Seawater plant in Flagler postponed
Officials waiting for economy to turn around
Posted: August 19, 2011 - 12:02am
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
Plans to build a multi-million-dollar seawater desalination plant in Flagler County are being put on hold for a couple of years, project officials said in a public meeting on Wednesday.
"We're going to take a little time to let the economy recover," said Scott Shannon, associate vice president of Malcolm Pirnie, the lead consulting firm for the Coquina Coast seawater desalination project.
Local governments and the St. Johns River Water Management District have been funding the project, which could become an alternative water source for the area.
St. Johns County and other areas in the region largely depend on fresh groundwater withdrawals for water, but that is not sustainable, according to project officials.
Areas involved with the project will need around 10million to 15 million gallons of new drinking water per day by 2020, officials said. The proposed seawater desalination plant could fill that gap if the project moves forward as scheduled. The plant will likely be built to expand so that it might produce 25 million to 50 million gallons of water per day by 2050.
The seawater desalination project is ending the first part of its second phase, which found 14 potential areas for a future desalination plant in Flagler County, Shannon said.
The plant's size, location and exact cost won't be known for a few years, according to project officials. However, a plant that produces 10 million to 15 million gallons of water per day could cost between $190 million and $260 million.
St. Johns County began as a full partner in the project but is now an ex officio member.
That means the county is still part of the process but doesn't have as much steering power.
"We think it's the wise thing to do," said Bill Young, St. Johns County utilities director. "We are in no position of urgency where this is a make or break project."
St. Johns County is about eight years into a 20-year permit from the Water Management District that allocates 16 million gallons of water per day to the county's service areas, Young said.
Project officials along with Young said delaying the project will allow for better estimates of population growth, which will help determine the future water needs of local governments and the size of the desalination plant.
"With time the technology gets better...," Young said about the seawater desalination process. "That's why we're comfortable with tabling this thing."
To learn more about the project, visit www.coquinacoastdesal.org. or www.Twitter.com/CoquinaDesal.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant Plans Put on “Hold” For Three Years – Wall Street Investors Reject SJRWMD's Bizarre “Technological Turkey”
Aerial view of Victoria, Australia sea water desalination plant
Australians protest desalination plant, where protesters make their concerns clear about the desalination plant in Wonthaggi. Picture courtesy of journalist Courtney Biggs and photographer Greg Noakes.
Our water in Northeast Florida is a precious natural resource. Without water, life would not be sustainable. Our tourist economy would dry up and blow away.
Our water is endangered by all sorts of polluters, wastrel developers and unwise decisions by government agencies.
Last night, one of those unwise government decisions was on public display at Marineland. It was embarrassing. And you paid for it. And thanks to public opposition, a bad idea has been mothballed – for now!
Eleven entities – mostly local governments -- wanted to join the controversial St. Johns River Water Management District to spend as much as $1,200,000,000 on the controversial Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant. Seven of them have now dropped out: the Dunes Community Development District, City of Bunnell, Volusia County, City of Mount Dora, Flagler Beach, Flagler County and Marion County. Now there are four: this leaves St. Johns County and the cities of Deland, Palm Coast and Leesburg.
St. Johns County taxpayers spent $50,000 toward our share of the cost. Let’s not spend any more, folks. St. Johns County was allegedly told it would get credit from St. Johns River Water Management District for “conservation” if it kicked into this massive energy-hogging, capital-intensive, greenhouse-gas-causing project. SJRWMD should no longer offer “credit” for wasting public monies on such flummery and dupery. It is at best facetious, and a giant conflict of interest, for SJRWMD to conceive of an energy-wasting plant and then dragoon our governments into paying for it. Giving our St. Johns County government a conservation credit for investing in the desal plant is like fornicating for virginity.
Three professional engineers employed by multinational corporate engineering firm Malcolm-Pirnie – a senior vice president and two vice presidents – held forth last night at the auditorium of the Whitney Laboratory of the University of Florida (which rents for $450 after hours, and gives a faux sense of respectability for the project).
There were the predictable pretty poster-boards on easels, with the standard food and beverage spread that Public Relations conmen use when they try to manipulate citizens. There were the standard misleading PR handouts, complete with errant nonsense and blatant falsehoods – attempting to link this Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant with the words “sustainable” and “conservation.” That’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
It was an enchanted evening, alright.
It was an Orwellian experience, cribbed from the Environmental Information Network’s “Control Game” – all questions were left to the end and their were only vague answers to vital questions (what engineers call “warm fuzzies” or scientists call “drylabbing.”
The Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant proposal has evolved from a massive 900 foot ship off our coast desalinating water to a different kind of plant located on 25-50 acres of land, several miles inland, desalinating water using reverse osmosis (a process that consumes promiscuous quantities of electricity). All of the possible locations for the plant and input and waste pipes are in Flagler County.
After the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant’s predictable, dull “dog and pony show,” I got to cross-examine the engineers.
Sadly, they lacked knowledge of basic facts. They haven’t analyzed alternatives. They talked down to us. They evidenced the errant attitude exemplified by the title of Calvin Rampton’s book, “Trust Us, We’re Experts.”
The engineers said they were going to “allow the economy” to improve, which sounds rather pompous (like King Canute allegedly ordering the waves of the ocean to recede to impress his courtiers that he was not a deity). Their growth rate projections were wrong – just like the Tennessee Valley Authority and other nuclear electric utilities, when they built nuclear powerplants, claiming growth would continue to skyrocket, and that nuclear power would be too “cheap to meter.” They were wrong. The Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant was wrong in its assumptions about growth, too.
In fact, under cross-examination, one of the three Malcolm-Pirnie engineers admitted there had been discussions with Wall Street bond firms. Thus, the simple palpitating truth of the matter is that Wall Street rejected their project. The Malcolm-Pirnie engineer’s flippant response: they said they hoped for “federal grants” to pay for the $400,000,000 cost after the economy recovers. This thought suggests that the engineers (and partners in the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant) are not “part of the reality-based community,” to borrow the words of Karl Rove, quoted in Ron Suskind’s famous 2004 New York Times Magazine article.
Florida DEP has never granted a permit for such a coastal plant discharging concentrated seawater, according to the West Volusia paper (below), which reports that DEP would treat the concentrated seawater as “industrial waste.” Those two words were never used last night.
How would the engineers prevent corrosion in large pipes carrying sea water several miles inland? How would they prevent corrosion in large pipes carrying concentrated sea water “industrial waste” over land and back to sea?
One Malcolm-Pirnie engineer mumbled something about “selection of materials,” as if that were the answer.
Pipelines often need chemicals to prevent corrosion: one of the chemicals used in coal slurry pipelines is hexavalent chromium (chromium 6), the same toxic substance that poisoned people in Hinckley, California (events portrayed in the movie Erin Brockovich). Not only were the three Malcolm-Pirnie engineers lacking in knowledge about chemicals preventing corrosion in pipe, one actually claimed never to heard of coal slurry pipelines.
Who’s teaching our engineers, anyway?
For an industrial engineer to say that he’s never heard of coal slurry pipelines would be like a doctor saying he’s never heard of cancer – not exactly the stuff that gives one trust and confidence in their abilities. I suspect the engineers did know what a coal pipeline was, but that they forgot under pressure to prevaricate for SJRWMD, which wanted no discussion of pollution to worry us hicks in St. Johns and Flagler Counties.
It’s an old saw that “a diplomat is a person sent abroad to lie for his country.” With large capital-intensive projects, there are phalanxes of testa-liars (as Alan Dershowitz calls them), ready, willing and able to subvert democracy with prevarication.
The three engineers thought that the plant would be obliged to buy power from Florida Power & Light (which was a partner in the plant but dropped out).
This is untrue, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has had the power to order wheeling and interconnection since U.S. Rep. Ed Markey’s 1992 amendment to the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA), a federal energy law (finally writing into federal law something Senator James R. Sasser tried to do in 1977, when I was advising him on energy and natural resources legislation). I told the engineers they needed to consult an antitrust lawyer with the law firm of Holland & Knight – not just take someone’s word for it that FP&L “owns the grid” and that the plant would be a captive customer of one utility monopolist.
Bottom line: electric power could be shipped in from municipal systems such as Gainesville, Orlando, Tallahassee or Jacksonville. Of course, this is Florida, or “Flori-duh” as USA Today called it during the 2000 recounts. FP&L has such great influence that SJRWMD and its stable of engineers thought they were somehow obliged to buy FP&L’s power because “they own the grid.”
More importantly, the multinational corporation’s engineers assumed that FP&L would have a spare 15 megawatts of electricity for them to waste on the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant.
They said they were told that there would be available power by FP&L. There is no contractual commitment and no expectation that they could enforce this gratuitous promise – what reasonable plant-builder would not get a signed contract? Color Malcolm-Pirnie engineers either hopelessly provincial or extremely gullible.
Most likely, FP&L was licking its chops at the possibility of lugubrious goobers allowing FP&L to co-locate a powerplant next to the desalination plant (which is often the case). FP&L might have even co-located a nuclear powerplant, with the blessing of SJRWMD & local governments. FP&L is doing little to conserve energy at its powerplants, which waste 2/3 of all the energy consumed by not recycling the waste heat, which is mindlessly emitted into the sky (or into water).
Fortunately, any chance of building a powerplant in Flagler County is nil, thanks to public opposition and the Great Recession.
This was Amateur Hour, brought to you by the St. Johns River Water Management District.
Instead of conserving water, SJRWMD is shipping our water to Orlando.
If this were Israel or Saudi Arabia or other dry place, then desalination would make sense.
We in Florida are blessed with copious quantities of water, which we need to conserve and regulate better.
The Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant would be the wrong plant, in the wrong place, at the wrong time for the wrong reason.
I hope that the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant is never built.
The half-baked notion of a Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant reminds me of what my onetime public sparring partner at the Tennessee Valley Authority, former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman, said of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor: Freeman called the CRBRP “a technological turkey.”
Footnote: S. David Freeman, known for his tart tongue and intellect on energy and water issues, has during his career shut down a number of “technological turkeys” all over the country. Freeman once called me “the biggest smartass” he “ever met” in a conversation with the late Nashville Tennessean Pulitzer Prize winner Nat Caldwell; I was a beardless youth of 21 at the time, working on a Fund for Investigative Journalism grant in 1978 and asking then-Director Freeman questions about antitrust violations, fraud and the family coal land of then-Senator Howard Henry Baker, Jr. and whether Freeman could “penetrate” the TVA bureaucracy and make President Carter’s energy goals into TVA policy). Freeman and fellow TVA Director Richard Freeman (no relation) answered press and public questions and brought transparency, openness and a sense of humor to an authoritarian, hierarchical monster of a federal bureaucracy, one that the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once compared to arrogant Soviet central planning bodies. Once I asked Freeman a question about pesticide-spraying along power lines of a chemical cousin Agent Orange, or something like that, and he said, “that’s another have you stopped beating your wife question, Ed.” Of course, when Ronald Wilson Reagan appointed at TVA Chairman the fiendish Nissan executive Marvin Runyon (later Postal Service Chairman), TVA reverted to its old back-slapping good-ole boy days – no longer did TVA Board members answer questions – instead, they just stared at (and objectified) citizens, holding “Public Listening Sessions” with expressionless faces, folded arms and closed minds.
St. Johns River Water Management District, like TVA, badly needs reforming. Like TVA, SJRWMD needs to learn right from wrong. It needs to learn that wasting hundreds of millions (or billions) on an energy-hogging Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Plant is no answer to our water problems.
As President Jimmy Carter said in a televised speech to our Nation on April 20, 1977, “Our energy problems and our environmental problems have the same cause – wasteful use of resources. Conservation solves both problems at once.”
I’m still asking questions (much to the annoyance of three engineers), though the schedule meant that I complied (unwittingly) with my mother’s rule when I was a child: “No questions after eight o’clock.”
What do you reckon?
For more on our SJRWMD, read my 2006 article, "The Matrix -- Wetlands of Mass Destruction -- Why Florida's wetlands are being destroyed and who benefits."
West Volusia Beacon: Local Governments Dropping Desalination Plant Participation
Coquina Coast asks for $ commitment from partners; Bunnell backs out
DeLand City Commission to decide on the city's participation
By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER
posted May 7, 2010 - 5:34:23pm
As plans for the Coquina Coast desalination project move forward, cost looms as a major factor for cities and utility providers.
It's already caused one, the City of Bunnell, to drop out.
Related Topics
Will there be enough water in 2050? Study says no
Desal debate: Will it be safe? What will it cost?
Jerry Salsano, consulting engineer to the St. Johns Water Management District said commitments from the partners are expected by Friday, May 28.
He expects to know more after the next meeting, set for 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 12, at Palm Coast Community Center. The meeting, at 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE, is open to the public. It will give municipal leaders a final opportunity to ask questions before the deadline.
DeLand City Engineer Keith Riger said he expects to make a presentation to the DeLand City Commission meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, May 17, at DeLand City Hall, 120 S. Florida Ave. He will ask their direction on the matter.
"There's another big check due," Riger said.
Riger explained that the partners have three choices for involvement in the next phase:
1. Don't subscribe — pay no money, and have no part in the project.
2. Become an ex officio member, with no voting rights, at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000.
3. Become a full member at a cost of $100,000 to $200,000.
The final cost per member will be determined based on total cost of the plant and the number of partners sharing in that cost.
The total cost for construction of the Coquina Coast plant is currently estimated at $1.3 billion. It may produce up to 80 million gallons a day of purified water by 2050.
Coquina Coast will be the most ambitious and costly desalination plant in the country.
The project is the result of a push from the St. Johns River Water Management District to find alternative water sources to protect the aquifer — the primary source of this part of the state for water — as the population grows.
The St. Johns Water Management District will provide up to $2.2 million in funding and administrative services for the development of a detailed plan for a seawater desalination facility, and up to $14 million for construction.
That, along with other state and federal grants, could cover perhaps half the cost of the plant.
Partners who had indicated interest in Coquina Coast are the Water Management District; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; the Dunes Community Development District; and the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.
The City of Bunnell decided not to participate, at least for now.
Bunnell's Director of Community Development Mick Cuthbertson said the latest St. Johns Water Management District population projections reduced Bunnell's anticipated needs for water.
The small city of Bunnell, with an estimated current population of less than 2,759, was expected to grow to 39,000 by 2030. The newest projects cut that by more than half, to 14,026. The estimated water need is just over 1.63 million gallons a day (mgd), and the city already has a permit to draw 1.4 mgd.
It would be very expensive for Bunnell to buy in — a price tag of millions of dollars — for perhaps just a couple of hundred thousand gallons a day, Cuthbertson said.
The City of Bunnell still supports the Coquina Coast project, he added, and may need to buy into it at some point in the future.
St. Johns County Commissioners voted to participate only as ex oficio members during a May 4 meeting. The St. Augustine Record [staugustine.com/news/local-news/2010-05-05/county-pulls-back-desal-project] reported on May 5 that the St. Johns County Commission made the decision because of money. Paying only the funds to become an ex oficio partner would save the county $500,000 to $600,000 in study costs.
That could affect the location of the desalination plant, sources told The Beacon. The plant could be located farther south along the coast, closer to Volusia County.
Salsano said "absolutely nothing" has been decided yet. A number of sites are under consideration, and the decision will be made later, by the partners.
Flagler County, which has been at the Coquina Coast table all the way, has decided not to buy in as a full partner, but as an ex oficio member.
"We're still in the game. We're backing off slightly," Flagler County spokesman Carl Laundrie said, in a phone interview with The Beacon.
The City of Palm Coast rather than the county is the major provider of water in the area, he explained.
So far, DeLand is the only entity in Volusia County to partner in the Coquina Coast project.
DeLand's population was predicted to grow from 62,532 in 2010 to 82,000 in 2030, with water use growing from an average of 6.9 million gallons a day (mgd) in 2010 to 9.2 mgd in 2030.
The DeLand population is now projected to grow to 77,143 by 2030, or 69 percent more than in 1995. The city's projected water demand will rise to 8.36 mgd, rather than the earlier forecasted 9.2 mgd.
Volusia County Utilities now uses 5.7 mgd. That's now expected to grow to 12.26 mgd by 2030. The County of Volusia has not been a partner in the Coquina Coast project, and doesn't anticipate becoming involved at this point, because of the cost, Water Resources and Utility Director Gloria Marwick said.
For all of Volusia County — including the various cities — the current use is 63.81 mgd. That's expected to grow to 81.47 mgd by 2030.
As cities ponder scaled-back population projections and reduced water usage due to conservation and water-saving devices, plus the cost of tapping into Coquina Coast's pipeline, will many more partners back out?
Seminole County's Yankee Lake project has foundered, as potential partners faded away due to the cost. They would have to pay a lot of money up front, for uncertain future returns. There are also environmental objections to tapping the St. Johns River for an eventual 80 mgd of water for drinking and irrigation.
Riger doesn't think Coquina Coast will run into the same problems. Governance — who will make decisions — was also a major issue with the Yankee Lake plant under Seminole County's sole control. Coquina Coast will be a partnership, he said.
Riger thinks another small entity or two may drop out, but the project will move forward.
— pat@beacononlinenews.com
DeLand City Commission to decide on the city's participation
By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER
posted May 7, 2010 - 5:34:23pm
As plans for the Coquina Coast desalination project move forward, cost looms as a major factor for cities and utility providers.
It's already caused one, the City of Bunnell, to drop out.
Related Topics
Will there be enough water in 2050? Study says no
Desal debate: Will it be safe? What will it cost?
Jerry Salsano, consulting engineer to the St. Johns Water Management District said commitments from the partners are expected by Friday, May 28.
He expects to know more after the next meeting, set for 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 12, at Palm Coast Community Center. The meeting, at 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE, is open to the public. It will give municipal leaders a final opportunity to ask questions before the deadline.
DeLand City Engineer Keith Riger said he expects to make a presentation to the DeLand City Commission meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, May 17, at DeLand City Hall, 120 S. Florida Ave. He will ask their direction on the matter.
"There's another big check due," Riger said.
Riger explained that the partners have three choices for involvement in the next phase:
1. Don't subscribe — pay no money, and have no part in the project.
2. Become an ex officio member, with no voting rights, at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000.
3. Become a full member at a cost of $100,000 to $200,000.
The final cost per member will be determined based on total cost of the plant and the number of partners sharing in that cost.
The total cost for construction of the Coquina Coast plant is currently estimated at $1.3 billion. It may produce up to 80 million gallons a day of purified water by 2050.
Coquina Coast will be the most ambitious and costly desalination plant in the country.
The project is the result of a push from the St. Johns River Water Management District to find alternative water sources to protect the aquifer — the primary source of this part of the state for water — as the population grows.
The St. Johns Water Management District will provide up to $2.2 million in funding and administrative services for the development of a detailed plan for a seawater desalination facility, and up to $14 million for construction.
That, along with other state and federal grants, could cover perhaps half the cost of the plant.
Partners who had indicated interest in Coquina Coast are the Water Management District; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; the Dunes Community Development District; and the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.
The City of Bunnell decided not to participate, at least for now.
Bunnell's Director of Community Development Mick Cuthbertson said the latest St. Johns Water Management District population projections reduced Bunnell's anticipated needs for water.
The small city of Bunnell, with an estimated current population of less than 2,759, was expected to grow to 39,000 by 2030. The newest projects cut that by more than half, to 14,026. The estimated water need is just over 1.63 million gallons a day (mgd), and the city already has a permit to draw 1.4 mgd.
It would be very expensive for Bunnell to buy in — a price tag of millions of dollars — for perhaps just a couple of hundred thousand gallons a day, Cuthbertson said.
The City of Bunnell still supports the Coquina Coast project, he added, and may need to buy into it at some point in the future.
St. Johns County Commissioners voted to participate only as ex oficio members during a May 4 meeting. The St. Augustine Record [staugustine.com/news/local-news/2010-05-05/county-pulls-back-desal-project] reported on May 5 that the St. Johns County Commission made the decision because of money. Paying only the funds to become an ex oficio partner would save the county $500,000 to $600,000 in study costs.
That could affect the location of the desalination plant, sources told The Beacon. The plant could be located farther south along the coast, closer to Volusia County.
Salsano said "absolutely nothing" has been decided yet. A number of sites are under consideration, and the decision will be made later, by the partners.
Flagler County, which has been at the Coquina Coast table all the way, has decided not to buy in as a full partner, but as an ex oficio member.
"We're still in the game. We're backing off slightly," Flagler County spokesman Carl Laundrie said, in a phone interview with The Beacon.
The City of Palm Coast rather than the county is the major provider of water in the area, he explained.
So far, DeLand is the only entity in Volusia County to partner in the Coquina Coast project.
DeLand's population was predicted to grow from 62,532 in 2010 to 82,000 in 2030, with water use growing from an average of 6.9 million gallons a day (mgd) in 2010 to 9.2 mgd in 2030.
The DeLand population is now projected to grow to 77,143 by 2030, or 69 percent more than in 1995. The city's projected water demand will rise to 8.36 mgd, rather than the earlier forecasted 9.2 mgd.
Volusia County Utilities now uses 5.7 mgd. That's now expected to grow to 12.26 mgd by 2030. The County of Volusia has not been a partner in the Coquina Coast project, and doesn't anticipate becoming involved at this point, because of the cost, Water Resources and Utility Director Gloria Marwick said.
For all of Volusia County — including the various cities — the current use is 63.81 mgd. That's expected to grow to 81.47 mgd by 2030.
As cities ponder scaled-back population projections and reduced water usage due to conservation and water-saving devices, plus the cost of tapping into Coquina Coast's pipeline, will many more partners back out?
Seminole County's Yankee Lake project has foundered, as potential partners faded away due to the cost. They would have to pay a lot of money up front, for uncertain future returns. There are also environmental objections to tapping the St. Johns River for an eventual 80 mgd of water for drinking and irrigation.
Riger doesn't think Coquina Coast will run into the same problems. Governance — who will make decisions — was also a major issue with the Yankee Lake plant under Seminole County's sole control. Coquina Coast will be a partnership, he said.
Riger thinks another small entity or two may drop out, but the project will move forward.
— pat@beacononlinenews.com
West Volusia Beacon: Desal debate: Will it be safe? What will it cost?
Malcolm Pirnie's Scott Shannon and Food and Water Watch's Jorge Aguilar talk pros and cons
By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER
posted Feb 25, 2010 - 3:17:30pm
The first phase of a study into building a seawater desalination plant on the Flagler County coast has just been completed.
Plans for the plant, called Coquina Coast, are in the very early phases. Pretty much the only thing set in stone is that the plant will be shore-based, not ship-based.
Earlier, the possibility of setting up a desalination plant on a ship had been the favorite. After study, a shore-based plant emerged as more dependable.
Now, preliminary design work is beginning. The engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie Inc. is in charge.
The St. Johns Water Management District will provide up to $2.2 million in funding and administrative services for the development of a detailed plan for a seawater desalination facility, and up to $14 million for construction.
The Water Management District estimates the extra water a desalination plant could provide will be needed by 2017. The District's Web page on Coquina Coast calls ocean water "drought proof."
Partners who have indicated interest in Coquina Coast are the Water Management District; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; the Dunes Community Development District; and the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.
These water suppliers are looking at desalination as an alternative to drawing water from the St. Johns River. Conservation and other alternative sources are also being looked at, as the Water Management District pressures suppliers to draw less water from underground.
The Water Management District's position is that while conservation is needed and encouraged, not enough water can be saved to make up the future shortage.
The proposed Coquina Coast plant will use a reverse-osmosis system to purify the water. It's the most energy-efficient method, using much less energy than distillation, Malcolm-Pirnie engineer and senior associate Scott Shannon said.
First, water is run through a screen, to remove larger particles. Then, under enormous pressure, the water is forced through a membrane to remove salt and other dissolved matter.
Malcolm-Pirnie engineers came up with a conceptual picture of what can be built along the coast of either Flagler or St. Johns county. They envision a plant that will produce up to 25 million gallons of water a day (mgd) by about 2017, and up to 80 mgd by 2050.
Supply from other sources, such as reservoirs to capture rainwater, could reduce the future demand for desalinated water, Shannon said.
Plans for the plant are already under scrutiny and being criticized.
Jorge Aguilar is a spokesman for Food and Water Watch, a national consumer-advocacy group.
"We're very concerned, not only about food and water quality, but future supply," he told The Beacon.
Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit organization, has 6,000 followers in Florida, Aguilar said.
In January, the League of Women Voters of Volusia County invited Aquilar and Shannon of Malcolm-Pirnie to present pros and cons about the Flagler County plant in a public forum.
Key concerns are cost, the environment, and control of the plant.
Cost
Aguilar challenged the plan to finance Coquina Coast, as well as the estimated cost.
Malcolm-Pirnie projected that more than half the $1.3 billion cost of the completed plant, operating at 80 mgd, could come from state and federal grants. Sources such as the State Revolving Fund Program and the Water Resource Development Act have not funded projects at near the amounts Malcolm-Pirnie is counting on, and in some cases, don't fund this type of project, Aquilar said.
Shannon said Aguilar didn't factor in stimulus funds and other long-term funds.
"We're starting that effort right now, to identify and understand where those types of money will come from," Shannon said.
Aguilar believes Coquina Coast will cost about a third more than Malcolm-Pirnie estimates.
"I submit to you that these things never come in under cost," he said.
Shannon said cost estimates were put together based on the most recent data available, including figures from the recently constructed Gold Coast Desalination Plant in Australia. While plans are still in the conceptual stages, all contingencies possible were factored in.
There's been no lowballing, Shannon said.
The financing package and interest rate will affect the cost of desalinated water. Currently, the wholesale cost is estimated at $4.50 per 1,000 gallons — almost three times what DeLand residents currently pay. It's estimated that building a system to transmit the water to West Volusia would cost another 70 cents per 1,000 gallons.
Environmental
Aguilar said few details are available about the environmental effects of desalination plants.
Previous studies have indicated large marine organisms, such as adult fish, birds and mammals, may be killed on the intake screens. Smaller organisms can be killed during processing.
"The actual desalination process can cause subtle differences in marine communities over time," Aguilar cautioned. "These sort of environmental concerns usually get put at the back of the line."
Once salt is removed from water, it has to go somewhere. Usually, it is mixed back into the water source as briny waste.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has never permitted a coastal discharge of concentrated seawater, Aguilar said. The state classifies the discharge as industrial waste.
An engineer at the FDEP confirmed several permits from that department will be required for the plant, including one for industrial waste for the brine.
Shannon said intake baffles prevent organisms from being trapped on the intake screens.
The brine discharge, he said, while be 5 percent to 6 percent saline. The ocean water off the Flagler Coast contains about 3 percent saline. The brine will not be highly concentrated, and it will be diffused as it's discharged, reaching ocean salinity levels in a very short distance, Shannon said.
Aguilar also noted that the massive amount of electricity required to operate the plant will add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
How much energy is that?
"For an initial stage of 25 million gallons per day capacity, the plant's energy consumption would be approximately 16 megawatts. At 80 million gallons per day, the consumption would be approximately 50 megawatts," Shannon said.
Progress-Energy Florida spokesman Tim Leljedal said a megawatt will provide enough power for 600 homes. So, 16 megawatts will power around 10,000 homes, and 50 megawatts would power 30,000 homes per day.
Shannon said alternate energy sources have not been ruled out. Florida Power and Light, provider of energy in the Coquina Coast area, is working with Malcolm-Pirnie to study options such as wind energy.
Ownership and control
Aguilar said private corporations that build plants and sell desalinated water to the public are leading the rush to build the plants.
Major and multinational corporations, like Malcolm-Pirnie, and plant constructors and operators Sinclair Knight Merz and Veolia Water make billions on desalination.
Not only that, ownership of plants like Coquina Coast creates a lot of potential for private interests to shape public policy and control water availability and price, Aguilar said.
It hasn't been determined who would own or operate Coquina Coast.
A ship-based facility likely would have been privately owned. With the land-based facility the choice, ownership options could range from a fully privatized facility to a facility owned and operated by the utilities, or other options somewhere between the two.
Malcolm-Pirnie's Shannon said, regardless of who operates the plant, the Public Service Commission would regulate its rates. He said the ownership decision will be made by local utilities.
What are we getting into?
"The decision to go with Coquina Coast is a momentous one, a big one for a group that's just coming together," Aguilar said. "It's important that citizens pay close attention to what this may mean."
He advocated conserving water and improving the current infrastructure before making the big leap into desalination.
Shannon emphasized that design work on the plant is just beginning, and it will be the utilities and municipalities involved who make the final decision on the scope of the venture.
"Our job is to educate them on what they would be getting into on a project like this," Shannon said. "We're nowhere near being close to a decision what it will ultimately be."
— pat@beacononlinenews.com
Copyright © 2010 The West Volusia Beacon
By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER
posted Feb 25, 2010 - 3:17:30pm
The first phase of a study into building a seawater desalination plant on the Flagler County coast has just been completed.
Plans for the plant, called Coquina Coast, are in the very early phases. Pretty much the only thing set in stone is that the plant will be shore-based, not ship-based.
Earlier, the possibility of setting up a desalination plant on a ship had been the favorite. After study, a shore-based plant emerged as more dependable.
Now, preliminary design work is beginning. The engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie Inc. is in charge.
The St. Johns Water Management District will provide up to $2.2 million in funding and administrative services for the development of a detailed plan for a seawater desalination facility, and up to $14 million for construction.
The Water Management District estimates the extra water a desalination plant could provide will be needed by 2017. The District's Web page on Coquina Coast calls ocean water "drought proof."
Partners who have indicated interest in Coquina Coast are the Water Management District; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; the Dunes Community Development District; and the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.
These water suppliers are looking at desalination as an alternative to drawing water from the St. Johns River. Conservation and other alternative sources are also being looked at, as the Water Management District pressures suppliers to draw less water from underground.
The Water Management District's position is that while conservation is needed and encouraged, not enough water can be saved to make up the future shortage.
The proposed Coquina Coast plant will use a reverse-osmosis system to purify the water. It's the most energy-efficient method, using much less energy than distillation, Malcolm-Pirnie engineer and senior associate Scott Shannon said.
First, water is run through a screen, to remove larger particles. Then, under enormous pressure, the water is forced through a membrane to remove salt and other dissolved matter.
Malcolm-Pirnie engineers came up with a conceptual picture of what can be built along the coast of either Flagler or St. Johns county. They envision a plant that will produce up to 25 million gallons of water a day (mgd) by about 2017, and up to 80 mgd by 2050.
Supply from other sources, such as reservoirs to capture rainwater, could reduce the future demand for desalinated water, Shannon said.
Plans for the plant are already under scrutiny and being criticized.
Jorge Aguilar is a spokesman for Food and Water Watch, a national consumer-advocacy group.
"We're very concerned, not only about food and water quality, but future supply," he told The Beacon.
Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit organization, has 6,000 followers in Florida, Aguilar said.
In January, the League of Women Voters of Volusia County invited Aquilar and Shannon of Malcolm-Pirnie to present pros and cons about the Flagler County plant in a public forum.
Key concerns are cost, the environment, and control of the plant.
Cost
Aguilar challenged the plan to finance Coquina Coast, as well as the estimated cost.
Malcolm-Pirnie projected that more than half the $1.3 billion cost of the completed plant, operating at 80 mgd, could come from state and federal grants. Sources such as the State Revolving Fund Program and the Water Resource Development Act have not funded projects at near the amounts Malcolm-Pirnie is counting on, and in some cases, don't fund this type of project, Aquilar said.
Shannon said Aguilar didn't factor in stimulus funds and other long-term funds.
"We're starting that effort right now, to identify and understand where those types of money will come from," Shannon said.
Aguilar believes Coquina Coast will cost about a third more than Malcolm-Pirnie estimates.
"I submit to you that these things never come in under cost," he said.
Shannon said cost estimates were put together based on the most recent data available, including figures from the recently constructed Gold Coast Desalination Plant in Australia. While plans are still in the conceptual stages, all contingencies possible were factored in.
There's been no lowballing, Shannon said.
The financing package and interest rate will affect the cost of desalinated water. Currently, the wholesale cost is estimated at $4.50 per 1,000 gallons — almost three times what DeLand residents currently pay. It's estimated that building a system to transmit the water to West Volusia would cost another 70 cents per 1,000 gallons.
Environmental
Aguilar said few details are available about the environmental effects of desalination plants.
Previous studies have indicated large marine organisms, such as adult fish, birds and mammals, may be killed on the intake screens. Smaller organisms can be killed during processing.
"The actual desalination process can cause subtle differences in marine communities over time," Aguilar cautioned. "These sort of environmental concerns usually get put at the back of the line."
Once salt is removed from water, it has to go somewhere. Usually, it is mixed back into the water source as briny waste.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has never permitted a coastal discharge of concentrated seawater, Aguilar said. The state classifies the discharge as industrial waste.
An engineer at the FDEP confirmed several permits from that department will be required for the plant, including one for industrial waste for the brine.
Shannon said intake baffles prevent organisms from being trapped on the intake screens.
The brine discharge, he said, while be 5 percent to 6 percent saline. The ocean water off the Flagler Coast contains about 3 percent saline. The brine will not be highly concentrated, and it will be diffused as it's discharged, reaching ocean salinity levels in a very short distance, Shannon said.
Aguilar also noted that the massive amount of electricity required to operate the plant will add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
How much energy is that?
"For an initial stage of 25 million gallons per day capacity, the plant's energy consumption would be approximately 16 megawatts. At 80 million gallons per day, the consumption would be approximately 50 megawatts," Shannon said.
Progress-Energy Florida spokesman Tim Leljedal said a megawatt will provide enough power for 600 homes. So, 16 megawatts will power around 10,000 homes, and 50 megawatts would power 30,000 homes per day.
Shannon said alternate energy sources have not been ruled out. Florida Power and Light, provider of energy in the Coquina Coast area, is working with Malcolm-Pirnie to study options such as wind energy.
Ownership and control
Aguilar said private corporations that build plants and sell desalinated water to the public are leading the rush to build the plants.
Major and multinational corporations, like Malcolm-Pirnie, and plant constructors and operators Sinclair Knight Merz and Veolia Water make billions on desalination.
Not only that, ownership of plants like Coquina Coast creates a lot of potential for private interests to shape public policy and control water availability and price, Aguilar said.
It hasn't been determined who would own or operate Coquina Coast.
A ship-based facility likely would have been privately owned. With the land-based facility the choice, ownership options could range from a fully privatized facility to a facility owned and operated by the utilities, or other options somewhere between the two.
Malcolm-Pirnie's Shannon said, regardless of who operates the plant, the Public Service Commission would regulate its rates. He said the ownership decision will be made by local utilities.
What are we getting into?
"The decision to go with Coquina Coast is a momentous one, a big one for a group that's just coming together," Aguilar said. "It's important that citizens pay close attention to what this may mean."
He advocated conserving water and improving the current infrastructure before making the big leap into desalination.
Shannon emphasized that design work on the plant is just beginning, and it will be the utilities and municipalities involved who make the final decision on the scope of the venture.
"Our job is to educate them on what they would be getting into on a project like this," Shannon said. "We're nowhere near being close to a decision what it will ultimately be."
— pat@beacononlinenews.com
Copyright © 2010 The West Volusia Beacon
St. Petersburg Times:More problems for Tampa Bay Water desalination plant
By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, March 17, 2009
As if the news about the cracked and empty reservoir wasn't discouraging enough, now comes word that Tampa Bay Water's long-troubled desalination plant is having more problems.
The $158 million plant, which opened five years late and cost $40 million more than expected, remains unable to supply the full 25 million gallons a day that was originally promised.
This weekend, a leaking intake pipe required shutting down operations completely for about 24 hours. As of Monday, mechanical problems limited the plant to producing only 14 million gallons a day.
Utility officials say they hope to boost that to at least 16 million, and perhaps as high as 19 million, sometime this week. The plant has seldom been run at full capacity, partly because it is the most expensive source of water.
But in January, the utility promised that by now it would be producing at full capacity, when it is needed most because of a critical drought. Despite that, 19 million is as high as it will go for the next couple of months.
"This operating scenario is expected to continue for the next eight weeks until critical electrical component parts become available from the manufacturer and the maintenance work can be completed," the utility's general manager, Gerald Seeber, wrote in a memo to state officials 10 days ago. "Full capacity of 25 mgd will not be available until May."
The summer rainy season will not begin until late June. In the interim, to cope with the lack of rain, Tampa Bay Water is again asking the Southwest Florida Water Management District to impose the toughest watering restrictions in history.
The state's largest wholesale utility built the biggest desal plant in the nation for times like this, to provide a drought-proof source of water that did not require overpumping the underground aquifer. In the past, overpumping drained lakes and wetlands, and damaged private wells.
The plant, next to Tampa Electric's Big Bend power plant in Apollo Beach, is supposed to take 40 million gallons of seawater from Tampa Bay and force it through membranes to produce 25 million gallons of drinkable freshwater and 15 million gallons of brine.
A transformer that helps power the filtration through the membranes blew out recently "and that's a specialized piece of equipment — you can't just go to Home Depot and pick up a new one," said Chuck Carden, Tampa Bay Water's director of operations and facilities.
That $90,000 part is the "critical electrical component" that's on order now. Meanwhile, maintenance in another part of the filtration system is also limiting the plant's output, Carden said. Although the schedule calls for ramping up to a full 25 million gallons a day by May, he said, "If we can do better, we will."
The desal plant first opened in 2003, then shut down for an expensive series of repairs that took until January 2008 to complete. Several contractors on the project went bankrupt and the utility became embroiled in more than one lawsuit.
Until now, the desal plant's woes did not create a problem for Tampa Bay Water's supply because it had built a 15-billion-gallon reservoir for storing water from the Hillsborough and Alafia rivers and the Tampa Bypass Canal. But then cracks in the reservoir wall appeared.
Although the cracks did not threaten the reservoir's stability, utility officials drained millions of gallons of water to investigate the cause. So when the ongoing drought required Tampa Bay Water to begin tapping the reservoir last September, it was only half full.
Now the rivers are too low to supply any more water. Last week the utility took its final drops of water out of the reservoir, then shut down its $144 million surface water treatment plant, probably until the rainy season begins.
The lack of rainfall has spurred the utility's 2 million water users to water their lawns more. As a result, the utility expects to pump more than 100 million gallons a day from the aquifer in March, more than 140 million in April and to peak at more than 160 million gallons a day in May. That's far above the 90-million-gallon limit set by the Southwest Florida Water Management District to avoid environmental damage.
[Last modified: Mar 16, 2009 11:31 PM]
Copyright 2009 St. Petersburg Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Environmentalists say water district layoffs 'political' By The Orlando Sentinel
Mass layoffs at the state agency most responsible for protecting Florida's waters and wetlands were ordered by Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers as a break for taxpayers, but the forced departures of key regulators appear to be driven by backlash from the development industry.
At the St. Johns River Water Management District, a development consultant on the agency's citizen board of directors asked last week that all senior staff members resign because the district has gotten a "black eye" for the way it treats those who apply for permits to consume large quantities of water or destroy wetlands.
"The senior, senior people have set the direction in the wrong path," Maryam Ghyabi, president of Ghyabi & Associates Inc., said during last Tuesday's board meeting. "I've been getting a lot of complaints about our agency."
The next day, three high-ranking managers charged with enforcing water and wetlands protections were asked to leave the 18-county agency, which takes in most of central and northeast Florida. Their departures are not yet final.
The three employees, well-known outside the agency, include Jeff Elledge, the longtime top director of permitting for construction projects that cause damage to wetlands.
Elledge, a 31-year veteran of the water district, would not comment on his departure beyond saying that his employment contract specifies that he serves "at the pleasure" of the agency's director and can be fired with little explanation.
The three dismissals appear to be politically motivated, said Charles Lee, Audubon of Florida's advocacy director, and not part of the larger, cost-cutting layoffs announced Aug. 1, when 130 positions -- nearly 20 percent of the district's workforce -- were eliminated to save $12 million a year in salary and benefits.
"These were targeted decisions that were steeped in retribution against agency staff members with a long and commendable professional history," Lee said of the three senior executives. "These were targeted dismissals that were intended to destabilize the agency and reduce the protection of the environment."
The other two asked to leave the agency, Marc Minno and Glenn Lowe, could not be reached for comment.
Lowe is director of the district's Division of Environmental Resource Management, overseeing reviews by district staffers of permit applications for wetlands impacts. Minno is a supervising scientist in the Division of Water Use Regulation, in charge of assessing environmental harm from utilities' pumping of aquifer water.
Green next?
The agency's 10-year executive director, Kirby Green, is slated to retire next February but has come under new pressure from board member Charles Drake to leave sooner.
Drake, vice president of the water consultant Tetra Tech in Orlando, said during last week's board meeting that he wanted Green to resign as soon as next month. No decision was made, and Green's tenure and the possibility of additional layoffs are expected to come up again at next month's board meeting.
Green said this week that it was a coincidence that Elledge, Lowe and Minno were asked to leave less than a day after Ghyabi of Ormond Beach called for the resignations of senior managers. He said the layoffs, with potentially more to come, were for reasons "more organizational" in nature than for cost-cutting purposes.
For example, Green said, his Palatka-based agency will be delegating more responsibility to its satellite offices, including one in Altamonte Springs. As a result, he said, much of the work that Lowe does in Palatka will be reassigned to other offices.
He said Ghyabi's comment about the district's "black eye" is part of a larger, anti-regulatory backlash in the state that has resulted in the downsizing this year of state agencies such as the departments of Community Affairs and Environmental Protection.
Mission being cut back
Green said the water district is being revamped to make wetlands and water permitting quicker and less bureaucratic but not less protective of the environment.
"I think we've heard the message loud and clear that we need to be more effective in dealing with [development and water] applicants," Green said. "Effective means, No. 1, protecting the environment and, No. 2, moving them through the process so that it doesn't take as long."
The state's five water districts, whose board members are appointed by the governor, have long been somewhat insulated from politics.
But they also have been often attacked by environmentalists for being lax and subservient to the development industry, and criticized by developers and municipal utilities for being a bully when protecting the state's aquifers, wetlands and waterways.
Scott's call for steep budget cuts early this year -- which for a home with a taxable value of $150,000 resulted in a tax break of $62 to $50 a year -- also carried a mandate that the water districts narrow their priorities to "water supply, flood protection, and resource protection."
"Core mission has become a mantra out of the Governor's Office," said Sonny Vergara, a former executive director of the St. Johns district and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. "My argument is, what the hell does that mean? 'We're going to stop doing a lot of things' is basically what they mean."
At the St. Johns River Water Management District, a development consultant on the agency's citizen board of directors asked last week that all senior staff members resign because the district has gotten a "black eye" for the way it treats those who apply for permits to consume large quantities of water or destroy wetlands.
"The senior, senior people have set the direction in the wrong path," Maryam Ghyabi, president of Ghyabi & Associates Inc., said during last Tuesday's board meeting. "I've been getting a lot of complaints about our agency."
The next day, three high-ranking managers charged with enforcing water and wetlands protections were asked to leave the 18-county agency, which takes in most of central and northeast Florida. Their departures are not yet final.
The three employees, well-known outside the agency, include Jeff Elledge, the longtime top director of permitting for construction projects that cause damage to wetlands.
Elledge, a 31-year veteran of the water district, would not comment on his departure beyond saying that his employment contract specifies that he serves "at the pleasure" of the agency's director and can be fired with little explanation.
The three dismissals appear to be politically motivated, said Charles Lee, Audubon of Florida's advocacy director, and not part of the larger, cost-cutting layoffs announced Aug. 1, when 130 positions -- nearly 20 percent of the district's workforce -- were eliminated to save $12 million a year in salary and benefits.
"These were targeted decisions that were steeped in retribution against agency staff members with a long and commendable professional history," Lee said of the three senior executives. "These were targeted dismissals that were intended to destabilize the agency and reduce the protection of the environment."
The other two asked to leave the agency, Marc Minno and Glenn Lowe, could not be reached for comment.
Lowe is director of the district's Division of Environmental Resource Management, overseeing reviews by district staffers of permit applications for wetlands impacts. Minno is a supervising scientist in the Division of Water Use Regulation, in charge of assessing environmental harm from utilities' pumping of aquifer water.
Green next?
The agency's 10-year executive director, Kirby Green, is slated to retire next February but has come under new pressure from board member Charles Drake to leave sooner.
Drake, vice president of the water consultant Tetra Tech in Orlando, said during last week's board meeting that he wanted Green to resign as soon as next month. No decision was made, and Green's tenure and the possibility of additional layoffs are expected to come up again at next month's board meeting.
Green said this week that it was a coincidence that Elledge, Lowe and Minno were asked to leave less than a day after Ghyabi of Ormond Beach called for the resignations of senior managers. He said the layoffs, with potentially more to come, were for reasons "more organizational" in nature than for cost-cutting purposes.
For example, Green said, his Palatka-based agency will be delegating more responsibility to its satellite offices, including one in Altamonte Springs. As a result, he said, much of the work that Lowe does in Palatka will be reassigned to other offices.
He said Ghyabi's comment about the district's "black eye" is part of a larger, anti-regulatory backlash in the state that has resulted in the downsizing this year of state agencies such as the departments of Community Affairs and Environmental Protection.
Mission being cut back
Green said the water district is being revamped to make wetlands and water permitting quicker and less bureaucratic but not less protective of the environment.
"I think we've heard the message loud and clear that we need to be more effective in dealing with [development and water] applicants," Green said. "Effective means, No. 1, protecting the environment and, No. 2, moving them through the process so that it doesn't take as long."
The state's five water districts, whose board members are appointed by the governor, have long been somewhat insulated from politics.
But they also have been often attacked by environmentalists for being lax and subservient to the development industry, and criticized by developers and municipal utilities for being a bully when protecting the state's aquifers, wetlands and waterways.
Scott's call for steep budget cuts early this year -- which for a home with a taxable value of $150,000 resulted in a tax break of $62 to $50 a year -- also carried a mandate that the water districts narrow their priorities to "water supply, flood protection, and resource protection."
"Core mission has become a mantra out of the Governor's Office," said Sonny Vergara, a former executive director of the St. Johns district and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. "My argument is, what the hell does that mean? 'We're going to stop doing a lot of things' is basically what they mean."
Monday, August 15, 2011
National Park Service: Criteria For New National Parks
Throughout the Nation, people are working to conserve natural
resources, protect historic sites, and to provide recreational opportunities
for a growing population. Many communities also are looking
for ways to combine conservation with efforts to attract visitors
who will help support the local economy. The National Park Service
is responsible for carefully screening proposals for new park units
to assure that only the most outstanding resources are added to
the National Park System. Regardless of economic considerations or
other factors, a new national park area must meet criteria for
national significance, suitability, and feasibility. Various other management
options are also weighed. For those with proposals for
consideration, this page explains the criteria applied by the National
Park Service in evaluating new park proposals, outlines the study
process, and lists some of the other ways to recognize and protect
important resources outside of the National Park System.
How are national parks created? What qualities make an area eligible to
be a national monument, historic site, recreation area, or other units of
the National Park System? These questions are frequently asked by people
throughout the country. Some people think a scenic part of their
community deserves to be a national park. Others want national recognition
for their favorite historic house or geological formation. These sites
may deserve to be protected, but how do we decide if action should be
taken at the state or local level instead of by the Federal Government,
and if federal action is appropriate what agency should take the lead?
The National Park Service has established criteria for national significance,
suitability, feasibility, and management alternatives that help answer
these questions. This page presents the criteria and the study
process established by Congress and in the National Park Service’s Management
Policies. People with suggestions for new parks can use these
criteria as a yardstick to see if their proposals are likely to merit further
consideration.
Units of the National Park System are managed under mandates differing
from those guiding many other Federal, State, and local agencies. The
National Park Service is responsible for managing areas to provide for
public enjoyment in such a way that will leave resources “unimpaired for
the enjoyment of future generations.” Since 1872 the National Park System
has grown to include almost 400 areas. The System will continue to
evolve, reflecting the progression of history, new understandings of natural
systems, and changes in patterns of recreation. However, the areas
managed by the National Park Service are a small part of the broader system
for protecting important places. Addition to the National Park Service
is only one of many alternatives, and the National Park Service also
operates several programs that help others preserve natural, cultural,
and recreational areas outside of the System.
Proposals for additions to the National Park System may come from the
public, state, and local officials, Indian tribes, members of Congress, or
the National Park Service. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a
unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant
natural, cultural, or recreational resources; be a suitable and feasible
addition to the system; and require direct NPS management instead of
protection by some other governmental agency or by the private sector.
QUALIFICATIONS
How are national parks created? What qualities make an area eligible to
be a national monument, historic site, recreation area, or other units of
the National Park System? These questions are frequently asked by people
throughout the country. Some people think a scenic part of their
community deserves to be a national park. Others want national recognition
for their favorite historic house or geological formation. These sites
may deserve to be protected, but how do we decide if action should be
taken at the state or local level instead of by the Federal Government,
and if federal action is appropriate what agency should take the lead?
The National Park Service has established criteria for national significance,
suitability, feasibility, and management alternatives that help answer
these questions. This page presents the criteria and the study
process established by Congress and in the National Park Service’s Management
Policies. People with suggestions for new parks can use these
criteria as a yardstick to see if their proposals are likely to merit further
consideration.
Units of the National Park System are managed under mandates differing
from those guiding many other Federal, State, and local agencies. The
National Park Service is responsible for managing areas to provide for
public enjoyment in such a way that will leave resources “unimpaired for
the enjoyment of future generations.” Since 1872 the National Park System
has grown to include almost 400 areas. The System will continue to
evolve, reflecting the progression of history, new understandings of natural
systems, and changes in patterns of recreation. However, the areas
managed by the National Park Service are a small part of the broader system
for protecting important places. Addition to the National Park Service
is only one of many alternatives, and the National Park Service also
operates several programs that help others preserve natural, cultural,
and recreational areas outside of the System.
Proposals for additions to the National Park System may come from the
public, state, and local officials, Indian tribes, members of Congress, or
the National Park Service. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a
unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant
natural, cultural, or recreational resources; be a suitable and feasible
addition to the system; and require direct NPS management instead of
protection by some other governmental agency or by the private sector.
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
A proposed unit will be considered nationally significant if it meets all
four of the following standards:
• it is an outstanding example of a particular type of resource.
• it possesses exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting
the natural or cultural themes of our Nation’s heritage.
• it offers superlative opportunities for recreation for public use and enjoyment,
or for scientific study.
• it retains a high degree of integrity as a true, accurate, and relatively
unspoiled example of the resource.
RESOURCE EVALUATION
The following examples of natural and cultural resources are considered
in evaluating the significance of a proposal for addition to the National
Park System.
Natural Area examples may include:
• an outstanding site that illustrates the characteristics of a widespread
landform or biotic area. that is still widespread;
• a rare remnant natural landscape or biotic area of a type that was once
widespread but is now vanishing due to human settlement and development;
• a landform or biotic area that has always been extremely uncommon in
the region or nation;
• a site that possesses exceptional diversity of ecological components
(species, communities, or habitats) or geological features (landforms,
observable manifestations of geologic processes);
• a site that contains biotic species or communities whose natural distribution
at that location ismakes them unusual (for example, a community
relatively large population at the limit of its range or a disjunctn isolated
population);
• a site that harbors a concentrated population of a rare plant or animal
species, particularly one officially recognized as threatened or endangered;
• a critical refuge that is necessary for the continued survival of a species;
• a site that contains rare or unusually abundant fossil deposits;
• an area that has outstanding scenic qualities such as dramatic topographic
features, unusual contrasts in landforms or vegetation, spectacular
vistas, or other special landscape features;
• a site that has an invaluable ecological or geological importance benchmark
due to an extensive and long-term record of research and scientific
discovery.
Cultural Areas may be historic districts, sites, buildings, structures, structures,
or objects that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating
or interpreting our heritage and that possess a high degree of integrity
of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and
association.
Specific examples include:
• a resource that is associated with events that have made a significantly
contribution contributed to and are identified with, or that outstandingly
represent the broad national patterns of United States history
and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns
may be gained;
• a resource that is importantly associated with the lives of persons nationally
significant in the history of the United States history;
• a resource that embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural
type specimen, exceptionally valuable for study of a period, style,
or method of construction, or represents a significant, distinctive, and
exceptional entity whose components may lack individual distinction;
• a resource with several components that may not that is composed of
integral parts of the environment not sufficiently significant by reason
of historical association or artistic merit to warrant individual recognition
but that collectively [comprise] an entity of exceptional historical
or artistic significance, or that outstandingly commemorates or illustrates
a way of life or culture;
• a resource that has yielded or may be likely to yield information of
major scientific importance by revealing new cultures, or by shedding
light upon on periods of occupation over large areas of the United
States.
Ordinarily cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties
owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures
that have been moved from their original locations, and reconstructed
historic buildings and properties that have achieved significance within in
the past 50 years are not considered to be appropriate as additions to the
National Park System. unless the property meets certain exceptions to the
criteria.
Many units of the National Park System have been established to recognize
their important role in providing recreational opportunities. The potential
for public use and enjoyment is an important consideration in
evaluating potential new additions to the National Park System. However,
recreational values are not evaluated independently from the natural
and cultural resources that provide the settings for recreational activities.
Suitability
An area that is nationally significant also must meet criteria for suitability
and feasibility to qualify as a potential addition to the National Park System.
To be suitable for inclusion in the System an area must represent a
natural or cultural theme or type of recreational resource that is not already
adequately represented in the National Park System or is not comparably
represented and protected for public enjoyment by another
land-managing entity. Adequacy of representation is determined on a
case-by-case basis by comparing the proposed area to other units in the
National Park System for differences or similarities in the character, quality,
quantity, or combination of resources, and opportunities for public
enjoyment.
Feasibility
To be feasible as a new unit of the National Park System an area’s natural
systems and/or historic settings must be of sufficient size and appropriate
configuration to ensure long-term protection of the resources and to accommodate
public use. It must have potential for efficient administration
at a reasonable cost. Important feasibility factors include landownership,
acquisition costs, life cycle maintenance costs, access, threats to the resource,
and staff or development requirements.
Criteria for New National Parks National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Throughout the Nation, people are working to conserve natural
resources, protect historic sites, and to provide recreational opportunities
for a growing population. Many communities also are looking
for ways to combine conservation with efforts to attract visitors
who will help support the local economy. The National Park Service
is responsible for carefully screening proposals for new park units
to assure that only the most outstanding resources are added to
the National Park System. Regardless of economic considerations or
other factors, a new national park area must meet criteria for
national significance, suitability, and feasibility. Various other management
options are also weighed. For those with proposals for
consideration, this page explains the criteria applied by the National
Park Service in evaluating new park proposals, outlines the study
process, and lists some of the other ways to recognize and protect
important resources outside of the National Park System.
For more, please see the NPS website
resources, protect historic sites, and to provide recreational opportunities
for a growing population. Many communities also are looking
for ways to combine conservation with efforts to attract visitors
who will help support the local economy. The National Park Service
is responsible for carefully screening proposals for new park units
to assure that only the most outstanding resources are added to
the National Park System. Regardless of economic considerations or
other factors, a new national park area must meet criteria for
national significance, suitability, and feasibility. Various other management
options are also weighed. For those with proposals for
consideration, this page explains the criteria applied by the National
Park Service in evaluating new park proposals, outlines the study
process, and lists some of the other ways to recognize and protect
important resources outside of the National Park System.
How are national parks created? What qualities make an area eligible to
be a national monument, historic site, recreation area, or other units of
the National Park System? These questions are frequently asked by people
throughout the country. Some people think a scenic part of their
community deserves to be a national park. Others want national recognition
for their favorite historic house or geological formation. These sites
may deserve to be protected, but how do we decide if action should be
taken at the state or local level instead of by the Federal Government,
and if federal action is appropriate what agency should take the lead?
The National Park Service has established criteria for national significance,
suitability, feasibility, and management alternatives that help answer
these questions. This page presents the criteria and the study
process established by Congress and in the National Park Service’s Management
Policies. People with suggestions for new parks can use these
criteria as a yardstick to see if their proposals are likely to merit further
consideration.
Units of the National Park System are managed under mandates differing
from those guiding many other Federal, State, and local agencies. The
National Park Service is responsible for managing areas to provide for
public enjoyment in such a way that will leave resources “unimpaired for
the enjoyment of future generations.” Since 1872 the National Park System
has grown to include almost 400 areas. The System will continue to
evolve, reflecting the progression of history, new understandings of natural
systems, and changes in patterns of recreation. However, the areas
managed by the National Park Service are a small part of the broader system
for protecting important places. Addition to the National Park Service
is only one of many alternatives, and the National Park Service also
operates several programs that help others preserve natural, cultural,
and recreational areas outside of the System.
Proposals for additions to the National Park System may come from the
public, state, and local officials, Indian tribes, members of Congress, or
the National Park Service. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a
unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant
natural, cultural, or recreational resources; be a suitable and feasible
addition to the system; and require direct NPS management instead of
protection by some other governmental agency or by the private sector.
QUALIFICATIONS
How are national parks created? What qualities make an area eligible to
be a national monument, historic site, recreation area, or other units of
the National Park System? These questions are frequently asked by people
throughout the country. Some people think a scenic part of their
community deserves to be a national park. Others want national recognition
for their favorite historic house or geological formation. These sites
may deserve to be protected, but how do we decide if action should be
taken at the state or local level instead of by the Federal Government,
and if federal action is appropriate what agency should take the lead?
The National Park Service has established criteria for national significance,
suitability, feasibility, and management alternatives that help answer
these questions. This page presents the criteria and the study
process established by Congress and in the National Park Service’s Management
Policies. People with suggestions for new parks can use these
criteria as a yardstick to see if their proposals are likely to merit further
consideration.
Units of the National Park System are managed under mandates differing
from those guiding many other Federal, State, and local agencies. The
National Park Service is responsible for managing areas to provide for
public enjoyment in such a way that will leave resources “unimpaired for
the enjoyment of future generations.” Since 1872 the National Park System
has grown to include almost 400 areas. The System will continue to
evolve, reflecting the progression of history, new understandings of natural
systems, and changes in patterns of recreation. However, the areas
managed by the National Park Service are a small part of the broader system
for protecting important places. Addition to the National Park Service
is only one of many alternatives, and the National Park Service also
operates several programs that help others preserve natural, cultural,
and recreational areas outside of the System.
Proposals for additions to the National Park System may come from the
public, state, and local officials, Indian tribes, members of Congress, or
the National Park Service. To be eligible for favorable consideration as a
unit of the National Park System, an area must possess nationally significant
natural, cultural, or recreational resources; be a suitable and feasible
addition to the system; and require direct NPS management instead of
protection by some other governmental agency or by the private sector.
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
A proposed unit will be considered nationally significant if it meets all
four of the following standards:
• it is an outstanding example of a particular type of resource.
• it possesses exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting
the natural or cultural themes of our Nation’s heritage.
• it offers superlative opportunities for recreation for public use and enjoyment,
or for scientific study.
• it retains a high degree of integrity as a true, accurate, and relatively
unspoiled example of the resource.
RESOURCE EVALUATION
The following examples of natural and cultural resources are considered
in evaluating the significance of a proposal for addition to the National
Park System.
Natural Area examples may include:
• an outstanding site that illustrates the characteristics of a widespread
landform or biotic area. that is still widespread;
• a rare remnant natural landscape or biotic area of a type that was once
widespread but is now vanishing due to human settlement and development;
• a landform or biotic area that has always been extremely uncommon in
the region or nation;
• a site that possesses exceptional diversity of ecological components
(species, communities, or habitats) or geological features (landforms,
observable manifestations of geologic processes);
• a site that contains biotic species or communities whose natural distribution
at that location ismakes them unusual (for example, a community
relatively large population at the limit of its range or a disjunctn isolated
population);
• a site that harbors a concentrated population of a rare plant or animal
species, particularly one officially recognized as threatened or endangered;
• a critical refuge that is necessary for the continued survival of a species;
• a site that contains rare or unusually abundant fossil deposits;
• an area that has outstanding scenic qualities such as dramatic topographic
features, unusual contrasts in landforms or vegetation, spectacular
vistas, or other special landscape features;
• a site that has an invaluable ecological or geological importance benchmark
due to an extensive and long-term record of research and scientific
discovery.
Cultural Areas may be historic districts, sites, buildings, structures, structures,
or objects that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating
or interpreting our heritage and that possess a high degree of integrity
of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and
association.
Specific examples include:
• a resource that is associated with events that have made a significantly
contribution contributed to and are identified with, or that outstandingly
represent the broad national patterns of United States history
and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns
may be gained;
• a resource that is importantly associated with the lives of persons nationally
significant in the history of the United States history;
• a resource that embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural
type specimen, exceptionally valuable for study of a period, style,
or method of construction, or represents a significant, distinctive, and
exceptional entity whose components may lack individual distinction;
• a resource with several components that may not that is composed of
integral parts of the environment not sufficiently significant by reason
of historical association or artistic merit to warrant individual recognition
but that collectively [comprise] an entity of exceptional historical
or artistic significance, or that outstandingly commemorates or illustrates
a way of life or culture;
• a resource that has yielded or may be likely to yield information of
major scientific importance by revealing new cultures, or by shedding
light upon on periods of occupation over large areas of the United
States.
Ordinarily cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties
owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures
that have been moved from their original locations, and reconstructed
historic buildings and properties that have achieved significance within in
the past 50 years are not considered to be appropriate as additions to the
National Park System. unless the property meets certain exceptions to the
criteria.
Many units of the National Park System have been established to recognize
their important role in providing recreational opportunities. The potential
for public use and enjoyment is an important consideration in
evaluating potential new additions to the National Park System. However,
recreational values are not evaluated independently from the natural
and cultural resources that provide the settings for recreational activities.
Suitability
An area that is nationally significant also must meet criteria for suitability
and feasibility to qualify as a potential addition to the National Park System.
To be suitable for inclusion in the System an area must represent a
natural or cultural theme or type of recreational resource that is not already
adequately represented in the National Park System or is not comparably
represented and protected for public enjoyment by another
land-managing entity. Adequacy of representation is determined on a
case-by-case basis by comparing the proposed area to other units in the
National Park System for differences or similarities in the character, quality,
quantity, or combination of resources, and opportunities for public
enjoyment.
Feasibility
To be feasible as a new unit of the National Park System an area’s natural
systems and/or historic settings must be of sufficient size and appropriate
configuration to ensure long-term protection of the resources and to accommodate
public use. It must have potential for efficient administration
at a reasonable cost. Important feasibility factors include landownership,
acquisition costs, life cycle maintenance costs, access, threats to the resource,
and staff or development requirements.
Criteria for New National Parks National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Throughout the Nation, people are working to conserve natural
resources, protect historic sites, and to provide recreational opportunities
for a growing population. Many communities also are looking
for ways to combine conservation with efforts to attract visitors
who will help support the local economy. The National Park Service
is responsible for carefully screening proposals for new park units
to assure that only the most outstanding resources are added to
the National Park System. Regardless of economic considerations or
other factors, a new national park area must meet criteria for
national significance, suitability, and feasibility. Various other management
options are also weighed. For those with proposals for
consideration, this page explains the criteria applied by the National
Park Service in evaluating new park proposals, outlines the study
process, and lists some of the other ways to recognize and protect
important resources outside of the National Park System.
For more, please see the NPS website
Think Progress: Ron Paul Disagrees With Mitt Romney -- Corporations Are Not People
Ron Paul Breaks With Mitt Romney: ‘People Are Individuals…Not Companies’
By Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron on Aug 15, 2011 at 9:35 am
ThinkProgress filed this report from the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, IA.
Late last week, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) told Iowa fair-goers during a question-and-answer session about his belief that “corporations are people.” Romney, who earned a reputation in 2008 as a flip-flopper, was loathe to back down from the misstep, doubling down on his comments over the weekend. Other conservatives also rushed to his defense, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), both of whom told ThinkProgress they supported the idea that corporations are people.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who placed second in the Ames Straw Poll over the weekend, took a far different view when speaking with ThinkProgress. Unlike Romney and his own son Rand, Ron Paul argued that corporations are “obviously” not people. “People are individuals,” Paul affirmed. “They’re not groups and they’re not companies.”
KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement that “corporations are people” yesterday?
PAUL: Obviously they’re not. People are individuals, they’re not groups and they’re not companies. Individuals have rights, they’re not collective. You can’t duck that. So individuals should be responsible for corporations, but they shouldn’t be a new creature, so to speak. Rights and obligations should be always back to the individual.
By Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron on Aug 15, 2011 at 9:35 am
ThinkProgress filed this report from the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, IA.
Late last week, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) told Iowa fair-goers during a question-and-answer session about his belief that “corporations are people.” Romney, who earned a reputation in 2008 as a flip-flopper, was loathe to back down from the misstep, doubling down on his comments over the weekend. Other conservatives also rushed to his defense, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), both of whom told ThinkProgress they supported the idea that corporations are people.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who placed second in the Ames Straw Poll over the weekend, took a far different view when speaking with ThinkProgress. Unlike Romney and his own son Rand, Ron Paul argued that corporations are “obviously” not people. “People are individuals,” Paul affirmed. “They’re not groups and they’re not companies.”
KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement that “corporations are people” yesterday?
PAUL: Obviously they’re not. People are individuals, they’re not groups and they’re not companies. Individuals have rights, they’re not collective. You can’t duck that. So individuals should be responsible for corporations, but they shouldn’t be a new creature, so to speak. Rights and obligations should be always back to the individual.
Abraham Lincoln's August 24, 1855 Letter to Joshua Speed Reminds Me of Authoritarian Corporativists Like Mitt Romney and the Koch Brothers Today
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.
As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.'
When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created
equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to
this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no
pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism
can be taken pure, and without the base alloy hypocrisy."
As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.'
When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created
equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to
this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no
pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism
can be taken pure, and without the base alloy hypocrisy."
Folio Weekly Bouquet for Flagler College Journalism Grad Cal Colgan
Bouquets to Flagler College grad Cal Colgan for using journalism to
expand our understanding of the world around us. The Florida College Press
Association recently acknowledged Colgan’s work as co-editor of Flagler’s
online student newspaper with two awards, one for a news story he wrote on
the homeless in St. Augustine and another for a feature on a fellow student’s
service in Afghanistan.
expand our understanding of the world around us. The Florida College Press
Association recently acknowledged Colgan’s work as co-editor of Flagler’s
online student newspaper with two awards, one for a news story he wrote on
the homeless in St. Augustine and another for a feature on a fellow student’s
service in Afghanistan.
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