Showing posts with label South Florida Water Management Distict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Florida Water Management Distict. Show all posts

Monday, April 23, 2012

Excellent video from the Everglades Foundation re South Florida's fresh water supply -with a cameo by HB Comm. Keith London- that really puts things into perspective for South Florida residents, present and future


Everglades Foundation video: Everglades Summit: Water Supply in South Florida
February 1, 2012. February 12, 2012. http://youtu.be/UYP35yT8gFI


This film is one in a series created by the Everglades Foundation that is now at their YouTube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/EvergladesFndtn/ which I have since subscribed, has terrific production values and really puts things into perspective for South Florida residents, present and future.

One of the interview suspects, Michael Grunwald of TIME magazine, is based out of Miami and is the author of the critically-received book, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (Simon & Schuster, 2006)


See also:
GOVERNING Magazine
The Price of Greening Stormwater
Philadelphia officials hope the city’s redesigned stormwater fees will lead to imaginative private financing that will help rehabilitate watersheds.
By Tom Arrandale, April 20, 2012
http://www.governing.com/topics/energy-env/price-greening-stormwater-philadelphia.html


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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Hallandale Beach wants to enact new water restrictions? Why?; SFSS: What restrictions? South Florida's year-round watering rules not being enforced

The City of Hallandale Beach wants to enact new water restrictions?
Why?


Today, Andy Reid of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has an article that hits every note: What restrictions? South Florida's year-round watering rules not being enforced


It's well worth your reading below, and as you do so, look at the public notice from the City of Hallandale Beach directly above it that ran in today's Miami Herald and ask yourself a simple question.


Beyond the general idea that we'd all agree that it's clearly NOT smart to waste water, IF it's such a problem in Hallandale Beach now, then how many actual citations has the city issued here the past 12 months?

My guess is ZERO.


The burden of proof that there is currently a problem in this city worth legislating lies entirely with the city, and it requires them citing and showing thru photos or some other tangible means, the evidence of a problem, along with totals, etc.
Where's the evidence?

They need to make make a
PowerPoint presentation before the public in the City Commission Chambers before voting on this, NOT do something simply so that Mayor Cooper can pat herself on the back in an attempt to get more attention for herself.
Otherwise, this is nothing more than a new Stamp Act.


My experience from personal observation walking and driving thru HB
is that the city itself is THE worst and biggest offender, just as they are with so many other Code Enforcement problems, starting with the longstanding violation located just a few feet from where City Manger Antonio parks his own car, which he is perfectly aware of because it's so obvious.
And the one a few feet past that one... and then the other one nearby...


August 16, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

And what about the glaring Code Enforcement violation that Hallandale Beach City Hall has allowed to exist for years in the Upper Deck Ale & Sports Grill parking lot, next to Gulfstream Park Racetrack & Casino?
And when did restaurant parking lots in this city become boat marinas, as this boat above has been in this parking lot for well OVER two years, as it's visible from the sidewalk and the Gulfstream entrance/exit along N.E./S.E. 10th Avenue?

(I'll have more on this particular subject later this week, with damning photos taken by me over the past two years proving that Hallandale Beach City Hall's wink-wink system of code enforcement fails citizens, and which completely disproves any notion that City Hall treats everyone in the city equally.
They don't!)


Two years ago at a HB City Commission meeting, I cited several examples of the city breaking the South Florida Water Management District rules on water, including one just a block from Hallandale Beach City Hall.

Guess what happened?


Published in Miami Herald on 2/19/2011

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-watering-restrictions-ignored-20110219,0,4541591.story

What restrictions? South Florida's year-round watering rules not being enforced

By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel
February 19, 2011


Lax enforcement means few citations have been written for violations of South Florida's new year-round watering rules, according to a Sun Sentinel sampling in Broward and Palm Beach counties.


Since the new rules began last March , neither Broward County code enforcement nor city of Fort Lauderdale code enforcement officers issued a single citation for violating watering restrictions, as of the first week of February.


In addition, Fort Lauderdale lets homes and businesses water landscaping on more days than Broward County's countywide rule allows.

Rider hits bus driver across face in Oakland Park. See the video here.


Over the same time period, Palm Beach County issued just three notices of violations for water users breaking the new rules. Of those three, only one was forced to pay the $125 fine.


Neither Delray Beach nor Boca Raton issued a watering violation.


Also, the South Florida Water Management District — charged with protecting regional water supplies — stopped keeping track of whether cities and counties each week enforce the new year-round watering rules that the agency imposed.


While the year-round watering rules are intended to promote a permanent conservation push, the district requires cities and counties only to report weekly enforcement totals during droughts.


The new year-round landscape irrigation rules were supposed to create a new "culture of conservation" in thirsty South Florida, but backers say that requires stepped-up enforcement. "It hurts everybody when there's no enforcement," said Drew Martin of the Sierra Club, which advocates tougher watering restrictions.

"It punishes the people who obey the law and rewards people who don't."


Code-enforcement officials contend that budget cuts during Florida's economic downturn left fewer people to look for watering rule breakers and code-enforcement priorities changed as droughts faded away.

Now, after months of lax enforcement, concerns about forecasts for a dryer-than-normal spring could trigger tougher watering restrictions for South Florida homes and businesses.


"There's no overtime to speak of," Patrick Saba, Broward County code-enforcement supervisor, said about the possibility of being asked to crack down on watering rules. "We will do the best we can. … Officers will write the violations when they see them."


District officials and local community representatives contend that ticket totals aren't the best gauge of conservation success. They say more water users are voluntarily following irrigation rules and that overall water use has declined.


But code-enforcement officials acknowledge that if drought conditions worsen and the district requires tougher restrictions, enforcing them only gets harder.


"With a tight budget … we are not sure how much of an effort we would be able to put forward," Palm Beach County Code Enforcement Director Kurt Eismann said.


South Florida uses the most water in the state, averaging about 179 gallons per resident per day, according to the water management district.

About half of South Florida's public water supply is used for landscape irrigation.


While South Florida typically gets more than enough rainfall to meet its water-supply needs, guarding against the flooding of neighborhoods and farms that now cover what used to be the Everglades and other wetlands leads to dumping much of that stormwater out to sea.


Lake Okeechobee is South Florida's backup water supply. But during 2010 the Army Corps of Engineers drained more than 400 billion gallons from the lake, with most of the water — more than 300 billion gallons — flushed out to sea because of flood-control concerns.


Also, because of a lack of water storage space, the vast system of drainage canals operated by the South Florida Water Management District dumps about 1.7 billion gallons of stormwater out to sea after a typical summer rainy day.

The South Florida Water Management District last year switched from temporary watering restrictions, imposed during droughts, to year-round watering rules aimed at prolonged conservation.


The district agreed to allow watering as much as three times per week for southeast Florida, but also allowed local governments to be more restrictive.

Miami-Dade and Broward counties require the more-restrictive twice-a-week limits year-round, while Palm Beach County allows up to three-day-per-week watering year-round.


Despite Broward County's two-day-watering rule, Fort Lauderdale allows its residents to water three times per week.


The city contends that its rules actually save more water by establishing fewer allowable hours of watering, and then spreading the watering over three days.


Adding up the total allowable watering time means 33 hours per week under the city rule and 36 hours per week under the county rule.

"The overall goal of the ordinance is water conservation." Fort Lauderdale spokesman Chaz Adams said.


Yet using the total hours allowed for watering as the comparison assumes that homes and businesses actually run sprinklers during the entire watering periods — a wasteful practice the city's own website discourages.


Fort Lauderdale passed its watering rules before the county's twice-a-week standard took effect. But when it comes to watering issues, the county rule takes precedence, according to Broward County Senior Assistant County Attorney Michael Owens.


Fort Lauderdale code and environmental officers focus on "communication and outreach efforts," Adams said.


"Their first objective is to educate and inform citizens, not penalize them," Adams said.


The lack of citations in Boca Raton since year-round watering went into effect largely was due to favorable weather conditions, Assistant City Manager Mike Woika said.

"There hasn't been a drought," Woika said. "There wasn't a significant enforcement need required."


Forecasts for worsening drought conditions could change that.


The water management district focuses on education and outreach to try to win local governments' cooperation to enforce restrictions, said Terrie Bates, its assistant deputy executive director for water resources.

"It's going to take time to keep repeating that message," Bates said about the watering rules. "It's in effect. We expect people to be compliant."

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

HB Practices Violating Water Restrictions -just the tip of the iceberg

An email I sent earlier this afternoon to the Broward rep for the South Florida Water Management District,
http://www.sfwmd.gov/site/index.php?id=1 explaining who she's dealing with in HB: The Joy Cooper/Mike Good Gang That Can't Shoot Straight.
See
http://www.sfwmd.gov/newsr/3_newsrel.html#shortages for info on the water restrictions.

Subject: Water violations already in Hallandale Beach -just the tip of the iceberg
To: "Miya Burt Stewart" mburt@sfwmd.gov
CC: "Tammy Moore" tmoore@sfwmd.gov

Tuesday March 20th, 2007

Dear Ms. Burt-Stewart:

I'm writing this letter to you in your capacity as the Broward representative on the South Florida Water Management District, and more specifically, their imposition of Mandatory Water Use Restrictions Imposed for Lake Okeechobee, Lower East Coast and Upper East Coast.

I don't know how familiar you are with how things are done in the City of Hallandale Beach, but a quick look at you bio on the SFWMD website tells me that you have lived in Hollywood over the years, and thus probably know by either personal experience or thru second-hand horror stories, how incompetent and inefficient, not to say negligent, the officials here can be, not to mention, their minions at the various departments, who can't seem to handle even the simplest easy to resolve problem.

(Whether it's ensuring the functioning of sinks in the Mens restrooms at the HB beach -2 of 4 have been out since Thanksgiving, only one works now, or fixing the light bulbs on their own city signs on US-1. Nope, it's beyond their ability, as evidenced by the fact that the lights facing HB's municipal complex on US-1 have now been out for two long years, or, even more remarkable, how the street light above it, right in front of HB city hall and the police dept. HQ, which HB is responsible for, has now been out for over 5 weeks.)

I mention this to you and your staff as a bit of warning, because days after watching on TV and reading the news about the agency's actions last week, almost as if I could've predicted it, this past Sunday, at approx. 7 pm. -when it was still warm and about 80 minutes before sundown- while riding my bike along Hallandale Beach Blvd., I saw water sprinklers watering the median strip on HBB west of NE 8th Street.
No telling how long they'd been on!!!

This is, by the way, not more than 100 feet from where when construction work was being done on HBB over the past two years, road safety barricades were piled next to, around and on fire hydrants.
Yes, that's how the City of Hallandale Beach supervises projects, and that lack of attention to detail is readily apparent all around the city.
This time, I caught them early on, though they will likely try to blame FDOT, their default position for everything.

Over the past 2-3 years, I was told numerous times by people in the Broward County Traffic & Engineering Dept., as well as vendors and contractors actually doing projects for the City of HB, that, with the exception of the City of Fort Lauderdale, no municipality in Broward has a worse reputation for NOT abiding by the law when it comes to their proscribed duties, and that they constantly fingerpoint to try to weasel out of their own liability.
Conversations I later had with MasTech contractors doing work for the City of HB only served to confirm those earlier BCTE conversations.
Just so you know who you're dealing with.

Please have your staff bcc me on any future communication the agency has with the City of Hallandale Beach so that I can keep my friends and blog readers properly apprised.
I'm sure this won't be the first time your hear about violations in HB, take my word for it.

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
DBS,
Hallandale Beach, FL

http://www.HallandaleBeachBlog.blogspot.com/
http://www.SouthBeachHoosier.blogspot.com/