Subject:
Title
Direction, Re: Methodology to evaluate the benefit of each selected EEL property to the Indian River Lagoon and St. Johns River
End
Fiscal Impact:
$3,000,000 bond issue for initial land acquisition of additional conservation lands
Dept/Office:
Parks and Recreation/Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Program
Requested Action:
Recommendation
Provide direction to staff on whether waterway net positive benefit property analysis should be used to evaluate the benefit to the Indian River Lagoon and St. Johns River for properties proposed for acquisition under the EEL referendum.
End
Summary Explanation and Background:
On February 6, 2024, the Board expressed a preference for a methodology similar to the Save Our Lagoon Program to evaluate how each parcel acquired would directly benefit the Indian River Lagoon and St. Johns River.
To achieve the Board's direction that acquisition criteria include determining the net positive bene?t to the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) and the St. Johns River (SJR) provided by each parcel of land being considered for acquisition, staff recommends adopting the Save Our Lagoon Program criteria, which calculates the net bene?t of each project based on the amount of nitrogen being removed from the IRL.
The EEL Program and the Natural Resources Management Office have identified a process for evaluating the amount of Nitrogen each parcel contributes to the Indian River Lagoon system. This process adds an additional evaluation component to the existing Conservation Value Matrix used by the EEL Selection and Management Committee to assess and prioritize land acquisition efforts. The added component documents the current and future Total Nitrogen (TN) offloaded to the Indian River Lagoon by each parcel in its undeveloped and future developed state according to its current future land use designation.
By using the existing Spatial Watershed Iterative Loading (SWIL) model, developed for the Natural Resources Management D...
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