Do you live on a canal in Lake County, FL that needs dredging?
This is from "Lake County, FL canal activist" Linda Moss (near Deer Island) who wrote this long overview of needed dredging and prior history of Lake County, FL inaction on mucked up canals. It could happen to you!
Linda's contact info is at the bottom of this document.
The picture is not local, but illustrates a mucked up canal elsewhere in Florida.
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From: Linda J Moss <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, Aug 18, 2021 10:09 pm
Subject: Venetian Village
Thank each of you for your time and patience. My recent illness has slowed me down, and i regret not meeting some of you sooner. As you saw this is a tragedy us folks have been having to live with. Swept under the rug--Please help us now!
Venetian Village Tavares, Florida
Linda Moss
2003-2004 Four Florida hurricanes
2004---THE DAM WAS OPENED (had kept it closed during the hurricanes)AND 620 ACREE FEET FLOWED OUT(WHY WOULD ST JOHNS DO THAT. WHY WOULD NOT THEY DREDGE IT INSTEAD OF COVERING UP 250 HOMES, AND LAKE BEAUCLAIRE WEST SIDE?)
2004-OCT: 620-acre feet, flowed downstream and filled Lois Dr and Tammi Dr canal in Venetian Village, 9-10 foot high of muck each in each canal in Venetian Village. The entire west side of Lake Beauclair, the middle and entrance way to the Apopka Beauclair canal, full. In one report, Bob Johnson (fwcc) said the water in Lake Beauclair had the appearance of pudding. Mike Perry and the LCWA said for 9 years they didnt have the money to clean it up. THIS WAS A ST JOHN S MISTAKE IN JUDGEMENT. WHY WAS HE NOT SUING THEM TO CLEAN IT UP. WHY WAS NOT ANY BOARD MEMBER AT THE TIME NOT SAYNG THAT?
2004—2013: Canals were not navigable and they became dry with weeds growing in them. 9-10 YEAR
2012: Lake Beauclair Restoration Project—Lake Beauclair West side dredged (either DEP OR FWC) 4 feet off the top only. After the dredging, we still had boats running aground at the markers that had to be put out because it still was too shallow.
2013: Venetian Village canals dredged 4 feet off the top only. LCWA, Ron Hart said they were out of money and this was just a courtesy dredging paid for by LCWA.
2016: The weir behind the dam was removed and I don’t believe ever replaced. It was the weir that the locktender always told me in the past protected our downstream waterway a considerable amount. I never did see where it was replaced. In addition, the superintendent of that job told me that the weir was laying on the bottom under 16 feet of muck?
Sept 2017 HURRICANE IRMA and ST JOHNS IS NOT LOWERING LAKE APOPKA
When hurricane Irma started to approach Florida staff had asked St Johns if they planned to increase flows, so the water authority could plan orders and deliveries ahead of time for alum. The district assured staff that they would keep flows the same, and didn’t plan on changing or adjusting them .As the hurricane got closer St Johns said the governor put pressure on them??? The district increased flows from Lake Apopka and to the Nurf by 3 or 4 times the normal cfs, going from 25 cfs to 100 cfs on Friday before the hurricane. That meant staff had to immediately increase the orders for alum by 4 times the amount. He stated that by this time the Lcwa could not get the alum supply it needed. The next day St Johns went from 109 cfs to 300 cfs but LCWA was only receiving deliveries for 25 cfs,.this resulted in enough alum to run 4-7 hours a day before running out of alum. Mr Hart stated this left LCWA unable to treat the water coming through the nurf. He stated that with peak flows, and during that time period the water that passed through the nurf was of terrible quality, as all the mud and muck that had been sitting behind the gates for 4 years became fluid again and flowed through. Mr HART said that it took apx 5 days after hurricane Irma before the agency was able to get enough deliveries to meet the daily of 9 tankers a day. Mr Perry noted that FLOC is not settling out as it should, and Chemtrade has stated that the organic content of the water is higher than they ever saw.
ST JOHNS OVER REGULATION WHEN WARNINGS OF THE STORM CAME OUT. (INCLUDED with all pictures)IS THE PICTURE OF THE REGULATION OF LAKE APOPKA AND THE MANY FEET OVER IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO START LETTING WATER OUT,) THEREFORE A SURGE OF WATER WHEN EMPTIED THAT AlMOST DESTROYED EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH,
2017---Sept. 2017: Hurricane Irma. Lake Apopka muck, during the storm and after for many months floated into the Tammi and Lois Dr Canals. Besides the muck, large rings of floc and alum mixture floated in the Tammi Dr. and Lois Dr. canals.
Ron Hart, when called, said the ponds are full, they are overflowing and going downstream. The worst of the worst is off the bottom that has liquified and is flowing over as well. That explained the huge white rings coming into my canal.
Mr. Perry explained to the board that some of the water coming into the NURF was huge in particulates and sediment. Ron Hart explained to the board that with peak flows coming into the NURF the water was of terrible quality and all that had been sitting behind the gates for 4 years became liquid again and flowed downstream. Mr. Hart explained that since they were short on alum when the hurricane got there, and was going to have problems with new deliveries for a week or so. It would probably be 5 days or so before they could be meeting the daily alum need.
There was continuous muck for weeks. The smell was so bad no window could be open no children allowed to play outside..
2017 December: More muck, lots of muck, coming into the canals again from what looked like a new event of some kind. When John Richmond at St Johns was phoned about it, by Linda Moss, he said ‘they have decided they want the wildlife drive open for Christmas, there has got to be a lot of water pumped off the roads, so the dam is open”. (it is not John Richmond’s call to open the dam but a director usually makes that call. So, they pumped it to the Apopka Beauclair canal, behind the dam opening, but the dam was open, therefore letting it flow down the Apopka Beauclair canal and into the residential canals of Lois and Tammi Dr (It could have been pumped into Lake Apopka on the far side, possibly keeping it from coming into the Apopka Beauclair Canal. As I had noticed almost all pumping was pumped into the Apopka canal. If the dam would be closed, then whenever it opened it would go on out, just like flushing a toilet IMO. The workers on the north shore had to know what that meant for people upstream.
2018 February: I saw the water rising in the Tammi Dr canal. Every few hours I would look at it and it was higher and higher. About the time it got as high as when we had hurricane Irma, the neighbors on Lois Dr called and said we are flooded over here, yards full, practically on my porch. I called Eric Maholm, whos’ cell phone number I had. Eric is also the Director of the North Shore for years. I said Eric what are you doing? He said what do you mean? I said you have let so much water out of Lake Apopka you have Lois Drive flooded in Venetian Village and I have looked at the water level graphs and don’t see any reason. Eric said to me “oh well we will be having hurricane season again and I just thought I would drain Lake Apopka down a little”. I said “Eric that it is a ridiculous statement”. My opinion was that he was washing out the Apopka Beauclair canal and residentials best he could, as I have come to find out there is a tremendous amount of Aluminum in the sediment in the residential canals.
2018—March: Ron Hart informed the LCWA board that there was an opportunity to file to FEMA to the top hazards within the county, there was 14 million dollars available. I don’t know if they did or not. Mr. Perry had been questioned by his board about the NURF ponds being full and when was he going to get them emptied out in case new storms would come. This was every month between March 2018 and July 2018. Every month the board was given a new strategy to empty the ponds and the cost and the board approved. Mike Perry was having Ron Hart stall cleaning out the NURF ponds for some reason, so it seemed.
Finally, one day at the end of July, first of August, I pulled into the NURF plant to look at the ponds and there was a pickup truck with the gate to the east pond hanging off the back and the east pond flowing out in the Apopka Beauclair canal. My worst fear for my neighborhood. I had been asking the board every month at the LCWA meetings when were they going to be emptied?
Dr Dahner said to the board that core of engineers objected when ask about putting it on the North Shore. The core of engineers told them that they weren’t so much worried about the organochlorides, but they were worried about Avian Botulism.There fore Mike Perry dumped part of the 9 acre east pond downstream in the AB canal.
When, as I arrived home about 4 miles downstream, all the sediment and floc was flowing straight up the middle of the Tammi Dr. canal, and did so for days. Most of our yards are watered from irrigation in the canals, when we have a lot of rain to cover the muck. that meant the toxic material would come into our yards, shrubs and grass.(SO DON’T DUMP ON THE NORTH SHORE JUST DUMP IT WHERE THE PEOPLE IN VENTIAN VILLAGE AND THE MAIN CANAL WILL BE EXPOSED)
2019: Lake County passed a motion to ask the legislature for 1.4 million dollars for dredging for Tammi Dr canal.
2020: The bill for 1.4 million dollars did not go anywhere in the legislature because Anthony Sabitini, Representative from Lake County did not present it. He is friend of Mike Perry.
2020: With Lowrance equipment on my boat, I found underwater equipment across the canal from Tammi Dr. I phoned DEP. They said they would come and get it and inspect it. (I am remembering all the flow of material making the unexplainable 90 degree turns into the Tammi Dr. canal. in addition to the two pieces of equipment there was a water bubbler hose strung across the bottom of the entrance to the Tammi Dr. canal that was still operating. I have pictures of all of this equipment.
2021: Within days of calling DEP the equipment disappeared on the shoreline before DEP could get it inspected and removed.(i have underwater pictures of all)
2020: C & M dredging was hired to clean out the ponds but, the bottom was hard as concrete. And still had added material to it. Because the material would not pass DEP toxin tests, the material was put in geotubes and left on ground at the LCWA property with the alum rich water draining into the ground. They are still there or was a few months ago. I had already talked to DEP many times about the ponds and had they been checked, especially after I found out the bottom 8 foot was solid as concrete and had been for years and kept secret from the LCWA board. The East Pond, that was to hold 20 feet of material from the bottom up, actually only held 12 feet. The pond was supposed to be 9 acres (so I was told).The non-maintenance of the nurf ponds that caused the overflow down stream is a crime.
All material flowing down the Apopka canal was now doing the strangest of things reported by the neighbors on the corner of Apopka Canal and Tammi. Most everything from the east pond was coming downstream, making a perfect 90 degree turn into Tammi Dr. Canal. for days. Even the St. Johns engineers couldn’t explain it. In 2020 with the equipment on my boat that takes underwater videos and pictures, I found equipment underwater off the shoreline almost directly across from the Tammi Dr. canal. Pictures are provided. I phoned DEP to report this finding.
They can spin a great yarn as to why it is not their error and smile and go right on with the same things. St Johns says that’s not their muck in Venetian Village Canals because Lisa Kelley told them so, and prepared the chairman of the St Johns board for any speech I might give. At the early times the St Johns board was not full and John Miklos who had pledged to help me in the beginning had stepped down as chair and the Governor appointed General Burnett to the position.
LCWA says that muck came from your own canal. Six people go into the LCWA board most of them 70-80yrs old and tell the LCWA board, Keith Farnel, that they have watched the muck flow into Tammi Dr. canal during this hurricane and the last and in between when there aren’t any storms. Keith Farnel turned around to those people who had sat there for 4 hours waiting to talk, and said “well I just have to believe my director” Mike Perry. In other words, he called those people liars.
THE FIGHT BY LCWA AND ST JOHNS TO KEEP ALL THIS QUIET AND NEVER LET IT BE DREDGED WAS BEYOND BELIEF, AS IF SOMETHING MUCH BIGGER WAS AT STAKE! A WAR HAD BEEN WAGED AGAINST MYSELF AS THE PERSON LEADING THE FIGHT AND FELT IF THEY COULD GET RID OF ME, NOBODY ELSE HAD THE LONGEVITY.
When I started to review the videos of the LCWA and the Harris Chain Restoration council, (2019-2020), I saw that most of the videos from the meetings had been altered to a great degree and most of them with Mike Perrys statements, that all the dialogue about the NURF ponds getting emptied etc. etc. Most all dialogue in the 2017 meetings, after hurricane Irma, had been changed to reflect that nothing had floated into residential canals in Venetian Village, forgetting things they had said to the board in the very beginning, the minutes of the meetings were changed to match the videos. I KNEW NOW IT WAS SERIOUS AND PEOPLE WERE WILLING TO GO TO JAILTO COVER THIS UP.
I called the states attorney after I found out how the recordings are done and who has access to them after meetings. The states attorney office (Mr. Simpson) in Ocala took all my information and said they would start looking into it. When I phoned back in a few months I was told that the work load had become heavier and they just didn’t have the time to look into it.
I had made copies of all meeting minutes early on, so I had the originals, which don’t look a lot like the altered ones. The videos of course, the originals were all changed where somebody didn’t want what they said looked at.
NOTE: Mike Perry had always said and had his board members trained to say that the LCWA does not dredge residential canals. Only canals that are between the major lakes in the chain as it was written early on. No one ever just stood up and said “Lets vote to change the dredging policy.” This IMO was not a demand of the legislature, but his own rulemaking, but aren’t the rules made by the board?
Note: The Apopka Beauclair canal has filled in to the degree where the canals in venetian village could not be dredged unless the Apopka Beauclair canal is dredged also. The canal was the same depth or a little deeper in 1992 as the Tammi Dr. canal of 9 foot. But I believe it is deeper and has been a huge oversite with LCWA to get it dredged.
Also, Lake Beauclair is still loaded with a lot of Lake Apopka muck. Four foot or more of new sediment since 2013.
NOTE: The plats of Venetian Village was taken to Mike Perry in his office in January 2018, by myself and a neighbor, showing him that all canals and roadways had been signed over to Lake County in 1972 by the developer, Mr. Lanier and Lake County had signed and notarized. The county is maintaining Lois Drive and was maintaining Tammi Dr up to the point there was an argument about cutting down some beautiful old oak trees. Lisa drive is not being maintained and I do not know the reason. My own opinion is that no one had ever considered the canals were to be maintained by the county, People on boards turn over and the situation has never come up to the new board members. But Mike Perry knew it. That shows how bad he did not want the Venetian Village canals to be dredged. After all, where would St. Johns have to hide their muck if our canals were cleaned?
Was it the North Shore just since the Wild Life Drive began. much more muck is coming downstream. So, the North Shore could be the biggest issue and pumping directly into the Apopka Beauclair canal behind the dam, so that it will exit when the dam opens. If, in fact the sediment and muck would flow to the end of the Apopka Beauclair canal and out into Lake Beauclair, the entrance to the Apopka Beauclair canal would already have been plugged up as well as the entire west side of Lake Beauclair for the 2nd time which would have been very obvious to the public from where it came.
Because the chairman of the LCWA at the time of the 2017 hurricane had decided these canals are an unusual circumstance, Doug Bryant ask the assistant Ron Hart to get dredging costs. It was immediately after that Mike Perry told the Harris Chain Restoration Council and his own board, LCWA, that all the muck in residential canals came from our own canals and then 3 of his own board members set about trying to show that.
Keith Farnel made statements that he ran his boat up the Tammi Dr. canal and didn’t see any muck. But he had no depth finder nor a pole for taking core samples and waited until the rains and extra water from Lake Apopka brought the water levels up approximately another 2 feet on top of the muck.
Carolyn Mammoine and Amy Stone came out in the Sheriffs boat. Same thing, water level apx. 2 foot higher over the muck, they are not looking at a depth finder and they spend time trying to show in a video, it’s probably grass clipping??
They both said they didn’t see any clump of muck. This was days or weeks later and no—they were on the bottom by now.
Mike Perry resigned in 2019. The new Executive director Ron Hart ,with 20 year experience was let go by the board in 2021
Most neighborhood boaters access their homes on water using the Tammi Dr Canal, in Venetian Village, which adjoins the Apopka Beauclair Canal. (Tammi Dr, Shirley Shores, Hidden Rive Lot owners).
The other neighbors have to access their homes using the Lois Dr. canal which adjoins the Apopka Beauclair Canal
The Tammi Dr canal has 3000 feet approximately, full of muck, 9 feet deep that came downstream from Lake Apopka and the North Shore of Lake Apopka.
Tammi Drive canal is not navigable 75% of the time due to this muck. There are high water times which allow navigation.
Lois drive Canal is navigable but due to 9 foot of muck being put in it in 2003-2004 and 2017, four feet taken out and it still Is 4 -5 feet deep on the front end, but the 2 canals on the backside need dredging and were never dredged in 2013. The lawns are flooding as it is a lower level homesites and seawalls than Tammi Dr. It needs to be dredged back to its original depth.
1. Venetian Village is prepared to file suit🙁 CORE SAMPLES BY FLOWERS LAB.
2. The Apopka Beauclair Canal, from the west side of Lake Beauclair all the way up to the Lake Apopka itself needs dredging
3. The Tammi Dr Canal needs to be dredged past Betty Paynes house, and in front of the a-frame house (Knapps) and around that corner ,new information will update this canals dredging specs.
4. The Lois drive canal needs to be dredged along with the 2 canals behind the Lois Dr. canal;
5. All canals will be dredged to the very bottom;
6. The Tammi Dr. canal will need the harvester to be used on the right side to trim it back to what it was in the beginning of 2004;
7. The dredging will include the whole canal and not a strip down the middle;
8. The dredging will include cleaning right up to the seawall and under the docks;
9. The residents do not want LCWA involved in any part of a dredging operation, only to pay for it;
10. The Tammi Dr canal will be Dredged first,
Each waterfront homeowner will provide a dollar amount they are to be paid for damages beginning 2003 to present by the month.
My husband and I bought our home on Tammi Dr in 1992, we had 9 feet of water in our canal until 2000 when I noticed the bottom had filled 2 foot.(Marsh Flow Way) Our canal was dug in 1972— 20 years. Now since the Apopka restoration we continually have no navigation.
APX 500 OWNERS HAVE NO NAVIGABILITY FOR 4 YEARS SINCE HURRICANE IRMA. 5 FOOT OF MUCK REMAINS IN THE VENETIAN VILLAGE CANALS SINCE 2004,WHEN ST JOHNS DID NOT DREDGE FROM THAT OCCURRENCE CANALS ARE NOWFILLED WITH 9 FOOT OF MUCK.
EVERYTHING PRINTED HERE HAS BACKUP, RE: ACTUAL PRINTED MEETING MINUTES, PICTURES, VIDEOS, INFORMATION FROM WEBSITE BELONGING TO EACH.
Pictures will be sent tomorrow. I have had enormous problems with a new computer and appreciate your time. If you have any questions call me at 352-551-8953 or at [email protected].
OUR NEIGHBORS WOULD LIKE TO HEAR BACK FROM ALL PARTIES IN 30 DAYS. LAKE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, ST JOHN RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT, LCWA THROUGH MYSELF AT 352-551-8953
Posted by Vance Jochim, FiscalRangers on Oct. 5, 2021 via email received from Linda Moss.
Also posted on Facebook GROUP FiscalRangersLakeCounty.
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Vance Jochim
[email protected]
YouTube Channel "FiscalRangersFlorida"
