UW-F/SFWlMD Meeting on STA vegetation

[N. Cook]

UW-F will be meeting today with the SFWMD staff regarding the lack of open marsh in the STAs.

[BlindHog]

Hey, I sent you an email to the address that notifies us of forum posts. I tried to send message but server said you had exceeded a number limit of messages or such.

Good luck at that meeting.

[BlindHog]

I just realized that meeting is today, didn't read carefully enough.

[N. Cook]

The meeting covered a variety of issues. Most important were the loss of open marsh habitat to cattail monocultures and the difficult to access the marshes because of the restrictions to access from entire levees due to the "direction of sheet flow". The managers all agreed these were problems and that the intention to have more open marsh was often frustrated by the lack of control of the inflow, both by "Mother Nature" and other 'decisions". Their goals are not incompatible with where we would like to see the STAs go, but there definitely has been a deterioation of the STA habitats and performance the last several years. Access from levees parallel to sheet flow is a bit more difiicult, however, the managers agreed to look at ways to establish "marked paths" that would reduce the paddling time and spread out the Parking Spots. This was the first meeting and we can expect some additional information to be presented at the SFWMD RECREATION MEETING in March.

[Squid]

Thanks for the update Newton!

[BlindHog]

Good job. Looking forward to more updates next time.