Datasets:
patrickbdevaney
/
mia9

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
6.44k
been contentious, as, in some situations, urban population growth has become established
around degraded systems (i.e., areas with artificially lowered water tables), where restoring
water levels could have adverse anthropomorphic effects. They have had difficulty in
defining “acceptable levels of ecosystem change”.
SJRWMD is currently in legal negotiations regarding ensuring that groundwater
MFLs will be adequate to maintain acceptable conditions (both short-term and long term) for
manatees.
SJRWMD does not focus on identifying single minimum flows in flowing systems;
rather focuses on developing a minimum flow regime, to allow for intermittent intentional
drawdowns. Categories established within an elevation continuum include; permanently
flooded, intermittently flooded, semi-permanently flooded, seasonally flooded, temporarily
flooded, and intermittently flooded. Each category is given a frequency and duration for
each water body. They consider not just harm to individual indicator species, but also: water
quality, transfer of sediment and detritus, recreation, navigation, flood control, aesthetic
attributes, fish and wildlife habitat, passage of fish, water storage and supply, listed plants
and animal, estuarine resources, nutrient adsorption and soils.
9
South Florida Water Management District
Interviewees: Rick Alleman and Joel VanArman, SFWMD. Interviewers: G. Braun and R.
Lewis. Interview date: October 1, 2003.
With both interviewees highly knowledgeable about both the MFL process and
Biscayne Bay, this interview focused on a higher level of detail than most interviews. The
interviewees answered a variety of questions that were primarily centered on the internal
draft “Analysis of Beneficial Surface Freshwater Flows into Biscayne Bay” document that
was developed by the District in January 2003 to document that existing flows
(notwithstanding any water quality parameters) were not causing adverse impacts on the Bay.
Regarding the boundaries for potential sub-regions, R. Alleman described that the six subregions described in the Beneficial Flows… document correspond to the boundaries included
in CERP, and that the sub-divisions in the south portion of the Bay are based on the
presence/absence of varying levels of overland flow. To gain increased knowledge of
northerly portions of the Bay, it was agreed that we should obtain and review a copy of the
Mgmt. Plan for Oleta River State Park. Although freshwater flows into northern portions of
the Bay may be smaller than inflows in the south, the smaller size of the receiving body may
result in the discharges having an equal or greater relative impact. Reviewing the plan might
also help in determining if there is any basis for the speculation that there may be some biota
(e.g., mullet) that are found primarily in the northern parts of the Bay.
Analysis of inflows is complicated by the fact that some of the automatic control
structures open even when there is no rain, as a result of head pressure from higher inland
water tables. Regarding other flows into the Bay, it was noted that there are a varie ty of nonSFWMD related discharges (e.g., storm sewers, injections wells and stormwater
retention/detention systems…) and the quality of these waters may be having adverse
impacts on the Bay, but that there is no comprehensive water budget for the bay and that the
project teams is not to include or address these inflows in the technical review process.
SFWMD and Corps are addressing some of these issues in the Biscayne Aquifer MFL and
Biscayne Bay Hydrodynamic model, respectively.
Regarding indicators: it was noted that although pink shrimp may appear to be an
appropriate species, their life cycle, which involves annual recruitment from the Tortugas
area, may result in easily mis-construed determinations of when significant harm is reached.
J. Ault’s work re modeling of pink shrimp populations may be of interest, but a small sample
size of predators (i.e., seatrout) in the model may present challenges. J. VanArman queried if
a perceived reduction in the abundance of short-spine sea urchins had been noted by any of
the interviewees; this species had not been mentioned. Grass shrimp (Genus and species not
known at the time) may be a better indicator than pink shrimp due to their dependence on
lower salinity water. The work by D. Deis (PBSJ) regarding development a performance
measure for Syringodium in Biscayne Bay should be sought and reviewed.
Regarding the philosophical perspective of the MFL rule being designed to protect
existing resources v. environmentally healthy communities, the interviewees advise that
SFWMD legal counsel has determined that the MFL should be based on existing resources,
and that, in the case of Biscayne Bay, CERP is the recovery plan that will address the fact
that the existing condition is degraded. Other WMDs may have chosen to incorporate
ecosystem recovery plans into their MFL rule, but as close as SFWMD has gotten to this is
the highly-controversial rule for the Loxahatchee River.
10
Southwest Florida Water Management District
Interviewee: Sid Flannery, Senior Scientist. Interviewer: R. Lewis. Interview date:
September 29, 2003.
Sid asked about what was going on as he was not at all familiar with the MFL process
within the SFWMD. He has a lot of experience with MFLs for Tampa Bay and Charlotte
Harbor, as he is considered the Florida West Coast expert (opinion of the interviewer) on
MFLs.
After explaining the issues, and the highly modified nature of Biscayne Bay, he noted
that few of the efforts he has underway are similar. The basic approach of SWFWMD has
been to look at what percentage of the low flow water could be safely removed for
consumptive use without causing significant harm. Several groups of scientists (including
panels in which the interviewer was a participant) have examined the issue over the last 20
years. The conclusion has been that cumulative removals, including all current CUPs, should
not exceed 10% of the 10 year average low flow, with particular consideration given to a
reduction of that percentage during drought years if the flows fall below tha t average (both
the estuary and the consumptive users share the load).
We discussed in some detail the role of “recovery plans” in establishing MFLs. The
Lower Hillsborough River is currently in a situation similar to some of the canals into
Biscayne Bay in that it has a dam on it, holding water for conversion to drinking water for
the City of Tampa. Since 1972, there have been six years during which the number of zero
flow days over the dam exceeded 200. In high rainfall years, large quantities of water are
released into a relatively small area below the dam. These pulses have been controversial. A
work plan has been prepared to test minimum flows of 10, 20 and 30 cfs through the dam to
determine which of these values will be proposed for the MFL for the river. Documentation
on this was provided.
His work (published in the special issue of Estuaries in 2002 which is included in the
project team’s report for Task 2) has documented the use of the Little Manatee River by early
juvenile snook and other fish and shellfish of commercial and recreational importance. He is
focusing now on the reason for this and preliminary evidence indicates that phytoplankton
enriched zones are produced in particular reaches of estuarine rivers which subsequently may
produce greater production to feed early juvenile fish and shellfish. He suggested that
Chlorophyll a might me an indicator of this zone, and that it might be used as a monitoring
tool in Biscayne Bay.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Interviewee: Patrick Pitts, USFWS. Interviewer: G. Braun. Interview date: Sep. 11, 2003.
Mr. Pitts is not particularly knowledgeable about MFL process, but did attend one
meeting on the subject approximately one year ago. He is involved in a variety of Biscayne
Bay projects, primarily CERP. He suggests that restoring water quality regimes (i.e.,
volumes, timing, quality [salinity & other parameters]) to re-establish sustainable population