Our Florida ReefsJoint Community Working Group Meeting

November 18, 2015Fern Forest Nature Center, Coconut Creek, FL

Staff: Ann Weaver, Heidi Stiller, Joanna Walzack, Francisco Pagan, Meghan Balling, Ana Zangroniz, Lauren Waters, Karen Bohnsack, Kelly Egan, Daron Willison, Dan Kraver, Brian Walker, Amanda Costaregni

Attendees: Alex Sommers, Angela Smith, Dan Clark, Stephanie Clark, Howard Lustgarten, Jane Fawcett, Jeff Torode, Jennifer Peterson, Jim Bohnsack, Jim Mathie, Ken Banks, Melodee Smith, Nick Morrell, Scott Scheckman, Sara Thanner, Andrea Graves, April Price, Jena McNeal, Dana Wusinich-Mendez, Greg Braun, Irene Arpayoglou, Jeff Beal, Kathy Fitzpatrick, Mike Brescher, Mitch Comiskey, Nikole Ordway, Tom Warnke, Vincent Encomio, Jim Moir, Jessica Garland, Keith Laakkone, Kurtis Gregg, Christie Barrett, Brian Strader, Lauri Maclaughlin, Drew Martin

ACTION ITEMS AND GROUP DECISIONS WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED IN YELLOW.

Introduction:

Heidi S: Begin by going over the agenda for today: we will go through recent events, we will review our expectations for community meetings, how we want them to work, how we want to gain feedback from community, we will discuss a boundary for the entire OFR area, we will look at the rankings from RMA ballots, we will look at names for areas in N-146 and S-2, we will look at the objective and the MPA tools selected at the last meeting for N-146, Public comment, then we will discuss more in depth about community meetings, and review the final steps of the OFR process. For public comment please sign in on the form in the back and we will leave 3 minutes for each person. First do we approve the October meeting minutes? Unanimous approval. At the last meeting the second day we did not technically have a quorum so are we comfortable accepting work from then?

Alex S: I thought that was one meeting instead of two so if we had quorum one day we had it for both.

Tom W: Were there votes taken during that meeting where we needed a quorum? Nick M: Isn’t there a rule that if nobody challenges the lack of quorum during the meeting that it’s

taken as being quorum. And nobody challenged it, so it goes forward as a legal meeting. I don’t think we can challenge it retrospectively.

Heidi S: I think I’m hearing that everyone is comfortable accepting the work from last meeting. Unanimous approval. Now we will introduce new staff, Dan Kraver.

Dan K: Hello everyone, I am taking over for Karen and excited to learn the process.

Current & Upcoming Events:

Dan C: Air show is back and I hope we are looking at the anchoring problem as it happens every year. It is always a problem and id hope that FWC and DEP are doing something about it. We need to get the word out soon and get it out before the show starts. There’s also been a lot to do with parrotfish, the areas I go to I’m seeing them gone, it is illegal to spear parrotfish and here is an advertisement from the paper where you can buy parrotfish, snapper, and hogfish. Any time there is a need there’s people who will capitalize on that. Something for FWC to put on their list before we don’t have any more. I have been speaking with people for how to get a spotlight on this process, to get Our Florida Reefs in the light. My question is what are we doing about disease, how are the surveys going etc. I presume the epidemic is still going on and will probably get worse before it gets better. As OFR comes out, please don’t come to me and tell me that I portrayed you in a bad light, I am not after anyone I am just trying to shed light on the process.

Karen B: The Florida Reef Resilience Program’s disturbance response monitoring program conducts surveys between August and October from Dry Tortugas to Martin County. Released November, then there was a steering committee meeting November 6 to take a look at the results which were: bleaching – considered a moderate to severe year, less than last year looking at the entire reef tract. There were pockets in the upper keys that were very bad. The disease – recent mortality figures showed in Broward-Miami region, were doubled from the previous ten years. We cannot definitively say this was due to disease, but it is a reasonable conclusion. SECREMP and CREMP sites in lower keys have been trying to sample sites in lower keys on set transects to compare disease, and filling gaps where possible. We are working on a press release and I am happy to share this report with the group if we are interested. And the data is all available to the public, with a regionally defined scale if desired.

Angela S: Dows the doubled mortality include mortality from bleaching? Karen B: They cannot determine the cause of death when the coral is observed dead – but it could

partially be from the bleaching event and made worse by disease areas. Areas with bleaching and no disease did not show the same double mortality. We were starting to get heavy disease reports in the Broward Miami region, these results did show a deviation from previous years.

Dan C: Has anyone looked at dredging impacts? Karen B: We haven’t done this analysis yet but we would need to find funding for this type of

monitoring. Mike B: A year and a half ago we discovered Captain Jim’s in Miami selling parrotfish, looked into it

and saw it was mostly bought by Haitian populations. Dan C: The fact that they are selling parrotfish for more than snapper and hogfish shows that it is an

issue. Sarah T: Did they look at density at all? Maybe the difference in density before and after disease? Karen B: To my knowledge they haven’t looked at density yet, but the data is there so it just is

whoever has the time and funding to look at this. Jenny P: Is the data publicly available? Karen B: Yes, all years of data online on FRRP.org Alex S: Jennifer Gerardo last month presented to city of Hollywood commissioners on the topic of

sea rise. It was said in a way that “the sky was falling”. It triggered a lot of public interest. Hollywood

coastal areas have started to look at sea rise, specifically seawalls. Every night some areas along this coast are flooded. The question has come up, what do we do with mangrove areas, do we put seawalls there? I suggest that before people forget completely about reefs that some report come from this group. Outlining the problems we grapple with. Rather than delay reports I think it would be politically advantageous to get this going ASAP. The sea rise stats are one inch to three feet by 2060.

Dan C: There have also been articles from people in Miami putting in huge pumps to mitigate sea rise issue. This could be the demise of the bay because the groundwater comes with pollution. This should be on our radar.

Sarah T: Correction- it is not groundwater, but surface water, whatever floods the roads, and yes it will be pumped right out to the bay.

Jane F: I’ve been asked by pelican newspaper to cover the OFR process as we go into the community meetings. I plan to do that, but wanted to ask if anyone sees an issue with that about a possible conflict of interest?

Dan C: No, that is what we are supposed to do, there is no conflict of interest. Mike B: We built new county marinas and seawalls around docks. We forecast it 8-12 inches higher

than predicted. Some places up to 3 feet height. Broward County refused a permit to raise the seawall in response. Tides are coming over the seawalls.

Community Meetings:

Ann W: We will review the information today that you want to share at these meetings. DEP staff has information on what we are thinking about doing, we will present that and talk about how you feel about these ideas.

Meghan B: There is venue, date and time information on the board. These will be run in a similar way as the June 2013 meetings, but instead of trying to recruit CWG members, we are just trying to get the communities’ feedback.

Tom W: I would just like to point out a possible typo – “Amara Shriner’s temple”. I have never heard them refer to it as “shriners” I think it is called Amara Shrine.

Meghan B: Goals for the community meetings – trying to avoid what happened in the planning for Biscayne National Park and FKNMS. We want people to know what is coming in terms of these recommendations. We are looking for feedback in writing from the community on these. We have tried to stick to places that are closest to the water and easiest to get people to them.

Dan C: There is the A. palmata pictured on the card? Ana Z: That is a picture I took last week just off the pompano ledge. Dan C: At these community meetings I would encourage everyone to not use acronyms because the

public cannot understand them at all. Howard L: Where are these outreach cards going? Can we have a PDF of these so that I can hand

them out? Meghan B: We were hoping to have them professionally printed by today but we couldn’t because

of venue issues. However, we will have them printed professionally soon and get them to you. We can also send you the PDF version to you all so that you can email them to your communities. At the meetings it is really important that the community sees this as a product of the CWG members, not from us. We are hoping to have you guys on board with us facilitating. If the public has questions on the RMAs we would prefer that you be the ones to answer those. If we can get everyone to sign up

for one meeting that would be amazing, but if you can do more please. There will also be a box there where you can check if you are interested in playing a hosting role. We will be condensing these RMAs into 2 pagers which will be posted very soon. We have been working on targeted fish and dive outreach, we are still targeting minimum 1 fish and 1 dive club per county. And we are hoping that you will work to spread the word as well. Daron has been working with our website designer to create a tool to receive feedback for these RMAs at community meetings. The PPT had a conversation recently about “misinformation” documents. If you are hearing anyone around you speaking about things that are just wrong, please let us know so that we can field those questions.

Greg B: What is the current effort to spread the word in publications about OFR and the meeting? Meghan B: We do have these flyers in magazines, our publications continue to run and the PSAs will

be ongoing until June 2016. Joanna W: The last time we did community meetings we did publish in the Sun Sentinel and a few

other publications. We found this wasn’t the best help but we are doing all we can. Radio PSAs will be used if you all think that is a good option. But we do have limited resources so we have to be careful not to spread too thin.

Dan C: Maybe Jeff can go on fisher radio station. Jeff T: Steve Waters, or Eric Brandon with the Weekly Fishermen every Saturday morning- listened

by the most fishermen. Joanna W: If you do have those avenues, please provide us with the contact and we will get those

out. Ann W: We will capture these ideas so that we can follow up on them. Kathy F: I would encourage everyone to show up for public comment at meetings right before the

community meetings because they are a big audience and they are televised. Tom W: I would like to discuss this right now while we are all in the room because this is the most

important part of the process, actually getting it out. The monthly editorial in the Florida Sportsman written by Karl Wickstrom might be the most important thumbs up and thumbs down we get. He had a big effect in the keys and if he wanted to hurt the process he could. Is that contact established?

Jim M: Kathy F., Vincent E., Tom W., and I can contact Karl Wickstrom. Dan C: One of the best tools we have in the fishing community is that we can give them the

information about the double mortality. This group should be putting that info out to let fishermen know that this is not about taking their fishing rights.

Tom W: We need a targeted approach in print and radio (weekly fishermen on Saturday morning) Jim M: I will go on the radio – scuba radio, weekly fishermen April P: Did we miss the monthly Florida Sportsman? Jim B: Seafood festivals are also probably a good place for this. Vincent E: I will be at the seafood festival this weekend and can try to spread the word Dan C: There are also a number of list-serve news outlets online – marine news, scuba board. Jeff T: The problem with scuba radio is that it is not syndicated in Florida. I will get in contact with

Guy Harvey’s social media campaign. Howard L: Putting these cards into west marine, bass pro, scuba shops etc. I would be willing to split

up a lot of these cards and try to get them out in these stores. Jim B: NPR local tropical current Irene A: NPR also has a community calendar where you can advertise things like this

Tom W: I will contact them. I can get a discount on that add Dana WM: We may be able to get Kevin Senecal of Divers Direct because he is in FOFR. Dan C: Can we get a bigger version of this flyer for fuel documents maybe? Posters? April: if there is a news release I would like to know so I can help distribute it through my media

sources. Ann W: So you want the press releases sent to all CWG members April P: I think the title on the flyer is too vague. Tom W: The concept is that we want them to be a part of the process. Jim B: “Help conserve Our Florida Reefs” Kathy F: “Help shape the management of our reefs” Dan C: The word “management” needs to be in there because it will get people to pay attention. Ann W: Recommendations on the comment cards? Do we have contacts at a marketing firm? Jane F: Rebecca Johnson. Tom W: Management decision process I think is better than just management. Howard L: I think we need to make it sound a lot more urgent – eg “be a part of the survival of our

Florida reefs. Ann W: It is really hard for 30 people to agree on this type of thing. Can we let Rebecca work on this

and get back to us with suggestions? Andrea G: Process question: we will ask people to fill out one of these for each of the RMAs? Meghan B: We realize that most people will not be interested in commenting on all of the RMAs, we

will ask them the comment on the ones they are most interested in, as many or as few as they would like.

Andrea G: There are so many RMAs and there’s a lot of information. Karen B: One thing we considered with the PPT was a broad overview of the types of focus areas.

This will help people find exactly where they want to look. Jeff T: I would suggest that we move question 1 to 3 because it is a more logical flow. Jena M: There needs to be lines and more space on 1 Tom W: 1a – do you support. 3- “improve your life or livelihood” Angela S: The whole form is looking at how this applies to you, but it doesn’t really look at the bigger

picture. Nick M: I don’t want question 1 moved down or anywhere else.

o Dana WM: I second that. Kathy F: Some of these comment sections seem too small. If you are going to ask people to respond

in free form, you need to give them space to respond. Jim B: If you get rid of 1 B Jeff T: The important questions are – 1) Does this RMA improve the reefs, 2) Does it affect your life,

3) If you could improve it how would you do it? Jena M: If you can get people to agree to the 2nd and 3rd question then it would be really hard to say

you don’t support it, so I think the support question should be at the bottom. Ann W: All who want to keep the order of the questions as it is? (5) it will be reversed, question 1

moved to the bottom Jim B: People might come to these meetings and circle boxes just to be vindictive. Melodee S: I like the reordering. But I think the “why” is as important as “why not”. Alex D: Most semantic questionnaires like this, the “strongly agree – disagrees” go the other way.

Meghan B: We talked about this, we put the “agree” first because someone pointed out that people may be more inclined to check the box they saw first.

Ann W: We will have Chris Ellis, a social scientist at NOAA check this out. Irene A: I suggest we don’t use the term “stakeholder group at the beginning” Jim M: We may need to come up with a different comment form for the spatial RMAs. Heidi S: We will be talking about that after lunch. Scott S: Is it possible to collect more personal information on the forms (maybe name and email)

and a checkbox for if they want more information? Dan C: I agree with Scott and also the top of the comment card page we should maybe have the

RMA title not just the number so that they know what they are commenting on. Daron W: Online the RMA number will be prepopulated into the comment card and in hard copies

they will have to write the number because we will be printing a standard card to fill out, so as to not waste materials.

Angela S: We do need the emails and names and such because it is essentially a vote and if it is all fishermen than the results may be slanted.

Ann W: Reminder- we encourage you all to sign up for community meetings right now.

OFR Region Boundary:

Ann W: Last meeting we discussed creating a region wide boundary, Brian will go over the proposed areas.

Brain W: The SEFCRI boundary as we discussed before doesn’t include all the resources in the region. The conversation was that we needed to expand this boundary to get a better picture of the area we are working on. If we look at the spatial layout of all the areas for N-146 you can see some of them are outside the boundary. We also had a lot of stuff in the intercostal and LBSP etc. one idea was to have an area that was SEFCRI boundary expanded but maintain the offshore focus except for the spots near Peanut Island Palm Beach County. Another option was to include a broader area which would include all the inlet contributing areas there.

Tom W: I thought we decided to not go west of Peanut Island. I’m sure some people at community meetings will ask about watershed however.

Dana WM: I like showing the inlet contributing area because a lot of the pollution is coming from those.

Jenny P: Just to play devil’s advocate- because many of our RMAs deal with outreach I think an option would be to include county boundaries and the watershed areas.

Kathy F: One problem with inlet contributing areas is that we have to explain what that means, maybe best in this case to go with counties.

Jeff B: What are we trying to define? Ann W: The area that our management actions will impact. Stephanie C: You do have pollution coming from the whole county area so I would include that. Ann W: 3 options – 1) counties included –white box 2) inlet contributing –yellow box 3) extended

SEFCRI boundary –green box Dana WM: Another option is using all 3 and specifying per RMA which area it applies to. Irene A: People will look at line in Martin County and ask about water coming from Okeechobee. Kathy F: I would have a gut reaction seeing all the land outlined here if I thought we were just

discussing the reefs.

Jane F: I want to agree with Dana to have a 4th option where all are used. Jim M: I think it’s important to show the area of influence and control. Maybe start at the salinity

control structure Kurtis G: The estuary starts at the salinity control structures and moves east. Jim M: Is there a way to draw a line at the salinity control structures to the east. A lot of the area in

the yellow line is watershed. If we could shrink it just as far west as the salinity control structures. Tom W: I think it’s really important to delineate between groundwater watershed, and surface

water watershed. 2-3 magnitudes more water flows underground to the reefs than through the inlet.

Jenny P: I think it’s important to keep the map simple for the public and it might be best to get back to the map that shows the public what coral reefs will be influenced by our RMAs. Really the outcome is in the green box (outlining just the reefs), and if we focus on that box than it might be better to communicate and easier to get through.

Andrea G: I think the green box is the focal area but I don’t see why in the community meetings that we couldn’t show the green box to show where the watershed is and that some management actions do come into play there. So a 3 tiered overlay for the presentations but put the focus on the reefs.

Irene A: In the public groups if you give them too much info, you will lose them. So I second Jenny. Dan C: Not many of our RMAs deal with runoff and watershed. I think you will get pushback from

western politicians that we will be in encroaching on their territory. Ann W: Okay back to 5 options 1) all counties + SEFCRI 2) contributing inlets + SEFCRI 3) salinity

control structures (smaller than yellow box) 4) all 3 tier overlay 5) RMA 146 areas (green box) Dana WM: I want to clarify what we are discussing Ann W: Last meeting you said we needed a box to define a management area for OFR. Kathy F: Question – FKNMS is all in the water right? Stephanie C: We end at key Biscayne? And the green box is still the SEFCRI area with Peanut Island

added. Jeff T: We could just call the green box the focus area and the yellow box would be the contributing

watershed. Ann W: If you don’t like the green box as our defining area stand up (4 people) who votes for #5- the

green box – (21 people) – Green box (extended SEFCRI region will be defined as OFR’s area of focus) Dan C: We still need to somehow have language in there for the watershed. Ann W: Yes, noted. What is the messaging that needs to be included? Dana WM: The important things to say is that this is the area of focus but that there are a lot of

actions that go on outside the reef area and that impact this focus area, and these are important to highlight.

Mike B: The watersheds are killing our reefs, and if we don’t control the watershed we cannot protect the reefs. What we do on the watershed effects all the lives of all the people in this area.

Ann W: We all agree with you and that is addressed in the RMAs. Kurtis G: We will give this info at the LBSP focus area as greater information, but we don’t want to

distract people with this info on the other RMAs that aren’t dealing with watershed.

RMA Prioritization Results:

Karen B: Originally you all individually scored the remaining 68 RMAs based on 3 criteria (benefits, feasibility, and cost). We got a total of 28 ballots turned in which is good. We entered this data into a spreadsheet to aggregate it. By converting each criteria into a number we were able to come with an aggregate score for all RMAs and all criteria. We had to normalize the data because not everyone filled out every RMA. We had to reassign them into each category. Example: benefits – we split them into roughly equal categories, into quartiles for relative benefits. We had to do this because we need to plug these qualitative scores back into the matrix once everything is aggregated. I want to point out that we switched the naming of these from “poor - very good” to “priority 1, 2, 3, & 4”. We didn’t want to misrepresent the process by naming anything “poor”, because this is just relative that it doesn’t mean they are bad. There is a different matrix for each benefit category. We did this for all relative benefit categories, the reason we split this like this is that this is really the mission of OFR. As a reminder we will discuss this more in the spring at which point we will have additional info from the community. And we will have an opportunity to move these around to better reflect what we believe is an actual priority. However, we won’t discuss any changes in this initial prioritization today.

Dan C: Are these going to be a part of the community meetings and if so, is there going to be a better way to show this information? Because this is really confusing.

Karen B: No, these won’t be used at the community meetings because yes it is confusing and also you all haven’t gotten a chance to discuss them yet.

Heidi S: This has been hard for us too. The whole reason we did this was to start to move through how we will want to prioritize these as a group. This is just a way to wrap our heads around how we will go about prioritizing these.

Karen B: RMAs can be ranked priority 1 for two reasons: it either has really high benefits, or maybe not the highest relative benefits but is “low hanging fruit” in terms of cost and feasibility.

Irene A: Can we get a list of the RMAs with the actual title. So that we can see what these numbers are referring to?

Karen B: Yes, we can go ahead and make that on the back end and email it out. Melodee S: Thank you for creating this, I’ve been waiting for these results and I’m very excited to

see this happening. Alex S: I see this as expert opinion and I think it shouldn’t be presented to the community at this

point. But it would be interesting for them to also rank these RMAs. If we did that we would have a really interesting study if there was a difference between how we filled these out and how they did.

Karen B: We will make a note of that and present it to the PPT. Dan C: That would be interesting, the question would be how you get that on this RMA comment

card. Jenny P: I second that. Also, an idea for a question on the comment card “considering the benefits,

cost, and feasibility, how do you think this RMA would rank in terms of priority” Greg B: I agree with the concept of getting feedback from people in the community but I don’t think

that is realistic to expect that of the people. Jeff T: I agree with Gregg- and you will kind of know where the priorities lie based on how many

comments you get on each RMA. Dana WM: I worry about asking them about their priorities, because this is relative. I don’t know if

anyone would actually go back and look at the prioritization worksheets etc. we had a lot of guidance by what we mean by all these criteria, and the public would be making a mostly uniformed

decision. I know we need to get their opinion on the perceived benefits but I don’t think we should ask them to prioritize.

Scott S: I agree with Dana- maybe a follow-up question if they disagree with the ranking that they can then comment. It is important to remember that there can be political sways.

Howard L: At these community meetings, in what format will the public be getting this information from our RMA prioritizations?

Heidi: They will not be getting any information about these RMA Prioritizations because you all haven’t had a chance to discuss them yet.

RMA Document Format:

Heidi S: We do want your ideas for process designs for these community meetings: what we were thinking so far was to start out with an introduction of the process etc. then divide and conquer with the differing RMA focus group areas.

Kelly E: Some of the tier 1 & 2 docs are ~18 pages long. They have now been cleaned up and posted on the OFR site for your review. This we would ask you to do before December 18 th. I’ve handed out a sample of what the 2 page documents would look like. Some of them go up to 4 pages.

Jane F: I think it’s clear you put a lot of work to make these concise – maybe put the goals and objectives from SEFCRI guide at the end.

Kathy F: They need to be a half a page. Dana WM: It is important to have these because the 18 page things will never be looked at by

anyone ever again. But if these are for people at community meetings to get info – they need to be 1 page or half page.

Kelly E: These 2 pagers are for the final report. Alex S: I think we are underestimating the amount that people will want to see and read the fine

print. Lots of people are retired and don’t have much to do. Kathy F: This is an excellent compilation of everything we did and it has to be available for people to

see, but there needs to also be a shortened format for the community meetings. Dan C: Jeff T always says – give me the reader’s digest version – definitely copies of the 2 pagers

should be available but yes half-1 pagers are necessary for those who want it. Jeff T: It has been my experience that people come in and watch the presentation, only go to the

focus areas they want. You need to be concise as possible or they will move on. Jenny P: I agree we need to move the objectives further down. This 2 pager is hugely important but

yes half pagers are very important too. Having a one page list of the titles could be important too. Jim B: I second the half pages, put details up on the websites, sites on every page. These sheets

should include: the problem, the objective, the benefits, and one-line estimated cost. Tom W: Having the small summary would be great, maybe in larger print so that they can see these.

We should video tape the meeting and put it up online. Also someone giving a succinct video summary of each of our RMAs.

Howard L: If possible we should attempt to contact a marketing person to help create drafts of these RMA one pagers.

Dan C: I presume we will have the RMAs on the wall behind each of the kiosks. Make everything more transparent.

Kathy F: Map of the room might be good because I’m short and can’t see what is on the walls. Document holders if possible

Sarah T: Maybe add links or QR codes for each RMA people could find all the info on their phones or at home

Kelly E: We will start making these shorter versions at a later date and you will all have a chance to check these out.

Greg B: I’m sure that you’ve done a great job condensing but inevitably things will be lost. Can we keep all this info in an appendix?

Kelly E: Yes, nothing is lost it will all be available online in the fullest form.

Mooring Buoy Area Names:

1. St. Lucie reef/Peck Lakeo Irene A: Everyone knows this as Pecks Lake.o Mitch C: The intercostal is also called Pecks Lake so maybe both names.o April P: Technically the name is Peck Lake (singular).

2. Breakers/Cable crossing o Jena M: Palm Beach County calls the buoys in this area breakers reef.o Jeff T: This is cable crossing. My concern is that boaters and divers will think that you’re

talking about the third reef. o Brian W: The dive book calls this cable crossing.

4. Suzanne’s Ledge North Extensiono Don V: Boaters will struggle with arbitrary names like Suzanne’s ledge, maybe use street

names that line up with buoy areas. 5. Birch 6. Bahia Mar7. John U Lloyd State Park8. Hollywood9. Newport10. North shore park

RMA N-146 Area Names:

1. St. Lucie state park to Bathtub reefo Irene A: I would switch the order.o Jim M: I would keep it south to north.

2. Central St. Lucie Inlet State Park3. South St. Lucie Inlet State Park4. LORAN Tower Ledges5. Offshore Martin Deep Ridge6. Blowing Rocks Preserve7. Jupiter8. Juno Pier

o Jim M: I think this box was supposed to go all the way to the shore.9. MacArthur State Park10. Blue Heron Bridge/Phil Foster

o Nikole O: The park is called Phil Foster maybe we should include that.o Tom W: It should be bridges because there are two bridges

o Nikole O and Jeff T: I’ve never heard it called bridges. We should keep it singular. 11. Lake Worth Inlet S. of Peanut Island12. Breakers Shallow13. Mar A Lago / Bath & Tennis13-2. Breakers Flower Garden14-2. Lake Worth to Manalapan15. Gulf Stream Reef16. Finks/Delray 16-2. Castor Wreck18. Finks Grouper Hole19. Copenhagen Preserve22. Ft. Lauderdale Sunrise Blvd to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea24. John U Lloyd26. County Line28. Key Biscayne

N-146 Area Review: -Brian driving the map

Heidi S: Thank you for going through those and sharing your local knowledge, now we will go through holistically and talk about some boxes that we need to go over.

10) Blue Heron Bridge/Phil Foster:

Greg B: The sandbar gets so much use I’m in favor of using the small yellow (redrawn) box to avoid opposition.

Kurtis G: I suggest making it go all the way to shore on the eastern edge. Tim W: Maybe all the way to the boat ramps. Jeff T: Will there be a problem because it incorporates the channel? Angela S: The channel could be in a no-take zone. Heidi S: Is everyone okay with this box? Unanimous yes.

11) Lake Worth Inlet S. of Peanut Island

Dana WM: This was drawn to protect seagrass right? Tom W: I proposed this because of the special resilient seagrass there because of the tidal flow.

The north end needs to be extended, but the south end could be brought smaller. But I don’t know the exact extent of the seagrass. The port area is not included on purpose.

Greg B: There is good seagrass on the south side of that area. Tom W: Now that we can see the seagrass layer on the map, I propose moving the area down to

include that part as well. Greg B: Will we get opposition from the property owners on the east side if it goes up against

their docks? Jenny P: Is there any interest in protecting the seagrass in the area on the south end of Peanut

Island. Heidi S: So we will include somehow the seagrass by creating another small box there to add on. Tom W: I recommend just putting the green box, the channel expansion will take out that

material anyways. Greg B: I think we will get opposition if we have this area crossing the channel

Dana WM: I think whatever we make today is not set in stone and we are running out of time on the agenda.

*Brian later adjusted this box to avoid the channel

8) Juno Pier:

Jim M: This was created to protect from LBSP, so making it to the shoreline is important. Irene A: Is there any reason why we wouldn’t be able to bring it to shore? If not let’s do it. Heidi S: Any objections to this going to shoreline? None- it goes to shoreline

Mike B: For the southernmost box (Key Biscayne) did we discuss the petrified reef by bear conch? It is the only petrified reef in our area so I’m wondering why it hasn’t been identified yet.

N-146 Objectives:

Heidi S: We can continue to talk about this in the spring but we do need to keep moving. Brian will show us a holistic view of the objectives chosen in N-146.

Jeff B: What was the criteria for calling these unique areas? Angela S: All of the N-146 areas were chosen because they are unique, so what are these 3

areas? Heidi S: Maybe we will skip this because we don’t have the time and it seems like it might not be

the best way to get the information across. Do we want to look at least at the areas specified for no-take?

Brian W: The point here is that if we went by the voting for objective 6 for example, all the areas that are up here would be presented as no take for the public meetings. Since we have only looked at them individually, we thought it would help to look at them as a whole and see if it still makes sense to everyone.

Lauren W: Last time we chose the top 3 objectives for each area, then we chose the tools that we figured would be the best way to achieve those objectives. The handout shows the results of the objectives and management tools votes. First we are going to discuss broad strokes how we are going to approach presenting this to the community. First there will be an overview presentation about the OFR process. Once the main presentation is complete the group will be splitting into kiosks by focus area. We need to make sure that when we are communicating this that these N-146 areas are at this time just areas of interest, areas that are special in some way. We need to be sure that we don’t present this as an implementable action plan of any sort. We want to then ask the community to respond to these ideas. If we are giving the presentation in one county, we will focus mainly on the information for that county, but have all the counties information available. To create these areas, you guys first identified objectives reef-wide, and then you identified areas that would be important for the realization of those objectives.

Public Comment:

Drew Martin: Thank you for all your work on this. I am concerned about dredging projects and runoff. Beach projects are not monitored well resulting in turbidity. It is the same problem with storm runoff, a lot of cities I don’t think are meeting their storm runoff requirements. I was telling

Lake Worth that they have an outlet to the ocean and if they have too much rain that it just goes straight out. I am really concerned about plastic pollution and I would like to see more compostable silverware etc. There is no excuse today to be using Styrofoam. Plastic has taken the place of phytoplankton in the ocean. I would like to see storm water bodies that reduce pollution and reduce plastic into the gutters. Landscaping companies think the gutter is the garbage. I think there needs to be information. Blowing grass clipping etc. into the gutter is nutrient pollution. I support no take, I think these are important areas.

Dan Clark: We shot some video out at the Hollywood outfall. There is a documentary called “Racing Extinct” on December 2nd at 9 pm will be on discovery channel. The outfall is really visual it’s like toxic green Kool-Aid coming out. I did interviews with them and we will see if any of it ends up on the news but we will see. People are talking to me asking what we need to get this through. We could really use a good fish kill, a bunch of dead stinky fish are really visible. It’s too bad dead corals don’t float. People who are saying we don’t need more management are obviously not realizing how bad of shape the reef is. This is a dire situation absolutely. I don’t need to do doom and gloom but we do have a real problem and we need to embrace the latest numbers and pass it along to the fishermen and stakeholders before the meeting. I think it would defuse the fishermen if they knew what we were trying to do saving this habitat.

Scott S: Friends of Our Florida Reefs- for anyone who is new, there is a friends group a CSO. Hope you all enjoyed the food today donated by FOFR. Membership is open now check it out online. We will have benefits available in 2016 to members. Happy to see that the CSO was voted a #1 priority on our RMA Prioritization lists. If you want more info or join the board come and talk with me. Please help spread the word.

Community Meetings N-146:

Heidi S: Now we will discuss N-146. At the community meetings at the place-based kiosk you will see info for whichever county you are in. There will also be the rest of the counties available. Each area will be shown on a map.

Dan C: I think it is important that we use specific language to imply that these are just proposed from our group of informed people. But that we want their input.

Jenny P: I agree with Dan. We want to make sure to emphasize that the alternative areas are a suite of options.

Brian W: In the 20-30% no take area network – all the boxes combines come out to 22% of the reef area.

Dana WM: Context is important. Some people will hear the title of N-146 and make assumptions about what that means. We should explain how we chose the areas by picking objectives then picking areas to meet those objectives. Without getting too far into the weeds with process. Also there are negative connotation with the word “boxes” or hard lines in general. Is there another way we could present this?

Andrea G: We started with the MPA idea because it has worked elsewhere in the world. This came from a global thing that we worked on not just us coming up with this out of nowhere. And I agree with Dana maybe even making this a dotted line instead of a hard line.

Ken B: I hope we will get together for these events for those of us volunteering. Maybe come up with FAQs because we are going to get slaughtered on the no take and we need to come up with approaches for dealing with this.

Jim B: Dotted lines don’t work. We need something more concrete than this. Only 8 of the MPA areas were voted for marine reserves. With these 8 we would be way below the 20-30% mark.

Brian W: We did not look at by tool, we looked at it by objective. Jim B: People want to know what the zones are. Going to a meeting without that is useless. Greg B: Hopefully when the presentation is made, it will include the scientific basis ad rationale for

everything we have gone through until this point. The shape of the boxes has been constrained by the program into square polygons, I think it would be better to draw the areas based on the underlying mapping units for habitat etc. Also, I agree with Dan that we need to sue the results of Karen’s reef resilience study to our benefit and be prepared to show where that mortality has been found within these proposed areas.

Dan C: My guess is that when we get to the community meetings people will assume that we are trying to manage all of the reef. Which is true, but we are only suggesting marine reserves for certain parts of the reef. We need to be consistent with that terminology. What are our priorities in this 2 hour meeting?

Joanna W: I wholeheartedly agree with Dan. This is what we mentioned before about a misinformation sheet. Every person who walks into these meetings will get a misinformation sheet that explains the definitions of the terminology and common misinformation to address consistently.

Howard L: It seems that the format of the community meetings is still very fluid right now. When you get everything set, I think we need to do like a dress rehearsal of the meeting so that we understand what we need to do there. Another thing with the zones, the reefs are diverse and it is important to address the special attention needed for the different types of habitats etc. the boxes only show to me that we have taken a more magnified look at the reef

Jim M: Using the satellite imagery to take the big picture first is important to show that this is really a relatively small area of the reef that we are proposing management on.

Andrea G: Any of these areas that are already under some sort of management, the managers of these areas should be aware of these proposed changes before the meetings. Also what is the next step forward after these meetings?

Heidi S: We will be getting community input January and February, then meeting in March and April to put it all together. Then in May, After the OFR process concludes a new participatory process would be needed to move forward with developing the MPA framework.

Jeff T: The minute these meetings go public, the propaganda machine will go through. The fishing and marine industries are well organized and can crush us. I would suggest having a marine biologist / people from the TAC etc. present who can field questions that we may not be able to answer. I also think it might be useful to bring up a fisherman from the keys as well as a local fisherman to attend and give support.

Tom W: Some of the areas up there are using the title of no take zone- most all of those areas include take and usage among other things. Having something listed as no take upfront will put people off. Maybe call it limited management area or something. Maybe list all the activities that are allowed in this area before the one or two things that aren’t allowed. People will see blowing rocks as no take so people will want to know if they can fish from the beach etc.

Dan C: We need to be on the same page for what we are telling these people. Because at these community meetings we do not want to present untrue information meaning to or not.

Mike B: We came here to save our reefs, and we will have to step on peoples toes along the way. But we are proposing real actions and we cannot make them too soft on them. I think we will be getting a lot more positive support. I believe there are more people for it than against it and we need to be proud of what we have done here and support it.

Dana WM: We have to be clear at this point what we have so far- we developed N-146 calling for this MPA framework and identified objectives for the MPA framework. Then drew boxes that merited special attention. Then, we identified which objectives would be best addressed in that box. Then we made recommendations for tools that might help address those objectives in the boxes.

Brian W: I am now showing objectives for 20-30% no take and tools selected as marine reserves. So there is a conflicting message here because they do not entirely match up.

Dana WM: I don’t think this is conflicting because objective 6 was to protect representative habitat, but no take reserves are useful to address other objectives that may have been identified there.

Kathy F: We are starting to back away from everything that we are doing. I think we are getting squeamish.

Scott S: It seems like we know who will challenge our work. That being the case is there any way to get their support before we go the meetings? Maybe we can nip the misinformation in the bud.

Jeff T: I was on the Coastal Oceans Taskforce with ken and the last meeting we got killed by the fishing industry who had been quiet the entire time. This is why I suggest we find an old-time fisherman who knows what it was really like back when there were fish here.

Angela S: It’s the same as fighting Monsanto if you are trying to fight pesticides. We needed people by our side through the whole process like an old-school fisherman.

Jeff T: I guarantee you that they will try to crush this like they have in the past. Jim B: There are respectable fisherman who weren’t in support of the keys MPA but now are in

support. There is a lot of support also in Biscayne National Park like Bouncer Smith. You are expecting a big onslaught but I think we will have pretty broad support. If we do less than what we have up here than we have wasted our time. If there is any stress in an ecosystem there is always the same answer, reduce fishing pressure only on reef fish.

Sarah T: if we are weak in what we want, it will be easiest to tear it down. We should go in saying that our ultimate goal is to protect 20-30% of the reefs and explain why. If we can be clear with that message I think it will be stronger.

Angela S: I agree with Jim B, can we get these people at these meetings? Dan C: We are mixing language again, we need to protect the entire reef tract and we need special

protection for 20% of the reef. Jim B: I meet with fisheries all the time, they are always changing size limits etc. regulations change

and the next day people are out fishing. These aren’t forever either, we are just saying try this for 5 years, ten years, and if it doesn’t work then do something else.

Jenny P: If we can get old fishermen who can come in and describe their experience over the 50 years or so of shifting baselines.

Dan C: We need a guy like Bouncer Smith, or maybe Tom Twyferd executive director of West Palm Beach fishing club.

Jena M: Tom Twyferd sits on the artificial reef and estuarine enhancement committee with me. He thinks that it would be great to get this info across but we would have to come to them (the fishermen).

Tom W: I second that.

Meghan B: I had a lot of really good conversations with people around the area who are all fisherman. Trying to get everyone in the room, Bouncer Smith, Skip Smith, RJ Boyle, Ray Rosher, Arthur Mariano, Gil Muratori, and Marty Arostegui, Guy Harvey. Said they would be able to write letters but it is hard to get these people to come to our meetings, easier to go to them. At least we have respected names in the fishing industry in support.

Scott S: I will reach out to Guy Harvey Jeff T: Maybe just put a PowerPoint with a picture of the fishermen and an excerpt of what he wrote

in the letter to promote OFR. Jenny P: Those PSA s are more important now than they were at the beginning of the process. We

need to roll those back out.

Community Meetings Continued:

Ann W: We have heard it is really important that these meetings don’t look like they are from us but instead coming from you. Heidi and I are attending 6 meetings each, DEP staff will be attending all 12. We do think it’s important that the scientist and fisherman as discussed are there, as well as you guys. We need some CWG members to host meetings in your area. This would mean standing up and saying their county and their stakeholder group, why they are involved in the process. At the booths, CWG members should be talking about how we made the RMAs etc. Non-hosts at the meetings wouldn’t have to present or anything but you could stand at a focus table and help field questions etc. Maybe the host wouldn’t have to give the whole presentation but they could introduce it and give it off to whoever, possibly DEP staff. We will start with presentation on OFR process, how they can comment, then at focus area booths comment and learn about RMAs.

Angela S: Is the presentation the same throughout or is it specified to who is saying it eg. If Jane is hosting it is from the NGO perspective?

Ann W: I think it would be appropriate for CWG members to explain why they are involved in the process. But the intro presentation will be the same, we want them all to have the same information about the OFR process etc.

Dan C: As far as the public comment – I understand you don’t want people to soapbox. I think at some point we are going to need to let people get up and vent. I wouldn’t use the word divide and conquer as a side note.

Dana WM: They can vent at a kiosk, they don’t need to vent to the whole room. Howard L: There will be 2 more CWG meetings after the community meetings where they can vent

to the whole room for public comment. Jenny P: I think that’s a good idea Howard, and I also think we should reiterate at the meeting that

the public has been invited to all the meetings so far and that all the comments are read by the whole group.

Tom W: If we have enough people there, it might be good to have a co-host at a meeting. Jeff T: We can also offer a ten-fifteen minute Q&A section after the presentation. Jim B: We can have a short video instead of the presentation to ensure that it is standardized. Scott S: If we can’t make it, can we get headshots of CWG members or yearbook there to show that

they are people and who they are representing. Dana WM: I think that people will do the 15 minutes of Q&A and turn it into their soapbox. We have

no obligation to allow the soapbox.

Jane F: There are people who will want to speak in front of everyone, and some won’t but I think we should allow everyone a chance. I want there to be multiple ways to get comments.

Jeff T: Some positive people might get up there too, let’s not forget. Greg B: It might be good to tell people at the beginning that most of their questions can be

answered best at the kiosks, so to hold them there. Daron W: The idea of allowing public comment/soapboxing was brought to the process planning

team before, and one thing to keep in mind is that it will be really hard to bring that info back to the CWG members without it in writing.

Ann W: We will talk with the process planning team about what they think about allowing a 15 minute Q& A at the end of the meeting after the kiosks. We could try to set up a pre-meeting briefing so that you all know how to handle the public, but it will have to be a webinar.

Raffle Winners: Andrea G., Nick M., Jenny P., Sarah T

Meghan B: Present meeting dates for March and April, we are working with the web designer to get the info back from community meetings. We need you to do as much outreach as possible as we lead up to these meetings. We will get the outreach cards to you in multiple formats. We have been working to cleanup RMAs, at the moment this really just means cleaning these up grammatically etc. Final deadline for reviewing 1 pagers January 21.