we were, this is a slide from when we were developing our rate plan, last year. And also the 20 year capital plan. So these were some of our goals and outcomes we wanted to avoid. One question. Could you, at some point talk about the money and where it comes from? Like how much is in the yearly budget and how much comes from major grants and, so you can talk about that later. Certainly, yeah. So again, knowing that we kind of Evelyn's seen probably some of the presentations from last year about the rates, you know, we did have a situation where we went to rate freeze and we had to sort of catch up because of all the inflation that we'd been experiencing. Like many other utilities in the area. And so one of our goals in developing the CIP was to avoid rate shock. We didn't want to try and start a bunch of projects that we couldn't afford right out the gate. So we focused on our priorities and slowly, you know, getting rates in line with what our needs need to be. Another big goal is to replace all the cast iron and galvanized water mains, fully fund the wastewater plant. Rehab, work on those sewer lines like we were just talking about. And we're going to be continuing to work on this and bring this back to the board in 2025, 2026, so this is our sort of funding plan for the different capital areas. And you can see here through 2324, 25 we've got, you know, almost $12 million in sort of legacy projects that we're focusing on catching up on, so we're not doing nothing these first two years, but we are getting a lot of our things that are projects that, you know, we were struggling to fund, knocked out. And we're really pleased with that, you can see that we're going to be putting quite a bit of funding into the wastewater plant, to for that, including that resiliency project, same thing with the water distribution system. And you can really see in 2027 and 2028, we ramp up to about a million and a half dollars a year for water pipe renewal, which is we're very pleased with and there's not no water pipe renewal happening right now. We're continuing to those are sort of those legacy projects that we're getting caught up on, but we didn't want to start on new things until we could knock out their previous priorities. So that's that's kind of what we're looking at here. So going back to the water pipes, this gives you a little bit of a snapshot of what we're looking at from the water pipes. This is very topical. We get a lot of calls about this. You know what does this mean. Sometimes we get rusty water. We flush a hydrant and people's water turns orange for a little bit while we're cleaning the pipes, and so, yeah, we do have a little bit of a challenge here. We've got 180 miles of pipe in the city, and, you know, about 50 to 60 of that is cast iron. And galvanized, these numbers are all seem very exact. But once you dig underneath roads, you know, you can't dig up the whole city to just look at what the pipes are. So these are our best estimates, and we continue to update this based on field investigations. And this is from a couple years ago. And since then we have knocked out a couple of, fairly big projects. So you can see I think, the top one up there by the Anclote River that circled in green, that's the river village, neighborhood. It's a mobile home park. And, we've gone in there in the last few years and replaced all the water mains. They've got all brand new water mains. They had some old galvanized pipes that were aging quite poorly because of the salinity and the groundwater from the from the Anclote River. So we made that a priority to maintain level of service. And so they've got all brand new water pipes. Their water quality is much improved, and what do you replace it with? PVC usually PVC plastic tends to have a long life, chemically inert. That's what I thought. But I, in some cases, if we replace major, like larger diameter pipes, we'll, we'll use like ductile iron pipe, which is, you know, more for like, transmission mains, you know, moving large volumes of water from point A to point B, The, another one I wanted to highlight here, too, is, that's kind of that left to right pipe, that's highlighted, in the southern part of the city, the southeast part of the city. That's, water main that we replaced just last summer on MLK, that was a really big deal. And I've got, you know, it was another galvanized pipe. We're trying to focus on that because it tends to age the most rapidly. And we've also got another one that we're working on right here outside this city hall on Gross Avenue. We've been replacing pipe in there as we go through and complete and public project admin completes the stormwater project. So this is the Gross Avenue pipeline. So this is really interesting, at least to me, so this map you're looking at is a Sanborn fire insurance map from 1919, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company was a company. They they sent surveyors out to cities all over America in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And surveyed, parcels and buildings and land use and water pipes to provide maps to fire insurance companies so they could decide what level of risk different properties had. And it's a really great historical resource, not just for water mains, but actually you can go back and look at some really cool historical stuff about the city and see how things were originally developed in downtown at the sponge docks. So and these are all available at the University of Florida Digital Library. So if anyone's interested in the history of Florida, they also make really neat things to hang in your living room if you're into that. But you can see on Gross Avenue right there, this is, you know, right down the street from us on between tarpon and orange. There's in the bottom of that blue box, there's a little note that says six inch WP, which is a six inch water pipe. And this was in 1919. And you can see that same pipe here in the photo on the right and right next to it. You can see this is from last week. You can see the new water main that they're installing. So, it's actually in really good shape. Some of this older stuff tends to last really well. Some of this pipe can last 100 or 120 5 or 150 years, but some of it doesn't. So we're going through trying to be proactive and assess based on level of service, water quality, local fire flow, and prioritize and get new pipe in the ground and improve conditions for our citizens, again, a few major ongoing projects that we've got going right now. These are big things that we're working on actively, currently just okay. On your map, what is that blue square near ring? Why is there one blue rectangle and everything else is yellow? Do you see it ring and ring in orange. I can't remember what the blue is. The, the Sanborn maps, the different buildings or color coded, depending on their use. So you can see all those little, yellow ones, say D for dwelling. I can't remember what's is it might be store kind of an old apartment building that's being re revamped right now. You see, there was a hotel on Tarpon and Gross which is pretty cool. It was there was a Baptist church over there too, actually. I go past that all the time. Yes. It's that may be the one that, it's being made into the boutique hotel, yeah. Yeah, I think it was the stables. Yeah, yeah. Was the stables. That might be. It's might be for stables. Yes yeah, there's a map key if you look them up online, it's pretty neat. And they're doing both of them. Right. Yeah There's one more cool map at the end too, yeah. So some of the big ongoing projects, big one we work on right now that's been out in the public, you know, in a very cursory way is our cybersecurity improvements, this was Arpa funded. We've got about $1.4 million, but this does kind of is kind of exemplary of some of the challenges that utilities face is, if you would have asked five years ago, there would not have been $1.4 million for cybersecurity in the capital plan. So when a challenge rise pops up, like that, we had our neighbor down the road get hacked. It was a national news event. EPA and the federal government came out very rapidly with new guidance and, the funding to do that, has was slowly catching up. But we had to kind of drop what we were doing and do what we had to do to meet this new threat, to protect our water and wastewater systems. Yes. Did they ever figure out who did it and did they have they strengthened like the penalty for that? Because, like, I know that there's been other hacks on like electric utilities and other states have like really upped the ante for like the punishment because you're impacting like potentially thousands of people. Yeah That's a big challenge, the kind of there's sort of a handful of different motivations that you see people doing the cybersecurity attacks, a common one now that, I can't speak to the penalties, but in some case, we've seen, attacks that were by like state actors. So there was a case of there was there was some guidance from the federal government that came out, earlier this year, certain types of, programable logical, at least PLCs. It's a panel that controls pumps and things like that. But they are made by an Israeli firm. And the Iranian government was targeting this particular brand of PLCs. And as sort of an economic attack on the Israeli, you know, businesses and things like that. So it's very difficult. You can have those punishments, but if they're on the other side of the world, there's you have limited ability to kind of do that. You just have to be protected and sort of build the castle walls higher, another common one was, ransomware, you know, get in, encrypt everything, lock it down, force people to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars in Bitcoin, and then you unencrypt everything and go on. And that that has changed in Florida. They cities are no longer allowed to pay ransoms for, for, cyber attacks. So hopefully that will reduce the incidence and make us less likely. Sort of we don't negotiate with hostages type of situation. So, that that's kind of what is the biggest threat realistically, so it's but the FBI and you know, the feds, the, they continue to work on this and trying to bring down these cybersecurity networks and things like that, or the cyber attack networks. But yeah, it is a big challenge and it's not something that most folks were thinking about, you know, 4 or 5 years ago, at least as intensively as we see it today, the, the electrical resiliency project for the wastewater plant that's in design right now. We're very pleased about that. And, we just had a board item this week that we're going to be applying for, state, state of Florida resilient Florida dollars to try and get that 50% funded, to make sure we build we can build the best project we can, but also to, you know, help reduce the impact on ratepayers and, you know, bring good value to the citizens, we're doing some aeration improvements of the wastewater plant as well, you know, as part of that life cycle rehab. And, we're getting ready to start replacing the older water main on the old 19 bridge. That's really exciting project, for at least for me. And what's very exciting for me is we're updating our water supply plan. So we've been dealing with these issues with, like you know, trying to build out our wells. We've had to abandon a couple of wells because we had a couple wells in, Dot easements. And they had other plans for that easement. So we had to abandon them, and also to make sure that we're being resilient for future water quality concerns, too. Which brings us to when you. Yes, when you do the water main on the 19 bridge. That's the one that goes over the river. Yes. Right. Where is the water main buried under, or is it attached to the bridge? Where is it? It's attached to the bridge. Oh, okay. Yeah. We call that an aerial crossing. So, yeah, that's what that was common, back in the day, but it has some downsides, like exposure to salt air and things like that. So it's metallic pipe, yeah. And the salt causing it to age. Not the best. So we're going to be replacing we're going to drill a new pipe underneath the river to, to protect it. And it also has resiliency from. So you're not attaching it to the bridge. No that's that's less common now. It's less common. Oh yeah. It's I mean it still happens. But like the new M.O. is to directional drilling has become a much more advanced technology. It's become a lot cheaper over time. So it's a lot easier to just drill the pipe under the river. It's safe from boat traffic, you know, we don't have to paint it all the time. Well, if you replace the bridge, you have to. That's the other consideration. If dot ever comes in, anytime we have assets and dot easements or on dot bridges, they dictate the timeline for when they replace the road and do road work and bridge work. And sometimes they tell us, hey, next year you got to move that and we have to scramble the is the water main for Beckett Bridge dug under as well. Yeah. Those are both going to be directional drilled as well. Right Thank you. Oh go back. There it is. All right. So back to lead and copper rule. So again it says lead and copper rule. You'll notice that everything here from this EPA graphic is all about lead. So, the primary goal of this program is to protect the public from legacy lead pipe. Okay. This is a nationwide effort being led by the EPA. This has been, you know, decades in the making, and utilities are starting to respond. And, because we have to because we have new regulations coming out. So the first step that the EPA is directing all the utilities to do is to locate all the legacy lead pipes in your system, the next step is they're directing utilities to improve tap water sampling, historically, most sampling in water utilities has been done at what we call point of entry. We make sure the water is good when it goes into the pipes to go out to people's houses. And now EPA is directing us to start doing more sampling out in the system. And the city's been doing that for a number of years. We've had all compliance samples, nothing out of compliance. We've been meeting all of our standards and we're and we're using our water plant to develop a water chemistry that when it goes out in the distribution system, it's protective, regardless of what your pipe material is, which is really great. So we've we've been very successful in that, they're going to be lowering the standards for what what's acceptable for lead over time to become more protective of public health, there's going to be a whole new communications component. And the goal over time is to essentially eliminate nationwide all of the lead pipe in the country within ten years, which is a pretty big task, in Florida, we tend to have quite a bit less of this. It was an uncommon building material, but we've been talking to other utilities and looking at, working with, you know, sort of national organizations like the American Water Works Association. And in some places this will be a very big effort, you know, so we've all heard about, like Flint, Michigan and things like that. The city of Chicago specified up until 1988 that all water service lines had to be led. Not all the water mains on the street, but all the pipes connecting your water main and your street to your house had to be led. So they've estimated that just in the city of Chicago, that'll be an $11 billion effort. So Tommy. Yes, what is our so this is being paid for by the federal government? No, that's that's. Yeah, yeah. So that that'll be the EPA, it says EPA right there on the slide. Yeah. They write the rules. They write the rules. Then we comply with the rules regardless of cost. That's how rulemaking works. I will say there there is. We have been exploring funding options for this, we're starting to apply for, like, some state of, state revolving funds, which is how the feds send money down for water systems through the states, and so there has been some funding dedicated to this. Quite a bit of funding, actually dedicated to this effort through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is really great. Tommy, just one more thing. So like for Flint, Michigan, is funding being directed towards like severe issues, something that needs for a public health crisis has been going on for how many years now is that priority funding? Is there any government funding available for something like that, like a remediation or recovery? I don't want to speak to Flint, Michigan, because that's a pretty unique circumstance, and I'm not so familiar with that, you know, with exactly what they're dealing with up there. But, the general way that the funding is distributed from the federal government is they send some money down through the state of the state revolving fund. The state revolving fund is sort of like an investment bank. They get money from the feds periodically, usually every year, but then occasionally they'll get big slugs of money for specific purposes, like lead and copper compliance. And they issue loans and sometimes they issue grants depending on how big your city is. And then they also take back payments on those loans over time. And every year they have a certain pot of funding that they think they're going to have available based on loan repayment and new funding from the feds, and you apply to have your project put on a priority list, and they rank all the projects based on priority. And that's how they allocate funding, like a Superfund site. It's like Superfund, but with a lot more funding. Yeah. Okay. And a lot more projects getting done. So what about the copper? You haven't spoken about the copper? Yeah, we we're really focused on that right now. Copper is very much not a concern right now. We're very focused on lead. Why is it there? That's the name of the rule. The rule originally when it was originally adopted by EPA, regulated lead and copper as pipe materials and their focus has been really on lead. Is there something wrong with copper? No. No, copper is a fine pipe material. I mean, you know, historically, you know, these rules regulated like different types of materials and things like that. Copper is used in homes. Yeah, copper is very common. And, you know, we're continuing to copper is continue to be available as a building material. If I say used in cups like Ayurvedic cups, so that people can get more copper, you know, so it's not copper. Yeah. I will say do not drink acidic drinks out of copper cups, right. No, not good, all right. So, so you're saying not to worry about copper pipes? We're really focused on LED LEDs, a big public health, issue. You're not saying the words I want to hear. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, but but I want to get to this. This is really exciting. So, where are we at? Right now? So EPA is really focused on lead, and we're really focused on lead. So, already today, we've been working with, the new EPA and Fdep enhanced sampling requirements. We are meeting all of our sample, standards, so we're not having any issues from what we're seeing from our water quality out in the system from a from a lead perspective, it's we're meeting all the standards. The next step is to complete an inventory of all the service lines in the city. And we have over 12,000 connections, from, from our different customers. And so this is a little snapshot of what we're doing. And we have to go through line by line and figure out what the pipe material is for every single home in the city and every single connection to a business in the city, to make sure that it's going to be safe. And, you can see here this is our inventory. That's right. Now we've got until October to complete this, but we've done, over 12,000 inspections, including through records review, to date. And we've only got about 400 to go, so we're going to be wrapped up by October. And so far we found zero lead pipes, which is great, so we've known that we were very likely not to have lead just because it was an uncommon building material in Florida, on the service lines. That's not to say that someone couldn't have installed one way back in the day, and we would find it as a surprise, but that's not what we found so far. We're we're nearly complete, and we haven't found any lead to date. So that's really great, there is a category that we're going to be addressing called, galvanized, requiring replacement. So galvanized pipes is a steel pip, they put a zinc coating on it to protect it from rusting. But over time, if you have galvanized, galvanized pipe isn't a problem in and of itsel. But EPA has done research. And if it's downstream of lead, over time, it can absorb lead and become a potential source of lead in the future. If you have bad water chemistry issues like they had in Flint, Michigan. So they're requiring utilities to do this record keeping search that if you have any galvanized service lines, which are, you know, fairly common to demonstrate that through records review that it was never downstream of any lead. And sometimes those records just don't exist, especially in older parts of the city. And that's what we're sort of finding. So this in our case, we haven't had any evidence that we've had lead. But to comply with the rules, they're a little bit precautionary. We will probably have a some number of, of galvanized pipes that will need to be replaced, per the rule. Not to say they're unsafe, but because of the records that may or may not exist, they'll be required to be replaced, so, yeah. So we're developing this new mapping tool. We've done over 7000 inspections in the field to date, the rest of it was done through planning and records review, and this is our map. So this is every service line in the city. All the blue ones are ones with that, we've, you know, positively demonstrated are not have no lead, the yellow ones are the galvanized pipes that we're going to do further investigation into. And we might if we have those records, we'll be able to potentially take those off the list for replacement. And the gray ones are sort of outstanding. Those are those are the last unknowns that we're still have. Field crews out there, including today, you know, working on doing inspections. So we're going to have this all wrapped up by October. How long has it been going on, the inventory of the current. About a year. So we started on this, you know, late spring of last year, getting set up with our consultants and doing the GIS mapping work and things of that nature. So, the next steps is we're going to have all of our field investigation work wrapped up by October. We'll be submitting to DEP, and they'll review all of our inventory. And the next step after that is the EPA is requiring utilities to develop a plan for replacing any service lines that require replacement according to their rule. In this case, for us, it will be some of those legacy galvanized lines, which again, are fairly low, unlikely to have any health risks in our town. But in an abundance of caution, the EPA is requiring those to be replaced, what is this? Unknown? It's unknown. Number of them say unknown. Like there's one on Chesapeake. So it's a street we just haven't investigated that one yet. Oh, they're working, but why that one? And not all? So you've investigated everything else on Chesapeake, but that one's unknown sometimes. That's just like, especially if it's like a one off house. Sometimes, like the meter box has been buried under sand or something like that, and they just couldn't find it. So they're going to go back with like the metal detector and go find the meter. So sometimes it's just that simple. Or it was overgrown or yeah, there was a fence. You know, something of that nature. So there's a few stragglers in individual neighborhoods where they're just trying to get as many knocked out as possible, and they'll be going back to pick up the, the loose ends. Yeah. So but a big thing that we and why we're starting to talk about this today is in October. We're going to be notifying our customers about this. And so we want to start communicating early. Talking about exactly what this means. And if you have an unknown which there might be a handful left where we're hoping to get it down under 100, you'll probably be getting a letter from the city saying, hey, we haven't had a chance to investigate your pipe yet, people tend not to love getting letters from the utility about, hey, we're not sure what your pipe material is, so we want to tell people exactly what this means. It means we're working on finding your pipe and investigating it. We haven't found any lead in the city to date, but we still need to go out and inspect your pipe and, also, some folks will be getting letters if they have a galvanized pipe and say, hey, your service line is galvanized. The EPA is requiring it to potentially be replaced because, the records that go back to when this pipe was originally put in are incomplete. And so we'll be notifying you with a plan for replacement over time, and so likely we'll have less than 500 galvanized lines that require replacement. Yes So these are the city lines. So what about the lines from the city to the house. And if it's so do people from the city and the house have led or galvanized? I know we have a sewer pipe that's galvanized. So but if it's from the road, the city to the house, the resident has to pay for tha. So is this that works. Yeah So that's, that's that's actually kind of new. So, what's new. Well, this whole dynamic about this let me back up. So, if you look on the map, right, you can see each one of these circles is two half circles, right. The each half represents one half represents the city service line. And the other half represents the customer service line. So we're inspecting both. And that's actually a little bit of new territory for utilities. Historically our responsibility went right up to the water meter. And from the meter to your house was the property of the homeowner. And their responsibility. EPA is starting to flip that a little bit and saying, well, the homeowners aren't really going to be able to solve this problem on their own. So we're requiring the utilities to start looking at this from a public health perspective, even though it's private property. So we're inspecting both sides of the water meter, which is that's new territory for us. So, so who would pay for the line from the street to the house? EPA guidance is pending on that. Yeah, because a friend of mine in Buffalo had had this happen with old pipes, and it was $22,000. And he said, all up, all around Buffalo, they're having that problem. And I mean, it's happening all over the northeast. Yeah. That's like I said that's definitely like a new area for us. There's EPA is still putting out guidance on how to develop your replacement plan. And who's going to be responsible for what. At this point it's probably fairly likely the utilities are going to be financially responsible. And we do have funding dedicated for this in the capital plan. So we're trying to get ahead of it. You know, there's new rules pending in late September, October that'll provide more guidance. And that's when we'll start making those determinations about building our schedule for replacing these pipes. And who's responsible for what. So you think the new rules are coming from the EPA and. Yes. And when does that happening? That's, due late September, early October, I believe. Could you say again what the gray circles are, those haven't been inspected yet. They have not been. Yeah, those are the unknowns. We're still get the field crews are getting to those. And the yellow are galvanized. Okay There's one up there. At some point we're once we get this a little bit closer to completion and buttoned up, we're going to try and turn this into a web map that'll be available to citizens. So they can go and you know, look for themselves and be aware of what's going on. And we can show some transparency and build some confidence for the customers. Good Which brings us to the most important question. We get this. This is the number one question we get. Well, the number one question we get in my department is, is the splash park open? But after that is, you know, is our water safe? So, yes, I want to affirmatively say that our water is safe and it gets safer every year over. We've met. We are required to meet a very stringent set of EPA primary drinking water standards. We do, sampling constantly throughout the year. We have some, water quality parameters that are monitored in real time at the water plant. And there's over 90 regulated contaminants in the primary drinking water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act. And our drinking water in Tarpon Springs meets or exceeds all of those standards, and to help demonstrate that and EPA requires us to demonstrate this, we publish an annual consumer confidence report. It gets mailed out once a year in your bill, and it provides a summary of all the sampling we've done to show that our water is safe. And if anyone's interested, you can scan this QR code and you can link out to it and look at all our lab results. If you have trouble sleeping and, take a look at exactly what we've got going and it shows all of our samples for lead. Some of these new emerging things, and, you can see for yourself, and, you know, going back to this, we get a lot of questions about the standards and what they mean, you know? So, this is right from the EPA. So the in the United States, drinking water standards, they're designed to protect public health, and they're calculated so that there's little to no adverse risk that would be expected over a lifetime. So and that assumes that you're going to be protected from adverse health impacts, that assuming you drink two waters of two liters of tap water a day every single day for 70 straight years. So they're very protective. The US has some of the most, stringent, water quality standards in the world, including, you know, comparing to other very well developed countries like in Europe. And so they're very protective of public health and, the reason we get, you know, more safe every year is the EPA is constantly looking at these, you know, new emerging chemicals and things like that, and they develop regulations for them and add them to the standards and like we're seeing with lead in future, there's going to be coming up with the PFAS and the forever chemicals, they're add new standards and we're required to meet those standards to protect public health than we do. So that's why we get safer every year. Every year there's, you know, every few years there's new standards come out. And we have to make sure that we're being fully compliant with them. So, that's, that's what we're working on. So go ahead. I think that one of the reasons that people want to know if the water is safe is because it doesn't taste so good. And I think that that's what people ask that, and I don't know why that's the case, that it doesn't taste so good, but it doesn't the, the tooth, the two things that we see most commonly, so we do, we actually every year we, we enter our water, there's a regional competition for water tasting. And they have, you know, a group of experts or sometimes local weathermen will taste water from all these different utilities. And, we tend to do okay. But a lot of the, the top one that, you know, that we tell folks about, like, and that we see from folks is, is chlorine. We do have a free chlorine system. It's very protective of public health and actually much easier to maintain our our safety standards than, other systems. And we can do that because we have a reverse osmosis plant. And so we don't have, it has to do with like some of the contaminants that can be formed when you disinfect your water. And we don't have those because we reverse osmosis. So we have a free chlorine system. It's very protective micro from microbiological contamination, but people don't love how chlorine tastes and the smells. Oh yeah. Yeah. They don't love that. Why is it stronger sometimes? Is it just been released or something that all of a sudden, you know, you run a bath and it's. Oh, you mean the chlorine smell? Yeah. The chlorine smells. Yeah. It does vary a little bit. You know, sometimes depending on consumer demands and things like that. You know, if you're closer to the water plant, you tend to have a little bit more chlorine than if you're farther away from the water plant, when you run a, if you aerate, water, like, put it on a shower or, if you bubble it in your fish tank, it'll release the chlorine and you can smell it. So that's that's kind of common when you have the tub going or the shower going, you'll smell it. So because it's being released in the, in the air, the, the other thing that we do kind of see commonly too is, oh, the water tastes different. And it tastes different because it has different water chemistry than most folks around us. So in Florida, people tend to get very used to tasting the water that they grew up with. And in Florida, we've historically had sort of a harder water source with lots of calcium in it from the fresh zones of the Floridan aquifer, and that's not what we really have in Tarpon Springs anymore. We have a reverse osmosis plant. It's a little bit softer, so it does it's got a little bit less mineral content. So it does taste different. It's kind of the difference if you grew up tasting drinking mineral water every day and switched over to drinking distilled water, you say, oh, this tastes kind of different. And it does, but it's perfectly safe. And but sometimes it takes a little time for folks to get used to. But there's some benefits to it's good for easier for fish tanks, easier for home brewers and distillers. You shouldn't be distilling at home. I don't think, but, it happens, so yeah, there there's some there's some other benefits to, you know, put minerals back in your water too. You can do things. But, you know, I think, you know, traveling around to some countries where you can't drink the water, you cannot drink the water at all. And everyone has to drink out of this purified, you know, big plastic jugs of water. And it's just whenever I come home from a trip like that, I'm always so happy that I know I can always drink the water and it won't kill me, because a lot of places in the world that is not the case. You can die from drinking the water. So it's, you know, I don't it doesn't taste the greatest, but it's like it kind of makes me smile to think doesn't taste good, but it's not going to kill me. You know? Yeah. No, it's not going to get typhoid and get typhoid. There's no sulfur like like a well where it smells like rotten eggs. So, you know, it could be worse. That's true. You can do things. I mean, we run our water through Berkey system and it can. It makes it very drinkable and delicious. Yeah. And actually, one of they've done studies. One of the most common things you can do if your water tastes better, people perceive that the exact same water tastes better. If it's colder. So put it in a pitcher, put it in the fridge. It actually holds in the chlorine a little bit more and it'll taste great. Or if you want, you can run it through a Brita filter or something. Put a little lemon in it that Celtic Sea salt and some herbs. So I promised a really cool map at the end, this is the earliest Sanborn map they have in the University of Florida collections. Oh, this is just a snippet. So if you want, you can go back and explore like some of the really old stuff in downtown. But this is the sponge docks from 1913, and it's really cool. You can see the original sponge exchange. You can see Dodecanese was originally a line street, which is pretty cool, you can see the sponge wharf there and, up in the top corner, we've got a little comment, from the surveyors about the original city water mains, and it talks about their city water system. And we had three wells that were 110ft deep and our fire pressure was, you know, whatever it says, 60 psi and 45 pounds for regular pressure for homes. And we had four and a half miles of six and eight inch water main that were laid in 1909. So that's really cool to see the history of the city. And, and that's our first standard for how much water we use. We use 120,000 gallons a day. And nowadays we're using about, 2.8 million gallons a day. So tell me, is the water pressure now in the statistics basically the same? Do we. We're we're a little bit higher now. So our, our kind of target is 60 psi in the system all the time. We don't have to turn the pumps up when there's a fire. So, and the system is a little bit more intensive now. So we need to keep the pressure up. That's cool. Cool. So earlier in the presentation, you kind of alluded to challenges because of the water table or the condition of our aquifer right now is that resulting from the three years of drought that we've had or. Yeah, that's that's not been helpful. When you have extended period of drought, you know, in a brackish aquifer, in this type, you know, we do tend to see the, the salt content, start to go up a little bit as we have less rain, over time, as you get more recharge and you have some wetter years, that'll kind of start to go back down, and also having extra demands from drought, which is why it's important to conserve it actually forces us to produce more water, which we have to pump the wells longer. And for, you know, for higher volume to make the same, to meet those demands. And that can cause additional salt to kind of come into the system which we can treat. Our plant can treat up to sea water level. So that's really good. But it costs us additional energy costs. And, and it reduces the yield. So we have to take more water out of the wells to make the same volume of finished water for the citizens. So so droughts are they do continue to be a challenge, but, but again, part of that what we've seen too is over time, and this is common with a lot of the reverse osmosis plants that were developed around the same time after the water wars in the early 2000 and Tampa Bay, you know, some of them have just had like the chloride content, the salt content has increased a little bit more quickly than the geologists at the time predicted. So that's why we need to accelerate our wellfield, build out, one other question is, the has the city does the city have any, regulation or any recommendations on water barrels for people's gardens? Is it is it something that is accepted or is it something that, yeah. For gardens, water, rain barrels are great, you know, we I'd have to double check. I don't know if we have anything in the building code about them, but. Yeah, those are great people. Have them in town if you want. It's a great way to water your plants. Helpful. Versus thinking that we. There would be a great thing to encourage. I mean, we do have a really big tank, in our yard. That's about 280 gallons. Oh, that's a good one. And, you know, it's gravity flow, but, it really helps you know, when, when we have dry days to get water to our mango trees, to get water to our banana trees, which require a lot. So I'm thinking it might be a nice program, just like the tree thing. Right I mean, just to encourage people to and give them resources for water barrels. If we could research that, it's I believe we've done that a little bit in the past. The county, they have water barrels. Oh yeah. So I would like to look into that. Have rain barrel workshops at IFAs. So that's how we got our first ones from the extension program. And they teach you. And then I mean we have and what we do is we have our barrels filled and then we have buckets and we empty them so that when it rains again, so we have this storage of water with caps on it. Yeah. But it's made a huge difference. Oh yeah. And you're absolutely correct, doctor. You know, if people are interested in rain barrels, the best resource is University of Florida IFAs extension in Pinellas County, that's available botanical gardens. Yep. And they're really great. And I believe the water management districts also have some really good resources on what to do. If you want to do a rain barrel, maybe we could invite them to one of our Earth fair to the Earth Day or something like that to go fast. Yeah, right. I think the challenge, at least for where I live, is that and I know it's not all of tarpon, but like, there's all this rain around and it comes and it goes poof. Like yesterday people got all this rain. Yeah. Like none. Yeah It's because of lake tarpon, right? Right. It comes into Lake Tarpon and it stops right there. And a lot of times it will rain downtown here. Yeah. And it doesn't rain where we are. No it. Yeah, it's very isolated. When they say 50% they mean well in the last couple of days. Could be the unlucky 50. Yeah. Well the last couple days it just went, it wasn't right at the coast. It was like two miles over and it just went like this. And it didn't hit us at all. Yeah, yeah, it's been like that. But we're in a very dry zone. We've. I've been here for almost 30 years. It's been that way. One more question about the, you mentioned clay pipes, are we putting those in anywhere or is that. No, that's not no. Clay pipe. Is definitely a legacy pipe. That's that's kind of got phased out mostly by the 1970s when plastic pipe became much more affordable. So, we don't concerns about plastic too. So, well, those are for sewer pipes. So. Yeah. No, no one's drinking water from clay pipes in the city, no, I'm just saying, PV, the. Yeah PVC is not the healthiest, pipe for human health. It's really the best option for us right now. I mean, only I guess we've got to hope that something evolves eventually. That's even an improvement over that, so when do you. We're we're working on replacing the old infrastructure, and we're looking at the mainly the galvanized pipes are going to be the first project. Yeah. The we're we're actually just, are kicking off a new project down in the Union Academy neighborhood. We're going to be replacing an old two inch galvanized line with a modern, four inch PVC pipe, right around the fundamental school. So that'll be really good. It'll help improve water quality locally, improve fire flow for if, God forbid, there was ever a fire over there, we'll have good level of service. But you're doing your 4000ft of your, of the clay pipe lining you're starting. That's starting now. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's been going on. We're we're working through that actually. We've had a, we've got a contractor scheduled. They were originally scheduled this week. They're actually going to be out I think they've been talking about that forever. I think a lot of those pipes are down at the sponge docks and in the old part of town. And there's actually nothing that holds them together. They just kind of fit together. So over time, there's a lot of leakage, a lot of wasted water because there's, you know, it's just but you think about it, it's a pretty clean system like the like as he said, the ancient Romans used it. But time to update, if you go to bath, you know, in Englan, those Roman, water things still work. I mean, it's amazing. Yeah yeah, actually a really cool example. Yeah. If you to tie it back to Tarpon, if you go to the train station, I think it's in, Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece. They have a you're down in the subway and there's a walkway over and a water pipe that was installed in the classical age of Greece. And like the 4 or 500 BC and it's still in service. And it's a storm water pipe. They, they channelized a ditch or something like that so they could put a road over it, you know, back when they were building the Parthenon and it's still in service and you see it going underneath the modern walkway in the middle of a modern subway system. And we think we're so evolved. I don't think I am. Speak for yourself. Well, we don't either. I'm just a regular person. Thank you so much. Thank you for the very thorough presentation and answering all of our questions. Well, the thing is, water is really the key. And if we don't have good water, we don't live right. It's water is life, this is this is such a big priority to have good, safe water in the next item we have. What makes me want to drink? Any other comments or questions before we move to the next part of our agenda? The one piece that I don't. Here, take a look. Sure. Okay. Can you drink rainwater? If you know, do you if you if you had to. Do you just boil it? Good. I think everybody, everybody should have water purification systems. And I think it's going to be increasingly necessary. I mean, look at you know, with cyber attacks that are happening if you have your rain barrel. I mean, I've always thought about that. If there was ever a pumping issue that went down, we had water in the yard. We have three different systems for water purification. And that's a good thing. Through the Berkey. And it should be fine. The rainwater. Yeah Empty or somebody was crying a lot at another meeting or blowing. I have any, okay. We're pulling up the communication goals. Thank you. Okay Yes. So, having caught up to some of the discussions that you all have participated in over the past couple of months, it seems like Tommy has been guiding you all to, sort of synthesize, come up with your top communication goals. So I just kind of wanted to go over that and make sure that everyone's on the same page and have a little discussion. So the key themes that I pulled out from the May meeting were number one, educate the community on local sustainability issues and actions. And underneath each of these, I've just put a couple of bullet points on potential ideas. Just loose guiding things. Nothing that's, you know, a specific action item, but just kind of jumping off points. So for that, some things that we would, be focused on doing would be continued dynamic engagement at our community events. Of course, potentially, potentially reengage with a newsletter and then the theme number two is build a stronger sense of Community. And I put in parentheses around environmental issues because it seems like Tarpon Springs actually does have a great sense of community overall. But perhaps what this group feels is missing is that connection specifically to environmental issues and having the, you know, having more people come in who are sharing that passion. So how could we integrate more people into that? Well, maybe reach out to other events and see if we can, you know, piggybacking and incorporate environmental issues that way to reach out to larger, you know, a larger population base such as the back to school Splash and Eco Fest, where it's a little bit of a dual event, so you're reaching a larger crowd. So other things along those lines would be something we'd be looking at. And of course, perhaps an additional, I guess, level of work towards having a social media presence, or at least just sharing things periodically. Updates, maybe when we have a specific, you know, project or something that we want to make sure the community is aware of. Number three, integrate new residents into the community. So outreaching to different groups, so youth, seniors, the business community, obviously one example that, was pointed out before is the Be Floridian program through the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. So that has some great resources. And, you know, however, we can sort of bring those ideas together. Re Re I guess Furbish, in a way, our website and links and things of that nature. So we're really providing more resources, more outreach to integrate people and make sure everyone has the awareness of, okay, you move from a different area and what are some of the regulations here that we really need to be aware of? So those are that is what is highlighted in the be Floridian program. And I think it's very, very helpful and applicable. And maybe we could even jump off and do something, you know, specific to tarpon sort of under that, and then number four, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. So of course we are currently working on the Climate Action Plan in conjunction with our greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. So it's going to identify measures to increase both energy efficiency. And again target the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. So those are just some of the ways that we either are already working towards these key themes and goals. Or we can have, you know, more specific action items come through these things to make it more robust. Yeah There we go. Yeah. We wanted to kind of bring this back. I think this was pretty much the kind of core four things that we had coalesced around two meetings ago. And so we've kind of more formalized those. And we want to just kind of take this opportunity to like say, hey, did we hear you? Is this pretty much what we're all in kind of agreement that these are sort of be the themes and goals for like our our sustainability communication moving forward. And, the next step for us would be to, you know, take this, digest it. And over time, Holly will start developing a plan to start implementing these things and focus on these outcomes. I think visibility of visibility of, sustainability is fantastic. So wherever you drive, please drive the electric car. Absolutely. And be advertising our presence here because, you know, the big question in my mind is how do we get people involved? I mean, it seems like there are a handful of people that you see at a lot of the BoCC meetings or you see them turn up at at different events or stay plugged in to communications, but it's just such a small percentage in comparison to the general population. So I'm sensing that we need to, at least for a focused period, get out into the public and maybe even do it through First Fridays. That was kind of one thing we're going to be continuing to talk about. And we've already had some communication or some discussions with the recreation folks about that, as we do have a lot of great community events. You know, we've, we've got a lot of stuff that people go to and, you know, it wasn't that long ago we had Earth Day. We had a pretty good turnout, you know, 20, 30 people. But that's kind of small potatoes compared to Eco Fest or First Friday. So, that was one. And, you know, knowing that we do have limited staff, that was kind of a key theme that we kind of kept coming back to is like, hey, we have all these events that people go to, instead of making people come to specific stuff just to learn about sustainability, well, bring sustainability to the people, you know. Yes, yes, yes. So I have two things. Okay. Oh, gee, what was the first go I don't know, the second. So you had mentioned about the be Floridian. Yes. And so the Tampa Bay estuary people, you know, Tampa Bay, Baywatch and all of that. You know, I run into them a lot. And I've gone to their events. But as soon as I mention I'm from Tarpon Springs, they're like, because you're not on the Bay. You know, we aren't part of Tampa Bay. So it seems to me that the idea of developing, because our issues are different, you know, than the Bay issues. And it seems to me that we aren't the only ones that are not on the Bay. And so it's not that we can't link with them, but we aren't. They're, you know, they're the Bay people. And, well, I think that we are I think overall what they have on their, I mean, in their program and specifically the be Floridian applies to any locality in the Tampa Bay area because it's specifically talking about, again, being mindful of things like, you know, let's not over fertilize our lawns and have it all run out. Well, even though we are not having runoff into Tampa Bay, we are having runoff into Saint Joseph Sound and the Gulf of Mexico. And we still have, you know, algal blooms. So it's I think a lot of the key issues are the same. And so I hear you that there might be a little bit of a disconnect, but but my point is, is that to talk about it in terms of the runoff into the Anclote or into our bayous, they are different issues that come up because of that. And I think that, you know, connecting with for example, Dunedin and Palm Harbor, you know, connecting with people who are not on the Bay and are focused more on the Gulf. Ozona, you know, would be a good idea. And to think about what are the unique issues that we have that the Bay doesn't? I mean, they they're really interested in that. The bays and estuary system, I mean, I lived there, I was involved in, you know, knowing that and they have very different issues than we have here. So I think and it would be really cool if we had something. And then when we have something we can connect up. Yes. Well, I've definitely been doing a lot of outreach to, and with other sustainability directors and coordinators in Pinellas County. So I'm really excited about, you know, sharing information and synthesizing with them. And, specifically, you know, we have calls and, and email groups that we share ideas. So, you know, asking them what they're doing for outreach and, and related specifically to this is, is definitely on my radar. So I will continue working along those lines. Okay, I remembered the first thing. So on the 27th Saturday, the 27th from 430 to 7, they're going to be public interviews with the city manager candidates. I was going to mention that at, so but this is part of you know, the community outreach. And to make sure that we ask the people, you know, the manner, how what's your priority about sustainability? And because we want to make sure we have a city manager that this is a priority to listen to the screening interviews. And they they seem to be pretty tuned in to the thing, things like that. But there's issues that we have. I want you to be able to ask your question or share, please. Thanks I just wanted to make a point with the energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions that, I think that one of the themes that we need to be communicating is not just that, like, we're wanting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the sake of it, but that there are incentives for residents to, like, reduce their bills, and like, so it's like a financial incentive for everyone to care about it, even if you don't care about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, just so at first Friday, which I usually am not able to get there because I have to be at work at 8 a.m. and on Saturdays. So I'm just curious, have you seen information booths? I mean, when I used to go there, you know, sometimes the community garden had a booth. I saw your mom there and, you know, different different, aspects of the community were represented so that they could answer questions. And I'm just wondering, has anybody been there recent times so that, you know, whether that's happening still, Robin had been going to First Fridays on behalf of the sustainability. Okay Yes, she was here. Right. So that's righ. Okay. I think the idea of havin, you know, a rain barrel thing at First Fridays is really smart and then we could have, you kno, also informations about the hybrid, water meters and, you know, all of that stuff, people. I mean, I went to the, the was it the Christmas I went to one of them because I never go. But but there was places where you could get information and I think that, you know, people walk up and down and there's just so many, you know, trinkets you can look at, right? So if there's an information thing with the rain barrel and it would be fantastic. So does anybody know what the agenda is going to be like on for Eco Fest. What that set up is like because that is not something I've been able to see. So I did actually just meet with the volunteer coordinator and event coordinator from the rec department about that this week, and she gave me a great overview of the setup and kind of the expected vendors, the typical vendors that have been in the past. We talked about a couple of, you know, other groups that we could outreach to. One being the Pinellas County Extension office. So bringing the people in, and that would be a great opportunity to, you know, interface with them. And maybe they could bring information about some of their programs that we do not specifically offer here through the city of Tarpon Springs, so that is definitely on my to do list. As to contact our, our person that we work with there. And, you know, just really make that a full just bring as much as we can to that I would say is the first step. And then kind of talk going forward about what other events make the most sense as far as planning and executing. But I know that Eco Fest again, it reaches a larger group and the, coordinator through the rec department actually did you know, she said that families come, you know, adults come. It's really a wide variety of citizens that tend to show up and attend, Eco Fest and Splash bash. So I really am excited about that. And I think that we have a couple of fun ideas on other potential vendors to invite, so we'll keep you posted. So it's in September. It's on the 14th, so we have a couple of months. Yes, it's September 14th from 10 to 1 p.m. on the field by the splash park of course. So yes, the dog park. Great So I think that we've got some things to definitely work on. And I was hoping, I don't know whether you've had a chance yet to connect with other sustainability coordinators. You have very much. That is something I've been doing a lot of this week. Getting roped or, up to speed on, the larger sustainability, the Southeastern Sustainability Director's Network, as well as the Pinellas. There's kind of a work group for Pinellas County sustainability departments as well. So I haven't had the first call with them, but we all have been, you know, emailing and sharing ideas and asking for guidance on certain things. And so I will be having a call with the Pinellas Group though on Monday. So yeah, we're really, really getting integrated quickly with kind of ideas and resources that are here locally as well as the larger southeast region. So there's just a ton of information and ideas out there to bring to bring in when you know, we can fit it all together. Yeah, I think that that's, the best is to be able to share amongst absolutely those that are in charge of sustainability, to see what are you doing to actually meet you, meet the public and connect and build community around this. Yes. Yeah So we've got a lot to think about continuing for the future. So is everybody in general agreement that these were the four themes that were the focal points of anything missing that you saw? To me, it seemed like they were pretty comprehensive. Okay. That's that looks right. Great Just the last little piece was just kind of the intended or hoped outcome. So increase awareness. We've been talking about that promote engagement, change behavior, receive feedback and then evaluate obviously what can we do different. Build on our successes and kind of, you know, rework the plan and do it again. Excellent okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. We are at the point of looking at the, items for the next meeting agenda. Yeah. The, August stormwater presentation might be ready for stormwater. Yeah Stormwater is definitely going to be the topic du jour for, for the next agenda, we'll have, Tony Menello from Public Works in attendance. Yeah, that'll be a good, good, good topic. And I know that before, you know, before we finish the plan, we were always getting updates timeline on, on, where we were with the plan, but I think it would be really beneficial if we had timeline updates on implementation of the actions for 2024 going into 2025. I think that'd be great. We that was originally something we were trying to bring back quarterly. We got a little bit sidetracked. And so, moving forward, I'd like to do that as a standing like, you know, once a quarter, good idea, agenda item is this is where we're at on the on the plan action items. And I think, August is not on really any particular quarter, but it's been a little while, so it's time and that might also be a good look forward, you know, October is not that far down the road, so we could potentially look, just have a cursory overview of, or a little reminder for what's what we've got coming up in fiscal year 25 as well. Good Any other thoughts on agenda items that are burning in your heart, like a full agenda? It does. Okay Staff how about just, I think it was last meeting or the meeting before we talked about trees and Duke energy taking trees down. Is there been more of that in the city? I haven't seen any, but I'm wondering what that policy is. Yeah I haven't either. I, I called Shannon Brewer today just to ask her about a certain an update on invasive species because it keeps coming up in the discussions with the Charter Revision Commission. So I really wanted to know, well, where are we with that? So maybe we could have an update just about trees and invasive species. So I think it's good to, you know, get updates on the things we've had reports about and not just one offs. Denise was part of what you where you were going with that. It was seeing what charter Review committee recommendations interface with us. No. They're talking they were questioning whether we needed to have something actually written. I was planning to address that in staff comment. And we. Yeah. Okay So staff comments take it away. All right. Yeah. So I think we have one member with news, I don't want to I think Dory let us know that this is going to be your last meeting, that I was expecting this to be for some reason, I thought this would be the reverse. Or that you would get the chance to announce. But we do have something for Dory, to say thank you for her dedication to the to the committee and for being our first chair, thank you. She got her marble just in time. Yeah she was actually the critical piece to get this thing going. And she. When she was involved with the other group, turned the tide for tarpon. Yeah, she reignited me. But we could not have done this without you. We could not have gotten this started. And thank you for bringing the star, this the star program to us so that we could actually work through it. We. You hung in there through Covid and through zoom meetings and through masks. And you. Oh, yea. But you were really keeping us focused and I appreciate it so much. I don't think anyone else could have been better for this role. And you have. We owe you so much. Thanks. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for your dedication. It was incredible. Your service to the city. Thank you so much. Yeah We're here. Yeah. And I just want to. Yes. Yeah. A lot a lot, I can't do better than what Denise just said, but we did want to take off from the. On behalf of the staff and from all the staff that are there to say thank you for your dedication and this this committee and the plan and the sustainability program as a whole wouldn't be the same if it hadn't been for Dory's dedication and to the city and to sustainability. We just want to say thanks. So, your guidance, I mean, just you kept pushing and I mean, it was your direction was amazing. You were the perfect leader at the perfect time. You pass the baton to the next perfect leader, and now you're bowing out. We'll see who shows up. Humbled to follow in her footsteps. Yeah. Big, big shoes to fill with you. Just the clarity that you've had. And you know you've kept everything focused. And we'll keep the greenhouse gas conversation alive. We will. Oh, this is okay, Tommy. You might answer when the events are happening. If you could, on the 26th and the 27th for a meet and greet of the city manager candidates. Yeah, yes. Do you have that information? I know that I saw it in I thought I saw something from Connect Tarpon, but I think it would be. Yeah. It's on connect 27th, is it four? Is there one for the committee members? Yes that's what I wanted to know is I think that there's something for the committee members on the 26th. Yeah I'll go ahead and get that out via email to everyone just to make sure everyone's got it, you know, in their email dates that are available and what, what it's for. Yeah, I don't have it written in front of me. And I tend to misspeak about dates, so I don't want to say anything offhand, but I'll make sure that we get that out to everybody. And a couple other things, we have had there has been some discussion at Charter Review, about different sustainability items, and I wanted to let the committee know that, last Friday, we sent from Public services on behalf of public services and the sustainability committee or not, the committee, the sustainability program with that staff level, you know, a memo providing guidance and clarification on some of the items that they, they were discussing, some of them are some of the probably the most important thing was trying to educate them on and provide them some documentation on some of the items that they were talking about, about invasive species and things of that nature, and how they're incorporating the plan and how we have a very strong plan in place for how we're going to address those through ordinances and the comp plan, stuff like that. So we have been communicating with, charter revision Committee, we also have an interesting a couple of interesting things coming up. Like I said, we just talked about last Tuesday at the board. The board approved a resolution supporting our grant application for resilient Florida for the wastewater plant Electrical Resiliency Project, so we're going to be applying for that in the next couple months, and we'll report back, when, they tell us if we get the money or not, and we also have a meeting with a joint meeting with Commissioner Koulianos tomorrow, here in Tarpon with the Tampa Regional Planning Council representatives. Again, regarding resiliency and vulnerability assessments and things like that. So we're just continuing to do some collaboration with, Commissioner Koulianos and the Planning Council, that's all I have. Yeah Do I have anything? I do not have anything. But if you have any questions for me, I would be happy to address that or take them. Okay. And, Committee comments. Okay. Okay So I know that there's a public meeting from 630 to 830 at the Heritage Museum for the city manager's. That's Friday. Then on the Saturday at 430 to 7, the commissioners, I think, are going to where where are you finding that info? I got it from, Karen lemons. Okay For th, the newsletter she sends out. So she sent that out. Now that's the one on Friday. Is public. So if there's one just for committee members, I don't have that. But maybe that's earlier on Friday because it looks like the commissioners are going to make their decision that Saturday, a week from tomorrow. Friday from what time? 27 or 30 to seven at the Heritage Museum? No, I think the commissioners are going to meet here. I assume the public meeting is at the Heritage Museum on Friday, right from 630 to 830. Okay. The commissioners are meeting on Saturday from 430 to 7, and I'm assuming it's downstairs. But if there's a special meeting just for committees, then you'll let us know. Certainly, if there's any way for us to get the schedule of when we would have an opportunity to meet them from a committee perspective, that would be that'd be great. Great. Yeah. We'll try and set that on the next couple days. And one one thing I was thinking about, oh, there's two things, one about the echo fest. So Dory had the Teslas there, but now there's a whole bunch of electric cars. And I don't know if we could do this, but, like, we could bring our our blazer because people stop us all the time about the blazer. And then there's all these other electric cars. And I think that if people saw that there was, you know, a plethora of electric cars and maybe if we could bring our own and talk to people, you know, real owners and say, yeah, this is how we do it, and it's real easy that that would be a good thing to do. Maybe there's an electric vehicle club or some. So there's National Drive. Electric Week is the week of September. The last week of September through like October 2nd is when it runs. But you can have events outside of National Drive Electric Week. Okay. And that makes it much easier to advertise. And then also to recruit participants to bring their vehicles. It would just depend on how much space we have, right? I'd have to investigate that. But but that is really easy to do and I can help with that if that's if there's an interest to create that National Drive Electric Week event because like, it's on a national website, that's great. And then people register and you put all the information in and makes it easier. But I think that would follow up with Dory for sure. Okay, great. Because I know that people stop us with our car now. Plus it's that cool color. It changes color, yes, I what you just said is so interesting, Dory and I want to bring it back to you and thank you, and your expertise is going to be so hard to replace. And maybe you could visit us once in a while because. Because you just you just make public comment. Yeah We need that. But an infusion of your expertise once in a while would be great if possible, I appreciate that. Yeah. If you see us veering off course, give us really? Robin. Know anybody who could, you know, be good to take your place with that expertise. She's unique, I know, but she may know somebody who is unique like everyone else. I can put some ads out on my Facebook page. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. I'm retiring. Take my place, please. Because we're going to need a. Yeah, really? Quite a few members. Yeah, I did want to. That was one thing I kind of missed in staff comments. But we have been talking quite a bit about the committee membership, and we're planning to do some outreach. So, I know there was definitely a feedback that we wanted some, young folks to get involved. So we're going to be doing some outreach to Saint Pete, see if there's any, Saint Pete College to see if there's any local, environmentally oriented, college students that live in the city that would be interested in participating. And we're also doing some outreach in different neighborhoods and things like that to try and, stir up a little bit of interest and get a little bit of geographic diversity, too. Okay, I won't I can reach out to I have a comment. Is it my turn? Yes it is, thank you. You know, kind of dovetailing on on what Tommy said. The Wmnf has a sustainability show once a week and I happen to be listening to it. And there's a fellow named Dell and we can you can be on it. I'm sure if there's something you want to get on and talk about, it's not difficult to get a spot on a radio show at that station. And a guy there was on it called Dell Duchamp, who's at at USF, and he's he's was actually a former commissioner from Newport, Richie city commissioner, and so was his wife, and he's a professor of religious studies at USF. But his passion is urban agrarianism. And he said that I this is one of those things I thought, I'll go back and listen to this and make sure I've got the numbers right. So pay no attention to these numbers. But it's I believe he said there were 4000 youth, members of that out of that area. And I know, especially with what you and Jim do, that and part of our goals is to have more urban sustainability as far as, you know, producing our own food and then going on from there. But I think there might be a presence, a robust presence at USF and urban. And I forget even the term. But, if I find more information or actually listen to it again, I'll let you know. But I think that what you're saying is that we have some a way to, bring some youth into the USF, Saint Pete or Tampa or Tampa. Yeah, because USF Saint Pete has a whole sustainability thing going on. Gardens? Yes. You said the number of urban farms, I mean, or the, the young people from the college who are involved in this, and it's just like, really, they've been doing it for quite a while actually at USF Tampa. Wow. Well there you go. Long time. Well on that subject, you know, permitting culture is very hot right now, and edible backyard or yard, farms and, we have somebody who's living close by. He's in Spring Hill, but, Pete Canaris from Florida Green Dreams and he, he, he's just started a new nursery up in Spring Hill. He had a one in his homestead, but he installs, edible food for us big ones. And, he's one of my installers. He maybe we could get him to come and talk at some point, because I think that's a really good outreach way to maybe have him at, first Friday at a booth, you know, and, and that's a way to, maybe grab young people, because, you know, since the, during the pandemic, there was this explosion and interest in gardening because people were cooped up, so might might be, might be an avenue of interest, you know, he does a lot of YouTubes. He's well, yes. Amazing. Especially, you know, he even travels and does them. He's going to visit, you know Jim Coveleski who's in Maine now. Right. Right Okay. Yeah. Dory, do you have any parting parting words? Can I, I just want to thank everybody. Right now on the committee and also thank all of the folks previous that have been serving on the committee with us, you know, Doctor Robinson, for all of those years and Karen, for all of those years, and also the commission that has really embraced what we're trying to do going way back to Commissioner Banther in like 2017, when I went to him and said, we really should do this. And he he was the one that like, put it on the agenda and made it happen. So yeah, it's to me it's like really cool to see different parts of the community all have an interest in seeing this succeed. And for so many years and going forward, knowing that that's like one of the talking points at the candidate forums is sustainability. Yes. You know, making sure that, people recognize that it's not just about the environment, that it's about our community, our people, and it's also about our economic security and making sure that our town can continue to flourish for years. And years. So, just super thankful for all of the folks that enabled it to happen. Paul Smith for all of those years as our staff liaison, Robin is our former sustainability coordinator, and I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but, and the city manager for embracing it and creating all of the mechanisms to, like the staff, committee to make it happen. So, and everybody in planning that's been really working on this for years and years and commission and the mayor who recognizes the need to put all of these plans together and make a big, cohesive plan for going forward as a communit. So, I'm just super thankful and, I'm not going anywhere. Like, we still live here. And everything. I just it's been a long it's been many years, and I need a break. And, so. Yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah Thank you. And I really have nothing else to say. That was a beautiful. Thank you very much. I accept that. I want everybody to know about this site that we found recently called vortex Bladeless. Dot com. And to me, it was a wonder that we have now, the option it's called vortex bladeless.com. It's new wind generators that do not harm birds, that they produce energy just on vibration. I know that we're not doing wind energy here, but I think it's always good to be aware of that because people, you know, will criticize, the blades because a lot of birds are lost every year to, you know, usually really big, beautiful birds, eagles and, this is a fantastic website that kind of describes a safer wind power that's quiet, I love that it's not harmful to birds. I love that may I, may I go from what you just said, I just I'm a glass person as well. And there's a glass. Now, you know, one of the biggest causes of bird deaths in urban areas is they fly into the buildings and thousands of birds every day in, like, New York City. Just die that way. Now there's a glass that is being produced to where the birds don't do that. So eventually it's, you know, it'll probably be in all the new construction and so forth. But it's very it's brand new. But I thought, how wonderful is that? Someone figured out a way for the birds not to. Yeah. You know, that's all. Thank you. Thank you all. We've reached the end of this agenda and we can. End the meeting. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. I second. All in favor? Aye, aye. There we go. All right.