complete agenda - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

ARC Summary August 13, 2010
Dr. Frederick asked about re-sprouting of hardwoods. Mr. Greene said that once they can
sweep fire through the area in about two years, it will knock back the re-sprout.
Dr. Frederick also asked whether anyone was interested in what the net nutrients are like. Mr.
Greene said they are looking at benefits to industry and also benefits to the forest biology.
Mr. Greene noted that over the last year on Blackwater, they harvested more than 53 thousand
tons and generated about $94,000. There is avoided cost in that they do not have to pay
people to mow those areas to help restore it.
Dr. Frederick asked if there was a lower limit on forest size. Mr. Greene said he had the
impression that they need several thousand acres to make it worthwhile for this kind of
harvesting.
Mr. Lane Green asked about spraying hardwood stumps after the harvesting, which is one thing
they do at Tall Timbers. Mr. Greene said that they hoped to avoid having to spray so they can
keep cost down. In some places it may be better.
Mr. Ballard asked, relating to biomass, whether they would come back in and harvest and, if so,
how. Will it be by thinning? Mr. Greene said that they will be harvesting by thinning. He said
they were moving to uneven aged stands in the state forests.
Mr. Karels said this entire product is not going in as pulp but is going to the mill and being used
to run their boilers, as fuelwood.
Dr. Frederick asked if the excess electricity from the boilers is sold back to the grid. Mr. Greene
said that they did.
ITEM 23: Management plans for properties 160 acres or smaller, minor amendments to
management plans and emergency items approved since the June, 2010 ARC meeting.
DISCUSSION: Mr. Farr reminded the members that these were plans that were on the web but
would not come before ARC.
ITEM 24: Data analyses, criteria and methods employed to provide a
comprehensive, uniform overview of the merits of each project on the Florida
Forever land acquisition priority list; and their potential application to assist the
Council in ranking projects in priority order. (Friday, August 13, 2010 meeting only)
DISCUSSION: Dr. Brock handed out a list of all the 97 variables used in the spreadsheet. He
explained that 25 were used in the formula presented to ARC as an example of how ARC might
use the data to help guide them in their ranking decisions. Forty-four other variables are crossreferenced
by those 25 variables. There are 12 other cross-references within the crossreferences.
So, all but 16 variables are used in some fashion in the calculation formula
presented as a straw man to assist ARC. Many of the 16 are not related to a formula because
they reference things like project name, county, or the year a project was listed. They could be
used if they became desirable attributes. As an example, maybe some ARC members desire to
work on only the new projects or vice versa – the old projects could be given priority to get them
off the list. Five variables included in the formula were actually used in determining DSL’s
recommendations on which categories the projects should be placed in. The handout also
illustrates what columns the variables reside in and the formulas for each column. He directed
ARC’s attention to the front page and the B Column Calc Score with the long formula – the
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