Item I10
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
Meeting Date: 21 January 2004
Bulk Item: Yes ~ No
Division:
Growth Management
Department:
Marine Resources
AGENDA ITEM WORDING:
Approval to expend up to $8,000 of Boating Improvement Funds (BIF) to assist Lignum Vitae Submerged
Lands Management Area in completing the establishment of a boat grounding assessment database.
ITEM BACKGROUND:
Over the past 10 years, Lignum Vitae has worked to reduce the number of boat groundings within its
boundaries using a combination of tools, including education, Aids to Navigation and regulatory markers, and
enforcement. The County assisted Lignum Vitae in some of their early efforts by producing the first baseline
aerial photography for the area. Lignum Vitae has repeated these aerial photography over flights since.
Monroe County and the Department of Marine Resources have used Aids to Navigation as a principal means to
assist the public in getting to where they need to go on the water by providing visual direction to boat traffic
through the deepest channels. Key in this effort is to try to identify how well our efforts are working. Lignum
Vitae is a long term test case and when information can be made available from that effort we will be better able
to assess how to place and use Aids to Navigation to keep boaters out of shallow water areas. The Department
supports this minimal expenditure of BIF funds. The Marine and Port Advisory Committee has reviewed this
proposal as well.
PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION:
None
CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES:
NA
STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS;
Approval
TOTAL COST:
$15,000
COST TO COUNTY:
up to $8,000
BUDGETED: Yes
SOURCE OF FUNDS:
No --L
BIF - CC 62608
REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes
APPROVED BY: County Atty NA
DIVISION DIRECTOR APPROVAL:
No
Year
DOCUMENTATION: Included ~
DISPOSITION:
of Growth
\0
Not Required
AGENDA ITEM NO.:
BC040120.doc
12/30/03 8:49 AM
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Department of
Environmental Protection
Jeb Bush
Governor
Bureau of Paries Distrid 5
13798 Southeast Federal Highway
Hobe Sound. Florida 33455
David B. Struhs
Secretary
September 30, 2003
George Garrett, Marine Resources Director
Monroe County
2798 Overseas Highway
Marathon, FL 33050
RE: LV Boat Grounding Data Analysis
Dear George,
I hope to interest Monroe County in a boating improvement project that is directly
supportive of recent County efforts to manage its nearshore waters. As you know, we at
the Lignumvitae Submerged Land Management Area (LKMA) have been implementing a
boat grounding damage prevention and enforcement program for several years, most
intensively since 1992. With the recently increased focus on boat groundings at the
federal, state and local levels, LKMA is very interested in making the information in their
boat grounding database useful to a variety of groups. The database contains detailed
information on everything from grounding location to boater profiles and assessed
damage for hundreds of individual cases. An organized summary and analysis of this
data could be useful for many applications including channel marking and no-motor
zoning activities that the County is now engaged in.
- ~he database is in a Microsoft Access spreadsheet format and has been entered by
various staff over the years. To make the data useful, we must normalize and analyze it.
We would eventually like the database to be linked to our geographic information system.
We also have the goal of making our database consistent with that being used for
groundings within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) so that a larger
database can be shared by all users.
We have scoped out the tasks needed to normalize the database, create a consistent entry
system and produce query-based trend results from the data. This constitutes Phase I and
Phase IT of the scope presented below. We eventually envision the MS Access database
being linked directly to our Arc View maps (phases ill and IV) so that the raw data and
trend data is automatically updated as new groundings are entered. These end-products
would be made available to all marine resource managers, including your office.
"More Protection. Less Process"
DftnfAn nn nv-t"""'" POrtAr
Phase I - Data Needs
Task 1. Examine data and coordinate with staff on the past methods and context of entry.
Task 2. List and organize questions to be answered about the data. Coordinate with key
individuals to obtain questions (LKMA staff, FKNMS staff, Monroe County
Marine Resources staff).
Task 3. Determine methods of data analysis within and outside MS Access.
Task 4. Normalize data and add necessary fields for MS Access analysis.
Phase n - MS Access Data Analysis and Reporting
Task 1. Build MS Access queries.
Task 2. Generate data and first draft report (results and discussion).
Phase ill - Data Analysis Outside MS Access
Task 1. Finalize methods of data analysis outside MS Access.
Task 2. Reformat data to perform non-Access analysis.
Task 3. Generate data and incorporate into final report.
Phase IV - Future Use by Staff
Task 1. Set up instructions for consistent future data entry and query runs.
Task 2. Link data to ArcView GIS maps and set up for future entry.
We anticipate the cost of Phases I and II to be a maximum of$15,000. We will be able to
contribute $7,000 towards this project and are requesting a total of $8,000 from Monroe
County Boating Improvement Funds. A preliminary draft report will be generated at the
end of Phase II with the query-based trend analysis of 10+ years of grounding data. We
hope that this product will be useful for managers, enforcement personnel, and the public.
Once you've had a chance to look this over, let's discuss it. In the meantime, if you need
any further details on the project, let me know. Thanks for the opportunity to present this
proposal !
Sincerely,
-=?~~~
Pat Wells
cc: George Jones
Billy Causey
Sean Meehan
Kevin Kirsch
Pat McNeese
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