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Item M1BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: April 17, 2013 Division: BOCC Bulk Item: Yes _No _ Department: George R. Neugent Staff Contact Person/Phone #: T. Colonna 4512 AGENDA ITEM WORDING: Request support of the Board of Commissioners with the Florida National Marine Sanctuary for a project to restore channel and bank habitats in the Florida Keys as proposed by Bonefish and Tarpon Trust in partnership with CSA Ocean Sciences, Inc. ITEM BACKGROUND: See following documentation PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION: CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES: STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS: TOTAL COST: INDIRECT COST: BUDGETED: Yes No DIFFERENTIAL OF LOCAL PREFERENCE: COST TO COUNTY: SOURCE OF FUNDS: REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes No AMOUNT PER MONTH Year ? APPROVED BY: County Atty OMB/Purchasing Risk Management DOCUMENTATION: Included x DISPOSITION: Revised 7/09 Not Required AGENDA ITEM # �t,00 Of UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE �, National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration V NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 33 East Quay Road Key West FL 33040 April 1, 2013 Mayor George Neugent Monroe County Board of County Commissioners 25 Ships Way Big Pine Key, FL 33043 Kevin Claridge Florida Department of Environmental Protection Office of Coastal and Aquatic Managed Areas / Director 3900 Commonwealth Blvd., MS 235 Tallahassee, FL 32399-3000 Dear Sirs: I am writing to provide the support of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for a project to restore channel and bank habitats in the Florida Keys as proposed by Bonefish and Tarpon Trust in partnership with CSA Ocean Sciences, Inc. (Dr. Mark Fonseca, Principle Investigator). Funding for this project would address and implement elements of the Damage Assessment and Restoration Action Plan from the 2007 Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Management Plan. The Damage Assessment and Restoration Action Plan identifies strategies and activities to protect and restore Sanctuary resources. Specifically, Strategy B.22 lists three activities that this proposal would address including restoring grounding -impacted seagrass meadows, monitoring restoration, and reintroducing indigenous living corals and seagrass. In turn, the applicants propose ecological and economic benefits that will be demonstrated through multidimensional monitoring. It is important to note that the project will require future permit approval from FKNMS as well as other state and federal agencies; we would look forward to working with the project proponents in discussing and developing a successful permit application. The Management Plan and Damage Assessment and Restoration Action Plan were developed after extensive public input, support from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council and adopted by the State of Florida and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2007. The proposed project would promote the implementation of the Sanctuary's goals and should be considered a high priority for the Sanctuary and the Florida Keys community. lncerely Sean Morton Superintendent /R" C gA GSA Ocean 1ciences Inc. www.csaocean.com B502 SW Kansas Avenue p"µ u W � � % � Phone: 772-219-3000 Stuart, Florida 34997 Fax: 772-219-3010 MEMORANDUM Date: 28 March 2013 To: Sean Morton, Superintendent, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Mary Tagliareni, Deputy Superintendent, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary From: Anne McCarthy, Restoration Business Line Manager, CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. Aaron Adams, Ph.D., Director of Operations, Bonefish and Tarpon Trust Mark Fonseca, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. Re: Proposed RESTORE Act Project to Restore Channel and Bank Habitats in the Florida Keys As per our meeting on 22March 2013 with Commissioner Neugent and Deputy Superintendent Tagliareni, we are providing this Memorandum to describe the subject project in detail. As discussed during the meeting, if you choose to support this project, we are requesting that you provide a letter of support to Commissioner Neugent before 2 April in order to proceed in a timely manner with gaining endorsement from the County. We look forward to potentially working with you on this project and the possibility of our partnering with the Sanctuary to restore channel and bank habitats in the Florida Keys. PROPOSED PROJECT NAME Large-scale restoration of channel and bank habitats of the Florida Keys: Preserving water quality, improving fisheries, creating jobs, and sustaining our natural resource heritage PROJECT BACKGROUND Bonefish and Tarpon Trust (BTT) is a non-profit organization aimed at conserving and enhancing bonefish, tarpon, permit fisheries, and their environments. BTT is proposing to develop a project team of stakeholders and experts to utilize RESTORE Act funds to create a working -scale demonstration project that restores numerous vessel -damaged seagrass bank tops and associated channel habitats, creates jobs, and supports fishing and fisheries in the Florida Keys. Recreational fishing in the Florida Everglades region has an annual economic impact >$ I billion and supports an estimated equivalent of 12,000 full-time jobs. Preliminary results from an ongoing study of the economic impact of the flats fishery in the Florida Keys, to be completed in April 2013, suggest that the flats fishery may be responsible for 20% of all saltwater fishing expenditures in the state. In addition, the fisheries of the Florida Keys have an important cultural component —many of the fishing guides are third -generation guides and thus are a part of the fabric of the Florida Keys community. I http //sanctuanes noaa eov/science/conservation/bank series html Proposed RESTORE Act Project to Restore Channel and Bank Habitats :n the Florida Keys PROJECT DESCRIPTION BTT proposes to work with the fishing guides and science -oriented partners to develop an end -to -end demonstration project for bank top and channel remediation and restoration. This project will have ecological and economic benefits that will be demonstrated through multidimensional monitoring. The proposed project will include an updated inventory of injuries to seagrass banks and channel environments, several tiers of planning and surveying, site selection and permitting, active restoration with experimental improvements, informational marking, and a multi -year effort to assess the ecological and economic benefits. All of these efforts will require some level of partnering, coordination, and support from various agencies, organizations, and experts in Monroe County. Our proposed project objectives, approach, and anticipated outcomes are described below. Objectives • Update the seagrass and shallow coral vessel injury inventory. • Perform large-scale remediation of the Florida Keys bank top and channel environments to the betterment of a wide range of ecosystem services, particularly game fishes and their prey. • Engage flats fishermen to help select sites and enhance potential for project impact. • Create sustainable local jobs both in direct support of the project (habitat restoration and monitoring actions) and downstream benefits from improved ecosystem services (improved fishing, aesthetics, and tourism). • In coordination with the State and local agencies, develop, install, and monitor informational markers to deter additional vessel groundings on the demonstration sites. • Update restoration practices, particularly with regard to bird stake utilization. • Quantify the effectiveness of these restoration and mitigation efforts through monitoring studies. Approach • Create an updated geodatabase of the distribution of vessel grounding injuries: o Utilize remote -sensed imagery and ground-truthing to inventory vessel scarring throughout the Keys and compile this in a GIS framework, o Perform comparative analysis with Sargent et al. (1995)2 to evaluate change in impact levels, and o Identify "hot spots" to help prioritize remediation of bank tops and channels. • Work with the regulatory environment (County, State, and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary [FKNMS]), fishing guides, and other interested parties to develop a multi -stage plan for remediation and monitoring. • Obtain the necessary permits. • Select approximately five replicate sites upon which to conduct habitat restoration: o Assess wave energy climate to further refine site selection across wave gradient, o Perform on -site, fine -scale injury and elevation mapping, o Perform restoration of injuries with controls for natural recovery, o Evaluate efficacy of bird stake duration and density, o Assess role of informational marking in reducing grounding frequency and intensity, and o Monitor recovery, stratifying for wave energy, injury type, and effect of signage. Z Sargent, F J , T J Leary, D W Crewz, and C R Kreuer 1995 Scarring of Florida's seagrasses Assessment and management options Florida Department of Environmental Protection, FMRI Technical Report TR-1 46 pp Proposed RESTORE Act Project to Restore Channel and Bank Habitats in the Florida Keys • Monitor effectiveness of the remediation in terms of actual success of the restored seagrass and hard bottom communities as well as changes in the site's fish community and their prey. • Evaluate economic consequences of effective restoration. • Perform outreach and education activities to increase awareness of bank top and channel ecosystems. Outcomes • Utilization of local and State of Florida partners to assist with all aspects of the project. • Addition of sustainable local jobs by maintaining enhanced navigation, fishing support, and tourism support. • Improved, science -based restoration planning that results in measurable increases in ecosystem services, particularly with regard to economically important fisheries. • Reduction of the pace of injury to these critical habitats. • Preservation of the heritage of fishing tourism. Estimated Costs Project costs will arise from initial inventory and ground-truthing, site familiarization, site marking and maintenance, permitting, active restoration, monitoring and statistical analysis, economic analysis, and reporting. These costs include a mix of capital expenditures (imagery acquisition, software maintenance, sediment fill, application costs, buoy and ground tackle, and typical expendables for field operations), subcontracts (e.g., marine services for buoying and sediment filling), and labor with associated overhead. Total cost over the 5-year life of the project: $3 to 4 million based on the task structure provided in the table below. Please note that many of the project component costs have not yet been estimated. Task Description Geospatial database development and vessel injury inventory Inventory, imagery acquisition, analysis, and software updates Field surveys to verify injury sites and extent of injury perform reconnaissance of potential restoration sites Project Management Outreach, local coordination, contracts administration, fishing guide surve s/collaboration Restoration Planning Draft plan, detailed site surveys, final plans Permitting Coordination with regulatory agencies, applicants, and stakeholders Active Restoration Waterway marking, sediment fill, seagrass transplantation, and bird stake installation Biophysical Monitoring Sediment elevation, benthic colonization, and fish populations Human Dimensions Monitoring Change in boater and user behaviors Economic Analysis Economic impacts to the flats fishery Reporting Restoration and Monitoring) Post -restoration completion report, monitoring reports (frequency TBD Potential Project Partners Project Applicant: Bonefish Tarpon Trust Dr. Aaron Adams, Direct of Operations Brook Denkert, GIS Specialist, Local Coordinator Lead Technical Group: CSA Ocean Sciences, Inc. Dr. Mark Fonseca, Principal Investigator Anne McCarthy, Project Manager Proposed RESTORE Act Project to Restore Channel and Bank Habitats in the Florida Keys Waterway Marking: Monroe County, Department Marine Resources Rich Jones, Senior Administrator Fishing guide relations: Dr. Aaron Adams, Direct of Operations Brook Denkert, GIS Specialist, Local Coordinator Potential Subcontractors Economic Evaluation: Human Dimensions Consulting Dr. Anthony Fedler Marine Contractors: TBD Permitting Support: TBD Monitoring Support: TBD Potential Local Supporters Guides Associations Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Florida Department of Environmental Protection National Wildlife Refuge Florida Keys Audubon The Nature Conservancy Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation U.S. Coast Guard Proposed RESTORE Act Project to Restore Channel and Bank Habitats in the Florida Keys