beautiful; they put oysters bags out there, pull them up, and take the data from the oysters; the
data showed the that the oysters did not do quite as well in the lake; but what they did was they
would find all kinds of fish, crabs, and a sea horse, which was found one year. She noted it is
not there anymore, it is just chocolate milk water, which they believe is because of the muck,
climate change, and other things; the muck is poisonous; she asked how an animal could live
where there should be seagrass; she advised it is a natural, springfed area; she implored the
Board to continue the dredging in the Grand Canal and Lake Shepherd; Berkeley is so
important for the manatees; they want their kids and grandkids to see the beauty of nature; it is
going goodbye; and she asked the Board to please continue this process.
Patricia Barnett commented she lives on Lake Shepherd; her parents bought there in 1983, she
was in her 20s, and lived on that lake; she moved there permanently in 2005; it was a
difference, the changes after being away for a while; she wants to liken it to something that
everybody can relate to, which is when one gets a bad diagnosis that someone a person loves
is sick; even though the intensity is not the same, the emotions are kind of the same as one
watches that illness progress; the steps are basically one gets the diagnosis, get a course of
treatment from the doctor, and one follows that course of treatment; and that course of
treatment is to dredge Lake Shepherd along with the rest that has already been done. She
asked the Board if this was someone the Commissioners loved, would he or she wait until the
last bit that needs to be done and stop; would he or she stop the chemo treatments on the last
one; she stated no, he or she would push through; she knows it is hard, inconvenient, it smells,
and it is loud; but she is asking to see if the life can be brought back in that lake.
Brad Evers remarked he is here on behalf of the users of the lake and the whole waterfront
community; he grew up in St. Augustine; he came down here to Florida Technology and was
fortunate to buy a waterfront home about 10 years ago, just in time for the big fish kill when all
of this discussion came up; as he said, he attended that Schechter town hall center where he
asked for a copy of these charts, because he is an engineer and he found them interesting; it
kind of shows the depth, the crosssection of the canal, as well as Lake Shepherd and Sleepy
Lagoon where the hard bottom return is and the soft bottom, or the top of the muck; and one
can see on those crosssections, like the canal he lives on only had like a foot of muck, and
then a lot of others, based on their width and depth, as muck flows downhill, so the deeper the
stuff is evidently, the more it collects. He stated he was initially skeptical of the whole project
and curious if it will mean a hill of beans; they came through his canal last year; since then, in
the past 10 years, he has seen water quality fluctuate; sometimes it is clear, and when it is cold
and all of that stuff dies off, then when the rains come, he guarantees they will have algae and
pollution within a few weeks; so he was skeptical, but they came through, and for the first time
in years, he has full sized oysters on his docks and pilings; and in fact, a few weeks ago he
started seeing soft corals, like soft sponges one would see in the Keys; and not algae, but
actually legit growth. He went on to say it has swayed him to believe it is working; he voted for
the tax in hopes of a last ditch resort; the charts he provided to the Board show that based on
the canals, there is a lot of muck; by looking at the overall picture, Berkeley was not in the initial
soundings, maybe due to the timing with the manatees, but Lake Shepherd definitely was; Lake
Shepherd is up to three stories deep in certain spots; one can see in those crosssections that
the muck is up to 10feet deep in those holes; across the entire lake the average is about six
feet deep, the entire area, left to right, and front to back; whereas his canal, and others, are just
deep right in the middle, so to postpone or potentially wait and ship the Lake Shepherd muck
elsewhere, by the time infrastructure gets set up to go south; he is here to just advocate for
finishing the project as originally sold to them, that is to get it to the DMMA site, shut that thing
down, and then figure out the infrastructure for the next phases, to just stay on track; he knows
it is volumetric estimates; but in his mind, this black line says what they paid to have the County
do this.
Lisa Lantrip stated she is a local resident and a real estate professional in the area on behalf of
