Converted
07-13-2004, 09:06 AM
First of all the "Committee" was renamed "Workshop" to avoid confusion with the acronym. No telling how much staff time was involved with that decision... We are now offically the South Florida Water Management District, Water Resources Advisory Commission, Recreational Advisory Workshop.
SFWMD WRAC RAW for short:confused:
Don't you just love the government!
The meeting went very well and ran 1 hour long. Many projects throughout the district were discussed. Although the STA's are a main focus for duck hunters right now, I can assure you that there are large holdings of district lands that hold potential now or will in the future. many large reservoirs are in the planning stages and other lands that the district has purchased may offer other hunting opportunities. We all need to pay attention to the public meeting process for each of the individual projects. The CERP projects need to have recreation included before they are submitted to Congress for authorization. If not. the money will not be there. SFWMD projects also need to have recreation included in the original management plan. If not, we have to wait 5 years for a new management plan on any particular piece of property.
STA Hunting Status 2004/2005
This must be approved by the Governing Board but here is what is being considered:
STA5 will continue to have Sunday morning hunts. The Staff recommended that this be given permanant status rather than the temporary situation that exists now. That way we won't have to go before the board every year to ask, it will be automatic.
UW-F has made a proposal to allow an additional afternoon hunt on each sunday as well. Staff has not agreed but Rock Salt, with the US Dept. of Interior made a motion to have the RAW recommend to the WRAC who will report to the Governing Board to implement the UW-F position. Thank you Rock! This is not a done deal, we will need to lobby the WRAC and Board to get this!
STA 1W will have each Saturday of the season open in a manor similar to STA5. Again the possibility exists of morning and afternoon hunts. Also it looks like the number of hunters per hunt will be increased. Maybe as many as 40 vehicles (up from 25) with two hunters per.
STA 3/4 is new and staff will not release it for public access to the interior until the emerging vegitation is established. The estimate was 2 to 3 years from startup. 3/4 was started in October 2003 so it is possible it will be partially opened next (05/06) season.
STA 1E was annexed into the village of Wellington with little public fan fair. This apparently happened a couple months ago. I guess this is going to be a new hot topic for our involvement around the state. I will post an extensive position statement on another thread. April with Audubon made a motion to have the RAW draft a letter to the WRAC expressing concern over this practice. UW-F will make our position well known to the members!
STA 6 will not be hunted due to an agreement with FPL which has transmission lines across this site. We can look farther into this and see if any accomodation can be made remote from the power lines.
It was stated that STA 2 has no legal access route at this time but that more lands were going to be purchased that would allow access off US 27. Steve with FWC pointed out that when it was Brown's Farm there was access and that should still be in place. SFWMD Staff is looking into the matter and will report back at the next meeting.
Hunt reservations on all STA's that are open will be by Quota hunt permit rather than call-in. FWC is working on the procedure right now. There is a potential timing problem because the waterfowl seasons are so late getting set due to the Flyway reports. FWC is confident that they can work it out. Also the permits may be non-transferable. We'll report the details as soon as we learn more.
We were hoping for additional hunting days during the week but the Staff is opposed at this time. All of the STA's have construction projects on going to one degree or another right now. In the future, if we continue to earn the respect of the water managers, there is a good chance we will get some days during the week. This will be an ongoing battle but we have the momentium in our favor and things are looking very good for the years to come. One up coming project is to convert another cell of STA5 from cattails to hydrilla. This would double the "hot spot" for ducks.
The only negative statement for the entire evening as far as duck hunters are concerned was a complaint about shotgun shells litering the bank of STA-5. We all need to educate our members and the other hunters that use SFWMD properties that all LITER must be removed from the site or we may lose the access that we have been fighting so hard for. There will be bird watching tours, hikes, horseback riding and other activities on all of these sites. We cannot allow hunters to be the BAD GUYS by leaving spent cases laying on the ground or floating in the water. Please let everyone know that this is a big deal to the people we are dealing with.
Thanks for the good turnout by duck hunters! We had many UW-F and Delta guys in attendance. We were by far the best represented group of stake holders.
SFWMD WRAC RAW for short:confused:
Don't you just love the government!
The meeting went very well and ran 1 hour long. Many projects throughout the district were discussed. Although the STA's are a main focus for duck hunters right now, I can assure you that there are large holdings of district lands that hold potential now or will in the future. many large reservoirs are in the planning stages and other lands that the district has purchased may offer other hunting opportunities. We all need to pay attention to the public meeting process for each of the individual projects. The CERP projects need to have recreation included before they are submitted to Congress for authorization. If not. the money will not be there. SFWMD projects also need to have recreation included in the original management plan. If not, we have to wait 5 years for a new management plan on any particular piece of property.
STA Hunting Status 2004/2005
This must be approved by the Governing Board but here is what is being considered:
STA5 will continue to have Sunday morning hunts. The Staff recommended that this be given permanant status rather than the temporary situation that exists now. That way we won't have to go before the board every year to ask, it will be automatic.
UW-F has made a proposal to allow an additional afternoon hunt on each sunday as well. Staff has not agreed but Rock Salt, with the US Dept. of Interior made a motion to have the RAW recommend to the WRAC who will report to the Governing Board to implement the UW-F position. Thank you Rock! This is not a done deal, we will need to lobby the WRAC and Board to get this!
STA 1W will have each Saturday of the season open in a manor similar to STA5. Again the possibility exists of morning and afternoon hunts. Also it looks like the number of hunters per hunt will be increased. Maybe as many as 40 vehicles (up from 25) with two hunters per.
STA 3/4 is new and staff will not release it for public access to the interior until the emerging vegitation is established. The estimate was 2 to 3 years from startup. 3/4 was started in October 2003 so it is possible it will be partially opened next (05/06) season.
STA 1E was annexed into the village of Wellington with little public fan fair. This apparently happened a couple months ago. I guess this is going to be a new hot topic for our involvement around the state. I will post an extensive position statement on another thread. April with Audubon made a motion to have the RAW draft a letter to the WRAC expressing concern over this practice. UW-F will make our position well known to the members!
STA 6 will not be hunted due to an agreement with FPL which has transmission lines across this site. We can look farther into this and see if any accomodation can be made remote from the power lines.
It was stated that STA 2 has no legal access route at this time but that more lands were going to be purchased that would allow access off US 27. Steve with FWC pointed out that when it was Brown's Farm there was access and that should still be in place. SFWMD Staff is looking into the matter and will report back at the next meeting.
Hunt reservations on all STA's that are open will be by Quota hunt permit rather than call-in. FWC is working on the procedure right now. There is a potential timing problem because the waterfowl seasons are so late getting set due to the Flyway reports. FWC is confident that they can work it out. Also the permits may be non-transferable. We'll report the details as soon as we learn more.
We were hoping for additional hunting days during the week but the Staff is opposed at this time. All of the STA's have construction projects on going to one degree or another right now. In the future, if we continue to earn the respect of the water managers, there is a good chance we will get some days during the week. This will be an ongoing battle but we have the momentium in our favor and things are looking very good for the years to come. One up coming project is to convert another cell of STA5 from cattails to hydrilla. This would double the "hot spot" for ducks.
The only negative statement for the entire evening as far as duck hunters are concerned was a complaint about shotgun shells litering the bank of STA-5. We all need to educate our members and the other hunters that use SFWMD properties that all LITER must be removed from the site or we may lose the access that we have been fighting so hard for. There will be bird watching tours, hikes, horseback riding and other activities on all of these sites. We cannot allow hunters to be the BAD GUYS by leaving spent cases laying on the ground or floating in the water. Please let everyone know that this is a big deal to the people we are dealing with.
Thanks for the good turnout by duck hunters! We had many UW-F and Delta guys in attendance. We were by far the best represented group of stake holders.