right people on the bus. I think he felt like you were one of the most important pieces on the bus. And I think the reason maybe because it’s one of the things I like about you the most is that I’ve never had to wonder what you’re thinking when I’m in a room with you. me when you’re my boss at DEP and it also helped when we were both district EDs. So you get these these calls and meetings together and you know to know that you are going to be engaging honestly but also assertively in whatever the task was at hand especially when it had to overlap between between districts and I think that’s one of the things that that Herschel saw in you as well. Do you think that’s you think that’s right or am I just supposing? I think that’s probably fair. I mean, I never really had a very good filter. But if you’re trying to solve regional problems, the folks that are going to be partners in that effort, whether it’s governmental partners or various stakeholder groups, there has to be a level of honest communication share so that everyone understands, you know, the different points of view, and then you’re always driving towards that common ground. But the underpinning has to be based in how the water works, right? I mean, you can’t come up with a solution that doesn’t, isn’t viable because it doesn’t actually work. And Secretary Vineyard also had his saying of, we’ve got to get the water right. And he was absolutely right about that. And so would you describe those traits as part of your general management style as well? Because we’re talking about problem solving, but we’re also talking about you heading up one large office in DEP and big issues and then heading up two agencies altogether with enormous challenges. Is that a part of your management style, which is being honest and attacking problems with common sense solutions. How would you describe your management style? I mean, I think that’s kind of it in a nutshell. It doesn’t always work well. It can be a rocky road at times. Folks are not necessarily used to that level of, I don’t know, just sharing, I’ll say. But it’s important. I mean, the way I was always trying affect change was to get people in a room and we could say anything in that room, I mean respectfully, but say anything in that room, battle it out, it might take a while. But once the decisions are made, folks are theoretically on the same page and we know what our next plan into the future is to solve that problem. Sometimes that’s difficult, haven’t gotten solved because you’ve got to sort of step out on faith to get some things done and sometimes government employees, it’s safer if you will to do good work but not necessarily take that leap. If you’re not from that organization, it’s easier to take that leap. and then a private sector person by nature. And you give a decade of that, which is assertive, common sense, drive forward, try to fix problems. That’s what you’re there for, that’s what you’re trying to do. And so you give 10 years of that, but then you hang up your bureaucrat spurs, I’ll call them, and then head back to the private sector, back to those roots, so to speak. Tell me about that transition back to business owner work-life balance with the grandkids in the equation now? It was difficult, Brett, very difficult for me. I had been managing, as you pointed out, big things and scads of wonderful people. And that change was more challenging for me than I thought it would be, probably because I was just being Pollyanna and hadn’t really thought it all through. I don’t regret the decision to retire from public service and to kind of split my time with being new Nana and also back in the private sector. But it was a big adjustment for me personally. You know, hey, it’s all good. Decisions have new adventures and we got through all of those new adventures. I needed to keep my hand in scientific innovation jar. I wasn’t ready to let that go. that go and that it was, I was surprised by how much I missed some of the things that I would have told you before I retired, I wouldn’t have missed at all. What are the things that you do take on? What scratches that edge for you at the moment? Are you very selective in terms of the work that you take on? Pretty selective. And part of that is I don’t have, you know, I’m not a full-time consultant anymore. So, and it’s a gift at this stage of my career to be able to be selective. I told you when I was in the private sector before that the vast majority of my clients were trying to do the right thing, but not every one of them. And now I can tell the ones that I’m not that interested in working for because of whatever reason that I’m just too busy. And I’m probably being sincere. I am too busy. on projects, still focused on clients who are willing to innovate. It’s not every client that wants to be first at anything. You know, they might want to be third if something is panning out, but they don’t want to be first. Well, I’m concentrating on the folks that are willing to step out with me and others who are trying to connect lots of dots that will benefit Florida Water over along and along. So given that status and how you look at things now, I want you to look back on what you’ve done so far. Is there a professional accomplishment that you’re most proud of or something that’s maybe, some people have trouble picking out one thing and so is there something that would kind of fit in your top three? I thought about that a lot and I keep returning to something because most of the accomplishments your period were not mine. They were, you know, just a cast of thousands working together and, you know, pulling in the same direction. And I would not want to point to any of those and say that was my best accomplishment. But I do feel like I kept bringing up wherever I was, but particularly at the water management to encourage students, younger people, to envision themselves as a water scientist, as a water engineer, to, you know, it’s that STEM pulse. And even at Swani, we started there with small grants for teachers to get some of these things into their schools. We also, during the summer, would bring groups out to springs and different places, Springs, but to see how do we measure things about springs? How do we use maps? All the different technology. That wasn’t really happening there when I got there. We then also took that and it morphed into a slightly different form, but we had a program like that at St. John’s too. That’s not to say that there weren’t fabulous teaching opportunities beforehand, like as a woman scientist, I could speak to diversity and you know student encouragement in a way in a voice that that maybe they hadn’t heard before. So I am, I don’t know if proud is the right word, but I feel good about the progress that we made in that arena. What do you tell a young woman, a girl, or a young man about doing, whether it be public service or just the environmental sciences as a whole. What do you tell them? What kind of advice do you give them? Well, I think it’s important for any young person to really try and lay the table with a buffet, sample the buffet and see when do the light bulbs go on. And then you know where to sort of focus is a fabulous thing if you love what you’re doing. You’re not really working. But you have to find that. And I didn’t want, whether it was women, young women, girls, minority students that maybe hadn’t been exposed to some of these things before that others are, I didn’t want them to feel that there was anything out there that they couldn’t put on the buffet. And I didn’t want folks to be afraid of math or afraid of science. I mean, they some folks just assume they can’t do it. And in some cases, not only can they do it, but they’re brilliant at it. You know, so you you try to foster that inquisitive nature that we have and see where it leads and then follow it. Is there anything about your government service that you feel was left or even underdone? Almost everything. You know, we’re not finished. List them all. But I’ll throw one out there. This is, you know, the sort of the classic Pollyanna Anne who thinks, oh, we can do this. When I got to St. John’s, I made no secret of the fact that we had something that we could do that would really cross so many different groups groups in St. John’s and lots of people would feel good about it. And that was reestablishing the riverine connection of the largest tributary to the St. John’s River by taking out Rodman Dam, the dam itself. Holy smokes. Oh my goodness, you stepped in it, didn’t you? Now, you know, as I was preparing for retirement, I’m thinking, gosh, now we’ve got this dam assessment out there. dams have water control structures all of them have to be refurbished they have lifespans you know engineering 101 dam safety 101 right can’t you don’t wait for the catastrophe you’ve got to take action and it’s not that reservoirs are bad hey I like bass fishing in reservoirs but there are lots of can be offline, not midline. Lots of lessons over the past 50, 75 years how to do this and water control structures and dams are coming down all over the country for various reasons, not the least of which are things like fish that need to go up and down and manatees and others. But I’m not the most patient on the planet. You probably remember that from back in the day. I remember that, yes. And I was at St. John’s for six years and we didn’t get it over the finish line, but there’s a lot more genuine conversation now than there was and we’re still trying to help the stakeholders that have a different point of view to see the regional water-related ecosystem benefits that would accrue from such a change. But yeah, there were a lot of things undone. That certainly was one. That’s a good one. That one may last a bit longer as well. Are you optimistic about the future of the environment and natural systems in Florida? And why? Yes. Well, I’m an optimist. I have a professional career from its earliest days that nature can heal and people can help that process. We need more people to understand that it’s important. We’re not going to run out of water, but we’re running out of that plentiful, clean, fresh water to support all of our various activities. So things need to be innovative, and sometimes that might be a little more economically challenging, but Absolutely nature nature finds a way and I am an optimist I do try to help people to understand that it’s not There isn’t a switch that we can throw that are that’s going to solve these challenges. It’s it’s an incremental day in and day out Do better each day each year each decade To begin to see the improvements, but there’s you know, gosh over the globe where like-minded people have brought aquatic ecosystems back from the brink. So on the other side of that coin, what, if anything, keeps you up at night regarding Florida’s environment? All of those things that aren’t done. Because my mind is still going to be looking for the next innovation, the next policy change particular innovation to be more useful and who do I need to talk to next or you know who does the secretary need to talk to next to begin to move that issue down the road. I do sleep pretty well though. Well that’s good. Finally, how can folks get in touch with you if they want to take a shot at getting some of your time at a GEO 2030? Well my email address is I probably on LinkedIn, a, b, short, at gmail.com very simple or give me a call that number hasn’t changed in a long time. It’s been a while. Yeah so I love hearing from folks and I do get calls from many of the wonderful people that I’ve interacted with especially over the last decade just to kind of talk through issues and I love to do that too. Awesome. Ann Shortell, thank you so much for coming on the show and being the season closer for us. Thank you for having me. Well, that’s it for both this episode and our very first season. I can’t thank you enough for listening to Water for Fighting. If you’re enjoying the show, tell a friend and please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use. Oh, and don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review. You can follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram at FL WaterPod. And you can reach me directly at FL WaterPod. gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thank you to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. Please join me back here in about we’ll have more phenomenal guests including a few curveballs along the way. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Ryan Matthews

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 08:43:06 +0000

In his second-to-last episode of the season, Brett sits down with attorney, lobbyist, and former secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection – Ryan Matthews. They discuss his family’s deep roots in Upstate New York; the example left behind by a renowned attorney and lobbyist father; the joys and challenges of leadership; and his flirtation with a life of crime.

To learn more about Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, go here: https://floridadep.gov/water/submerged-lands-environmental-resources-coordination/content/state-404-program

To learn more about the Central Florida Water Initiative, check here: https://cfwiwater.com and here: https://floridadep.gov/water-policy/water-policy/content/central-florida-water-initiative-cfwi

To reach Ryan at his law firm, Gray-Robinson, head here: https://www.gray-robinson.com/offices/tallahassee-fl

You can email Ryan directly here: Ryan.matthews@gray-robinson.com

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

speaker:Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people that make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cypherz. As we get into the last two episodes of the first season here at Water for Fighting, I like us to close out with individuals who I think are really going to grab your attention. And that’s why I think it’s so fitting that today’s guest is one of the most well-liked and respected environmental lobbyists working in Tallahassee today. And that’s Ryan Matthews. I had the privilege of getting to know Ryan over a decade ago when he was making his first as the director of office water policy and eventually as a DEP secretary. He would go on to use his skills to represent some of the largest utilities, local governments, professional associations and businesses in the state and is now doing that as a shareholder for the highly regarded Gray Robinson law firm. Now on to the conversation. Welcome to the podcast, Ryan. Oh, are you sure? Thanks. Out of nine guests now that I’ve had on the show, nearly all of them are either from here or somewhere else in Florida. or somewhere other all together and you fit in that last part. You’re from New York, right? I am upstate New York. So, you know, most people see 95% of New York is New York City. I am from CalPastor, Troy, New York. Okay. And so is that the deal is I’ve known people from New York City and that, and basically every place it’s not New York City is, is upstate, right? Is that kind of the deal? Effectively. Yeah. But you’re actually up the state. Upstate. I mean, you know, side of the capital Albany. So the home of Uncle Sam. No big deal. Oh, there’s an actual Uncle Sam. There’s an actual Uncle Sam. Oh, wow. Yeah. Very. There you go. New Saliva. So your mommy and dad are both from Troy, correct? They are as well as I mean, really, the entirety of my extended family is from Troy, New York. So my parents met when they were about 10 years old. at 12. So that’s how it is in New York then. That’s how it is. How do I say small town? I mean small town. Tell me about what, and that’s interesting. I’m like that they, you know, from 12 years old, that’s a huge deal. That doesn’t happen often anymore. It’s a unique story. They lived a couple blocks away from each other. So obviously in elementary school or grade school, if you’re a northerner, they met and, you know, started dating at 12. They took one year off of their relationship from being together. And that was till the time my dad passed at 61, we’re together from 12 years old. Wow. So you said your entire extended family is from Troy. What brought your mom and dad down to Florida then? I mean, the short answer is winter. That’s kind of something that is pretty harsh up there. My dad played quarterback. He was a five, nine quarterback at the University of Rochester. managed to escape Troy for a short period of time. And then he decided to go to law school. And he decided to go to law school at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. And we can get into the issues that caused me as a child later on. But, you know, Escape in New York, they decided to go to Miami. My mom was a registered nurse down there. You know, you’re talking late 70s, early 80s. So from a, you know, health perspective, you’re talking about emergence of HIV and sort of the civil unrest in Miami at the time. I have some great stories about things that occurred. But yeah, it was literally, let’s go to law school. My mom, who was always his partner, said, absolutely, let’s go to Florida. Wow. So he was the one person in the entire Matthews family that figured out that winter is horrible in New York. They all seem to embrace it. Now, you moved down. I think you said eight months old. Is that right? I was eight months. So Born there my dad then took the bar here in Florida And I think while he was sort of looking for next steps I stayed in New York with my mom So he was on sort of this original path that was not you know environmental law And I have a quick story about that. That’s pretty funny. So He was a 3L at the University of Miami last year law school. Had a fairly prominent internship if you will with a criminal defense attorney down there. And this one client just happened to be a you know high-ranking member of a certain drug cartel that they were going to federal court. Ultimately win the case that they were representing this group of gentlemen on and they come home to their really small apartment in a bad area town you know, boxes of chocolates and dozens of roses that are in their apartment. And my mother said, if you represent these people and they know where you live, you’re gonna do something else. So criminal law very quickly became environmental law. Yeah, I hear my dad was in the IRS in the early to late 70s out of Miami, the Miami office, and and my mom did not enjoy his tenure down there, which is why we ended So what was little Ryan Matthews like? You grew up here in Tallahassee though, right? I grew up in Tallahassee. I mean, so when we moved, my dad met Wade Hopping probably early, 1981. We moved to Tallahassee shortly thereafter, probably latter part of that year. So I spent a majority of my life here. Young Ryan Matthews was sports obsessed living in Tallahassee. I mean, we had sort of, conference basketball, FSU basketball. We had, you know, fantastic FSU football at the time. So if there was a baseball, basketball, or football game going on, I was there. How on earth does that work at this point? So you’re from New York, you’re family bills, fans. It’s like, how does the sports dynamic work in the Matthews house? Cause your dad is, University Miami law. Abbot hurricane family. fighting what’s of University of Rochester? It’s a good question, I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably why if I have nine quarter back could actually play football. So not a lot on TV, so I mean Miami though, however. And that’s how it was when you were growing up, was all University of Miami, is that the? Pushed on me from my father, which I rejected outright. I mean, I was a diehard and am a diehard Seminole fan. It may be just in spite of sort of his actual fandom of the University of Miami. So. the relationship that I created, I mean, you can imagine me in my, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old, white right one, two, and three, where I’ve got a father, and for those who knew my father, was not shy about rubbing it in my face that, you know, I just had my heart crushed because we missed another field goal to the right. I think that sort of, you know, it spurned or caused our relationship to be quite dynamic from the start. But I mean, in terms of a North versus South sports relationship, I mean, obviously, it’s much more professional sports related up there. I’ve got family, you know, split in between being Mets and Yankees fans, a lot of New York giant fans. But so college football and the passion that we have down here for college football, I think it’s missing up there. Yeah. Unless you’re a big Syracuse fan, I’m not. was the basketball. You can, they can survive it with that. I have a friend who’s a Syracuse fan, but she’s also a Florida State fan, but she went to the University of Central Florida just to give you an idea of how weird it gets. And we’re gonna get to that in a little bit, cause we’ll have to come, I think we’re gonna have to come back to the sports part when we get to a little bit later when you’re college career, cause you get, you throw all of this giant curveball in there. But I wanna talk about still, you’re a kid, you love sports, is hilarious. By the way, it’s like your dad was for a guy that’s setting up as a litigator. He kind of ended up lobbying like that. I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that because he was one of my favorite people to hear because he was so passionate. He was always grinding at an issue and really passionate about it. So that was an interesting nugget I didn’t expect there. So let’s get back to you as a kid though. Sure. You played baseball. Is that your big one? Did you play like a lot of kids you play a bunch? I played everything. Baseball was the most consistent and it was year round for me, which was a little bit different back then. I mean, this was sort of the onset of travel baseball. Now, you know, every eight year old has a travel something team. Things have changed quite a bit. But yeah, I played baseball year round all my life. So what position did you play? What was your main position? Like what got you to pick past high school travel ball? catcher so I hit left-handed but I threw right-handed and my father used to say that he did not teach me to hit left-handed I simply picked up a bat and hit left-handed and if you can you can do that NBA catcher you’re generally in pretty high demand. Yeah I mean I that always seems to be the way especially when you you know in the in the earlier ranks is no one’s no one’s hitting left I mean where you find a left-handed hitter a left-handed pitcher they’re like gold. That’s just it I mean the vast of kids are throwing the ball right handed from a pitching standpoint. So if you can be left handed, you’ve got to just sort of a one on one. Yeah, curve balls out. And so you ended up in playing baseball at Santa Fe College and that’s in Gainesville, right? It is. It is. I had very briefly attempted to walk on at Florida State University where I attended my freshman year, but realized that that might have been a different caliber player at that point. I saw that in the bio. And my assumption was you go to Santa Fe because you want to try to walk on at UF. But it was used tried floor state and then went to Santa Fe. Yeah, so coming out of high school, I probably had a number of opportunities to play. At Small Division I, a lot of Division II baseball programs was struggling as many 18 year olds do about, you know, what does their future hold? What do they wanna do? How much do they really love? What they love at the time? And I made the decision, you know what? I’m going to try to walk on an FSU, don’t really love baseball, probably played it too much up until that point. And then I think the heartbreak of not making FSU’s team, which I watched all my life, I kind of said, well, maybe I do really like baseball. And so Sanfe was an easy choice. When you say the idea of not making it, is that is not getting drafted or not playing at a… division one school. It’s probably both simultaneously. You know, realizing that just because you were really good in high school doesn’t mean that you’re going to be really good at the best college program or that you’re ultimately going to become a professional baseball player like so many you know, five, six, seven, eight year old boys want. Yeah. So when you’re faced with that reality it was sort of alright well let me play junior college baseball for a couple years, have fun, but also you know, at about 20 say to wake up at 5 a.m. to lift weights and run. Maybe I can just drink beer like a normal college kid. But at that point then, let’s get to the psychology of the decision making at this point. Sure. Your dad’s a University of Miami grad. You grew up a Florida state fan. You got a Santa Fe to play college, perfectly natural thing to do under your circumstances. And then now, help me with the logic train of instead of going back to Tallahassee for the big, you know, the major colleges in Florida, University of Florida, do undergrad. Is that right? It’s true. Well, I mean, a couple of things, right? I was already in Gainesville, so easy transition there. And I love Tallahassee, and I’ve always liked Tallahassee, but it is, for me, it was important to spend time elsewhere and just get to know a different place. And I love Gainesville. Gainesville, the town, is so much fun, kid but my allegiance to Florida State never never waned. Was that was that weird down there you’re going to school in a place where and they’re you know lively. They’re lively. I was pretty vocal about it probably because I was just that you know young guy who wanted to maybe cause some some issues so I proudly wore my Florida State stuff on campus and surprisingly never got punched in the face. That’s yeah. Well you didn’t get punched but you did start a life of crime there. Or is that when the life of crime is there? I dipped my toe, I dipped my toe. Tell me about that. It must feel either vindicating or hilarious or something now because there’s a thousand after market ticket sale services where you can buy yourself tickets however you wish. Yeah, there is. There wasn’t at the time. So we had a really good setup where, you know, for those who attended the University of Florida, we had a house with five guys, caddy corner to the law school. So you’re talking, you know, steps away from the swamp. And you mentioned the liveliness of Gainesville and the students there. So, you know, 2001, UF’s got a good football team. I mean, we’re talking like Rex Grossman days for those who, you know, remember college football well. Tennessee was in town, which east rivalry. You know look, college students get tickets for basically free. And if there was an opportunity to make some money on those tickets, young Ryan Matthews was gonna take advantage of that opportunity. So we had had a tailgate early on in the morning for this big night game as we were want to do. A van with a gentleman with a cardboard sign that said I need tickets hanging out, pulled up into the driveway and I said let’s let’s enter into a transaction my tickets. Turns out that gentleman was an undercover cop. And at the time, scalping tickets was illegal. So yeah, I pleaded no contest to ticket scalping violation. Thankfully, I’m still, you know, statute of limitations or whatnot has passed. I’m okay. I’m gonna say we can put in a word with the governor, try to get that expunge for you. So you graduate after your time in foreign territory at the University of Florida. law school, how much of that is related to your father’s practice? Initially, none of it. I was actually adamantly opposed to doing what my father did. And that’s not a shot in any way, shape, or form. It’s actually the opposite. I revered what my father did and I saw how well respected he was. And I thought, by walking in his shoes, I number one didn’t want to get accused of getting anything because of who he was right or what he did But number two, I also just said why would I want to become an environmental lawyer? It doesn’t make any sense to me at the time right so I was working in DC on the Hill and I was working for Senator Bill Nelson at the time and My father called me And he said listen, you know you’re doing good things. That’s fantastic fact that you’re working for a Democrat in DC. If you want to always for the rest of your professional career work for Democrats then stay in the job you’re in. And I said, well that doesn’t sound like a great idea. Maybe I should do something different. Maybe I should go to law school and that was law school. Wow. And you’re right. It’s like it is a tough thing because your dad was so well respected and so good at his job. I guess to maybe credit and yours. I didn’t know that the two of you were related until I don’t know you’d been around a little while or at least I’d you’d been around me a little while. I was like oh well that you know that sort of makes sense you know there but I assumed okay well Frank’s an environmental attorney and and lobbyist so obviously that’s what Ryan’s gonna want to do but but it always seems to be the the story is always a little more complicated than that so yeah it wasn’t obvious to me it was only that I got into law school and I think is most students do when they first matriculate, it’s okay. I don’t wanna be a prosecutor. I really don’t wanna litigate. I don’t wanna do family law. My goodness, that’s heartbreaking. So I started checking boxes and it was, back to the sports obsessed 10 year old, should Ryan become an agent? That’d be cool. But then I took water law class and I took a couple of environmental law classes and thought, all right, I kinda dig this. But to that end, I’m like knowing that you didn’t want to necessarily go into it be an environmental attorney or maybe an attorney at all. But did did junior your dad talk about that sort of thing when you were your younger issues he was working on, you know, client stuff? So yes and no. I think a lot of it was sort of the I always say I kind of picked it up through osmosis, which is, you know, completely incorrect scientific term. how I envision the process playing out as a kid. We talked about what he did. My memories of him, you know, especially early on, are constantly talking into a dictaphone. He generally was always present. For as hard as he worked, he was always present. There was rarely a baseball game that he missed. And so because of that, you know, my most vivid memories of a child are him, you know, in bed at night with just papers scattered everywhere until like two in the morning working. So we talked about it, but mainly it was because he represented, you know, folks like Disney and Mosaic and was part of really cool projects, you know, like permitting nuclear power plants. So even though most kids have the, you know, don’t really care what my dad does type attitude, I was always at least interested in on some of the stuff he was he was working on. Yeah. You mentioned that him being present even in the midst of that. And it is a hectic lifestyle that he led that you lead now. Did that carry over? It’s always, you’ve always struck me as one of the folks here who is actually married to their wife and actually has a family that they enjoy and not the other way around. Is that true? Yes, definitively. I would say that, and I learned that from my dad. Constantly on the go constantly busy constantly taking client calls But he was when he was with us. He was present And it’s something that I hope I mean I’ve got a 10 year old daughter an eight year old son Been married for almost 13 years, you know, it’s something that I try to emulate the best that I can because yeah, it’s nice to Love your wife and love your family and enjoy them And I learned a lot of those lessons from him nice nice So let’s get to beyond law school. You come back home, right? Or did you not come back home? Come back home. So after law school, I was a glutton for higher education. I went to the University of Denver and got an LLM, an environmental law, which is- What’s an LLM for the non-attractions? It’s a specialized master’s in a subject matter area. I think it really kind of started with taxation being the main focus. And then different folks, universities, branched out on subject matter. those in Denver, you know, for someone who was 23 years old, 24 years old, not a bad place to live. Yeah. And so how long was that in Denver? It was only a year. Okay. So my now wife, we were dating at the time, actually met at a wedding in Tallahassee where she went with my former boss, Bill Nelson’s son, and I happened to leave with her, which probably angered the Nelson family. But we were distance was planning on actually staying in Colorado. I had a job at the National Park Service, was digging it, was in their legal counsel sort of internship program, but it was 2007, 2008. So that was about the time that, you know, country was in a little bit of a recession. Once that, that gig ended, it was, well, let’s go back to Tallahassee, my wife at the time owned a home here. She was a teacher, her family’s from here. So it was an easy, easy call. like it. But you said she grew up here. She grew up here. She’s never lived anywhere else despite the fact that I’ve lived five or six places. So then when did you actually get married? Was it make it 2010? We got married in 2011. Okay, gotcha. Okay. And so you’re all degrade up. Many degrees. You’re learned up. You’ve got the buds of a new family. And now you’re starting work here in Hasse was your first job at DEP? Where did you go first? So when I came back in 08 I started with Jeff Cockamp who was Lieutenant Governor at the time but running for Attorney General and so he had just started his campaign and through the Republican Party of Florida you know they kind of said hey would you like this hot-shot kid got all these degrees to help you work on your campaign. So I was Governor Cot Camp’s, you know, bad guy, travel aid, I self-proclaimed policy director because I wanted to sound official. So policy director. So I spent a good year on the campaign trail with Governor Cot Camp and, you know, ultimately General Bondi won that election. Yeah, that does happen, doesn’t it? Sometimes. It’s very sudden after election day, you know, it’s like, so I don’t have a job anymore. And so at that point, I went and worked for the Florida League of Cities for almost six years in their general counsel’s office and then handling a number of legislative issues. That’s where I kind of cut my teeth lobbying, if you will. And it’s humorous for a couple of different reasons, mainly because Frank Matthews was sort of enemy number one of local government, or certain local governments across the state of Florida. So early on at least I got to take that pseudo adversarial role to my dad, which we kind of played off nicely with each other. Nice. I think that’s the first time I’d heard of you when you were at the League of Cities. I didn’t know you were there that long though, that’s interesting. It was, yeah. Now I bounced back from the general counsel’s office into just sort of a largely lobbyist role. Right, right. So six years. not at your dad’s law firm, which I think is a good sign, bodes well for, it speaks well not just of you, but also your father to not allow you to work there. And so you go out, you make your bones, you fight with your dad almost certainly. I’ve seen some of the legislation the old days that he worked on and you were definitely busy. Regulatory reform always gave me sort of the chills. comprehensive package. That’s what it is. But he in was a Jimmy Petronas and a few others just joined at the hip on some of those. It was interesting days. It was and I remember when that quote unquote regulatory reform bill passed, vividly remember Jimmy coming out of the house chamber and just bear hugging my dad. And it sort of encapsulated how A, how hard it is to pass legislation, but B, how closely you can work with some of those legislation. No doubt so how did you get the first time you and I ever really talked? I mean we may have we may have talked a couple of times sure while you’re at the cities But but we didn’t really interact with each other until you went to DEP And I think that was probably what 2011’s ish maybe 12 something like that. Actually it was more 13 was it? Yeah, yeah, what what got you there? It’s you know under what circumstances Why’d you take it because it was the office? It wasn’t it was at the office of water policy, right? It was It was largely because there was a recognized ceiling at my job with the League of Cities, quite frankly. And then secondly, our mutual friend, John Steverson. So I had, you know, the perfect time to consider a career change when your wife is pregnant and you’re a young guy. Secretary Steverson a couple times, it said, hey, I’d like you to come over to the department. I couldn’t wrap my head around working at a state agency at the time. him maybe twice. And so it was a lengthy courtship if you will. And I think he just finally broke me down and said, hey, I’ve got this really cool opportunity kind of starting my tenure there in this new role as well. And think we could do some cool things together. And he bent it to something else, right? Because the idea was it was tucked down into the agency before did not have the bandwidth that it And it was separate and apart because whether it was it was largely you know Johns and Herschel’s doing Herschel being being the secretary proceeding John Yep was the idea of making water a significant priority. Well and that was the you know the bulk of our conversation before I agreed to come in as I told him a couple things I said number one you know I want to report to you and just you I don’t want to talk to three people before I talk to the second right Number two, if we’re gonna really give the Office of Water Policy, you know, a robust sort of backing, you know, tell me what that means to you because you know, look, we’re a peninsula state who gets 50 plus inches of rain per year. Doesn’t mean we don’t have our water issues. We’ve got a number of them and maybe that’s because we have an abundance of water, but I knew that it was a really cool policy area and whether you’re talking about quality or quantity, the fold. Was that something that, I mean your dad dealt with environmental issues, but he dealt with a lot of issues. And so was that your portfolio at the League of Cities was, was you kind of moved into that territory, so it was a more natural transition? Yeah, so I would classify my dad as largely a dirt lawyer. I mean a lot of land use, a lot of private property rights issues, and he generally always represented either the business community or developers. I was at the League of Cities, I did a lot of land use work as well. I mean, we’re talking about early on sort of the rewriting of growth management laws and late 2009, early 2010, et cetera. So I started there, but also handled utility issues. And so as I kind of grew in my professional capacity as a lobbyist, my subject matter largely centered around environmental issues anyway. So it allowed me to sort of, you know, fight my father in the legislative or arena, but also kind of become passionate and carry over what I did at Denver as it related to water law effectively. And certainly there are stark differences between Western water law and Eastern water law as you well know. But yeah, it kind of helped me sort of, you know, chart a path that was a little bit of a niche focus. And so at that point, you serve as director in that office. But then is it because? little johns a giant quitter and left the department as the regulatory deputy secretary. So it’s actually Paula Cobb’s a giant quitter. Oh, Paul Cobb’s a giant quitter. And left the department as deputy secretary. So yeah, as office of water policy, you know, director, my, my most interaction and where we talked quite frequently is, is with water management districts. And so when Paula got a different opportunity, she stepped aside and, and Secretary Stevenson but hey, you know, how about going from an office of five, we go to an office of 1,100? That’s right. Sound good? And I said, yeah, bring it on. Yeah, and so you went from interesting policy discussions, budget conversations, you had a lot of that general oversight. You know, when you look at all five of the water management districts. So, but it’s fairly even kill. You got a lot of folks that, you know, partners and executive director, I’ve been one of them at the time to work with you on these issues, but you decide, so you go from that to what I consider top three, four hardest jobs in that entire agency. Without a doubt. Right. And so was it, hey, here’s a new mountain to climb or what took you there? So I think it was the opportunity to learn a whole host of new issues because you’re right. I mean, that. that job is so large when you’re talking about all air water and waste permits that come through the department in a state the size of Florida with the unique natural resources that we have. It was an opportunity but also it was scary as hell because there were a number of areas you know hazardous waste. Yeah. I hadn’t had a lot of interaction there and I’m still like to think that I’m still young so at the time I knew that I was not going to be the smartest in every room, especially on certain topics. Yeah. And so, I mean, on that subject, and because I want to touch on it because you ended up being serving a shift as the secretary of the agency, but going from at a pretty young age, at that time for certain a young age to be in that position, going from relatively small offices to enormous to entire agency, did you develop, have time to develop a management style in the midst of that or and if you did like what what was that? So I think obviously when you’re talking about leading a large group of people the first and foremost you kind of have to be the example and so I think I just stated that I knew that I wasn’t going to be the smartest person in the room. So I needed to A surround myself with the smartest people I could find and lean on their counsel as much as as possible, but B also gets to know folks who were quite frankly in the day to day operations. I mean, any given permit that comes into DEP of which there are thousands per year, you know, I’m not going to know the intricacies of one unless I spend significant time on it. I obviously can’t spend significant time on 1100. So I needed to lean on the folks who were, you know, in the muck, if you will, and doing things on a day to day basis. So my leadership style was, you know, let’s say, you know, let’s say, you know, let’s me show my appreciation, let me know and find out what you do for the department, and then make sure that you realize that you’re appreciated because there are certain obstacles when it comes to showing appreciation to state workers. You didn’t have the state budget that we have today where every year folks are getting a 3% pay increase. These were sort of austere times. I can’t reward you financially per se, but I can come tell you you’re doing a great job and I appreciate you and be open as sort of the head or pseudo head of a department or an agency entirety that I’m here if you need something. That was more my style. And you always struck me in those days, before really knowing you, as somebody who spent a lot more time listening than talking, which is for lawyers out there, but it’s not a common trait of attorneys or lobbyists often. Did that kind of fit in there as well? You’re going to a place and you do, you know, it seemed like you’re trying to, you know, figure out how do I best, you know, help these folks. Is that kind of the… Yeah, that’s fair. I mean, look, I was sort of thrust into a certain degree to some of these roles which I embraced, but also knew that I was interacting and engaging with folks who were heads of Fortune 100 companies as permit applicants for the department, but also politicians on a daily basis. So I needed to consume as much as I could to be educated on any given issue, but also as a 33, 34 year old, I just didn’t want to sound like an idiot. I wanted to make sure that… I knew what I was talking about and that led to probably me going prematurely gray and spending a lot of time on different issues, but I like to think that it also made me fairly effective too. Yeah, I agree. And so to touch on, so you leave the agency to go out into the private sector, but I want to talk for a minute and give you a chance to kind of help listeners understand something that kind of overlaps both of those things. Because you were at one point, the chairman Central Florida Water Initiative, which is a long-standing organization of sorts to try to solve some pretty significant water quantity issues, but also section 404 of the Clean Water Act was something that Florida ended up being delegated from the federal government. Both of those have their significant challenges, but you were, you know, chest deep or deeper, some might say. Tell me, or tell us, what is Section 404? Why the state would want to take on responsibility in that delegation? Sure. And then some of the challenges there. So Section 404 of the Clean Water Act governs discharges of dredging fill material into waters of the United States. So anytime you’re moving dirt, particularly around a wetland or other water body, you’re going to require a Section 404 permit. Historically those permits were granted by the Army Corps of Engineers. Florida has a similar permitting scheme that you’re well versed in in an environmental resource permit. A lot of water management districts will actually issue environmental resource permits. So why did we want to assume the 404 program in Florida is because somewhere between 85 and 87% of the time those two permits overlap. You’re effectively getting a permit. the same activity. And there are very different, call them, you know, shot clocks that a federal agency like the Army Corps of Engineers has versus what a state environmental agency as a water management district or DEP has. There is no shot clock for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue it yet. So you legitimately have stories of permit applications sitting on And that’s unacceptable, quite frankly. And I’ve always viewed our regulatory agencies as absolutely necessary for the protection of the natural resource. But that does not mean that construction activities and development still shouldn’t occur. Now, you should have those within the sort of the view of how do you balance the natural resources versus the development. And it should always be a very fine and even line, frankly. But the need for Florida to do so, I think, was just efficiency. Michigan and New Jersey had done it prior, so there was some precedent set. And this was a conversation that as I was secretary, and really in 2015, 2016, was sort of blossoming as this is our opportunity of which we’ve tried for decades to actually get this done. in the state of Florida. And the standards we’re talking about didn’t change. And so you’re right. It’s like there were these delays based on sometimes who knows what, but I think in terms of at least dealing with the regular community of saying, hey, there’s no difference in what you’re going to be required to do. However, you should be able to get an answer within a couple of years. Even if that answer’s no. Right. Because sometimes the answer is no. Yeah. Tell me about, I wouldn’t, I don’t want to say came off but somewhere in the transition. I’ve heard rumors in innuendos. I don’t know how much of it’s true but some have said that as soon as they knew that that delegation was really coming, reviewers put their pencils down, packed everything neatly in boxes and waited for that to happen and stop working. Has that… have you heard the same rumors or what? Because when you look at the dump that happened of permanent applications, I think it was days before Christmas and it says here you go Florida, how about it? It’s hard not to make accusations that there was some nefarious activity from federal agencies in certain regards. Yeah, I think that you’re right. There was a clunkiness to the assumption that probably was done for Well, we’re going to give it to you. We might not necessarily make it easy. But I think in any large government agency, you’re always going to have certain folks who they’ve been there and their mindset is, well, I’ll just wait you out as the applicant and it’ll be what it’ll be. And that same could be said for ahead of an agency. I was very clear to me at DEP that there were certain folks who said, well, man, I’ll just wait for three or four years. Right. And so I’ll continue to do what I want to do. Just to just to pause on that notion in terms of in terms of governance, in terms of trying to make a change. It was easy for me. I spent, you know, 10 years at the same agency, you know, heading up as like, but the lifespan of a secretary at DEP or any agent, any large state agency like that one, is not so long. I mean, almost never extends even to the the term of the guy that gave you the job. which is the governor. Does that present a challenge of you try to do something but it doesn’t really, nothing really sticks or, I mean in this case it happened and you know the assumption happened, you know the warts on it that you have to deal with to move forward or there but that’s got to feel at least a little good to have something like that that at least moves forward even if it has those. Sure and I, you know look I was a small part in that effort overall but it was nice to be able to lead the charge, to meet with folks who would be most impacted, to garner their support of it, to talk to the governor’s office, and quite frankly, you know, lead them down the path as to why this was the right decision for the state of Florida. Now, the actual assumption took three years, just because of the interaction with EPA, with the Army Corps of Engineers, with Big Fish, et cetera. But yeah, you know, this was also something that he sort of saw as the holy grail. And so it was even cooler for me personally to say, hey, you know, I had a small part in it. Yeah. And I assume, like under those circumstances, that if you had to do it all over again, you know, what’s an all you do it again? 100%. Yeah. Okay. So the other big one, the one I want to talk about, because it has had a lot to do, I was at SwiftMud, you know, a million years ago, I grew up, you know, around the CFWI area. Central Florida water initiative area. I think I said that before but just in case I made you the chairman of that ship Was it the Titanic or tell me tell me the well tell listeners first the function of the CFWI and You know and then is it working? How about that? Sure? Let’s start with the function. So for those who don’t know the Central Florida water initiative is a regulatory effort of multiple age You’ve got three water management districts, St. John, South Florida, and Southwest as you mentioned. You also have the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and then Utilities. So the notion behind this effort was Central Florida is likely your most heavily population increasing area of the state. So obviously water resources are going to be constricted and constrained. We finalized through hydrological studies and data that we’ve got 800 million gallons per day of capacity in the aquifer in central Florida. We have a knee determination in the future because of that increasing population of say 1,100 million gallons per day of water needs. So how do you make up that delta of 300 plus million gallons per day for an ever-growing population? And so it was really cool to be able to try to solve a long-term planning process with our most precious resource that we utilize every day and need for survival. But how do we get there? Because you’re not stopping people from moving to Florida. So you’re going to need to make some pretty bold decisions, either now or in the future, about water permitting, about uses. Who gets the water? Those are big questions. Yeah, are you satisfied that the work that was done there, I’ve seen a lot of positive that’s come from it and at least some predictability. Are you satisfied with the follow through from the state or? No, we could do a lot more. One of the things that I really liked about my time at the department is I think, again, you talk about 404, but I really tried to focus on water quantity. Scott at the time, I think we got him on board and his administration on board with the need to fund alternative water supply projects. You go back to 2004, 2005, 2006, we were using the Water Protection and Sustainability Trust Fund and getting an eight to one return on investment in terms of dollars spent by the state of Florida. And we dropped off, obviously, because of an appropriating dollars for those large-scale alternative water supply projects for sustainability purposes. Yeah. Under those circumstances, you must think that even though they brought it back, and I think it was Governor Scott that did that originally, thanks to you, put something toward it, but it was not, this is not 2005, 2006 dollars. That’s, you know, that’s a hundred million dollars. Sometimes more the first year than that non-recurring was double that. So it’s quite a bit less. And so is that what you’re talking about? What is $100 million a number is $200 million a number? I mean, it’s an expensive lift that you’re talking about. And so does the $40 million a year do it. If you’re in the $40 to $50 million range, I mean, that’s the proverbial drop in the bucket, right? I mean, one of the things that I said multiple times on my public speaking tours secretary was that DOT has an 11 million. billion budget. You know, DEP at the time had like a $1.2 billion budget. Yeah. So while transportation is very important to a state that’s tourism reliance as Florida, you know, water is pretty dang important too. Yeah, I think there’s at least, certainly on the water quality side, it seems like that recognition is pretty, pretty widespread at this point. I think because once it’s touched, you know, everyone’s lives, you know, at this point, not just on the coast, that becomes relevant. maybe things like the CFWI have prevented us from realizing the deficit when it comes to things like that, especially given that we’re still such a fast growing state. Thanks to a governor and a string of governors that continue to make it that way, there’s a lot of water we’ve got to figure out how to get. From a funding perspective, Governor DeSantis has done tremendous things as it relates to environmental projects. You mentioned the Everglades and certain environmental projects. issues that probably get the bulk of the attention and the bulk of the money, quite frankly. But I mean when you’re talking about billions of dollars over DeSantis’ first term, you know, that’s a significant achievement and one that should be celebrated. The idea of the CFWI was, okay, we always talk about water issues as needing a regional solution. Let’s come up with a regional framework to present projects that will create regional solutions. I think we in having the legislature say we should be putting $200 million a year into the Central Florida Water Initiative and those projects they’ve identified as being a reasonable benefit. I’m not gonna, I almost baited you into the Avalorum at Water Management Districts discussion. I’m gonna leave that alone for both of our sake at the moment. It’s always tough to talk about taxes, right? I mean, now, I say that’s like I’m not gonna do it as I begin to do it. We talk about reasonable solutions. a water management guy. We have these regional organizations called Water Management Districts put a lot of their feet in terms of the you know, consumption use permitting and ERP. We talked about the you know, the 404 side. When you look at things like CFWI, Brian Armstrong’s done tremendous work. I mean, the Southwest Florida Water Management District itself used to have something I could call the financial engine that they would use and set aside millions of dollars every year to help regional water resource projects and it feels like sometimes we are handcuffing ourselves a little bit in terms of their ability for regional places and people there to make decisions to have how we pay for growth match up with with the growth itself. I agree you know Brian has done a tremendous job and Robert Beltran before you know really took on that that regional approach and with Anne Shortell at St. John’s. And I think you had a group of Water Management District Executive Directors and you’re certainly among those. I’ll allow your challenges in North Florida, maybe a little bit different. Not nearly as severe in that water supply. But no, I do think that we unfortunately don’t focus enough of our resources on large scale regional solutions. I know I’m taking a bunch of your time. lightning round of sorts because I tell, you know, I asked largely a lot of the same questions, but first before I do that, I do want to ask you what your approach is now. So now you’re outside of government, you’re not in an association. What’s your approach to the lobbying consulting world? Is it a lot like how you described, you know, being inside government? It can be. I mean, lobbying is unique. It’s an interesting profession to say the least, as an attorney and a lobbyist, I am a, you know, a zealous advocate for my client, and my client varies by the day. And the situation or the subject matter area varies by the hour from time to time. So I get paid to have opinions, which is a little bit different than, you know, being in a state employee where the mission is clear, it’s protection of the natural resource, it’s engagement and interaction with permit applicants and trying to get better Florida, I feel like I’m doing the same thing and I’m blessed to have a client base that is large scale still representing a lot of local governments. I represent a number of electric water and wastewater utilities, the business community as well. So I feel like I’ve got a nice mix of clientele, but the approach from a lobbying perspective is with term limits, I have to educate new members quite frankly on issues that are recycled. I mean, you know, idea gets left on the printing press in Tallahassee. They all come back in lunch shape or form. So I mean it’s you know at least being able to have a reputation that I’ve done it before you know in a position of some authority at a large department within the state of Florida. I’ve got the chops if you will and I mean it’s about relationships at the end of the day. So it’s a lot of meeting new folks trying to understand why they’re the position they’re in in the elected office, and then can you find some sort of common ground? There’s 120 house members, there’s 40 senators. Not every one of them is a 41 year old from upstate New York who likes live music, obsessed with college football. I mean, some of them are, but not all. So you really kind of have to be well-versed in many different things. I like it. So I can’t let you go. You said live music. What type of music? My music takes are eclectic. You know, I’ve been growing the hair out recently. So there’s some jam band in there. Certainly, you know, my college road trips were largely focused around a couple different bands in particular, but I love all kinds of music. My wife and I have a really solid group of friends are sort of our thing is traveling to see live music. I could be Jason Isbell one day to whatever the latest iteration of the dead is to, if I could catch a Sturgill Simpson show, that’s probably number one on my list right now if those vocal chords could get repaired. But Tallahassee, at least now these days, you could say, hey, Lucas Nelson’s coming next week. Great, Willie Nelson was here two weeks ago with Emmylou Harris. You can get something, whereas growing up, it was, hey, maybe MC Hammer drops in the town every five years. I always consider like, I guess when you’re grown up and you have access to a vehicle and fuel for that vehicle, I mean, you have Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Tampa all within, you know, striking distance. And so there’s a lot of good music that passes through and that’s for sure. All right, on to the speed run. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of? I think becoming secretary of DEP at 34, running an agency. 2,500 people and billion dollar budget and the 13th largest economy in the world. I think that’s it. You could do worse. It’s gotta be a- You could do worse, yeah. Is there anything about government, that government service, I think you may have mentioned it before, that you feel is kind of left undone or underdone. I would have liked to have made more of an impact from a water quantity standpoint of where I think we inevitably get to in this state and maybe we can talk about that at a later date, but that’s potable reuse. would have made more strides in the potable reuse world when I was at DEP. Yeah, that makes sense. Are you optimistic about the future of the environment and water in Florida? And if you are or not, why? I’m largely optimistic. And I think Governor DeSantis has shown the willingness to invest and prioritize, as has the legislature obviously, who has to craft the budget. I still think that we’re going to face some pretty again, how long can you pull significant quantities of water from the aquifer without either charging people more or which I know is a bad word, yeah, or trying to finalize or figure out how you do that in perpetuity. What if anything keeps you up at night regarding Floor’s environment? Losing Florida, I mean you know I think those of us and even though I was born in New York I’ve spent a majority of my life here and particularly North Florida which I love I mean, there’s something about old Florida, if you will. And I don’t want to lose that. We are, again, getting about 1,000 people a day moving here, which is not sustainable in keeping old Florida. So that’s what keeps me up. And what does Florida look like in 30, 40 years when my kids are, you know, hopefully in the same position and having children of their own? Yeah. What advice would you give to a young person who’s thinking about entering or just entering? public service or You know the things related to Environmental policy and service public service. I wish you know there was a mandatory aspect to it I think anybody everyone should get involved somehow quite frankly my advice would be to you know educate yourself Again, one of my biggest fears when I was young was just just looking like an idiot and doing your homework and You know identifying issues that your passion about and then having, you know, willing to be a human being and have conversations with people in a reasonable manner. It goes a long way and it can be lost in days like today. Yeah, it feels like that’s a conversation is a lost art. You haven’t lost your knack for it. Ryan Matthews, thank you so much for being on the show, man. Appreciate you having me. Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water for Fighting. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use and don’t forget to leave a five-star rating interview. You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram at FLWaterpod and you can reach me directly at FLWaterpod at gmail.com with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production of this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with and to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free and you should check out the Or wherever great music is sold, join me next time for our last conversation of the season with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. You won’t want to miss it. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Jennifer Fitzwater

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett has a conversation with recently retired Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Chief of Staff – Jennifer Fitzwater. They discuss how a kid from the Midwest makes her way to law school and a career in resource protection; what it’s like to have been the Chief of Staff for two separate state agencies; the difficult and complicated work going into solving challenges like manatee habitat loss and red tide; and what life’s been like since she rowed off into the sunset.

To learn more about what the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission does, go here: https://myfwc.com

To learn more about manatee protection efforts, check here:https://myfwc.com/research/manatee/rescue-mortality-response/ume/ and here: https://www.manateerescue.org

To learn more about where Red Tide is appearing and the research to help stop it, head here: https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/statewide/ and here: https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/taskforce/

Jennifer also spoke about her concerns regarding Lyme Disease and its potential impact on state workers who spend their days outside. To learn more about the disease and those risks, go here: https://www.floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/lyme-disease/index.html and here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213078018300100

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

speaker:Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida where the people make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Seifers. I’m so excited to introduce this week’s guest, Jennifer Fitzwater. Jennifer spent the last 30 years in public service, but I first met her in 2003 when she was the Legislative Affairs Director of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. She would go on to become the Chief of Staff of that agency and ultimately retired as the Chief of Staff of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Now onto the conversation. Welcome to the podcast, Jennifer. Thanks, Brett. Glad to be here. So you retired from public service last September after a 30 year run state government How’s retired life treating you? Retired life is awesome Yeah, retired life is great Brett. Well before we started recording you talked about how that happened Which was like the immediate decompression going to was it Europe? I did I went to I went to Europe So the short version of the long story is I retired on Friday, Saturday. I was on an airplane to France where we spent three two and a half weeks. Wow. Awesome. So yeah, it was easy to kind of walk away and change get a change in mindset. Yeah. And we’ll get to some of that mindset in a little bit, but I want to start by going all the way back to the beginning. in St. Louis, Missouri, which I did not know before I saw your your bio, but you still have immediate family there, right? I do. All of my immediate family, my father and my brother, both still are in St. Louis, so I go there somewhat regularly to visit folks and, you know, kind of go go to the old stomping grounds. What was Jennifer Fitzwater like as a kid? I mean, did you enjoy the outdoors? I did. I did. I was an athlete from when I was very young. I started gymnastics when I was five, so there was a lot of that. But as far as family life and growing up in my neighborhood, we were always outside. Our neighborhood had woods right behind the neighborhood and a big field, so me and the neighborhood kids were always out getting into trouble. Every year our vacations we went camping to all the state parks throughout Missouri. So we spent a lot of time outside. That’s some gorgeous ones there too. What was your favorite in around there? When I was a kid, Elephant Rocks State Park, which is southeast part of the state, was always a fun one. Merrimack River State Park. That was close to St. Louis. But I had an opportunity. ago to go back up to Missouri in the south central part of Missouri to go to one of their newest state parks, Echo Bluff State Park. And that is beautiful. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s in the Ozark Mountains, kind of midway between Poplar Bluff and Springfield. Wow. You mentioned gymnastics. You’re a competitive rower. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been a competitive rower. Did you do rowing back then as well or other sports, No, growing up it was mostly gymnastics. We did a little bit of track and field, but nothing as much as gymnastics. I started rowing in 1998 here in Tallahassee. So after I was out of college, had a job, been working for a few years, I saw a little ad in the Newspen, the Tallahassee Democrat, hey, did you ever want to learn how to row? And I was like, that. So going back to Missouri, you got your undergraduate degree in Missouri. Tell me about I want to understand the distinction. Yeah, I just think it’s all in Mizzou, but is it in my mind is University of Missouri Columbia? University of Missouri, Columbia is what people think of as Mizzou. And yes, that’s where I did my undergraduate work. But you ended up at Alvern University graduate school, is that right? Correct. How did you get, why Auburn? Like how did you get to Auburn? Great question. When I was at the University of Missouri, my undergraduate degree was in Fisheries and Wildlife Science and I wanted to, after I got my bachelor’s degree, I wanted to go on to get my master’s degree. And so I was looking for professors around the country in wildlife on things that I wanted to work on. And there was a professor at Auburn University doing waterfowl research. So I went down to work with him. That was really how I got to Auburn. It had nothing to do with the school itself, or the location. It was all about going down and working with him. Oh, that’s, I mean, that’s really, you know, that’s cool to see something like that and then go after it in that way. It was a little bit of a culture shock, I guess. growing up St. Louis. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Auburn, but in 1986, it was really small. I have a cousin and I don’t know if she’ll hear this podcast ever, but she went to Auburn University the same time and was in some of the same classes as Bo Jackson. And so it was that same period. I wasn’t in that way. But she seemed to love it, but it was a small school, right? The school, I mean, Auburn was the school. I mean, you know, the town, it was there, you know, at least when I was there. It’s certainly grown since I’ve been there. So you’re, you’re undergrad and your graduate degrees, both in, and again. And so obviously, when you, you talk to your master’s degree and wildlife science, you know, under your you obviously go to law school. Obviously, because that’s what everyone did. Did any of your classmates go to law school? No, and I don’t know anyone in the wildlife program, whether Missouri or at Auburn that’s ever gone to law school, nor have I met a fellow lawyer that has a wildlife degree. So, no, it was not the most common thing to do. Yeah. So why? So when I was, as I mentioned, when I went to Auburn, it was to do, to work with my major professor on waterfowl research. I quickly learned that I didn’t have the patience to do field work and data collection. My master’s thesis was dealing with wood ducks and their nesting behavior, and to get enough data to be statistically significant. worth of data collection. And I knew what the answer to the hypothesis was going to be two months in. So I, yeah, I didn’t have the patience to do it. Well, that’s the, that’s the magic of being an attorney I hear is being, being right both all the time and immediately. So playing, playing to your strengths there then. Yeah. Yeah. So right out of law school, you go straight to the Department of Environmental Was that before it merged you know with DNR to become DEP as we know it now I Started with the Department of Environmental Regulation in October of 92 the A couple things happened The secretary at the time when I started was Carol Browner President Clinton tapped her to be secretary of EPA December of and she was confirmed in January of 93. That year, 93, the Florida legislature combined Department of Natural Resources and Department of Environmental Regulation. So I can’t, I think that was a March, May session. So, you know, starting May is when that transition started to take place. So, you know, six months in, I was at a new place. That’s, yeah, that’s crazy. I mean, feel like there was some sort of bait and switch or was it just like, Hey, you know, I’m right out of law school. This is how it’s going to be. And you just go, yeah, it was, it was just, we, we all went with the flow. I mean, for the most part, the two agencies were doing, so I was in the legal office at the time. So all of the lawyers that were with the department of environmental regulation, they were dealing with, you know, regulatory aspects of things. they were dealing with totally different things. So it wasn’t like there was a turf war over who’s gonna get the job to do whatever. We were all just doing very different things. Were they shocked to have, so you have the merge and your DER and these DNR scientists are looking over and they find out this lawyer is actually a scientist. I mean, did that help in that merge period or to give you street cred with your DNR partners? You know, honestly, at the beginning of the merger, I didn’t really have a whole lot of interaction with many of the DNR folks. Again, I was working, when I started in the General Counsel’s office, I was working on water issues. So mostly industrial wastewater issues. So when we merged, I was still doing those kinds of things. So I didn’t. certainly a wildlife degree wasn’t of any particular import to, you know, industrial wastewater, but the science behind it I think was helpful if for no other reason than just to understand conversations that people were having and you know kind of have that basic science background was helpful. For people like me who do not have you know hard sciences background it takes you a lot longer to learn the vocabulary and a lot more listening to understand what folks are saying. But you mentioned the type of case. I think at one point you mentioned you also worked on Everglades related issues. Or was it largely just, hey, we’re just doing compliance issues and things like that. So I did a little bit of all of it. So kind of the trajectory, if you will. When I started I was, I also handled some domestic wastewater issues. Those aren’t really very exciting and they’re all pretty similar around the state. Give me some poor utility guy out there saying, but I think it’s a similar. Yeah, they’re very, I mean, they’re important. Yeah, it’s important. But it’s not glamorous headline unless of course there’s some sort of spill or something. I was very fortunate that I got to work on some pretty high profile cases and the industrial, wastewater area. So worked on a couple big paper mill cases, a lot of phosphate industry cases. And I got to work on and I, you may remember this from a long time ago, but I had an opportunity to work on a project. I think this was like mid 90s, mid to late 90s. It was in Tampa Bay. It was the Tampa, Tampa water resource recovery project. And Fascinating project that I think was just way ahead of its time. It was an indirect portable reuse project. Oh, okay But the process that they used or that we used was just very different and it was designed that so that everybody all the regulators from the federal state and local side of things all of the engineers from the project side of things all of the public were throughout the entire process. So that at the end, every permit was going to be issued at one time and it was a fascinating project. It took a lot of work and a lot of time. A lot of people were involved and unfortunately it was just I say it was ahead of its time because people were not ready. People in the Tampa Bay region were not ready to you know take Howard F. Curran wastewater and put it in the Hillsborough River just upstream from the water, drinking water intake. But that issue, as all issues do, is back, right? And I think the level of discomfort is changed to something else to maybe more of a recognition of reality in that sense. I think so. I think so. I think back then it was just so, we weren’t in the position that we are now our water resources. So I think there’s just more acceptance of, hey, we’re gonna really have to be creative to provide for our water supply issues. It seems like that process, it’s an interesting one and one that I’ve seen a few times and I’m gonna throw an acronym out there and not knowing what it stands for. ETDM, do you remember? Oh yeah, Efficient Transportation Decision Yeah. Matrix sounds more fun. Matrix sounds more fun. But that mean, but that was, it’s a successful way of bringing people into understanding the, surprising that that’s not used more often. Well, it was a, it was a hard process because not only, so you’ve got a couple of different state agencies and so for that particular project, you had a couple of different state agencies. You had the federal government there. So you had the Corps of Engineers. had the Environmental Protection Agency. So that comes with all of the federal rules of what they can talk about and what they can share in an open forum. And then you have the public. I mean, it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work. Yeah, and then the disappointment at getting to the end of it is like, okay, well, that was fun. Well, that was really fun. It was great working with all of you. I got a piece of the, I got a square of the card. bit from the room we were in. Oh, that’s hilarious. It’s a memento. Fair enough. All that to say, I had a real opportunity because of the bosses that I had that they let me work on some of these projects, which then led me into working on Everglades issues. Nice. And the assumption is that over that period of time, you show yourself capable of working across other working on big issues and that leads me to when I met you. I think it was probably 2002, 2003 at the latest and you were already the Legislative Affairs Director at the department. Right. But that had started pretty soon before that, is that right? It started, I started working on legislative issues while I was still on The general counsel at the time really had the foresight to go to the legislative affairs director and say, hey, it would be really helpful if you had a lawyer helping with reviewing legislation, drafting legislation, helping on that end on a full-time basis. I mean, certainly there was always the consultive process where they come back. to do it full time. So I started working with the legislative affairs department probably around 99 maybe 1999, which then led to doing congressional work in the 99-2000 era, which going back to Everglades, that was the time period when SERP was being negotiated, written, and developed. So. Wow. I mean, what an interesting time though to be put into a position like that. Yeah. It was surprising to me, honestly. Because I was, you know, didn’t even have 10 years under my belt. And it was, hey, go to Washington, figure this stuff out. This is so then you’ve demonstrated another facet of aptitude then in terms of dealing with, you know, legislative issues, policy issues. So I was going to ask like this, was that transition hard going from what you’re doing before to being in the guts of an agency to being in front of legislators? But you were doing that. You were essentially already doing that, except on a more federal level. And then did you get pulled into some of those conversations with the state legislature as well during that period? I did. I did. I had the legislature. legislative affairs director at the time was gracious enough to allow me to be part of the conversation and to have that opportunity. So before I became legislative affairs director, I had some experience. And as I talk about all of these things that I’ve worked on, recognize Everglades, SERP, all of these things. There’s an awful lot of people. involved in all of these projects. Oh, for sure. Right, so it’s not like, I have not single-handedly done anything. Sure, sure. I think we were talking earlier, I mean, there’s, you know, what, 4,000 people or something like that. I don’t know how many were, you know, DEP in 2000. Oh, I don’t either. A lot, still. A lot. And for something that big, obviously, there has to be a big team, but you then become, well, let me ask you first, who was that legislative affairs director before you? Oh, well, oh my goodness, was it? So and and so he’s the kind of guy that would Provide you the slack to go out there and and and learn and and be a part of stuff. Absolutely He was the the best mentor I have ever had That’s awesome. Awesome. I I don’t know why I didn’t but I did not know that yeah, and he This is how I think of my timing is by what governor was in office So Governor Bush’s second term, Mike went into chief of staff position. And so he asked me to be the legislative affairs director, which, you know, he and I both thought, well, this is going to be an interesting, you know, when you step out of a role and give it to somebody else, are you going to continue to like come back? Well, maybe you should do this way. Right. It was seamless. I mean, he was so respectful. full of the way I wanted to do things and the changes I wanted to make and it worked out very well. And that’s yeah that’s that’s great and so you become the essentially the voice of the agency certainly when it comes to other agencies to the legislature to the governor’s office for sure. Right. You know I spent very little time in those days talking to Mike Jordan and and a great talking to you as you’re trying to teach me what the heck is going on. And you were nicer than I deserved in those days, I think. So you went on to become Chief of Staff at DEP. Let’s go ahead since you’re time stamping based on Governor, which Governor’s office was that when you became Chief of Staff? Do you recall? Chief of Staff was under Governor Scott. So I had a stint in there as Deputy Secretary under Governor Christ. Doing which which depth sector? Well, it doesn’t really exist at this point anymore, I don’t think. So it was kind of the we called it policy and planning. So we had legislative affairs, intergovernmental programs, which was at the time our liaison with Department of Community Affairs or their predecessor parts. It was a lot of the administrative pieces and parts of the agency, so IT, HR, those kinds of things. And then when I became Chief of Staff, I kind of had this weird thing of just taking everything with me everywhere. Those things all transferred to the Chief of Staff so that we could have the opportunity to create the now Deputy Secretary for Ecosystem Restoration. Okay. And I was going to ask, like, as a chief of staff do at DEP. And so, but I think, do they get a portfolio the same way that someone who’s a deputy secretary would be, or is it really taking on different things, depending on what’s necessary at the moment? I think it depends on the agency, and it depends on the person running the agency. So I can only really speak to DEP and to FWC. At DEP, I had my own portfolio of legislative affairs, still had all the administrative pieces, so budget, HR, IT, purchasing, all of those things. But also along with that, it was kind of the crisis du jour. Sure. You know, what’s happening. at that time, what needs to, where your attention needs to be. So it was kind of one of the, people always ask, so what does a chief of staff do? And I never really know how to answer that question because I can’t, I don’t have a very narrowly defined answer. Again, I think you can go to right now, any different state agency and the chiefs of staff, I’ll do different I bet. I bet. And I think it also, my assumption would be it’s based on those strengths there. Something, something I may not bother. Like you, you were really good and you spent many years working the department’s budget through the legislative process. Right. And so it makes sense that, you know, you would handle budget legislative affairs. Was communications also part of that as well? Or is that just, Hey, those folks work directly for the secretary? Or did you to work on those crises as they always do happen. Honestly, in the reporting structure at DEP, I don’t remember. That was too long ago. Under at FWC, they did fall under the chief of staff. Now, organizational structure is, I don’t know, I don’t get hung up on organizational structure. Right? It’s a map, it’s a picture on a piece of paper. If there’s something that’s a hot topic issue that you need to respond to or need to put out information on, that’s certainly going to go through the secretary’s office at DEP including the chief of staff or the executive director’s office at FWC. Sure. Sure. Well, to get away from the structural kind of more boring part into maybe something a little more. favorite worst crisis or your worst favorite crisis. However you want to phrase it, what was a big issue that popped up while you were sitting in that chair, that chief of staff chair, because every year was nothing but a crisis for 60 days in that building when you were a legislative affairs director. But what was maybe one of those existential kind of crises that you got? Two of them come immediately to mind. One is hurricanes. So, that hurricanes, whether it’s the 2004, 2005 season, whether it’s hurricane, you know, whatever, whichever, whichever one, that’s your focus. Right. Right. The other major event that took an awful lot of time, an awful lot of focus was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Did you see that one all the way through from from that chair was because it seemed like the timing is right for that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes The accident was in 2010. I was in the deputy secretary position at the time. Mike Sol was the secretary of DEP at the time. So, yeah, saw that one all the way through. Another good one. Mike Sol, another good one out there. And so, I think your work on Deepwater Horizon ended up taking you to Fish and Wildlife. Did it not? Or was it sort of joined but not necessarily? did. So when that event happened, the governor named the state trustees for response and recovery as DEP and Fish and Wildlife. I’m just going to call it Fish and Wildlife or FWC because Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is too much of a mouthful. You got it once everyone out there. So FWC familiar. had a number of dedicated staff working on nothing but oil spill. So there was a long time in negotiations on how to settle any civil and criminal disputes with the responsible parties. And then once that happened, then how do you go into restoration activities? So there was a there was a team at a DEP. FWC did not have a dedicated team. They had, you know, pulled staff from their real jobs and said, hey, go here. And so what happened was the executive director at the time said, I want to have one person kind of coordinate all of the activities at FWC. And that one person was the executive director, Nick Wiley, who I happened to know through my time at University. Were you there at the same time? He was leaving as I was coming in. I see. But we knew each other. And I wanted to get back to kind of more my roots, right? More wildlife fisheries issues and more substantive, you know, as opposed to what happened yesterday that we have to respond to. Right. So I went over to the commission, FWC, excuse me, in 2013 to be their Gulf Restoration Coordinator. And continued to work with DEP with the other four Gulf states and all the federal agencies and whatever on oil spill related issues. And so that sort of stuck, was it just a chance of timing? Who is your predecessor? becoming the chief of staff there? My predate at FWC the chief of staff when I went there retired and Nick came and said hey I want you to be chief of staff and I said no way I don’t want to do that I’ve done that before I don’t want to do it again and he said oh go on vacation but don’t make any decisions and I came back from vacation and he talked me into doing it. after all this time to be able to use that education and deal directly with you know wildlife, fish, habitat issues, things like that? Yeah I think so. I I didn’t want to get back into procurement issues. You know the the really important things that are required to run an agency but they’re not you know exciting issues that people think about when you think about FWC, right? You think about bid protests or, you know, yes, that kind of stuff. I hear I hear you. One of the things I’ve always been curious about and seeing seeing some of the vagaries from the governor’s office side of things when I was there was the relationship between FWC commissioners and their staffs as well as the relationship between the commission itself and say the governor’s office because it always seemed a bit different. Being a guy that ended up in a couple of water management districts, there seemed to be that relationship that dichotomy worked a little bit differently than it does there. Do I have that wrong? I never had the opportunity to work at a water management district, so I’m going to generalize from my viewpoint. Sure. I think they are probably more similar than they are different. My sense from, you know, engaging with the water management districts throughout my career, the governing board members probably have a lot of day-to-day interaction, not amongst themselves, but with the executive director. And that happens at the commission too. So the commission and the executive director are in touch quite regularly. They’re also in touch very regularly with the kernel of our law enforcement, of the law enforcement section, because there’s so much that happens there. They don’t themselves have a whole lot of interaction with the governor’s office. It seems odd you have the, you have commissioners that obviously they’re appointed by the governor. But it’s a bit of a difference. It was always described, you know, what Fishwine was like, we’re a constitutional agency and therefore, you know, a little bit different and some unknown way to me, you know, from say the relationship that the governor has to, you know, some of these other places. The commission derives its power very differently than the water management districts or any other state agency. As you mentioned, the commission is a constitutionally created agency, which really means the legislature can’t pass any laws. That would usurp that authority. Now, there are, the interesting thing is there are parts of the commission that are legislatively based law enforcement, penalties, you know, some are outlined in the Constitution. But from a day to day operational, how we interact as a as a constitutional authority, and I say we, you can tell I’m not completely out of retirement or in retirement. retirement yet. From a day to day perspective, it’s really not that much different. I mean, we need to, we coordinate with the governor’s office. I mean, you coordinate with the legislature. I mean, they still are in charge of the budget. So it’s not like we’re going to, you know, run out and do something crazy. Is that something that they could do without running a foul of the state constitution, which life did something that someone didn’t like. They said, well, I’ve got, we’re going to fix you because you’re not going to change this thing. I’m going to take away all of your budgets. Is that even something that they could do or that run afoul of the Constitution? No, that is, I mean, the legislature has the ultimate authority over the budget. They have the authority over the setting of penalties and license fees. So yeah, I mean, that is Certainly something that could happen, has it happened, not to my knowledge, but given that weird dichotomy, I mean, you’re a state agency. You still have to work with your other state agency brethren. You still have to work with the legislature. You still have to work with the governor’s office. Sure, right. And I know I’m throwing, it’s kind of unfair of throwing some hypothetical out there, but I’m curious, I’m guessing that, maybe a few other people out there might be curious about it. What actually happens when things go wrong? Like what happens at a water management district or fish and wildlife? But yeah, it’s like the natural course of things is you’re part of a constellation of agencies that have different missions, but congruent missions to each other. And so I think that makes total sense what you’re saying. another perhaps unfair question. You’ve been out for about six months, but a huge topic for people when you think about fish and wildlife is manatees. And so manatee populations historically over some really low levels for a while a few decades ago reached record highs and then that record kept going up and up and we’re thinking great things are going really well. And then the last few years crash, die-offs, not from the usual suspects as much, which is boat propellers and hulls, but things like starvation. Can you talk about that just a little bit in terms of what the response was like and what’s going on there? Yeah, so when you were correct when you said, historically, humanity populations were very low. Through a variety of measures, enough that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the manatee off the endangered species list. What you saw over the last couple years was what is called an unusual mortality event, which is a declaration by the federal agency of something that is happening in a portion of the population that needs to be addressed. And so what happened was on the East Coast, Most highlighted in the Indian River Lagoon, we had some die-offs because of loss of seagrass and cold weather. So you had a bunch of manatees hanging out in areas where they had no food. So unusual measures were taken starting last winter. So what is that? 21-22, which involved an the state, which has continued this year. Is there a danger that the manatees go back on on the list because of this? Or do you think it’s, Hey, if we if we sort out the problems going on in any river lagoon, that will be will find our way around it and we’ll get back to a healthier overall population. I have absolutely no idea what the Fish and Wildlife Service. I can say that at least of six months ago, there was no discussion about even, you know, even contemplating bringing the manatee back on onto the endangered list. It’s fair enough. Shout out to current fish and wildlife will be talking eventually. But speaking of from that perspective as well, meaning in fish and wildlife wasn’t the only agency looking at manatees as well, you have D, B and L or so. Absolutely not. I mean, and that was go back to what But I said earlier, when, you know, this is a big team effort on everything. Manatee issue was a huge team effort. We not only had other state agencies, so Water Management Districts, DEP. We had, you know, Indian River Lagoon National Estuarine program. We had the federal agencies involved, and we had private sector and other nonprofits involved. So, I mean, it was kind of all hands on deck. And a lot of agencies and NGOs involved, probably the private sector as well, involved in trying to figure out how to be red tide or at least stem the impacts. Cause there’s always, as long as I can recall, being a kid, I grew up in this state. There’s always been red tide, but it seems like it’s getting a little worse and a little worse or exasperated in some ways. And so we’re looking at trying to figure that out. What did that look like while you were still at Fish and Wildlife? Red tide, it was a pretty significant, it’s been a pretty significant issue over the last, gosh, eight years almost. I can’t remember the year we had one of the longest red tides in history. I mean, they’re usually very cyclic, right? So a couple of months every fall, early part of winter, you know, a couple of months here and there. They’ve been hanging around a little bit longer. as a state put a significant amount of resources into trying to, one, figure out, I think of it this way, there’s two component parts of red tide. So there’s the research, what it is, what triggers it, what are there conditions that need to be present, is that hurricane, is it some other thing that’s gonna trigger these? a number of world-renowned scientists working on that, headed up by the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute down in St. Pete, along with universities and what. I mean there’s some of the best researchers in the world on red tide organism. The other piece of that is once you have a red tide event, what do you do about it? Are there ways to lessen it? Are there ways to kill it? And that’s organizations like Moat Marine come in, they have been over the last five years have been doing tests on hundreds of different methods to try and ameliorate red tide. And as you know, dealing with science agencies, science doesn’t happen fast. You can find something that’ll kill red tide, but what else is it going to kill? That’s right. That’s right. I mean, you don’t want to go out there and, oh, we have this and run out there and then kill everything in the Gulf of Mexico. Right. Yeah. So, you know, and you start and when you’re doing these scientific research, you start at small scale, so desktop scale, then you go to a little bit larger and then you do field testing. It takes time, but Moat has been working very diligently on that. Nice. And for updates, you know, I mean, this is all in the public domain. for people that are interested in finding out the current status on red tide. Yeah, now I’ll put a bunch of links as I find them from Fish and Wildlife and Moat on the episode notes that way people can check that out for themselves. Now I want to get to some of the more wrote questions that I tend to ask other folks. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of? getting ready to retire. A colleague of mine that I worked with with from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in DC came down and asked me a very similar question, but a little bit different. His question was, what were your top five things in your career that you’re most proud of? And it was, it took me a while, honestly, because there, there are a number of things that I was fortunate enough to deal with. I mean, I think some of, some of them, at least for me, me, they’re not going to be very exciting to your listeners, I’m sure. You know, when we first started Everglades Restoration and we were building the first stormwater treatment area, well, the federal government said you guys need a permit for that. And the only permit was for a, you know, a basically a pollution source. It’s a national pollution doesn’t fit a restoration project. Right. And they said, well, you got to figure it out. So I mean, you know, a lot of back and forth, we figured out a way to permit those under that system. So that was a big deal. Yeah, that is a big deal. You know, getting SERP across the finish line in Congress. Yeah, that’s huge. That was big. One of the more recent ones, going back to the Gulf oil spill, the criminal penalties the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and getting those restoration projects up and running and funded. That was maybe not in Waterworld, but in Fish and Wildlife World, $356 million worth of projects is a lot of projects. Well, in Northwest Florida Waterworld, that’s a lot of projects. Yes. And we were happy at the, and I was at the water managers for a long time, and we were the beneficiary of a lot of those. And remember, we had folks working with fishing wildlife as well. And it was an incredible process and a collaborative one. And a lot of places, you know, experience a ton of benefit that may never have happened. Sure. I mean, otherwise you’re right. Because when you think about, I mean, you know, I look at, you know, fisheries, fisheries management in the Gulf of Mexico. $75 million from the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund went to that upwards of 70 plus million for Appalachicola Bay Restoration. That wouldn’t have happened but for this terribly tragic event. So some good comes out of that. This is a really bad thing that has happened. Huge number of people’s lives were impacted. And entire swaths of the Gulf Coast were severely impacted. But if not for that, all of those things that you just mentioned, in places that are suffering like the Appalachicola River and Bay, to have the opportunity to do some things that simply don’t meet the threshold of high priorities otherwise. have the availability of that from those penalties to go back in and be able to affect some of that restoration and enhancement beyond that. It’s enormous, enormous. It is enormous and that’s just kind of the front end. Some of the money that went to National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was from the criminal settlement. The civil penalties, I mean, they’re not even paid out yet. We’re going to be seeing some benefit from that until, you know, 2035, somewhere in there. Don’t spell oil is the moral of the story. Yeah. Is there anything that you see as left undone, that you’ve had, if you’d had more time and now I’m not suggesting that, hey, give it another decade, but if given a little bit more time that there’s something that you might have wanted to tackle. Yes. I mean, you know, I could sit here and say, you know, yes, I wanted to see restoration of Apollochicola Bay or, you know, those things are going to move forward. There’s a lot of really smart, talented people that have taken up the ball. That’s going to happen. There were two things that were really more of a personal thing for me that I couldn’t get across the finish line because they were either too complicated or I just didn’t have enough time. which was or is affordable housing issues for staff, especially in the keys, but South Florida in general. We saw a lot of issues after Hurricane Irma when so many people were displaced. You know, when you’re right out of college and you’re paid not a lot of money, you can’t find a place to live. So you end up working three, sometimes four jobs to pay rent. So that was a big issue. I’m hopeful now somebody else much smarter than me is going to be able to tackle that because I recognize that that is an issue statewide. The other issue is something that was much more personal which is it was a legislative issue. I just couldn’t get enough traction because I started it a little bit late but it has to do with staff that have contracted Lyme disease to try to instances where risk management denied claims, because Lyme disease is one of those things where it’s hard to know, did you get the tick bite when you were on the job, or was it when you were walking through your backyard? And Florida, up until a few years ago, we weren’t a big Lyme disease state. But everything’s coming south, and so now it is a big issue. And we had a number of employees that were impacted by that. That one, I think I just started a little bit too late. Do you think one of the solutions there, I’m just thinking about it is what were the things that you were looking at terms of time like some sort of disability insurance writers? I mean, there were a number of things that we were not going to be making this up wholesale, right? We looked at other states because other states had any number of ways to addresses, including insurance writers. issue. The other one is, if you have a certain type of job that requires you to be outside, that if you contract Lyme disease, you’re presumed to have gotten it on the job without having to make that demonstration that nope, I was, I was collecting fish or you know, whatever in the marsh. So there I mean, there was there’s a number of ways to deal with it. It just it’s, it’s complicated. And of course, it does. It was not solely an FWC issue because Water Management District employees are out in the field, DEP employees, Forest Service employees are out in the field. So it was like… It’s an interesting subject you bring up is like, I don’t recall that being something that, you know, we talked about at the Water Management District, but I had 13 people, like I had a small agency, right? And you have learned those how many people that are while biologists, law enforcement who are out in the woods, you know, doing these sorts of things. So it’s obviously it had to be much more prevalent. Are you optimistic about the future of the environment in Florida and why, either way? Yes, I am. There are, I mentioned it before, but when I think about, you know, when I left the agency, you know, some people, I don’t know, my sense is that a lot of people go on leaving and nobody can do it as well as I did. And I look back and think, oh my gosh, there are so many people that are smarter than me, younger than me, have more energy than me, we’re in good hands. They’re gonna do good things. I think there’s any environmental issue that the state is facing. You can look at it and fall down fair, you know, I mean, my gosh, it takes so long, you’re never going to get there. But I think if you continue to look at the small incremental wins, and know where you’re trying to go, and if you’ve got the people, the resources, which is a big issue. And I know on one of your other podcasts, you talked a lot about, you know, at least the monetary resources, financial resources. you know, with that, I’m optimistic about it, but I don’t like to get too depressed about things like that. I mean, does that come with the years of experience seeing that incremental change over over time that that gives you that optimism, do you think? Or is it just the recognition that smarter people than us exist and and they’re going to go, they’re going to go get after it and and it’s going to, it’ll work in the end. I think it’s a combination of both. You know, I don’t want to say, Brett, that you and I weren’t, aren’t smart. But I just, I know there’s people behind us that are going to do good things. You know, these are all the issues that we deal with. All the issues that you’ve talked to your other guests about are big, would understand is when somebody says, well, they’ve been working on this project for 30 years and it’s still not done. Well, it’s not like the people that started it 30 years ago didn’t know what the heck they were doing. It’s just a big complicated issue that has all sorts of ramifications that you have to take into consideration as you move forward. And it’s not easy. If it was easy, Everglades would have been done 20 years ago. That’s what you were talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, but to then ask you to go to the the pessimist side of things. Is there anything that keeps you up at night that you look at from an environmental sense, a habitat sense, a wildlife sense, a water sense, are like, man, I’m really worried about that. Fred Ashour had a great one with PFAS, you know, and those types of things. at night. Right, exactly. I think that, you know, I try not to, at this point in my retired life, I try not to let things keep me up at night, but the one environmental issue that I think we are going to all need to grapple with and figure out how to deal with is climate issues. I mean, I think some of your other guests probably have said that. Whatever you believe on why it’s happening. are changes happening. And it is impacting local governments, it’s impacting the state, it’s impacting the waterman. I mean, it’s, it’s something we’re going to have to, yeah, to come to come to terms with. I think in I am heartened by seeing the level of attention that that we’re getting to the resilience side, I have, I partners here that are experts and that sort of thing. And they seem heartened by at least it is his recognition. It’s It’s hard. It’s easier sometimes to whistle past the graveyard when it comes to that than do it because it’s an expensive problem. It’s very expensive and it’s complicated. Right. Right. I mean, you’ve got a bunch of people living in areas that are going to potentially be inundated with seawater. I mean, that’s, that’s, that is hard to grapple with. But you’re right. There are, there are a number of local governments or organizations that are really trying to take the next step forward to try to address that issue. What advice would you give young people who are either just starting out, like you said, or that are thinking about doing what you did so well for 30 years? Number one, do it. I mean, it’s hard, it’s frustrating, but the rewards are, I think the rewards are great. Personal rewards. not monetary rewards, but personal rewards are great. The other piece of advice I think the thing that helped me the most is listening to people, talking to people and finding a really good mentor. And that could be one or two depend, you know, one, two, ten, however, but don’t come in thinking, you know, everything. There’s a lot of people that have a lot of more than willing to help. I like it. On that note, Jennifer Fitzwater, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a lot of fun. Thanks Brett, I appreciate it. Well that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Water for Fighting. If you’re enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you use and don’t forget to leave a five star rating and review. You can follow the show on LinkedIn and Instagram at FLWaterpod and you can reach me directly at who and or what you’d like to know more about. Production for this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sworn for making the best of what he had to work with. And Dave Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo Spring from the Bo Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free. And you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. Join me next time for another conversation with someone who has helped shape water and environmental policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, your whiskey close and your water closer.

Lyle Seigler

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett sits down with the Northwest Florida Water Management District’s executive director – Lyle Seigler. They discuss Hurricane Michael recovery; springs restoration and protection efforts; the district’s relationship to the regulated community; and what happened to change a town in Walton County from the county seat to a trivia question.

To see tools used by the Northwest Florida Water Management District to track Hurricane Michael damage and recovery go here. https://nwfwater.com/water-resources/hurricane-michael/

To learn more about the district’s spring restoration and preservation efforts, head here. https://nwfwater.com/water-resources/springs/

To reach out to Lyle directly, email him at: Lyle.Seigler@nwfwater.com

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

speaker:Welcome to Water For Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of Water and Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cypher. I spent over 20 years working with and getting to know the people who made Water Their Life’s Work. And I created this podcast to allow you, the listener to get to know them as well. Before we get to today’s special guest, I want to give a shout out to podcast reviewers Erigon349 and Elizabeth Alia. Erigon, thanks for listening. I’ll keep working hard to bring good people and their wealth of experience to you. So stay tuned. And to Elizabeth, those folks out west are lucky to have such a brilliant attorney and professor and a learned from, but we miss you back so come see us soon. Now I wonder the conversation. I think you’re going to like today’s guest, Laugh Seaguller. Laugh is currently the executive director of the Northwest Florida Water Management District, but he also happens to be my dear friend. He’s a native of Walt County in the Panhandle, with his family being from the county’s original county seat, a place called Uchiana. He’s the son of a lifelong fishing game warden, and he’s dedicated his life to the entire career to public service and roles such as County Administrator for Walton County. However, he spent most of his career with the Florida Department of Transportation. Laal, what a unique pleasure it is to have a conversation with you today. Welcome my brother. It’s a pleasure to be with you, Brett. Thank you for the opportunity. Laal, do you say that you grew up in Uchiana or Diffuniax Pranks? Uchiana. Uchiana it is. We’ll hold true to the original settlement and the county seat. British Presbyterians and they settled there. Uchianna was the county seat beginning in 1845 and that was the year that Florida received at Statehood. Up until 1885 when the courthouse burned and it probably comes as no surprise to you being in Walden County, it was an act of arson. The county seat then moved to the Funiac Springs. My grandmother’s maiden name was McClean. And in 1847 he served as president of the Florida Senate. I love people hearing stories about these places in Florida. They probably don’t know much about everyone. I think that at least that lives in North Florida knows Diffini X Springs, but I bet they don’t. But you and Brad Drake are the only folks that I know of that talk about Uchiana and it being the original county seat outside of here. Brad Drake and now representative Shane Abbotna, That’s right. Well I mentioned in the introduction you’re the son of a fishing game officer right? Absolutely dad served 32 years with what was then the Florida Game and Fish Commission. He was also a Colonel in the Army National Guard right? Very much so he was very much the Colonel, love and discipline came hand in hand with dad. That’s what I was going to ask you. Tell me a little bit about your dad and growing up with officer, an army officer, and what that led to you in terms of your connection to the natural world around you as well. Well, what that looked like day to day there at home, he was very much accustomed to being in charge. So when he came through the door, Mother would always remind him that the orders stop here. And so he coined Mother as the Pentagon, and obviously I agreed. So whether we were working around homebreath in the field, hunting, or the way we were or occasionally on the water, that is still not only a passion for the natural world, but also a deep-seated commitment. And I’ll say an obligation to be a good steward of what God has entrusted us with. So out in public, I finally recall instances where someone would ask Dad about pond management or ask him about the river condition. And I would give close attention to every detail because I could envision myself being just like daddy. Back in that day with the Game and Fish Commission, when Dad started in 1967, you actually worked both sides of the agency, a law enforcement and fisheries management. So, with that being said, Dad was truly my hero and I’ll never be the godly example that he demonstrated in each step of my parents smile in the way I conduct myself both partially and professionally. Was part of that growing up with him and seeing him as that example. Was that did he instill that interest in water in the environment as well? Or was it more of a I want to be like the kernel? And so I better pay close attention. You said you were paying close attention. Was that the reason why or independently I mean, you had no choice, but you live outside here. Yes, to both, Brett. We’re so blessed with the resources that we have here in the Panhandle. And so I had a passion for everything outdoors from an early age, but also as you stated, I saw the success of the kernel of Dad. And obviously I wanted to be just like Dad. And so because of that, because of that example, service has really been an integral part of your life. Was that something that your parents encouraged in you or did that sink in? And I know I’m asking to similar questions, but they’re distinct in the way of you’re interested in the natural world and the other part is you’re interested in public service because you’ve been in public service for 30 years now, right? Absolutely. The Christian service values and foundation that both mom and dad Demonstrated they were very much godly parents and so that that level of service that expectation that was that was where that stemmed Often described the job of county administrator city manager as the worst jobs in government Sometimes I get a quiet nod and sometimes I just get a laugh from some you spent as the Walton County Administrator. I assume that you can attest to the fact that it is not the best job in government. Yes, Brett, you’ll probably get both a laugh and a nod from it when we talk about the County Administrator role. So I will substitute worst job with most challenging because politics and personalities and preferences and at times overwhelming. However, that role was a very fulfilling job as well. We were able to see immediate positive impacts in the lives of those that we served and loved. And so would that be and said whether it was health, welfare or safety, it was fulfilling to see those projects come to fruition. out your public service career. A lot of times it seems that folks get into public service and often you don’t get to see the end product. You’re governing but it doesn’t feel like you’re doing something tangible. So that must be a good feeling. I know it has been for me and the times when I got to enjoy roles that actually produce something tangible. County Administration to DOT to DEP to the water management district is it seems like all of those lend themselves to that that kind of tangible end product. Each of those positions of service lend to that and when we see the lives of those once again that we live around that we are related to and the folks that we love. When we see those lives impacted in a positive way and we can see those projects in place. That is a blessing. I want to get to the ones because you and I, obviously you and I have shared history at the Water Management District and quite a bit of it. I’ll get to that in a little bit, but I want to pause because I don’t know the one place where I don’t know much about what you did was when you went to DEP and that was in the Panama City office. West Florida office for DEP during that exact same time. What did your role entail out of the Panama City office there? When you and I met around Christmas of 2016 my current role was administrator for both Panama City and Tallahassee for DEP Northwest District. Sean Hamilton served as the Northwest Secretary Hamilton and so my focus was the regulated community and compliance but also heavy on the outreach side. I remember a specific conversation that Sean and I had and he requested that I look at strengthening existing relationships repairing broken relationships and creating new relationships within the Panhandle. When I met you and it was first we had a conversation on the phone that I recall. And then you came in and I think I knew within, you were having lunch, you were having Christmas lunch that day. And I came in and you and I sit there in the office and had a brief conversation. Yeah. And you said, hey, let’s move on. I think I knew within 45 seconds of talking to you that we needed to work together So that was probably one of the easiest decisions that are made. You’ve been a blessing to me, Brent. Let’s move from DEP. And now you’ve agreed to come to work at the district. You’re hired as the director of the Division of Regulatory Services. Quickly move you to Chief of Staff, because I can’t live without you. And now, the executive director. I don’t know the answer to this question. But share with our listeners what your general management philosophy has been because that’s why I like to begin with. Brett, you and I have worked together and we agree upon that leadership style and that is that of a servant leader. And when I say that, what comes to mind is active listening and awareness and commitment to growth and community building, all on a solid foundation of integrity and respect I am committed to demonstrating genuine love, care and concern to one of the most appreciable assets we have and that’s our team members. That’s the men and women out there each day doing the job. And you have what about 110, right? Are we still a little right around there? Yes, we have around 110 folks to manage the 16 counties. And I’m committed to them. I’m committed to the resource. They are by far the brightest and the best. I’ve said that many times. myself with the best of the best. And courage and faith are my core values, as you well know. Being clear is kind. I subscribe to addressing whatever the issue is directly. However doing so in a courteous and respectful and professional way. I’ve said before, I saw front in a strong back and that helps you to deal with the difficult issues, whatever in uncomfortable situations and conversations with focus. Let’s talk about that a bit. It’s one of the reasons why I think that folks in Northwest for are lucky to have you and that you’re lucky to have those 110 folks because you have a place that’s unique that you have 110 folks pulling in the same direction that care about the same thing. You have a phenomenal board but some people believe that government’s relationship to the regulated community part of what you have to do is still has a pretty significant regulatory function. But a lot of people believe that that relationship should be by its very nature adversarial. Why do you disagree with that? You explain who you are and I think that’s pretty clear. But how do you see your relationship with your responsibility to the law but also to service? and solutions stem from positive relationships. And yes, we’re going to hold true to the integrity, to the intent of the rule, but we’re also going to invest in the lives of those that we serve, and we’re going to be solution oriented. Let’s move forward to a bit to some of the most difficult moments that we had together at the Water Management District, and that you are still dealing with, in the moment. Let’s go back in time October 10th, 2018 Hurricane Michael comes and slams dead smack into the panhandle. It leveled everything in its path, tens of thousands of acres of district-owned and district managed property. I was driving through there, you and I were just talking before, we started recording about Camping last weekend. Pointing out to my daughter at still the the broken matchsticks of of trees strewn throughout this area. That’s always going to be with us, it seems. But tell me about some of the progress you’ve made and recovered the district’s part of these lands in this region. You did it so well in front of few weeks, tell us a little bit about that progress. Brett on October the 10th of 2018, Hurricane Michael impacted 87,130 acres of district land. That’s 41% of our holdings here in the Panhandle. As you stated, the overstory was decimated. The district worked closely with DEP and DEM to analyze the effects on floodplain changes and to identify debris removal for the waterways of the panhandle. During the past fiscal year, the district conducted Hurricane debris cleanup on 1800 acres and I’m talking about an Econphina Creek, Shippoala River, Appalachia-Cola River and we’ve repaired 12 miles of management roads. We’ve conducted just over 12,000 acres of prescribed burning. The district continues to remove hurricane debris from our impacted areas in this current physical year. We’ve cleaned up 1500 acres. The district also plans to, the district also plans to plant at least 550,000 long leaf pine trees on 750 acres during this physical year. prescribed fire to restore habitats to pre-Hurricane conditions. I am thankful to an amazing governor that is committed to and demonstrated what response and recovery looks like. As you and I have agreed upon and discussed many times, we have a passionate group of men and women that are committed to these efforts. Let me sidetrack you a bit from the hurricane itself. It’s a subset that I think a lot of people don’t realize how many trees, whether it’s from Hurricane Michael, but even in general, as part of your restoration strategy at the district, that includes a lot of lay management activities. One of those things includes planning of trees and the district plants about, I think on average, about a million pine trees a year. Is that still correct? That is correct. stone of our 20th million long leaf. Wow. It’s incredible. The things that that’s the small dedicated group can accomplish under these circumstances. But it also speaks to the support that you’ve gotten. You mentioned that from the governor to the secretary to the legislature, someone ever saying no when the district asked for help. And so that’s been huge. Absolutely. Everyone has been very cooperative and moving forward. We plan to finish these recovery efforts a year early. While we’re sitting, it didn’t unplanned, but you and I met in Jackson County administration office and the conference room I’ve sat in many times that you’ve sat in many times meeting with members of the Jackson County Commission, meeting with their extremely talented County Administrator, Willand Daniels. And it’s fitting because I wanted to talk a little bit about Springs Restoration, Springs Protection. It’s been a priority of the district. It’s been a significant priority of the district and it’s boarded for many years going back well over, well over a decade. and those landmark resources like we’ll call it spring, like Jackson Blue here. Here in Jackson County with Jackson Blue, to begin with, we’ve implemented 33 agriculture, BMP projects on over 7,500 irrigated acres. And since 2013, we’ve had 144 projects that’s been implemented with 83 unique producers and of the 144 projects, 138 of them have been completed on 70,000 acres. And that nitrate reduction is estimated to be over 225,000 pounds of total nitrogen. And so that is a success story by far. And that’s a year, right? We’re talking about that. That is annual. That’s right. Serious numbers. Serious numbers. You mentioned color springs, awesome resource. Those nitrate levels and what color springs continue to be near the TMDL of.35 milligrams per liter. 791 home connections to Central sewer have been completed to date and another 1200 home connections to Central sewer is planned We’ve connected 13 homes to advanced septic systems in those low density areas. It’s not serviced by Central sewer and another 107 are planned. We’ve completed 43 home connections to advanced septic systems to date. We’ve got a great partnership with Wacala County you say the word partnership. That was one of the things that I want to ask you. It’s something that I’ve that I’ve relied on in years past, but it seems like the ability to develop genuine partnerships has been one of the keys to real progress that that we’ve had over the years. I believe that’s still the case. You mentioned David Edwards of a color county. There are phenomenal County Administrator that are real partners. Will Andean was the Jackson County Commission working on these projects, the local farmers. Incredible, incredible partners. You have, I think is it, it’s, imagine it’s probably maybe close to, maybe even be more than 90% of every irrigated acre, those kinds of partnerships, these real partnerships with the folks that you’re working with is the key to the actual progress you’re saying in these two significant natural resources, right? I mean, do you agree? With spring’s protection, we see the statistics that we’ve spoken about, all our success stories, absolutely. I want to change our focus for a moment and look at the regulated community. Let’s look at permitting. For over 10 years, our permitting staff, and this is a result, all of what as a result of these partnerships, Brett, has been focused on improving efficiency and customer service. And when I say customer service, talking about pre-application meetings and outreach, and as a result, the permit processing times have been reduced up to 93%. And when I say that, this limits the funds that spent on the agency and increases funds communities for economic development. And to give an example, Brett with our consumptive use permitting the active processing time, the goal is fewer than 27 days, and our team here at the district has an annualized median of three days. And some people think that because of those numbers, the numbers are incredible and they’ve moved in that direction for years, Some people might look at that and assume that that means that you’re cut in corners. That’s not the case, is it? We are by no means cutting corners. We’re keeping with the intent and the integrity of the rule while clearly understanding who we serve. And that’s the taxpayers. That’s the constituents. We’re looking for a solution. Oh, absolutely. I think I used to describe it as you can’t. do this. Those dedicated engineers, environmental scientists, support staff, it’s impossible to do that in those time metrics if they don’t want to. You have to want to and they do. They’re real public servants. As you said, they get up in the morning thinking about serving What do they do that? It’s something else. You’re lucky man. It’s a way that you and I have worded it from the beginning, Brett, but it’s the way they’re hardwired and they are passionate about what they do. Wow. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of at this point? Is there an accomplishment there that you’re most proud of? Is it the service end in terms of regulatory services? elementary or just sound like I’m brushing the question off but it’s the impact that I’ve made in the lives of our Northwest district team and also holding true to the resource that we protect and preserve but it’s not a single event or a title. When I think back on that it’s more of a aha moment and that actually came when I was County Administrator. One evening we were having a public meeting down at Chalktah Beach, west of free port on State Road 20. The girls decided to make their way down with me. When I say girls I’m talking about my wife and and daughters and what was in it for them was probably a meal and for and for Taylor the youngest another trip to build a bear. And so as we as I fielded the questions that that evening and the meeting was loud and long we that we passed out to the public at most of our meetings and the question started with what do you like most about the county? Taylor, then in elementary school, picked up the questionnaire and wrote, only filled in the first two blanks. What do you like most about the county? And she said the administrator, Lyle Seagler, why do you value that about the county? are in this case person and she said because he listens and cares and Brett that was a aha moment so that was that was me stopping and realizing that hey it’s about investing in caring about loving supporting our team well if I’m being honest you’re my favorite part of Walton County as well so are you optimistic about the future of the environment in Florida you know optimistic about the future of the Florida environment. I’m optimistic, Brett, because I know the talent, the heart and the resilience of our people, and I see the commitment to be great stewards. I wholeheartedly believe and support our governor, his policy and his leadership for the environment. So that’s the core of my optimism. What if anything keeps you up at night regarding water and natural systems in Northwest Florida? I give each day my all. So nothing keeps up thanks to chewable melatonin. With that being said, I want to continue to work hard on these partnerships because being relational and being committed is what sets us apart. What advice would you give to young people who are just entering or have interest in entering public service? Was it that? Was it the service? I mean, it’s got to be about that. Well, when it comes to public service, you need to have a clear understanding and awareness of who serve the constituents, the taxpayers first and foremost. And yes, you need to be courteous and respectful and professional like I said before, but you also need to be consistent. You need to be predictable. You need to be reliable and give it your whole heart. Commit without question. Lyle, how can folks reach you if they want to learn more about what you’re up to and how you can help them? Brett, I’m a low tech guy, so my preference would be, you reach me by phone at 850-333. 3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 7. The email is lyall.sigler. SEIGLAR at nwfwater.com. And I’ll put all of those with the exception of your phone number on the episode note, so people can check it out there. There’s also a lot of great interactive things on the website. Thanks to you and your folks over there. at the district to see about Hurricane Recovery, Spring Restoration, all those things. Laugh Seaguller, thanks so much for coming on the show, brother. Thank you, brother, for having me. A huge thank you once again to Laugh Seaguller for being here. You’ve been listening to the Water for Fighting podcast. You can reach me at FLWaterPod at Gmail.com or on Twitter and Instagram at FLWaterPod with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. So please be sure to subscribe and leave a 5 star rating and review. Production in this podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl Sorn for making the best of what he had to work with and a David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bo’s Spring for the Bo’s Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song is called Doin Work for Free and you should check out the band live or wherever great music is sold. I’m your host, Brett Siphers. Join me next time for another conversation with someone who has helped shape water policy in the Sunshine State. that, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Fred Aschauer

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett talks with well-known environmental attorney and former DEP general counsel, Fred Aschauer. They discuss Florida’s U.S. Supreme Court fight to save the Apalachicola River and Bay; growing up between Florida and New York; and how joining a heavy metal band led to a music scholarship and a haircut.

To learn more about Florida’s case against Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court, head here.

First Special Master’s Report

Second Special Master’s Report

Florida’s Response to Second Report

More Resources on the case

To find out more about Fred’s environmental law practice.

To get in touch with Fred directly, email him at: faschauer@llw-law.com

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to Water for Fighting, where I discussed the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Ciphers. I’ve spent over 20 years working with and getting to know the people who’ve made water, their life’s work, and I created this podcast to allow you, the listener, to get to know them as well. Today’s my pleasure to introduce former general counsel at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and current environmental law attorney at the Lewis Longman and Walker law firm, Fred Ash Ier. Fred grew up in Long Island, New York, and Port Charlotte here in Florida where he graduated high school. He went to Edison Community College on a music scholarship. More on that later. Fred’s a veteran of the US Army and would eventually graduate with honors from the Florida State University College of Law. Let’s join that conversation in progress. You’re, you’re a bonafide, uh, Florida boy now you’ve got, for the record, a Florida State Seminoles Correct. Shirt on, um, go Noles, but you have roots in New York and also Charlotte County down south. Um, how long have you been in Tallahassee at this point? Speaker 2 00:01:10 Oh, um, since 1997. Okay. So I, I, my wife and I have lived in Tallahassee longer than I lived anywhere else. We came here after the army to, to, for me to go to Florida State, went to Florida State, um, finished my undergrad. I had two year degree when I got here from, um, Edison Community College, now Edison State College. Um, came up here, studied business, and then went to law school, and then we just stayed. Man, it’s, it’s a great place to raise children. I is. Uh, and when we, when I graduated law school, we had our, our first son, uh, first son, first child, and, um, he was like three years old and it just, I got an offer from that firm and it just made sense. Speaker 1 00:01:50 And you have two grown boys, right? Speaker 2 00:01:52 I do. I Speaker 1 00:01:53 Do. Um, and so they were, so you were here when, when you got both of them, correct? Speaker 2 00:01:59 Well, um, so, you know, my family’s uni, it’s unique. So my oldest is actually adopted, and we adopted him when he was almost 10. That’s, so Frederick was Frederick’s two years younger. Mm-hmm. . So when we adopted Fred Lee, yes. Frederick, Fred Lee, a lot of Fred’s. Yep. Frederick. Yes. He did not make fun of George Foreman in my house, . Um, so when we adopted Fred Lee, he was almost 10. He was nine, Frederick was seven. Mm-hmm. Um, he was, Fred Lee lived in Tampa at the time, so, okay. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:02:28 Tell me about growing up you, New York, Charlotte County. It’s a, it’s an old story. Uh, folks, you know, coming from somewhere else, you know, living here, but you kind of went a little bit of a back and Speaker 2 00:02:39 Forth to I did, I did. So, um, yeah, we moved to Charlotte County when I was seven. I was born on Long Island. Uh, I don’t, I honestly don’t remember much of that. I remember, you know, like living in an apartment, um, doing some fishing with my stepdad on Sundays. Speaker 1 00:02:56 Um, you need those fish. Did you? Speaker 2 00:02:58 I don’t know, know. I don’t I don’t remember if we did . Exactly. Um, so we moved to Charlotte County when I was seven. Um, and I lived there till I was 13. Then I, um, a couple years, a couple years before that, had met my biological father for the first time. So after sort of visiting with him a couple times back forth, uh, on a, what was at the time to be just a summer vacation with my biological father, I went up to New York and about halfway through called my mom and said, Hey, I’d live up to stay here. Speaker 1 00:03:35 Is that, I mean, not, I mean, the obvious awkwardness of having that conversation with your mom, but 13 years old is a rough age to move from one place to another, especially across the country. Speaker 2 00:03:49 So not really. Um, I mean, not, I, I, my mother meant the world to me, mother. My mother’s past my mother meant the world to me, but I, I was a 13 year old boy mm-hmm. . And, um, and you know, me, I’m a I’m, I can be a bit crazy and, uh, you know, sort of rambunctious. And that’s my dad. Mm-hmm. , and that’s my dad. Um, and so I saw that, you know, and I saw that personality, and I was 13 year old boy. My mom had divorced my stepdad for what, at that point had been a few years. And so I was, um, I, I guess I was sort of looking for, you know mm-hmm. that in my life. And, um, I lived with my dad until I was 16, and then he decided to move to Florida too. . Oh, there you go. So, so we, um, and that, that move was, um, it was, it was interesting. Speaker 2 00:04:42 My dad did not have a lot, and so we packed on everything that we had, he and I on a Greyhound, and we moved to Florida on a Greyhound, and I think it took us like four days to get to Charlotte County. Oh my goodness. From, from the Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we, we, we spent, we overnighted in like the Washington DC Greyhound, and I remember that. And it’s, it was that was not a safe place. But my dad, um, my dad and I, I, I think everyone feels this way about their dad. My dad was a Marine, he was, you know, black belt and like TaeKwonDo, wherever, and I just viewed him as a certified badass. And so I did, I I, I recognized it as an unsafe place, but I did not feel unsafe. Sure, sure. You know, so, Speaker 1 00:05:22 Um, you mentioned fishing and I ma I was making fun of the river there. It was, we’re a podcast about water here and the environment. So, and you mentioned fishing. Was that something that you grew up doing with your Speaker 2 00:05:34 Dad? It, no, actually only with my stepdad. Okay. Um, and so after he, um, and my mom divorced, I really didn’t fist much after that. And, and now I don’t have the patience for it. Speaker 1 00:05:45 , I hear you. I hear you. Um, I’m gonna read some names to you and you tell me what they have in common. Ronnie James dio, let me kill Mr. Cliff Burton John at Whistle Fred Ash Hour. Speaker 2 00:06:00 So, um, I actually only recognize a couple of them as Bass . Uh, I guess I did not know that I, I’m not a big deal fan, I guess I didn’t know that Ronnie James, the played bass in the band. Speaker 1 00:06:14 Um, maybe he wasn’t good at it. I don’t Speaker 2 00:06:16 Know. I’m assuming he does by the list. Um, so he definitely Speaker 1 00:06:20 Did . He could, Speaker 2 00:06:23 I dunno. Um, but yeah, they’re, they’re all, uh, myself included. Uh, well, I think they all, they’re all bass players, and a couple of them were heavy metal bass players, myself included. Speaker 1 00:06:33 Yeah. I mean, and some could be, you know, debatable, whether or not, you know, the who is, you know, I don’t think anybody would Speaker 2 00:06:39 Call it. Yeah, yeah. That’s what, yeah, I know. That’s why I qualified. But, but Metallica for sure, and that’s of, of the list of the list, he’s definitely, he was more of an idol. Speaker 1 00:06:47 So Motorheads not, Speaker 2 00:06:48 Not, no, no, no. I mean, it’s like Le me’s cool, but I just didn’t take him. Speaker 1 00:06:55 I hear you. Okay, fair enough. Um, I mean, I, I imagine the record sales speak for themselves between Metallica and Motorhead, so Yeah, Speaker 2 00:07:04 I, I’d say so. Close Speaker 1 00:07:05 That too. Um, but I really ask that because trying to follow your, your biography here, um, you know, across time. And so you actually go to school originally on a music scholarship, is that right? At, at Edison? Speaker 2 00:07:19 I did. At, at, that was my, so my first two years were at Edison Community College. Um, I, I bought a guitar when I was 17 or 18 years old. And, um, I was, you know, plucking out the strings in my bedroom and, and not doing very well at that. I was, I definitely was not going to teach myself how to play. Wow. Um, and at the time, I was hanging out with some folks who were in a band. They were in a band, uh, and they, like many bands in Charlotte County, they rented a storage unit and, you know, put all the eggshells, the egg cartons on the walls. And, um, and I would go hang out with them outside their storage unit. We’d listen to them play, just hang out and, uh, probably drink beer, although I don’t think I was of age at the time, but mm-hmm. . Yeah. So Speaker 1 00:08:08 Unfortunate. Speaker 2 00:08:09 Yeah. So bass players, bass players are not easy to find. And so the band was actually without a bass player. And they asked me a, after finding out that I had a guitar, and I was starting to learn that they offered to sell me a bass and speaker so I could practice with them under a condition, though. They, and it was the, and the condition actually led to me leaving the band. So they made their bed and they slept in it as well, . So they, they re they were like, look, you need to take lessons. We, you have to get good, or at least, you know, be able to keep time. And, and, but you need to do that quickly, so you need to take lessons. Um, and so I did, and I started taking lessons from this guy named Jay Hek, uh, on Pine Island. Speaker 2 00:08:56 So I would drive from Charlotte County down, go to Pine Island, take lessons with him there, and he was a, um, he was professional musician, uh, not like, you know, like a recording artist mm-hmm. . But, uh, he made his living playing music on the weekends in the local music scene and giving lessons. Um, and he played jazz music, and he started introducing me to, um, jazz and classical music. Um, and I really took an interest in it. And there’s a jazz bass named John Patagucci, who is, I mean, when I heard him, I was completely blown away by what he could do with a bass. And, um, so he started introducing me to Jazz and Classical, and I started to get interested in that. And then after only about six months, he said, Hey, why don’t you go, the, the local community college has a pretty good music program, and they offer scholarships. And I was like, okay. Um, you know, I was, I was young than Tom. I didn’t know about it. Right. So I agreed, and I went down and I tried out, and again, remember basis are hard to find right? Speaker 1 00:10:06 . Speaker 2 00:10:07 So I go down and, um, I, I do my little audition, and they gave me a scholarship. And so I started playing there, and within six months, I started actually making money, and I left that, I left the band because I wanted to pursue other music Speaker 1 00:10:21 Interests. And that’s the standup base at that point. Is that Speaker 2 00:10:24 Right? Right, right, right. Yeah. Wow. And if I ever picked it back up again, that’s what I would do. I would get a standup base. Speaker 1 00:10:29 Yeah. I mean, that’s, it is pretty cool. So obviously, uh, classically trained, uh, musician goes from music scholarship, uh, to the United States Army. Just how much time did it take them to cut all that hair of yours from your heavy metal days? Or did you, or did you still have your heavy metal hair at this point? Speaker 2 00:10:48 Um, no, I did not. So, um, that’s at some point I cut it off. I, I did have long hair. I had, um, I don’t know. So a a basis you left off was Jason Nutted, who replaced Cliff mm-hmm. . Yeah. And, uh, at the time, Jason had the sides of his head shaved, uh, basically a Mohawk. Right. The sides of his head, shaved top and, and, and, uh, back long. And I, I had that haircut, um, when I was playing in the band within my first year at Edison, I, I cut my hair and got a, you know, a quote unquote normal haircut. So whether it would’ve been long or short though, you know, I mean, you, you were, you were in process too. It doesn’t take that long to cut your Speaker 1 00:11:30 Hair. It does not. No. Yeah. They don’t, um, they don’t, uh, they don’t waste a lot of time. So you meet your lovely wife mm-hmm. , uh, while you’re in the Army in Germany, correct? Correct. And, and so you bring that plus the Army College Fund, I assume, and the GI Bill, uh, back home with you, you said something about studying bus. I know you went to law school. Did you start studying business at first? Speaker 2 00:11:53 I did. I did. I’m a pretty practical guy. Mm-hmm. , I think, you know, that we’ve been friends for a while. Um, and so at some point in the Army, my, my wife will tell you, she convinced me to go to law school, and that may very well be true, like in, you know, reconstructing it. I probably take more credit than I deserve. But, um, my wife, uh, was a big proponent of me going to law school, um, because I’m smart and I like to argue, like that’s a very common Speaker 1 00:12:23 Theme. So Yeah. If you, Speaker 2 00:12:25 Yes. Um, and so I knew, I mean, when I went to undergrad, I knew I wanted to go to law school. So undergrad, it was never, ever about a, an undergraduate degree. I, I really could not have cared what undergraduate degree Okay. That I studied. However, I’m practical. And I said, if the law, if I don’t get in or if law doesn’t work out, I want a degree that I think is useful. So I studied finance. Speaker 1 00:12:46 That’s very practical. I assumed you lost a bet when you said you wanted to go to law school after, but, uh, but no, I suppose a lot of folks reach a point when they’re pretty young and they’re teenagers and say, I wanna be, I want to go be an attorney. But yours was as you’re in undergrad, is that what you’re Speaker 2 00:13:05 Saying? No, it was when I was in the Army when Speaker 1 00:13:07 The arm, Speaker 2 00:13:07 Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah. When I was in the Army. So the, the undergraduate degree was a means to an end. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:13:12 When you and I met you were the general counsel at D E P and you were running the state’s lawsuit for the department, correct. For against Georgia and the US Supreme Corps, I believe it’s original action 142, if I remember correctly. Uh, I have trouble to this day thinking about this case objectively, but I wanted to have you in, I wanted you to talk a little bit about that, but, um, but I’d like, are you willing to discuss Florida’s basis for the case? A little bit of kind of level setting for folks that don’t know much about it? Speaker 2 00:13:45 Yeah, absolutely. I, I’m with you. Uh, as far as objectivity goes, so full disclaimer, I do not see the case objectively . Right? Like, as a lawyer, you’re supposed to see both sides, right. But I was ultimately the state of Florida, you know, through the governor’s office, through, uh, sec, the Secretary John Stevenson at the time is really sort of behind the, the, the, the policy, the why for the case, right? I’m, as the general counsel sort of making sure the train stay on time, if you will, making sure the state’s getting what it, what it pays for, right? Right. Make testing the lawyers, I mean, these are all brilliant lawyers. Latham Watkins was the law firm represented the state of Florida, you know, so these are all Harvard educated, Yale educated, um, lawyers. And so, um, I, mine was not really the why, but mine was keep going and, and keep them in line and stuff like that, and that, so that was, that was my responsibility. So I, I never, I never approached the case as the lawyer responsible. I was sort of like, as a manager of the case. Speaker 1 00:14:50 Sure, Speaker 2 00:14:51 Sure. And, and maybe because of that, I don’t have the same level of objectivity that I could have. Although, I will tell you this, I have never, ever, and I mean, once tried a case where it went at the time it went to hearing or trial, depending upon whether it was an administrative or a civil action, where I wasn’t 100% convinced that I was gonna beat the tar out of the other side. And it doesn’t always work out that way. And it shouldn’t. But you, you know, as a lawyer, you have to zealously advocate and Speaker 1 00:15:19 So, right. And so, I mean, well then allow me then to level set a little bit then on, on the case. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:15:26 You’re gonna get it wrong, but go ahead. Speaker 1 00:15:27 I am going, I’m almost certainly going to get, uh, get it wrong. I’m gonna, I’m gonna talk to, I’m gonna talk about it from a strictly narrative sense, which is Florida as well as Georgia has experienced droughts over the years. Uh, some of those droughts have been really bad when you look at, uh, 2011, 2012, uh, but there have been worse droughts, like in 19 54, 19 55, you have 120 mile river that needs to have quantities of water in order to make sure that the salinity doesn’t get too high in the Appalachia Cola Bay. The use increasing use of that water in exponential terms in the state of Georgia, has caused less of that water to come across the Georgia border, into the Appalachia Cola River in Florida, especially at the time when the time it’s needed most, which is during, during a drought or during the dry season, to the point where the days in which there was not enough water, where there was less than, say, 6,000 cubic feet per second of water making it, even though droughts had been worse, rain days had been fewer in the fifties and in the yachts, yet it was worse somehow to the point where the actual fishery shut down in, uh, in 2012. Speaker 1 00:16:48 Yeah. How’s that Speaker 2 00:16:50 From an a non-objective or perspective? That’s right. Uh, the Supreme Court doesn’t see it that way. Speaker 1 00:16:57 I know they don’t Speaker 2 00:16:59 and the, and, and special, the special Master, um, Kelly, so the second one, he didn’t see it that way either. Um, I think Special Master Lancaster did, um, but he ultimately found that he couldn’t award Florida the relief it was seeking, because the United States Army Corps wasn’t a party to the lawsuit. And so there’s this, there’s this principle in the law failure to join an indispensable party. And that means, in order for things to be fair, everybody who’s involved in this lawsuit, or who should be, sorry, everyone who should be involved in lawsuit needs to be a party to lawsuit. And if they are not, and they cannot be forced to be so, and the United States cannot be forced to do so, sovereign immunity, right? Mm-hmm. , then he felt he could not issue a decree that would give Florida more water in the Apalachicola River, because the Army Corps controls the flow of water on the Chattahoochee, thanks to five reservoirs and five dams, um, two of which are run of the river, three of which are actually engineered. Speaker 2 00:17:58 And they, and they hold back water. Can I go back though? Yeah. Because I, I, and it’s been a number of years because this has been a while now, but I’ve spoken, presented it on Florida versus Georgia at, you know, chamber Rotary No. To non-lawyers and people who aren’t interested in, in water, something that they all founded. Very interesting is, is, is how we got there. And so I’d like to tell everybody what an original action is. Yeah. So, um, so Florida in 2013 sued the state of Georgia in what we call an original action. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, so that’s trial court level jurisdiction to hear cases with ambassadors and others, and states. So when a state sues a state, they get to bring that action before the United States Supreme Court, and we call it an original action. The reason that that exists in our constitution, we have to remember, is the states were their own sovereigns at, at one point, right? Speaker 2 00:19:01 Mm-hmm. , and they gave up sovereignty, they gave up aspects of their sovereignty to the federal government, and the federal government recognized that in doing so, the states needed some avenue when they had an issue between the states, right. An issue that that needs to be resolved, because prior to an original action, how they might have resolved that would’ve been armed conflict. Right? The militias in Georgia and the militias in Florida would have thought, and maybe if we had that today, we would’ve gotten a different result in Florida versus Georgia. But that is why the original action exists, and that is how it got started. Speaker 1 00:19:38 And to your point, going back to e even before that, it wasn’t one day, uh, governor Scott wakes up and says, Hey, let’s go Sue Georgia. Right. Uh, it, it, I think the, I guess the, the closest, um, really tipping off point is probably, what, 1997? You try to come up with a compact between these three states, correct? Speaker 2 00:19:59 I, I’m gonna go back to 1990. Okay. Actually, so Alabama sued the core over the course decision to allow more potable water, more consumption out on the Chattahoochee River. And so, you know, you know this, we call it the ACF Basin, right? It’s the Alanche Cola, Chattahoochee and Flint River Basin. Speaker 1 00:20:19 For folks not familiar with the Chattahoochee, it’s the one that ends up forming the border Speaker 2 00:20:23 Between It does, yeah. Uh, Speaker 1 00:20:25 It does Georgia and Alabama. Right. Speaker 2 00:20:26 Well, and so let’s, I guess draw the picture then. So the Huci starts north of Atlanta, flows in a southwest direction, and then at times forms the border, as you just said, between, uh, Georgia and Alabama, and then enters into Lake Seminole. Mm-hmm. , which sits on the Florida Georgia line. Right. The Flint River starts south of Atlanta, flows again, southwesterly, but through mostly agricultural land to Lake Seminole. The, at that point, the confluence of those two rivers, lake Seminole on the south side of it, outflows Appalachia Cola River. So the waters of that basin, the ACF basin, are flowing from Georgia down south into the Lake Seminole, and then down into the Appalachia Cola River. So that’s the ACF basin. And, and there have been lawsuits regarding the water and the use of that water and the operation of the cores, engineered structures on the Chattahoochee dating back to 1990. Speaker 1 00:21:24 And so, but moving through that, as you say, so if you start in 1990, you start with the Tented compact, um, you know, from 97, moving into the very earliest of s um, with, uh, governor Bush, it really, I mean, it set a table for a lack of trusts between Florida, Alabama, and, and Georgia, most specifically Florida and Alabama. And probably some of the other way around, if I’m, if I’m being fair, which I won’t be. Um, yeah. But, but then you get to, as you know, as you say, uh, there’s only the last recourse is the original action. So talk about how, talk about the structure. So pe if people don’t know how that went down, um, what happens once you, once you decide you’re suing another state in the US Supreme Speaker 2 00:22:12 Court? Well, so that’s a, that’s a broad question. Sorry. In this case, in this case, so Florida and Georgia are what they call riparian states. Mm-hmm. , so the listeners of this podcast probably know that, but when I would talk about this out in the chamber there, and so you have, uh, riparian right? States and then out west, and this actually later factors into one of my concerns when they appointed the special master mm-hmm. , second time out west, it’s prior appropriation first and right. First and first, and sorry, first in time, first and right. So because Florida and Georgia are riparian rights states, you each get an equa, you get an equitable use of the water that you share. So this basin, we share this basin with Georgia. And so Florida asked for what they call an equitable apportionment of the waters of the ACF basin. Speaker 2 00:23:03 Um, and that, and, and the, the allegations were that there was, uh, you know, too much consumption, uh, in the Chattahoochee that, uh, and too much consumption in the Flint River mm-hmm. . Um, and there is, and we talked about this and you had talked about there were droughts in the fifties. Uh, you know, that’s the very, so, but in between the fifties and, and, you know, the 20 12, 20 13, the, the consumption by Georgia in that Flint Basin beginning in 1970 is a, an exhibit. Yep. Um, skyrockets. Yes. I mean, absolutely skyrockets and Georgia’s, Georgia’s position on its use of the waters in the Flint and Chattahoochee River was that they could practically and politically do whatever they wanted with it, harm to Florida be damned. Now, that is not what he said, but, you know, so that’s my take on it, Speaker 1 00:23:56 Operatively. That’s what, that’s what’s happened. I mean, and to the point where one could even say that they did that in cutting off their, their own noses as well. In some cases, you look at some of these water bodies and creeks on, in the Flint basins especially, that were literally pumped dry. They went from, say, a few hundred cfs or 150 cfs, or even few, you know, less, um, to single digits or zero, um, what was it, uh, spring Creek that was literally Yeah. Speaker 2 00:24:24 Stopped flowing. Right. And I, and, and, you know, and, and I’ve tried to sort of refresh my recollection on this case, but yeah, I mean, you and I spent weeks and you spent, what, five weeks in Portland? Speaker 1 00:24:37 I seemed like it, I think it’s probably closer to four, three Speaker 2 00:24:40 Or, or four of it. Okay. I spent two weeks, you know, and months living the case. And, you know, there was Yes, thousands, thousands of page and tons of experts that testified. So, uh, my memory serves me that, um, Georgia basically confessed, like, because they’re equivalent of d e p, department of Environmental Protection, said, we’re pumping the Flint River dry. Right. AG use is pumping the Flint River dry, as you might expect. Farm and agriculture in Georgia, southwest Georgia has a, a, a good bit of political sway. And so it is my belief, I think the team, although it wasn’t proven, I think the team probably also believed that it, the Flint River was always gonna be a problem because Georgia didn’t have the political will. I know. They were, they were, and, and you, you can probably speak to this better than I, because your testimony was, was aimed at the comparison of what we do in Florida for, for agricultural use. Right. As compared to what they do. Right. So I know that they, they, they might argue they put some handcuffs on their farmers, but they did not. Speaker 1 00:25:45 No. They, they didn’t. And that was the big, um, that was really the big dis difference in, in, in my eyes, is I know that we have, there’ve been many things related to water use, um, water resources, the environment where we’ve made our fair, you know, share of mistakes in Florida, uh, Northwest Florida, and the management of the resources surrounding the Appal Cola River basin is not one of those mistakes. Uh, the way that the district reserved flow from the river itself, the way that whether it be the state, federal, or other entities had preserved huge numbers of acres of this basin to protect it from impacts the number of, the amount of water used, uh, in total, um, I’m trying to remember how a hydrologist explained it to me from the Water Management District, and it was, I believe, uh, Chris Barrio says this to me. Speaker 1 00:26:46 He says, the amount of total use by Florida in the ACF basin wouldn’t even show up. It’s, it’s within the margin of error of the instruments used to measure the flow in the river. That’s how tiny it is. Right. And you’re look, and, and even with that, and it was 32, we went from 32 million gallons of water a day, used total to about 28 million gallons of water a day in, in terms of agriculture. So that’s a 25% decrease. In my mind, that’s what we were looking for, was how is it that you can’t, you don’t, you don’t have to spend a whole bunch of money. You don’t have to stop farming. We didn’t ask a single farmer in northwest Florida to stop farming. What we’re asking is to do the same thing that, that we would do. And that’s, that’s the part that seemed, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t wrap my head around. It was what, you know, why we couldn’t ask them to do Speaker 2 00:27:42 That? So, um, as a lawyer, we are prone to use Latin, uh, , I think, I think we perhaps incorrectly believe it makes us appear smart. Yeah. So there’s this principle in the law. It’s called race ips, a lo quitter. And it, and it stands for the think speaks for itself. Now, go back to Professor Erhardt, Florida State College law, um, who is in, in the, in the evidence world. He is the leader in how Florida shapes its evidence code and, and how it, and I mean the Supreme Court looks to his treatise on evidence, but he taught, uh, also taught torts. And I took, uh, first year torts with him. And I forget the, in the case we were talking about this case where it’s a little flower mill and the person wakes up, uh, sort of, you know, surprised covered in flower, and there’s the remnants of the, of a flower barrel next to them, right? Speaker 2 00:28:36 Mm-hmm. , it’s clear what happened. The flower barrel fell from the second floor, you know, uh, of the warehouse hit, the person br shattered and left the person covered in flower. They, they have no memory of that. Ter the thing speaks for itself. That’s what you’re getting at. Mm-hmm. . Right? The, how can you not conclude that Florida is suffering harm from the reduction of water flow across or through Lake Seminole, across the Woodruff Dam, when one of the sources of water for the Apalach Cola, the Flint River, is literally pumped dry. And so it’s sort of, the thing speaks for itself. The problem is, is that the Supreme Court, right. Didn’t, you know, they wanted more and, um, in an original action such as this, the standard for Florida and Florida brought the case. So, so Florida had the affirmative mm-hmm. responsibility to prove its case, which, and the standard here is clear and convincing evidence. Speaker 2 00:29:41 And that’s a high standard in, in the sort of hierarchy of standards of proof in the law. It is the one that is below beyond a reasonable doubt, right? Yeah. So the standard we send people to jail for this is below that. And so the Supreme Court said, , yes, there is this evidence that Georgia has over pumped the Flint. Yes, there is evidence that there was a collapse of the Apalach Cola Bay, and that that collapse had a dramatic effect on the, on the industry in the oyster industry. But it was Florida’s responsibility to prove that it was Georgia that caused that harm. And they point to a couple things. One of which was after the oil spill, the BP oil spill, Florida allowed what the United States Supreme Court with the Special Master, special Master Kelly said, what? Florida, and the way the Supreme Court looked at it, the over harvesting of the Apalach Cola, the Bay, I mean, they said that to the extent there was harm, that harm was brought on by Florida because they allowed over-harvesting of the Bay. Speaker 2 00:30:46 And they didn’t, they didn’t adequately re shell afterwards. So as you know, in order for there to be harvest, there has to be the, the oysters need something to affix to and grow. And they do that in these beds of shell, you know, and so they, Supreme Court said they failed to prove that it wasn’t those things because Georgia pointed to them. They also said that, um, and beyond that, we do not believe Florida proved that the change in the salinity wasn’t from something other than Georgia’s consumption, whether it was climactic conditions or things like that. And they pointed to certain, certain areas of the Bay that even during this drought, even during this higher salinity still were productive. In fact, product productivity went up Speaker 1 00:31:32 Just to be, just to be a pain in the neck. You, all of those things that you just mentioned are true. But all of those things are in terms of a thing that someone said, but that someone is Judge Kelly. Right. Not Judge Lancaster Speaker 2 00:31:44 Back to how an original action is decided. So the Supreme Court, the nine of them do not sit up there at the bench and take evidence. Mm-hmm. , that’s not what they do. That is not how we want the Justices of the United States Supreme Court to spend their time five weeks in the bankruptcy court in Portland, Maine. Right? Yes. So they appoint a special master to oversee the proceedings, to conduct, to allow the parties to conduct discovery, to have a hearing, and then to make a report to the United States Supreme Court. And then the United States Supreme Court will take that report, and then the parties will brief on that report why the special er got it right or wrong. And the Supreme Court will hear that in oral argument like they do for cases that come before them in their appellate jurisdiction. So it is a combination. The things I said are a combination of, um, the Special, special Master Kelly, but then the United States Supreme Court, cuz once they issue their opinion Yeah. You know, they’re sort of, they, they adopted his rationale. They found his rationale to be convincing. I Speaker 1 00:32:53 Just, I just found it to be dumbfounding, given that the, the person hearing the trial was the Special Master Lancaster. It goes to oral arguments. The Supreme Court sends it back, says, everyone answer this question. And then it’s just, Hey, special Master Kelly’s going to say, I’m gonna talk about all these other things that have, we’re outside the purview of the instructions I got from the Supreme Court, and they’re gonna take this new thing and come up with a, come up with a decision in, in Georgia’s favor. It just felt like a kick in the gut in that regard. And it also felt like, and you tell maybe that’s the more important thing now, is, and this is again layman, I don’t speak Latin, I didn’t go to Yale or Harvard, but it sounded like Judge Kelly was essentially writing Georgia blank check on water use from that point on. Is that a fair characterization? Speaker 2 00:33:45 No. So the, so I, you know, I understand how you, I understand how you get to that, but he doesn’t say that Georgia never could, um, use so much water that they would be taking in, uh, uh, more than they’re entitled to under, you know, the theory under the, under the principles of equity that are embraced by riparian states. Um, he doesn’t say that. He says that you had an obligation Florida to prove your case and you didn’t. And that’s different. And I, I understand why you put it that way, because, so this is, this is this from the Special Master, special Master Lancaster’s report. He says, the facts presented at trial demonstrate the gravity of the dispute between Florida and Georgia as the evidentiary hearing made clear Florida points to real harm. And at the very least, likely misuse of resources by Georgia. He said, uh, he goes on to say there is little question that Florida has suffered harm from, decreased flows in the river. And this is what I messed up earlier, but I’ll, I’ll read the quote from him, from his report. Cuz when I read this, I kind of fist pumped, you know, , uh, and he said, uh, and then I got to the end and I realized he wasn’t gonna go Florida or anything Speaker 1 00:35:02 . Speaker 2 00:35:03 He said, that’s right. He said, uh, that’s probably not true. Knowing me, I probably jumped to the conclusion, read it and then said, oh, how did we get here? Mm-hmm. , he said, Georgia’s position practically, politically and legally can be summarized as follows. Georgia’s agricultural water use should be subject to no limitations regardless of the long term consequences for the Mason. He says it much better than I said it earlier, you know, that those were his findings. So Brad, I understand why you say Special Master Kelly is cutting, uh, Georgia blank check on its use of water and the AC and the ACF basin. But that’s, that’s not what he says. He says, Florida, you didn’t do your job so Speaker 1 00:35:45 Well. Well, that brings me to something else that I wanted to ask you because looking back, I mean, hindsight’s always crystal clear. I’m not positive that’s the case in when it comes to the Florida v Georgia, but in the moment, and still to this day, I believe that, and I think you do too, and I think you’ve already said it, that the Bay in those communities were worth fighting for. Um, but a lot of folks in the middle of that, or when we got it, was remanded back to Special Master Kelly that this is a giant waste of time. It’s a giant waste of money. Um, why are we doing this? Who are these fancy New York DC attorneys? And I know that you, an you had to answer these questions yourself as you, as you described, your, um, your most important role was case management, uh, in terms of all of these attorneys. Would you, would you do it the same way again if you had to do it over? Speaker 2 00:36:47 You said that the community is worth fighting for, the community is worth fighting for. And Florida, Georgia, and Alabama had been fighting over water for a long time, um, and those lawsuits did not produce, you know, an adequate outcome, an acceptable outcome for the state of Florida. Sure. Uh, you know, and I believe Governor Scott’s exact words is that basically Georgia has not been negotiating in f good faith. And actually I believe that our, our legal team proved that in, in the fir in Speaker 1 00:37:21 The hearing in discovery. Right. I mean, they, it was the first time, it was the first time anyone was subject to discovery. Correct. Speaker 2 00:37:27 Right. So they, uh, I believe they, they did, they proved that. So, while Georgia is telling Florida one thing, right, on one hand, you know, with regards to negotiations to try and come up with an equitable apportionment or a process for an equitable apportionment, they’re on the other hand basically saying, you know, pump as much as you want, pump as much as you want. Right. So I I I do believe they were worth fighting for and I thought we were right to do it at the time. And yes, I had some very uncomfortable conversations because it wasn’t just anybody, it was a then speaker of the house. That’s right. That was quite upset at the money Yes. That Florida was spending on lawyers in the case, the news, the news never caught on to exactly how much Georgia was spending on this lawsuit. And so they were making comparisons between what Georgia and what Florida was spending on the lawsuit. And they were reporting on only one pot of money that Georgia was tapping into. Hmm. So Georgia was funding this lawsuit from the governor’s office and from, from the ags office. Mm. And nobody caught onto that. And so there was a point in time where Florida was, I don’t know, in the fifties, millions of dollars Right. That they had spent on lawyers and Georgia was closing in on a hundred, but because they were only ever reporting on one pot of money, it never got out. And so Speaker 1 00:38:55 I didn’t, I didn’t know that. I mean, I, Speaker 2 00:38:57 No, and that’s something I’ve held very close to the vest because I, for reasons I’m not gonna get into, but that they were reporting on. Hmm. They only one pot of money Georgia, far, far, far outspent the state of Florida on this lawsuit. I don’t know that if that would’ve mattered to the speaker. Mm-hmm. , he did not like that we were spending that much money and for the people who were questioning it then, and the people who will question it now, you know, they will, they, they could do things like take the population of Appalachia Cola, you know, divide the money and and spread it out and say that would’ve been a better use of those funds. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:39:34 I, I think that’s, I mean, in a way I think that, that that’s fair to ask those hypotheticals. But it was ne, and I don’t think it was for you, and it never was for me, for me it was, this is the wrong thing that is happening, um, in my mind there was, there was enough, a real and anecdotal evidence to, to show that. And it was, why is a person who tongs oysters in Appalachia Cola Bay, why is their living that they’ve made for generations going back to the 18 hundreds, why is how they earn a living? Why is their, their life worth less than anyone else’s in that regard? And so yeah, it’s ex it’s expensive. We do a lot of things. A as you, you and I both know in Florida that are expensive that people could put question, I still think that it’s worth it. I understand the question of how much money you’re talking Speaker 2 00:40:26 About. I’m gonna be a little bit more flippant than you were. Why is the livelihood of the men and women in the apalach obey who go out there and because of regulation, hand harvest, you know, these oysters, um, why is their livelihood valued less than the ability of someone on Lake Lanier to to navigate their jet ski off of their dock? And, and, and someone Speaker 1 00:40:53 I’ve said that in conversation, but I I expect that, uh, that you’d break it out today. So I’m proud of you. Speaker 2 00:40:59 Why not? Speaker 1 00:41:00 I’m proud of you. It’s true, but it’s true. Right. I wanna hear about what you’re up to now. It’s like, but let’s spend a second. That’s what, in terms of the operation of Lake Lanier, uh, and the Beauford Dam that controls the water coming up. Cuz there are other, you know, and and you mentioned ’em earlier, there are other dams, uh, some of them are, you know, controlled dams, some of them are running on the river lake. Lanier has a lot of water in Speaker 2 00:41:23 It. It does. Speaker 1 00:41:25 And there’s a lot of extra water in it that, that was discussed in terms of when you go into drought operation, that drought operation where they start, start cutting back quantities seems to coincide coincidentally with the elevation of a lot of people’s docks Yeah. On Lake Lanier. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:41:43 So, uh, lake Lanier, the core has, when the core, it’s, it’s not just the Chattahoochee the core runs a, you know Sure. They run dams all over the country and, and they store water all over the country and they store water according to, uh, operating protocols. Mm-hmm. , you know, um, and in this case, I think Lanier, one of the, one of the, um, purposes of Theier water is consumption, but another is recreation too, if I’m not mistaken. Yes. So, you know, that was part of Speaker 1 00:42:14 It. The recreation being one of the, one of the, the statutory allowances on on the lake outweighs tupelo trees. It outweighs, uh, inver, you know, invertebrates and mollusk along the river. And it outweighs human beings that are just trying to, to make a living down there. I Speaker 2 00:42:34 Hear you. But, but, so let’s go back to did Special Master. Yes. Uh, Perry write a blank check. No, because he doesn’t say that. Right. He doesn’t say that Florida, you could ultimately prove that those things that they, they, they matter and they, they are entitled to water. Um, and he just said, you didn’t, you didn’t convince me that Georgia Yeah. Was the cause of it. You know? Speaker 1 00:43:00 So you, so let’s move past d e p Speaker 2 00:43:02 . All right. , Speaker 1 00:43:03 Because you’ve been, uh, when, when did you leave the department? What year was, I Speaker 2 00:43:07 Can’t remember. 2017. So Speaker 1 00:43:08 2017. Correct. So we’re going on six years outside. Uh, you’re working now for very well-known, well-respected environmental practice. Uh, tell me about the day in the life of an environmental attorney on the outside. Now I assume it’s much like a, a Grisham novel. Speaker 2 00:43:29 Yeah. Um, with a little bit of law and order thrown in there. Sure. With a little bit of a few good men. Right. And Aaron Brockovich too. , Speaker 1 00:43:40 Of course. Speaker 2 00:43:42 Um, the practice law is nothing like what you see in tv. It’s nothing like what you see on TV unless you watch actual documentaries on, you know, like criminal prosecution or something like that. Right. Um, it is a, uh, a, a good bit of time, uh, reading, right? Mm-hmm. , um, even at where e e even now in my position, I, I spend a lot of time reading. Um, it is a good bit of time, uh, strategizing, right. Thinking about a problem, thinking it through, coming up with, uh, a solution to the problem. Um, and if you’re in litigation, then there are rules that we play by in litigation. And so you’re, you know, you have to, um, adhere by those rules. Um, it is good bit of time meeting just like everyone else. Everybody. Um, and then the fun stuff. Hmm. The things that, you know, you actually see on tv, the, you know, the oral arguments in court and the, the, uh, the depositions and the trials, at least with what I do, um, that’s, that’s a smaller per a significantly smaller percentage of your time Yeah. Than the Speaker 1 00:44:54 Other things. What’s, uh, for the, for those studying up for their LSATs right now, um, what percentage is that of your total, of your total work? The, the super exciting part? I think you like, you like the, the understanding you like the, the research and, and the knowing and the finding out. Yeah. It’s like, but it’s not, you Speaker 2 00:45:15 Know, so I do cases that are measured in days, but I do cases that are measured in weeks too. And so I could, in a year, when you look at depositions and hearings and all that, I could spend one to two months worth of time, uh, doing those things, you know, doing depositions, doing final hearings and things like that. Um, that could be one or two final hearings because they’re each two weeks long or one of ’em is three weeks and one of ’em is one week or one of ’em is four weeks. And one of ’em, one of ’em is a day. You know, cause I’ve the number of times that, you know, the number of, and I’ll just call them all trials, right? In, in the administrative world, it’s called the final hearing in circuit courts called the trial. But I’m just gonna call them all trials cuz the truth is they look and feel very similar. Speaker 2 00:46:04 There are dis there are certainly differences, but they look and feel the same. I might end up doing one or two trials a year, but because of the, um, the nature of my practice, I could spend three weeks in ti in court doing that. Whereas a, um, a public defender might go to court, um, 17 times, but 12 of them were half day trials. Mm-hmm. or one day trials or, you know, and so the, the time that they’re going to court is less than mine. But they get to say I had 17 trials this year. Right, right. You know, Speaker 1 00:46:37 What accomplishment are you most proud of? I could be professionally and personally, whatever you want to, however you wanna frame it. If you wanna do one of each, that’s cool too. Speaker 2 00:46:46 Well, you know, it would have to be the personally would have to be raising my boys with my wife. Um, you know, our oldest was in foster care. Mm-hmm. . So our oldest, um, had a really hard life before he joined us. Uh, he was in third grade, he’d been left behind. Hopefully he’ll never hear this. Cuz he’d be like, dad, why, why? Yeah. Putting all my business Speaker 1 00:47:09 Out there, , I think you’re safe there, , right? Speaker 2 00:47:11 Yes, that’s true. Speaker 1 00:47:14 Um, Speaker 2 00:47:14 So he, uh, had a really, really hard life before he joined us. Um, he joined us when he was in third grade. Like I said, he’d been left behind and he couldn’t read, could not read. And when my wife and I went to pick him up, when we finally got, um, we, we went through the process of adopting him out of the system. And by the way, the state does not make that easy. And I get it, but also shame on them. Um, is it easier now? I don’t know because this is 15 years ago for us. Right. So we went and picked him up and he was in a class with young boys and girls who had severe physical and mental disabilities. They were challenged, all of them. And that’s not our son. That’s not our son. But the system had given up on him. Speaker 2 00:48:01 Hmm. So, um, he joined us in third grade, uh, failed the, um, what’s the aptitude test? They give the kids in school? I forget now. I think it’s the FCA fails. The fcat in the third, in third grade, in your third and 10th grade years, if you fail the fcat, you get left behind. Right. Right. So they were going to leave him behind and they would’ve failed him. He would’ve then have been fail. He would’ve been now two years behind. So our old, our oldest is, is African American. Um, and the statistics on him dropping outta school goes through the roof. Mm-hmm. with that second failure. Yeah. Right. The statistics for him potentially going to jail, climb dramatically. Yeah. If they fail him. So my wife and I fought tooth and nail with the state, with the board, with the, with the school board to get them to socially promote him. Speaker 2 00:49:00 It’s permissible for them to say, okay, there are other reasons why we’re not gonna hold this child back. And we were, and I do not, I’m not one of those lawyers who walks around, I’m a lawyer, look at me, I’m a lawyer, I’ll sue. I, it was the, it was perhaps the one and only time in my personal life right. Where I said, you need to understand what I do. I am going to bring a law. I’m gonna sue you because I can’t let this happen to my son. Mm-hmm. , we get close to a point where we’re about to sue and we get a decision that they’re gonna socially promote him. Mm-hmm. , uh, we told them during this process, if you do this when he leaves this elementary school, he will be on grade level and this child will succeed. And when he left elementary school, he was on grade level. Speaker 2 00:49:44 He still needed remedial help, but he was on grade level and over the next several years, still a lot of time, patience in love. He graduates high school and he is in the United States Navy now. So that, you know that. And then my youngest too, um, you know, raising him Now he of course did not have to. He had a, a very, um, you know, he was, he was, uh, had a very, very good upbringing. He never was exposed to those things, but, you know, raising kids, it does, it doesn’t matter. You know. Yeah. They could turn out, you know, in ways you would wish they wouldn’t. And he is about two. He did three years in college, but he decided he wanted to study, um, aviation maintenance. And he and I are going to mobile this Saturday for him to take one part of his exam so he can get his license to fix airplanes. Nice, nice. So that’s definitely, so those, I mean that and that trumps anything I’ve done professionally quite candidly. Speaker 1 00:50:40 Yeah, no doubt. Uh, but speaking of, uh, water in the environment, are you optimistic about the future of the environment in Florida? Speaker 2 00:50:51 I, I am. I am. Um, Speaker 2 00:50:57 But not because of you or your, or, or, or or Brian Armstrong or, but, uh, because of the people Yeah. Or the state of Florida. Right. So the people of the state of Florida, um, they, they get it right? Mm-hmm. , they get it. And when the agencies or the politicians get it wrong, the people get it. Right. And, um, and so I’ll give you, so one of the positions I held at DEP was director of the water divisions mm-hmm. , division of Water Resource Management. So in that capacity, I go to, I go to Atlanta to take part in the region four water directors meeting. Tom Frick. And I go, because the state of forest is the only state that has a deer division, the division of Environmental Assessment Restoration, and then a water division everywhere else, they have their N P D E S and their standard setting group under one person. So Florida right there thinks it’s important enough to have two, Tom gives a presentation on numeric nutrient criteria. Mm-hmm. our successes and, and opportunities in the numeric nutrient criteria. One of the directors from, and now you have to keep in mind region four is, I hope I get That’s right. Cuz I’m going by memory. Tennessee, Kentucky, north, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida. Speaker 1 00:52:22 Don’t worry everyone. We’ll post, uh, Fred’s email address and the episode notes. Um, make sure you reach out to him if he missed something. Speaker 2 00:52:30 Yeah. So if I, I messed that up. So one of the directors I don’t recall from which state leans over to me during Tom’s presentation and he says, how did you have the political will to pull this off? We could never have done anything like this in our state, whatever state that was mm-hmm. . Um, and it, it’s because of the people. So I am optimistic because, uh, the oystermen in Apalach Hole will make their liver run living on the water. Right. They got shafted by the, by the decision. But they made their living the, you know, fishermen. Um, I did a case a couple years ago, we represented, uh, fishing act. Mm-hmm. made their living on the water. So many people, so many people in the state depend on our natural resources that I’m optimistic for our future because of them. Right. Because of them. And, and I don’t mean to, I, I think Brian and all the, and Sean at the d e p and Brian, but let’s give credit where credit’s due. It’s the people of this state of Florida. Speaker 1 00:53:30 What keeps you up at Speaker 2 00:53:31 Night? So you’re familiar with p ffa s Yeah. Okay. So that, that should keep me up at night. It should keep you up at night. Yeah. Quite honestly. But it, it, it doesn’t, what keeps me up at night is the next forever chemical. Hmm. At some point I’m concerned that for our convenience, cuz we don’t want the packaging of the, our microwave dinner or pizza box to stick that a, you know, someone is going to manufacture and it may not be in the United States, it might be overseas a chemical that I, you think about it, pfas, you know, the idea that you could cook and it wouldn’t stick to a pan was brilliant at the time and they put it in everything because that was brilliant at the time. And now you can’t find rainwater without pfas in it. Hmm. Like you, and, and in order to compare blood samples, you have to go back to like the Korean War cuz you and I have pfas in us right now. And that’s quite honestly, that’s scary. But it’s not that it’s what’s what’s the next one Speaker 1 00:54:35 Isn’t, I mean, not, I mean, not to, I wouldn’t call it pushing back. I would just say, uh, scientists that I’ve worked with would say the poisons and the dose. Um, and that includes, you know, the salt that we put, you know, on our, on our food. Uh, of course. Aren’t we getting better at that, at that sort of thing as time goes on, you know, you learn about, uh, the impacts of, of certain pesticides and, and other things over, over time. And, and the choice was, hey, we can, we can help put out, uh, fires, um, you know, planes that, you know, crash with, you know, these chemicals and that seems great at the time. Um, but maybe not so much. It seems like that’s less, less likely. Those, those things get, uh, fewer in number as the years gone, do you think? Or, or? Speaker 2 00:55:22 No. Okay. So who’s the, we, you said, aren’t we getting better at this? Who’s the, we, Speaker 1 00:55:27 The, uh, United States of America, state of Florida, you know, the epa, Speaker 2 00:55:33 Uh, and and how many manufactured goods are we buying that come from overseas? Speaker 1 00:55:38 Ask me rhetorical questions for Speaker 2 00:55:40 I’m sorry, . So my point is, yes, I understand in the United States there’s standards and, uh, you know, there’s government agencies that are supposed to, but, but what about the production of goods in China or India or some other place, right? That is producing a lot of what we consume. So, you know, maybe you’re right, but, and I, I hope you are, but Speaker 1 00:56:03 I’m, I’m, I’m trying, I have no idea. What I’m trying to do is, is like, be optimistic and also recognize the things that, that we have caught in the past. That it takes like the, if you remember the, the Chinese manufactured drywall that was a giant disaster and toxic and, um, poorly made, but don’t those things. And I, you know, and I, I don’t think either one of us know, it’s like, but it seems like as you, you’re always fighting the last war, but the last war, you know, maybe avoids something similar in the future when you look at maybe how, how you control, you know, the import of things that are coming in the country and, you know, and, and what, what that’s, you know, what’s Speaker 2 00:56:41 In there. Maybe, maybe the question is what keeps you up at night though, right? It was, and so you’re sort of, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the, uh, monster under the bed. Yeah. Right? And, and that’s fair. And as we grow up, we find out there is no monster under the bed. So maybe you’re right. I don’t know that I still wanna look . So the, so I think the, the question is still is, you know, what’s the next thing we’re gonna learn about and, and how does that affect us? Speaker 1 00:57:04 Yeah, that’s a, I think that’s a fair, fair thing to be concerned about for sure. How can folks reach you if they wanna know more about what you’re up to or if they need, uh, a good environmental attorney? Speaker 2 00:57:16 So I am, um, with Law firm Lewis Lineman and Walker, my, uh, I think you’ll, you said you’d post the email address, so you can find it in the notes on the, on the, uh, podcast. Um, and reach me, uh, at my office. Number two, uh, I assume you’ll put that there. So you can call me, you can email me and you can message me on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn all the time. Speaker 1 00:57:38 I can vouch for that Fred Ash Hour. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Speaker 2 00:57:42 I appreciate you having me. I really do. Hey, I do wanna, so you said that I listened to Brian’s Brian’s podcast and you said at the end of it, and join me for my next conversation with another person directing Florida p you know, water policy or something to that hang regard. Speaker 1 00:58:01 It’s in, it’s in the script. I’ll re hang on. We’ll get Speaker 2 00:58:04 To it anyway. So I, at the point, at that point in time, I thought that was gonna be me. And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know what he’s talking about, , but now I understand that you talked to Julie, so I get it. I get it. There you go. Speaker 1 00:58:15 There you go, . Well then, then, uh, hold on your horses cuz I’m gonna do it right now. Thanks again to Fred Ash hour for joining me on the podcast. You’ve been listening to Water for Fighting. You can reach me at etal water podd gmail.com or on Twitter and Instagram at et Water Pod with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about production. This podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios, thanks to Carl, so for making the best of what he had to work with and to David Barfield for the Amazing graphics as well as the technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bow springing from the Bow springing band for giving permission to use his music for the podcast. The song’s called Do and Work for Free, and you should check the band out live or wherever the best music is sold. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. Join me next time for another conversation with someone who has helped shape water policy in the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close in your water closer.

Julie Espy

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Brett sits down with national water quality data expert – Julie Espy. They discuss her rise through the ranks at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; whether Florida’s Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) are still the best tool to remediate water quality degradation; and why one should never, ever, call her a Sooner

To learn more about the state’s Basin Management Action Plans, go here: https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/basin-management-action-plans-bmaps

To find out more about SAS, visit their webpage here: https://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html

To reach out to Julie directly, email her at: Julie.espy@sas.com

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. I’ve spent over 20 years working with and getting to know the people who’ve made water, their life’s work, and I created this podcast to allow you, the listener, to get to know them as well. This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by Florida Water Advocates, Florida Water Advocates, where we’re tackling the water resource challenges of the future Today, I think you’re all really gonna like today’s guest, Julie Espy. Julie May be an Oklahoma native, but she’s an honorary Florida woman since she graduated from college and moved here in 1994. Julie worked her way up the ranks in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection over 23 years, finishing as the director of the Division of Environmental Assessment, and she’s now the National Director of Water Quality and Environmental Data Solutions at sass. Let’s get right into it. So you grew up in Oklahoma as the daughter of two Oklahoma State Cowboys. Is calling someone a sooner in your family fighting words?Speaker 2 00:01:17 Uh, absolutely. My dad pretty much wears orange and black or garnet and gold every single day. Uh, so yes, he would, uh, he would definitely disown me if I, uh, called him a sooner.Speaker 1 00:01:30 Well, tell me what that, that was like growing up in Oklahoma, where, well, where was your father from? Because you said he was in the military as a helicopter pilot, is that right?Speaker 2 00:01:38 My grandfather. YourSpeaker 1 00:01:39 Grandfather, yeah. Okay.Speaker 2 00:01:40 So my dad grew up kind of all over, you know, in Germany. Uh, he was born in New Hampshire, although he never really lived there, I don’t think. Um, and he has siblings, so they were all born in different parts of the world. Uh, but my grandfather and grandmother settled in Latin, Oklahoma. It is a, um, big army facility, Fort Si. Uh, so it’s a big, oh my goodness, . It’s a big training facility, so almost anyone who’s ever been in the army has gone through Fort Sill. I, uh, I’ve, I can go in anywhere and find somebody who’s probably been through there.Speaker 1 00:02:14 Yeah, me too. I was in, I was in the Army, but I managed to, uh, Dodge Fort Sill, thankfully.Speaker 2 00:02:19 So I’ll say lucky you . Right? I mean, I loved Oklahoma. Um, it was, it was totally different, obviously than Florida, but, uh, good people there. Southwest Oklahoma is beautiful in its own way. Um, very different. Oklahoma in a lot of ways is sort of like Florida. It’s very diverse. Northeast Oklahoma’s hills of the Ozarks, lots of trees and water. Southwest Oklahoma, not so much.Speaker 1 00:02:45 That was gonna be one of my questions is do they in fact have trees, water and trees in southwest Oklahoma?Speaker 2 00:02:51 Um, not too much, really. Uh, you hear the, you know, the song Oklahoma and the Open Plains, it’s very much so, uh, kind of western Oklahoma and certainly southwest Oklahoma. It’s one of the reasons why I left is because there isn’t a lot of water. I, I knew I wanted to study biology and water ecology and those types of things. So when I graduated college, I was like, okay, I gotta find somewhere to land.Speaker 1 00:03:15 Well, let’s talk about that because, um, I saw your, I saw your bio and so you studied biology in college at, what was the,Speaker 2 00:03:22 What was it, Cameron University?Speaker 1 00:03:23 Cameron University, home of the Fighting Aggies. Aggies Fair.Speaker 2 00:03:27 Like the, it was formerly an agricultural school.Speaker 1 00:03:30 And, and so you trained as a biologist and your first job out of college is as a chemist, , is that right? KindSpeaker 2 00:03:37 Of, yes.Speaker 1 00:03:37 Well, tell me about that.Speaker 2 00:03:39 Uh, so when I moved to Tallahassee, I, you know, one of the first jobs I got was at a private lab here in, in Tallahassee that serviced, um, a lot of the municipalities and things like that. Uh, so I just kind of took the first science job, obviously, that I could, you know, get my hands on. And we did all of like, nutrients and biochemical oxygen demand, you know, bods and fetal coliforms and all of those types of analyses in that laboratory. So I learned a lot. Yeah. Yes.Speaker 1 00:04:08 So you start in a chemistry lab, and then you get your first job at d e p. What year was that?Speaker 2 00:04:14 98. 1998. AndSpeaker 1 00:04:16 That’s the biology section? Yes. Your first job at d e P was in the biology section, right? Correct. Yeah. And you said it was 1998? Yes. And you were a bug picker as you put it. Um, what on earth is a bug picker?Speaker 2 00:04:34 Yes. Um, well, uh, one of the types of samples that they take into the laboratory is something that’s collected out in the field. Um, and it consists of basically leaves and grass and sand and all those types of things. But what they’re really trying to get at are the macroinvertebrates or the little bugs that live in the streams, in the lakes, uh, because those organisms are, they integrate water quality over time. So it gives you a, a better picture of what’s going on in the system as far as water quality conditions than maybe just taking a one-time sample and getting kind of that snapshot. The thought is that the macroinvertebrates, you know, give you that picture or that, you know, picture of water quality health over time. So my job was to sort through the leaves and the dirt and all that kind of stuff, and pick out the bugs that then we handed off to folks who would do identifications because, uh, certain ones are good bugs and certain ones are indicators of maybe poor water quality condition. So that was kind of what I did. WhatSpeaker 1 00:05:38 Would be the, the application at that point for that, that data in terms of the type of bug?Speaker 2 00:05:44 Yeah, so the, um, the stream condition index was a, or still is, uh, a way to tell you which streams are healthy. So they have a, a healthy ecosystem, meaning that the water quality is healthy. And if you had poor organisms, you know, organisms that could tolerate water quality or water pollution, um, then those would be streams that, you know, would, might, might get targeted for, say, restoration or those types of a, uh, activities.Speaker 1 00:06:12 You move from there to the watershed assessment section. Is that right? That’s correct, yeah. And what do, what, what was the change there for you in terms of what you did on a day-to-daySpeaker 2 00:06:22 Basis? Yeah, so that’s, like I just said, it’s kind of the next step, right? So we’re, you know, collecting the data in the laboratory, we’re analyzing it and turning out the results, and then those results, you know, end up in actions. Um, and so by moving to the watershed assessment section, that was really what we did, is we took that data and did an evaluation. You know, we looked at the water quality data, we looked at the cis or the stream condition index samples, and, uh, did an assessment to evaluate all the different waters in the state. Um, really that’s like the basis for, uh, water quality restoration in the state. Um,Speaker 1 00:07:00 Okay. And so you’re, you’re literally taking it is what I wanted to, to get to, which was the long train of how you go from looking at, uh, some water body or natural system and saying, is there something wrong with it? If there is, what is it? And then, uh, once you know what it is, how do you fix it? That’s right. Uh, and so you’re at, you’re at step two, but we get to I think, step three in the process, which is by the time I met you and when I met you, you were the director of, uh, what’s affectionately known as deer. Yes. But it’s the division of Environmental Assessment andSpeaker 2 00:07:35 Restoration.Speaker 1 00:07:35 And Restoration. Yes. Uh, my apo, well, ours gotta come from somewhere . Um, and it’s, I consider it, and somebody may argue with me, but they’re wrong. Um, but I consider that one of the four hardest jobs in the entire department. Uh, which I mean, it’s, it’s a tough one, right? Yeah.Speaker 2 00:07:53 It’s definitely a lot to take on. Um, you know, we’re trying to identify waters, um, you know, some people want their water identified as impaired and others don’t want that water body identified as impaired . So you’re always kind of battling that, and we’re trying to do it for the entire state, you know, so it was a big job, um, and trying to develop, you know, the right water quality restoration strategies, um, cuz you know, one size doesn’t fit all. It was definitely challenging, but I, I really loved the challenge when I was there.Speaker 1 00:08:24 And it’s, it’s a more, that’s more, uh, public facingSpeaker 2 00:08:28 Absolutely.Speaker 1 00:08:29 Farther the drop, especially. It’s gotta be weird for na people who do science for a living to be in the position where now you’re the, you’re very public facing and ISpeaker 2 00:08:38 Got very used to public speaking in that job. Yeah, absolutely.Speaker 1 00:08:41 And, and so, okay, so we’ve identified, basically you worked in all, you know, all three of the major steps there. Uh, but talk me through the process. So take a, take a water body or some natural system and talk me through that beginning, the beginning to the end. And may, and maybe it’s one that, you know, over your, over your time, you may have seen, you know, from the beginning to, to bmap implementation or base management action plan implementation.Speaker 2 00:09:06 Yeah. Oh, wow. Um, there are several. I mean, I could just, I’ll, I’ll touch on we’ll, Callis, since that’s really, uh, how we kind, it’s good. That’s best. Yeah, that’s a good one. Right. Um, I have, you know, we monitored COLA for years back, you know, when I was in the biology section, we had routine monitoring. We did out there on a quarterly basis. We were collecting water and biology and looking at plants and algae and all of the different ecosystems and trying to do a really good assessment of what was going on. Um, all of that data got used by one of our modelers at D E P who developed a, a watershed model, um, to determine the total maximum daily load or the, the maximum amount of nutrients that that system, you know, could, uh, assimilate or use and still be healthy. And then, uh, went into the basin management action plan development phase where we take that TMDL target and determine what are the best activities and projects and all of the different things that can be done in the watershed to restore it to a healthy condition. And, and actually COLA is a system that I’ve seen change over my time here in Tallahassee from when I first moved here in 1994. So that one’s been really, you know, kind of fun and interesting to, to see through the whole process. Um, ac you know, the b m a’s been in place now for several years. You, you’re very familiar with that. And, um, we are starting to see improvements in water quality. So that’s been a, a real, you know, like I said, a good one to watch.Speaker 1 00:10:39 Tell me about the, the, the development of the TMDL itself. And you mentioned a model and, and models come in for, uh, a certain amount of criticism, and I understand it’s cuz we’re, it’s not, it’s not measurements like when you’re doing your, the, the watershed assessment side of things or Right. Or bug picking where you’re, you’re looking at real, you something real, right? Uh, a real measurement where you can say, okay, this is what was happening before and this is what, uh, say the, the total nitrogen level is, you know, at the vent now, um, the advent of the meric nutrient criteria kind of put, uh, a solid line mm-hmm. , you know, in that process, most of them are what 0.35 milligrams per liter. We’re talking aboutSpeaker 2 00:11:25 Nitrogen for springsSpeaker 1 00:11:26 Mm-hmm. , right? For springs mm-hmm. . Um, and some are a little different, but not much different. Tell me about the differences, how, how you des determine the differences there when you look at, uh, say we’ll call spring versus one that has maybe a, a lower tmd.Speaker 2 00:11:42 Yeah. Well, so we kind of, you know, when COLA was developed, we didn’t have numeric nutrient criteria quite yet, but it ended up, you know, cuz it actually has a lower level than the, than the numeric nutrient criteria. But we knew when we developed numeric nutrient criteria that we needed something, we needed a number to put, you know, as a starting place. And then when you go into TMDL development, you’re really looking at the specifics, right? Because as numeric nutrient criteria were developed, it was, like I said, we’re trying to cover the whole state, right? Um, so you do the best you can to develop the appropriate criteria that would apply, you know, for all streams or all springs in the state. And then as you do a tmdl, you’re really looking at, well, what are the specific uses, uh, land uses or activities in the watershed and trying to establish the appropriate number for that particular water body. And that’s really, you know, that’s where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, I think.Speaker 1 00:12:40 And so you, you start with the model, you start with your total maximum daily load. And as you’re moving, uh, toward the BM map, obviously you ha you mean models are, you know, are predictive in nature. But, uh, I continue to hear, um, and I know that Moda Homan has talked a lot about it in public, uh, venues, which is adaptive management. Can you tell me, when you look at something that looks like a hard and fast number, right? And you’re doing restoration of a place like, uh, we’ll springs in the we’ll river, uh, where does adaptive management fit into that picture?Speaker 2 00:13:15 Right? Um, you know, so in a basin management action plan, you know, as, as, as we’ve developed that program over time and, and just in literature and research that has been done, you know, certain activities that are gonna have beneficial nutrient reductions, right? What that number is, is not, you know, super well defined. It’s not black and white, but you know, you’re gonna get a reduction. You have some idea of what that reduction will consist of. And so as you are applying those activities and those restoration strategies in the bmap, you’re also monitoring and saying, you know, is, is that matching what I expect to see? And so if it’s not, then more may need to be done to, to achieve that tmdl or maybe less, you know, maybe you’re getting a, a better benefit from an activity than what was predicted or what was known at the time. And that’s really what I think, you know, what what is meant by adaptive management, you’re trying, you know, the goal is to achieve the tmdl, get the healthy condition, and you’re doing the best you can to get there as time goes on.Speaker 1 00:14:20 And so the B M A P process has come under some criticism. I mean, I don’t know, have you ever dealt with a bmap that wasn’t criticized ? I haven’t, I haven’t heard of that one yet, but no. But in terms of, uh, it being somehow inadequate for the task at hand and you, and you and you just, you know, articulated very well what the task at hand is, which is restoration of that water body, right? Um, and so folks have said, well, gosh, the bmap the, the BMAP itself, uh, or the process doesn’t lend itself to real restoration. Um, uh, personally I believe it’s the best tool that we have at the moment for, for determining how to restore these water bodies. But the issue seems to be the same thing. It is for almost everything in, in life in government, which is it’s a time and money issue.Speaker 2 00:15:10 Absolutely.Speaker 1 00:15:11 Yeah. Uh, so I mean, what’s your opinion on the, you, you’re now, do you, do you have, and you do data for a living now, is it, is it still the best thing that we have available, um, in the toolbox, um, given that we have adaptive management, given that we’re always constantly looking at whether we’re doing it right or not, right. Um, what do you think about allSpeaker 2 00:15:36 That? I do honestly. Um, and I have, you know, engaged in other states across the US and, you know, our B M A P program is above and beyond what I have seen in other states. Um, they ha don’t have near the research or resources that we have. And, and I know it’s still a slow process. It’s a slog, you know, it takes time. I mean, but we have to realize too, it took, it took decades to get these water bodies in these conditions, and it’s gonna take decades to get them back. Right. Um, but I, I do think that it is a good process and, and, and as you just said, with the adaptive management, it allows us to adjust and learn over time and make ’em better, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, the OLA B map is what, 10? Well, no, it’s a lot more older than that. 15 years old now, you know, almost. And so we’re gonna learn over time and be able to improve, uh, the things that go into future b m maps and, and adjust the, the ones that have been on the books for a while.Speaker 1 00:16:38 Do you think it, when you look at, and, uh, you know, obviously I haven’t spent as much time digging into, uh, springs and say, uh, north Central Florida and, you know, the Santa Fe River mm-hmm. or, uh, the Gainesville area or, uh, you know, east Central Florida. But I have seen what we’ve got, what we have here is that, are there other places where, where you look at and say, gosh, we’re, we’re actually pretty close. I mean, I saw how it worked for Waca. It’s no secret how, you know, it worked. You have city of Tallahassee, um, upgrades their wastewater treatment facility, right? And you do a whole bunch of conversions of septic tanks to, to central sewer to then treat it, you know, to that high, that higher level to keep more and more of that nitrogen out of the water. It was expensive.Speaker 1 00:17:27 I mean, I think, I think the total right at this point is probably somewhere between 250, $300 million now. Right? And you were a huge part of, of the middle to the present there mm-hmm. . And I remember those conversations that, that we had, which gosh, we’re so close to this. Yeah. Wouldn’t it be cool to see that happen? Uh, but it was, but there was no magic to it. It was, this is how much it cost That’s right. To go in, abandon someone’s septic tank and convert it to, to central sewer. Do you see that same possibility elsewhere, given the constraints that we have of, of time? The, you know, the other, the other variable is, is money, right?Speaker 2 00:18:05 Um, certainly, you know, it takes commitment. Um, and we were really fortunate here on, you know, in the McCullough basin that the city of Tallahassee and McCullah County, I mean, really, you know, put their nose to the grindstone and came up with some, some good projects and activities to really make a difference. And, and that does happen in other watersheds. Um, but I, I, you know, this might sound strange, but in a way, Wakus, unique , um, because we had a limited number of stakeholders, right? Mm-hmm. , and in some of like the north central areas, you have a, a much bigger stakeholder group. And so getting everyone on the same page with the same commitment, you know, to the same goal can be challenging. Absolutely. Um, but it’s certainly possible. And my, you know, I think conversations you and I had in the past is like, man, it would be so great if we could get wakulla and like just show it off to everybody. Like say, look, when you do the commitment, yes, it’s expensive, but man, when you do it, it can work, right? Yeah. Um, so I’m really hoping that that will still happen, you know, even though you and I have moved on. But, um, you know, I think it, I think it, canSpeaker 1 00:19:17 I keep, I still keep an eye on it, I thinkSpeaker 2 00:19:19 There No, yeah, meSpeaker 1 00:19:19 Too. But I think, uh, I think you’re right. Is there, let me ask you this, because the, some of it was harder than other parts. I mean, spending nearly $200 million on an upgraded, uh, wastewater treatment facility is a big deal. Mm-hmm. , but there’s another a hundred odd million dollars that we’re talking about there. And much of it is in a place that many people thought weren’t the types that want, would want to move forward with these things. Uh, and Will Cull County has been an incredible partner. Yes. Part of that ease though, is partly having a good governance, a good county administrator who’s willing to push things forward. But there’s an advantage there as well, which is when you look at the requirements from the Springs Restoration Protection Program mm-hmm. , you’re looking at match requirements. And so if you’re looking at a place that is not considered a small disadvantaged community, and we’ll call it to be considered one of those Right.Speaker 1 00:20:20 Or ready community, it’s harder for those middle places where you look at, they’re not completely, you’re not completely poor mm-hmm. or disadvantaged, but they can’t afford to come up with 50% of 200 million. Yes. Perhaps, uh, for the solution. What do you think about the, you know, the, the notion of are we, are we approaching that the wrong, the, the wrong way? Or is it, do you think it’s good or bad in different public policy to say, if it’s our, if it’s, if it’s our priority, if it’s the state’s priority to see this water body, um, recovered, why rely on a local government’s ability to do that from perhaps an incredibly limited budget? Maybe we should just take these, these things on ourselves. What do you think about that? I know it’s a, it’s a difficult question to ask and it’s difficult, you know, to, to propose. Well, but you see a lot of things get stunted because ofSpeaker 2 00:21:11 That, right? Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, I think the governor and the federal government has done, you know, created a huge investment to try and perhaps help those types of communities. Um, although they still struggle because they don’t necessarily have the resources to do the grant applications, and they, you know, they haven’t dealt with those types of programs before. So that’s certainly a struggle. And to me, that’s where I’ve always felt like they could use the help, right? Mm-hmm. , like someone who could help them get through the process. Cuz you know, it’s, it’s government and it’s a process. Um, but it is, they certainly do get left behind, but I think part of that match has always been the state can’t do it all. Like we can give them all the money in the world and we can upgrade the facility, right? But if they don’t, again, have that commitment to, to maintain it, to ensure that it’s operating the way it’s supposed to, the, you know, to, to make sure those things go into the future, we’re gonna be right back where we were. Right? They’ll have a new facility, but it might not be functioning the way it’s supposed to. So I, I, I do think it’s a responsibility of everyone, um, honestly. Yeah.Speaker 1 00:22:18 No, I think that, I think that’s perfectly, you know, perfectly valid opinion. Um, and so you’re with a company called sas. Now, is that also an, because you’re all scientists in database? Like is SAS also an acronym, I assume, or,Speaker 2 00:22:31 Um, it probably used to be the company’s been in place for like 47 years. I think it’s used to stand for statistical something or other, but now, um, because it, that’s what it is. It’s, it’s a statistical software, uh, package essentially. Um, but they dropped the acronym. I mean, they, they use the acronym now. They dropped whatever it stood four years ago. SoSpeaker 1 00:22:51 Well tell me, well be beyond that. Yeah. , uh, which is not, notSpeaker 2 00:22:55 ThatSpeaker 1 00:22:56 Interesting. I was like, poke at you a little bit about an acronym. Um, uh, tell me about what you’re up to at sass and are there things that, that you’re involved with now in the creation of, of statistical tools that may, may help us do better ATS restoring some of these places?Speaker 2 00:23:17 Yeah. Um, so I, I’ve been with SA SaaS just a short time now, um, a little over a year. And like I said, we’re, we’re really a software and data analytics company, right? And we do a lot of work with state and local governments trying to help them do, you know, do those things. Uh, with regards to water quality, that’s kind of where they brought me on, um, is kind of to be a subject matter expert in, in water quality data. We’ve been doing work here in Florida. We’re, um, you know, trying to get other, uh, state and local governments across the US on board and, and having some really good conversations with them. And it’s, it’s so interesting because, uh, a lot of environmental agencies operate very similarly. You know, they’re, their data is siloed, they’re, they don’t have resources, you know, to do all of the data preparation and analysis.Speaker 2 00:24:09 I mean, it’s just, you know, really, really similar. But I think, uh, definitely here in Florida and some of the work we’ve done with the D E P could be really useful. Um, one of the things we’ve been looking at is, is a septic tank susceptibility tool, uh, to help identify areas throughout the state that are, um, you know, more susceptible to septic tank pollution, right? Yeah. And it’s looking at not just the age and density, but also some of the geologic, you know, formations and things like that. Um, and trying to give them a tool that, you know, makes that very simple for them to identify areas throughout the state where maybe they should be prioritizing some of these, uh, conversions, you know, to sewer in those types ofSpeaker 1 00:24:53 Areas. And that’s incredibly important data to have. We have two and a half plus million. Yeah. South Tanks in Florida. If you were to replace all those, you’re looking at 40 plus billion dollars . Right.Speaker 2 00:25:07 But not all of them probably need to be replaced. Right.Speaker 1 00:25:09 That’s the, that’s the, that’s the point is I think there were, the, the big mistake in the legislation, I think it was 2010 and 11, uh, in the septic tank inspection program, really rested on the failure to recognize that not all septic tanks are created alike, and not all places are. That’s right. Uh, are created the same. And so, uh, how far are you in that, that analysis?Speaker 2 00:25:32 Yeah, so we’ve, um, started it, we, we actually kind of put together a, a draft index kind of score, um, with, uh, university of Florida at the time and some, some other septic technology, you know, people, people who have a lot of knowledge in that, that expertise. And, um, we’re actually working on updating it right now and kind of presenting that back to d E P to say, Hey, you know, we, we really think this would be a useful tool for you. Um, you know, and trying to make those adjustments that they, that they, you know, would put it into place. Yeah.Speaker 1 00:26:02 Free plug, uh, if you’re listening to D e p. Yeah,Speaker 2 00:26:06 Exactly.Speaker 1 00:26:07 Um, sounds, it sounds, it, it, it’s, and it’s somethingSpeaker 2 00:26:10 That, to me, when I saw it, I was just like, wow, if we could do that, that would be really useful. .Speaker 1 00:26:16 I, I, I agree. I mean, we spent some time both at the Water Management district and sense looking at these things and saying, what is it going to cost? How do we get there? How do we put, uh, a, a better, a clear vision of where point B is? And I don’t think that, I don’t think that is clear at the moment. Yeah, that’s right. And we’re moving forward with bmas, which are great. You know, the, I think as I said before, it’s like, and I stand by it. It’s like, I think the product is great. Great. I think the, the folks behind it are doing the best they can, but they can’t be everything to, to everyone. I think that’s where the, the benefit of involving, um, private sector, especially folks like, you know, SaaS and others that, you know, that can, that can do those analytics. But I, I, I hope that, I hope that it works.Speaker 2 00:27:00 Yeah, me too. Yeah.Speaker 1 00:27:02 So whether it’s in government or outside, and obviously I think you spent most of your time in government.Speaker 2 00:27:08 I am a public servant. . Yeah.Speaker 1 00:27:10 Yes, definitely. What accomplishment are you most proud of?Speaker 2 00:27:14 You know, I honestly, I’m, I’m really, I’ve, I’ve thought about this a lot. Um, I, I’m really proud of the work I did at, at DP and Endear specifically, and the fact that I started as a bug picker. And, um, they almost didn’t wanna hire me as like a permanent employee. And I became the director , uh, to me as a pretty good accomplishment. But I, I mean, I learned so much along the way from so many smart people, including yourself. Mm-hmm. , you know, that really helped me. Um, and I’m, I’m really proud of that. Like, I, I wanna be an advocate for Florida’s water and environment and, and really the us which is why I, I kind of took the job with sass.Speaker 1 00:27:51 That’s exciting. They’re, to go back to SAS for a second, they’re based out of where? North Carolina. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And, but they’re stretching in all, all over the place now, not just, and not just in the United States. Right,Speaker 2 00:28:02 Right. They’re, they’re actually an international company. And I was just talking with someone yesterday who’s, you know, trying to do some projects in Europe, you know, with folks, you know, they’re, they’re doing all kinds of water quality things also.Speaker 1 00:28:13 Yeah. That’s, I mean, that’s exciting. Yeah. But, you know, but o obviously it’s like I’m, you know, more partial to your work at, at, at Deer. Yeah. But, uh, but it’s exciting to see what the future holds. Um, talking about the future, are you optimistic about the future of the environment in water in Florida?Speaker 2 00:28:31 Well, I certainly feel like we’re, um, moving, you know, have been moving, I should say, have been moving in the right direction. Um, you know, I know when I first started working at D E p, not many people knew much about the TMDL program, or certainly Bmap s didn’t even exist when I started there in 1998. And, uh, so over time, you know, it really has become a very well-known issue, not just in Florida, but across the us, you know, that we have water quality problems, um, which is unfortunate, but, uh, you know, you know, that we’re known across the us, but, um, I think we really are headed in the right direction. And, um, as I mentioned, you know, seeing Wakulla change over time, and I, I’m hoping to see it, you know, back to the, the clear, you know, waters that it was, and, um, not seeing algae so much.Speaker 1 00:29:22 I mean, but, and I think you mentioned it twice now, , um, that it is better. He, you know, here you’ve seen other places mm-hmm. and, and Juxta juxtaposing, you know, Florida’s situation, you know, with other folks, we don’t get a chance to see, we, you know, a lot of times, right. Uh, the pessimist in us, you know, looks at, looks at something like, gosh, this is, this is screwed up. Is this, you know, is this getting worse? Is this our fate as a state? Um, but you’re saying, and you’ve had the opportunity to see, you know, uh, probably at least several other places now. Yeah. And you still stick by. It’s like, Hey, I think we’re, you know, we’re, we’re heading in the right direction. I mean, it may be the pace may be slower than some of us would like, butSpeaker 2 00:30:01 Yeah, I think so. You know, this is a personal opinion and which a lot of this is, but I think our struggle in Florida is that balance between growth and protection mm-hmm. or, you know, restoration. Um, obviously, you know, we want the state to grow and, and be prosperous and, you know, we like people to come here because it is a beautiful state mm-hmm. . Um, we have lots to offer, but it’s always that balance of, you know, when’s enough enough or, or doing things the right way. That’s the, that’s the thing that I’m hoping we’re even moving further towards, is, um, when we’re doing growth, let’s do it the right way, um, so that we don’t have, you know, this continual issue. Um, we can see restoration, we can see the restoration stick. Right, right, right.Speaker 1 00:30:46 Yeah. Since you’re, since you are in fact the optimist, I’m not, I’m not gonna ask you my, I am my pat other question, which is, uh, what keeps you up at night? Um, but I will say, I will say this , uh, I mentioned before that, that I, you know, and I don’t BS about it when I say that, that the Deere director job is, is one of the hardest, I mean, it, it’s probably, in my mind it’s probably top top two. But, um, there are a few other ones in there that, you know, that would give you a run for your money and that Sure. And that, um, but it’s gotta be, it, it seems like it’s the kind of position that it’s super important and it’s super important to have people that, uh, love what they’re doing and, uh, are smart and people that get after it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s something you can do for forever. Yeah. Um, because it just takes it, it takes aSpeaker 2 00:31:33 Toll. Takes this toll. Sure.Speaker 1 00:31:34 Yeah. And so from that perspective, I mean, you get to do these great things. You just don’t have to be in that pressure cooker, you know, so much. So from that perspective, it’s, yeah. Um, so it’s a, it’s a good thing. Is there, other than when you, you mentioned growth management, is there something else environmentally related that you say, gosh, I wish we, I wish we did this thing better, or is that it, or, and that can be the answer is, yeah.Speaker 2 00:31:58 You know, it is that, but you, you know, it, it’s, it’s varied in its components, right? We need to do storm water better and, and they’re trying to, you know, upgrade or update the rules mm-hmm. so we can do storm water better. You know, we, we need to do septic tanks better. We’re trying to do that as well. Um, it’s all of those components that we need to do better as we’re growing, um, you know, fertilizer, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. , you know, in certain areas there are more vulnerable to it, you know, we need to make sure that those things are in place so we’re not here again. Um, like I, you know, there’s lots of good science that that’s out there and people are continuing to study it, so I think we can get there. I am an optimist. Uh,Speaker 1 00:32:35 YouSpeaker 2 00:32:35 Picked up on that, huh? Well,Speaker 1 00:32:36 Good. Yeah. . Um, no, I think it with, you know, with folks like you on the job, I, you know, I see it, I see it happen in the future myself, although, uh, I’m less of a natural optimist than you are. Juli Espy . Uh, what advice would you give young people who are just entering or are interested in entering the environmental field?Speaker 2 00:32:57 Yeah, gosh, I mean, I love it so much. Um, I do think, you know, you’re not gonna get into it for the pay. That’s probably the first thing everyone will tell you. Um, but it’s, it’s very rewarding. Um, if you, you know, you, if you like the environment, you like to, you know, to go out and enjoy it and you wanna protect it, there are lots of ways to do that. You know, not just water quality, but habitat restoration and, you know, all of the different components and all of those things together. I, I’m, I’m always trying to encourage young people to study science. Um, sometimes I get ’em, sometimes I don’t. I have a, a, a niece that I’ve, I’m always giving her gifts that have some science theme, you know, and she enjoys it. So maybe I’ve, uh, indoctrinated her, hopefullySpeaker 1 00:33:43 . I, I hope so. And, and I saw a, a Facebook post, um, from a friend the other day who’s, uh, I think his gra his granddaughter and her partner won the, the local science fair.Speaker 2 00:33:54 Oh, love it.Speaker 1 00:33:55 Love it. Having to do with, you know, nutrient pollution and water bodies love even more. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m like, there you go. There, thereSpeaker 2 00:34:01 You go. YouSpeaker 1 00:34:01 Go. That’s right. They’re coming along. Yeah. So it’s ex it’s exciting. Yeah. Um, how can folks reach you if they wanna learn more about what you’re up to and how you might be able to help ’em? You know, I, you know, obviously I don’t work for Sass is like, but uh, you do. Yeah. And if folks wanna get in touch with you about that, how do they do that?Speaker 2 00:34:18 Yeah, I mean by email, julie dot espy sas.com. Um, I’m available anytime.Speaker 1 00:34:25 That sounds good. And I’ll put it on, uh, the episode notes as well so people can. Julie Espy, thank you so much for joining me.Speaker 2 00:34:32 Thanks Brad. I had a great time. Appreciate it.Speaker 1 00:34:34 A huge thank you once again for Julie Espy for being here. You’ve been listening to Water for Fighting Podcast. You can reach me at fl water pod gmail.com or on Twitter and Instagram at FL Water Pod with your comments and suggestions for who and or what you’d like to know more about. Thanks again to Florida Water advocates for sponsoring this episode of Water for Fighting Production. This podcast is by Lonely Fox Studios. Thanks to Carl, so for making the best of what he had to work with and to David Barfield for the amazing graphics and technical assistance. A very special thank you goes out to Bow Spring from the Bow Spring Band for giving permission to use his music for this podcast. The song is called Doing Work for Free, and you should check out the Band Live or wherever amazing music is sold. I’m your host, Brett Ciphers. Join me next week for another amazing conversation with someone who has helped shape water policy and the Sunshine State. Until then, keep your whiskey close and your water closer.

Frank Bernardino

Brett Cyphers — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In Episode 4, Brett sits down with his partner: long time water policy and budget guru, Frank Bernardino. They talk about the history of wetland mitigation in Florida; the water resource funding gap and how he proposes we close it; and his life as a young song writer in Miami.

Here’s the best way to reach Frank: Frank@anfieldflorida.com

If you’d like to learn more about what Frank and I do at Anfield Consulting, check us out at: www.anfieldflorida.com

To learn more about how Florida regulates wetland mitigation, and stormwater in general, check out this handy Florida Department of Environmental Protection page.

Check out a few resources explaining “SB 444”, the Water Protection and Sustainability Program and Trust Fund from 2004

Data and analysis regarding the “needs gap” from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Eric Draper

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 05:39:23 +0000

In this episode, Brett talks with one of the most renowned environmental advocates in Florida – Eric Draper. Draper is most known for his advocacy on behalf of Everglades protection and the Florida Forever land-buying programs, but he recently served a successful tour as the Director of the Florida State Parks Service. They talk about effective environmental advocacy; Eric’s continued concern about the global effects of climate change; and the importance of developing partnerships instead of enemies. Get a transcript of this episode.

Here’s the best way to reach Eric. Email, LinkedIN

Here’s a link to the Florida Forever land buying program statute. Florida Forever Land Acquisition Program

As advertised, Eric has dedicated an entire career to the environment, and he was recognized for that by Audubon in 2021. Eric Wins 2021 Audubon Florida’s Teddy Roosevelt Award

Here’s a link to one program that Eric is excited about these days.Florida Wildlife Corridor Act

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Brian Armstrong

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 04:00:14 +0000

In this episode, Brett sits down with Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Executive Director – Brian Armstrong. Armstrong has a career in water management spanning 25 years, nearly all of them at the same water management district. They discuss growing up on the water; the importance of alternative water supplies; who’s cooler, geologists or engineers; and an incredible story of lake and wetland restoration that doesn’t get nearly the recognition it deserves.

Water Wars History

Southern Water Use Caution Area

Facilitating Agricultural Resource Management Systems (FARMS)

Springs Restoration and Protection Program

Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Henry Dean

Brett Cyphers — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 17:02:12 +0000

In the very first Water for Fighting podcast, Brett has a conversation with the Godfather of Florida water management – Henry Dean. Dean currently serves on the St. Johns County board of county commissioners, but his thirty-year career in water resource protection spans five governors, two water management districts, and various other committees and agencies. They discuss the dawn of water management districts and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; management styles; and a career ultimately defined by its successful relationships. Download a transcript of this episode.

ELMS Committee – (Environmental Land Management Study)

Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP)

Kissimmee River Restoration Project

Indian River Lagoon (IRL) Restoration Program

St. Johns County Commission

Our theme song is "Doing Work For Free", by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)

Trailer

Brett Cyphers — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 16:59:57 +0000

Mark Twain is said to have quipped, “Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting." And in Florida, the subject of water can bring out the strongest of opinions. The Water for Fighting podcast will discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. The host, Brett Cyphers spent over 20 years working throughout Florida government getting to know the people who’ve made water their life’s work and created this podcast to allow you, the listener, to get to know them as well.