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Well, there's two right here, two little ones.

Obviously, we pull up a brass and like, hey, is your dog?

They said when they approached it, it started to growl at them.

They were obviously hesitant, but they're like, it hasn't look in good condition.

We found one dog in there that was barely alive.

It's literally skin and bones.

Oh my god.

That is what I think.

Good morning, and welcome to an environment protection commission meeting for June 18th.

If everyone can please stand for the pledge of allegiance and invocation given by Commissioner Cameron Cepeda.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning with grateful hearts.

We thank you for who you are.

And Lord, we just lift up before you this morning our precious sister Janet Wharton's brother, Jonathan Maynard Dogarty, Lord.

We we lift him up before you.

We pray for his health.

We speak and declare health healing in his body, and we pray for the health of every person of all in Hillsborough County, every employee in Hillsborough County, every constituent within the borders of our county for their health and well-being.

And we pray for this nation, that your will be done throughout this nation, and we pray for peace, blessings, and prosperity, and that your will be done in our lives, and we ask you to bless this meeting in your holy name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cameron Sopeda.

Okay.

So we have everyone here.

Do we have any changes to the agenda, Elaine?

Uh no changes to the agenda.

I would like to note that Janet did want it on the record that she's out on PTO for caring for her brother who's in critical condition.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

We have no recognitions or proclamations.

Any public comments.

No public comments.

No public comments.

Can we have a motion to approve the moved?

We have a motion and a second motion by Commissioner Bowl, second by Commission De Coyne.

All in favor.

Please record your vote.

Yes.

The motion carries seven to zero.

Okay.

Elaine.

Okay, Commissioners.

Item 9A is going to be presented by Dr.

Valerie Harwood.

And Dr.

Harwood is a distinguished USF professor and the associate dean for graduate studies, where she has worked since 1998.

Dr.

Harwood is an environmental microbiologist whose research focuses on water quality.

With the help of many graduate students over the past decades, she has become recognized for her work in the area of microbial source tracking and the ecology of E.

coli and other fecal bacteria in aquatic environments.

Well, she has been funded by many grants.

She mostly enjoys partnering with local and regional agencies to address water quality issues in Florida.

Professor Harwood will be giving us an overview of microbial source tracking in surface waters.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to talk about our research.

I always say our because as I mentioned, my graduate students are at the forefront of all the work that we do.

We've been working with the Environmental Protection Commission since 2006.

So it's a long and very fruitful partnership that I'm very grateful for.

And so this is about microbial source tracking.

This this work that we do.

And I'm going to give you a little uh of some background, and then a case study, a recent case study uh that was done in Hillsborough County.

Um can I move this or yes?

Next slide.

Oh, okay, I got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

So contamination of water, feces and water, we have an automatic yuck response to that, but but why does it matter in terms of our health and safety?

Uh nutrients in feces, so sewage and animal feces can lead to algal blooms, low dissolved oxygen, which in turn leads to fish kills, so generally degrades water quality.

Uh feces of animals and humans contains disease-causing microorganisms called pathogens, viruses, bacteria, and protozoa.

So we certainly don't want that getting in the water that we may want to recreate in or or eventually drink.

Uh and reduction and prevention of contamination.

So water bodies that are contaminated or impaired in the state state parlance, uh, require knowledge of source.

So our scientific endeavor here is basically a whodunit activity.

Why do we need this advanced technology of microbial source tracking?

You've probably seen signs at the beach that say that the water that the beach is is posted or closed due to high bacterial levels.

And in that case, we measure E.

coli and anerococci typically.

Um so on this little cartoon, they're denoted by the purple and the turquoise circles.

The thing about E.

coli and interococci is that they're contained in the feces of all animals and in humans.

And so it doesn't tell us anything about where did this contamination come from, and that in turn doesn't allow us a good chance to mitigate the pollution to stop it, to remediate.

And this the city here is meant to show that many anthropogenic activities can lead to uh contamination of waters.

Um you know about sewer breaks, for example.

Um there's always lift station overflows, all sorts of activities, um, even um stormwater runoff, and then agricultural uh activities also, where you have animal waste, um and in the rural area you have septic systems that can contribute.

So when we design a field study like the one that I'm going to tell you about, we're taking into account all of these myriad influences of different kinds of animals, humans, as well as what sort of what's surrounding the watershed, the water body.

So microbial source tracking um has been going on for about 20 years, and I was lucky enough to get in on the forefront of this.

We we call it a forensic approach because here we're using a um a DNA approach, much like uh uh of DNA um the kind of DNA that you would use in the inner forensic investigation to track the source of fecal contamination.

So in the cartoon, on the top we have you have we have a cow in the middle a human, and we have a chicken, so indicating different fecal sources.

And then over on the right, we have the water droplet.

So really we're looking for what is the fecal source for contamination in the water.

And you see the oval uh black the black ovals, those are E.

coli, so they're in all of the cartoon cartoon uh pieces.

And then let me see if I can use the cursor here.

That might be helpful.

No, it's not showing up.

Okay.

Um, but then you see that there's a different colored circle in each of those little fecal plops.

And that means that that is a particular bacteria or it could be a virus that is specific to that kind of animal or to humans, and that's why they're each in individual color.

And so by being able to uh by being able to detect these what we call host specific bacteria or viruses in the water, we can then trace them back to the sources.

So, for example, sewage, cattle, chickens, even we have a bird marker, etc.

So that's the basis for microbial source tracking.

That's the who-done it part of it.

And the way that we do that is by we use quantitative PCR.

So it's a technology that's about 10 years old, well, probably 15 years old, but got first, at any rate, I won't go into that.

It's a at any rate, so what so you see the red the red ovals there in the sewage plume that's coming out of the uh that's escaping from its uh pipes, and that would indicate some of our some of the the tracer, the bacterial tracer that we use, and then you see the helix there, that's a DNA helix, and then we detect that by polymerase chain reaction or PCR, which is how the how it's this is forensically done by your uh law offices.

But um in this case, the PCR is for our microbial source tracking marker genes.

And the beauty of PCR is it can take a very small amount of DNA and you amplify it, is kind of like xeroxing only on a much larger scale, and then you can make millions of copies of that gene from five or ten, and in that way you can amplify it very a very small signal into one that we can detect and quantify.

So when we design a field study for microbial source tracking, and you can imagine that a lot of a lot of lab work and went went into developing these these DNA markers that we use for microbial source tracking.

But now we have we have quite a few that we can use with with good confidence in in Florida.

And so when we design a field study, we think about see the animals up there, so what kind of animals do we have around the water that might be contributing to the water body, and you so see a little different colored circle for uh in each of those animal de fecal contributions, and we think about um oh, and those are just the names of some of the markers that we use.

I'm gonna talk a lot today about HF183 and CH8.

So just kind of keep those in mind as we go along.

Um then again, as we're designing our study, we're looking at well, what are the what are the what is around the water body in terms of infrastructure in terms of possible contamination sources?

Is it does it mostly look like it's you know uh sewage, septic systems, possibly other um agricultural animals.

So we're taking all that into account when we design our study.

Oh, there's our little rural icon.

Okay, and just a quick segue.

I wanted to emphasize the history, our the history of our collaboration with EPC before I go into the field study.

Again, started in 2006 where we worked at um Benti Davis and Bahia Beach.

There we found that uh a broken sewage pipe and uh porta potties that were placed right at the edge of Benti Davis beach seawall were contributing to uh fecal contamination there.

Um in 2015, we worked in sweetwater and bullfrog creeks in 2020.

We worked in again in uh in bullfrog Creek and Buckhorn Creek, and there we found that nitrate and HF183 are correlated.

Um, and so that was a way to have more marker of a chemical marker and a microbial marker for pollution.

And um in 2023, we were looking at the impact of indigenous or naturalized E.

coli on microbial water quality.

That was in Buckhorn, Hamilton, and Turkey Creeks.

And in both of those studies, we started using the H8, or we were using and validating the H8 marker that I'll talk about today that's been really useful for us.

Um we have an ongoing study that is where we're working in the Tampa Bay Biopass Canal and Rice Creek.

So long, long and fruitful history of collaboration with the EPC.

Uh here's uh here's the beginning of the field study part, microbial source tracking in action.

So here again, this is a who-done it.

We're looking for what is causing contamination.

And in this case, we're looking at English Creek.

This is um south of I-4, near to nearest to plant city.

And English Creek has an interesting um relationship with the sewer line.

So you see the the red of the sewer line, it kind of goes horizontal and then it drops down vertical.

And north um English Creek runs from north to south, so it runs from the top of the slide to the bottom of the slide.

And um on the left hand side in the green shading, that's an area that is serviced by septic systems.

On the right-hand side, we have areas serviced, well, part of the area is serviced by the sewer, and then we have that pink-shaded area that is um reclaimed the where reclaimed water is used to irrigate.

So the yellow arrow there, sorry, let me let me back that up.

Maybe, maybe not, yeah.

Yellow arrow denotes uh EC6 site EC624.

This is the this is the uh EPC historical monitoring site, so E.

So E.

coli were high there.

That is why we started working on this area.

And again, we're looking at the reclaimed water here.

One reason that this is important is because HF 183, remember I talked about the HF-183 sewage marker.

This is just DNA.

And so reclaim water, although it is safe for many applications, it still has some DNA of the organisms that were in the sewage after it goes through treatment because it's not designed to treat DNA, it's designed to remove E.

coli, the living E.

coli.

And so we have we we realized about 10 years ago that we had an issue where reclaimed water was being used that we would detect HF 183, but it was from a harmless source, right?

From the reclaimed water.

So that is where we started working on that second marker there, the H8.

And again, EPC funding was instrumental in helping us develop that marker.

And this is a viable or a living E.

coli that has a gene, which we call H8 for short, and we so we detect that in viable E.

coli.

So if we if we use both together, if we only see HF183, we're like, okay, this is some this is some treated water source like reclaimed water or perhaps disinfected sewage effluent.

If we see H8 along with HF183, then we know, okay, this is really a sewage source.

So using those two together is is a very um uh a very telling thing for us.

Okay, so English Creek phase one, I'm gonna call have two phases.

You can you'll see why they're distinct in it in a second.

So the red dots along the creek indicate where we are seeing um E.

coli concentrations in excess of regulatory guidelines.

And then where um the yellow, I just put the yellow yellow marker around each of those sites is where we were detecting HF 183.

And notice I put that that could be sewage or reclaimed water, and it's detected at most of the sites.

And so we're going, okay, we're seeing stuff, but we're not quite sure what's going on.

And so again, reclaimed water is suspected down there, but up at EC3 in particular, so that's the the northern site up closer to the to the sewage line on the top.

EC3, we consistently detected that star means we did consistently detected H8 as well as HF183.

So we're like, okay, so we have something that's happening further upstream from that historic EC624 site.

So that means that uh engendered phase two of the project.

So in phase two, you see the gray boxes up at the top, EC EC uh 4 through 7.

We actually added more than just those four, but I'm gonna only talk about those four.

Um we um started sampling at those sites to see if we could figure out what's going on at EC3.

And what we found was that we had really high HF 183 levels and consistently detected H8 at EC5 and EC6, which are is if you can see the yellow dots there, they're just right below, they're in English Creek right below that sewage line.

But we did, oops, sorry, but we did not detect H8 or HF-183 at EC7, which is upstream of the sewage lines.

So you can kind of see the the who done it aspect of this.

So with our um with our partners uh reached out to Plant City Utilities who went out that but the kudos to them, they went out and they looked around and they found a gimongous sewer main break.

So the sewer mains are the this that's a scientific term by the way, gymonggous.

And uh and uh so of course they were appalled, and uh, and there was a repair done, so you can see the kind of the chewed up area there where the repair was done, and that was at site EC8.

So we we sampled at EC8 then after the both before and after the repair.

And what we saw was what we expected to see.

So the first two bars that are gonna come up were the February sampling.

So in February, this is before this is before just just like as the repair was being done.

So we see a million E.

coli, over well over, or almost a million E.

coli, and we see well over a million, almost almost 10 million uh HF 183 at that site.

So this is this is just as the repair, you know, before it's before it's cleaned up, and then we saw H8, and then afterward in March, look how much the E.

And HF 183, the sewer marker as well dropping to below 10,000.

So we would call that, we would call that three three to four orders of magnitude, an order of magnitude being tenfold.

And we're still seeing a little bit of uh HF 183 and H8 there, probably due to the fact that we had almost no flow in that area, the because it's not raining then.

So the the bacteria that were there weren't being cleared out as fast as they might otherwise.

We did go back and try to sample later, uh, but we had no water at all, so unfortunately.

But so the really good example then of partnership among the organizations and research with a handshake with the utilities and found the source.

So that's kind of a in brief a microbial source tracking uh tail that's I hope hopefully hits home at how useful it is in the partnership, how important that is.

So to wrap up then, um just reiterating that our funding from EPC has allowed us to find some um uh to discover some new knowledge about the process of water quality exploration that has implications for Florida, but also beyond a national and international um uh studies of water quality.

And these results have been published with the nitrate and nitrate.

We've published that.

Um the ECH 8 and the uh the importance of that.

I think you probably saw that when we we saw H8 in the north, and we're like, okay, boom, that's our that's our place.

It's coming from the north and traveling south.

So H8 has been instrumental.

And then we have a current um current project where we're looking at a couple of new markers for sewage contamination to keep trying to expand our repertoire.

And so um to wrap that all up in a bow, um, the collaboration has been immensely um uh productive for our research, and I hope for Hillsborough County and the other areas.

We also work with Pinellas County, and we work with City of Sarasota and a couple of the uh waterkeepers are also.

So we have a lot of local um a lot of local impact, and we're always happy to answer people's questions and talk about microbial source tracking.

And so thanks very much to the EPC to Hillsborough County and uh the pollution recovery fund of EPC, uh, Janet Lorton, the EPC commissioners, EPC staff who are always help well ready to help us out, even when we're working for uh Hillsborough County.

If we need to go along with them and sample, they'll take us out in the boat, they'll help us out with other projects.

And then to my all my graduate students and uh the lab team, and this is um this is Aldo Lobo's flank here.

He's uh he's working on clearing a path through some Brazilian pepper or something like that.

Um one of my graduate students who's now a postdoc has his PhD and still working for me.

Um and Jeanette, they helped me with this while they did most of this presentation, and I basically you know edited it.

So thank you all.

And I don't know if there's time for questions, but if there are, I would love to take some.

We want to thank you for your presentation, and I'm gonna recognize Commissioner Bowles.

Thank you.

Question regarding the case uh that you presented, what actually precipitated the uh the sampling out there?

Was it something that came from the monitoring of the EPC site?

It actually, yes.

Or in other cases, how would you determine like if someone thinks that there's a problem as opposed to knowing there's a problem?

That's a great question, and I'm gonna try to give a short answer, although it's a little bit complicated.

But we so when um when an organization approaches us and or or if we approach them, as in the case of a of a grant proposal, we work with the organization.

So whether it's EPC or Hillsborough County, we say where are your where are your hot spots for fecal indicator bacteria for E.

coli anderococci?

Because that's what are that's what's monitored.

And where are you concerned about about contam contaminated water?

And then we go out from there and we design the study.

And so in this case, it was that EPC site 624 that was consistently had high E.

coli levels, and um the the uh partners were interested in exploring the bacterial levels there.

And that's what we started.

I don't know if you remember, but 624 was down at the bottom.

Right.

And then we went upstream from there.

And so that's kind of our typical approach is we s we start at the suspect site and go upstream to see like, okay, where where does the where does where does the plume start if we can find it and where does it, where does it end?

Right you know I I've heard of some studies that came out of California where they were looking at Romaine lettuce and they were kind of uh looking where these E.

coli outbreaks were coming and they kind of determined that it was farming practices near where you had cattle or other you know right livestock and the uh basically where the drainage ditches were being used kind of mixing with the irrigation ditches that were also being used for the the vegetables and or you know whatever the uh produce was being you know made there so that could also be a a way of certainly tracking if you had some kind of issue like that right well yeah and I actually didn't show all of our sites but we went we went this we went so we went to the west we didn't go east very much because we we weren't seeing much over to the east that would impact but we went to the west um to look for we went down some branch some branch points sometimes sometimes when we we'll try to talk to people when we're out and we'll we'll say well where what do you see around here because people know the most they know the darndest things and I was like what do you you know do you see anything or see any like pipes that are going and we always look for pipes going into the water so exactly looking for looking for conduits that will bring it into there is exactly what we do.

It's a little bit like epidemiology and what and what you were talking about specifically started out as an epidemiological study and so it's it's very much in in in its um conceptual is like that.

Okay last question is um I'll wrap it up with when we're doing things like this and you mentioned the uh pollution fund is that your sole source or are you kind of like uh aggregating revenues or some kind of funding sources that uh where do those come from exactly so locally as I mentioned we work with Hillsborough County Sarasota Pinellas County water keepers um those are relatively modest sources of funding um our our big sources of funding which have funded a lot of the background work on this microbial source tracking um well used to be the EPA I'm hoping that the environmental protection agency the US EPA will um come back to the research um usda um national science foundation so some of the big the big federal um agencies we also send grant proposals to and get funded by thank you very much thank you thank you commissioner colleague um thank you I I have just two quick questions um very interesting presentation first of all uh how effective are our water f purification systems at actually removing E.

coli and making sure that the water is uh you know in of pristine quality um well so our our our major wastewater treatment plants are very very good at that they're excellent um the uh septic systems um so on-site wastewater treatment systems are good as long as the drain field is well separated from the seasonal high water table so you have to keep that keep that separation if they're too low you know they they don't work very well um but if they're if they're they're built as permitted and if they're if they haven't you know if the water table hasn't changed um they they work they work quite well um the the kind of um little things that you might buy to take with you on um on a trip where if you think you might be drinking stream water or something those those have gotten those have gotten pretty good um as far as the treatment pro systems that you would put in at your home those would be designed to remove um certain kinds of chemicals like perhaps you know nitrates or uh iron and so more more of a more more chemical treatment for the home the home treatment you would depend on your well to be deep enough to be protected from what we call surface water influence because that's that's never good.

My my final question um what do you what if a site goes undetected and untreated what i is your biggest worry in terms of the types of threats that then are there are there are to public health is it through the drinking water is it people stepping into standing water with a cud is it on the food what how does it manifest itself I mean that's a great question and you also brought up many possibilities that are that would worry uh an epidemiologist or microbiologist so when we look at which water bodies to assess first and we try to build sort of a risk profile we look at the water bodies where people have the most contact with the water so um if it's a water body where um for example we did a study up at Reedy Creek um designed to the the the uh area was designed to be wildlife a wildlife uh area lots and lots of birds in there um that especially migratory birds they were they were in danger of the having to do a big um uh risk assessment for for the um florida department of environmental protection but because nobody swims there nobody really nobody canoes there we were able to um to have the an exception because it was it was natural sources so if you look at it's a bit of a long way but if you look at how the water body is used

Lots and lots of birds in there, especially migratory birds.

They were they were in danger of the having to do a big um risk assessment for for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

But because nobody swims there, nobody really, nobody canoes there, we were able to have the exception because it was it was natural sources.

So if you look at it's a bit of a long way, but if you look at how the water body is used, that will that will impact how how much risk to human health there is.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Commissioner Cohen.

And again, thank you for your presentation.

Thanks everybody for listening.

Thank you.

Elaine.

Yes, next we have 9B, and that's going to be presented by Michelle Jenkins and our Air Division.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners.

My name is Michelle Jenkins, and I'm with EPC staff.

And it is my pleasure to be here today to share with you the highlights and the success of our 25th Clean Air Fair Anniversary Celebration.

As you may recall, this year's theme, Stars and Stripes Forever, Celebrating Clean Air Together, was chosen to commemorate this important milestone event while embracing the patriotic spirit surrounding the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary.

Today we would like to briefly reflect on the event's growth, its impact on our community, and the many partners who helped to make this year's celebration a success.

Each May, in recognition of Clean Air Month, the EPC hosts the Clean Air Fair to promote environmental awareness, highlight the importance of clean air to the health, vitality, and well-being of our community.

As what began as a modest lunchtime engagement event featuring only a handful of county departments and exhibitors, has grown into one of downtown Tampa's most anticipated environmental events.

Over the past 25 years, the fair has evolved into a vibrant community gathering that brings together citizens, businesses, county departments to learn about the environment and to celebrate all that the quality that is available, all the information and resources that are available to improve the quality of life in Hillsborough County.

Now, in its 25th year, the Clean Air Fair has become a cornerstone public outreach event and attracts more than a thousand visitors annually.

Guests enjoy a unique combination of community exhibits and interactive activities, including live music provided by EPC alumnus Ron Nichols and his band, the Leftovers, generous exhibitor giveaways, and opportunities to directly connect with organizations serving our citizens.

Of course, the fair's success would not be made possible without the support of our dedicated EPC divisions, our participating partners, and especially you commissioners.

This year's event reached an all-time high, featuring more than 70 exhibitors, our biggest and most exciting turnout yet.

We are incredibly grateful for the tremendous support of our sponsors, including one Tampa City Center, Tampa Downtown Hilton, Sprouts Farmers Market, Publix, and many more.

It is through their remarkable generosity and dedication that the Clean Air Fair continues to grow and thrive.

Each year, the EPC selects a theme for the fair that encourages residents to consider the positive impacts we can make when we work together to protect our natural resources and preserve a healthy environment.

To this end, we are always very proud to showcase the outstanding work of our valued partners whose commitment and collaboration help strengthen our community's well-being and environmental future.

Over the years, the Clean Air Fair has received several recognitions for excellence and public outreach.

Most recently, the event received a Hillsborough County Planning and Design Award of Merit.

One of the fair's most anticipated traditions is the annual Arbor Day tree giveaway.

This year, more than 350 trees, saplings, and plants were distributed to attendees.

In fact, visitors begin lining up well before the giveaway opens, making it one of the events' most popular and eagerly awaited attractions.

We would like to thank Pine Lake Nursery, Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, and Florida Forest Service for their generous support and contributions that helped make this year's giveaway possible.

The Clean Air Fair also serves as the venue for recognizing the winners of the EPC's environmental photography contest.

Winning entries are prominently displayed during the event, allowing attendees to appreciate the creativity and environmental awareness demonstrated by local students.

The 2026 contest this year received over 70 entries from local high school students.

Students were encouraged to focus their photos on environmental stewardship, natural resource protection, and this year's patriotic theme.

The quality of the submissions was truly outstanding, making the judging process especially challenging.

We are proud to recognize the students who were selected for top honors.

And as you can see, our first place winner, Sunrise, truly captured the spirit of our theme.

This year's judging resulted in a tie for second place, reflecting the exceptional talent displayed by our student participants.

The judges also awarded two third place winners, further demonstrating the level of talent by our local photography contestants.

In addition to our top winners, five students received honorable mention recognition.

We congratulate all of the students and thank them for sharing their creativity and environmental perspective with our community.

We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to HTV for their continued support and news coverage of the fair every year.

Please enjoy this short video highlighting some memorable moments from the fair.

We're at the Poe Plaza today for the Clean Air Fair, and we're here to educate people on the importance of the environment and what we do at the agency.

We have 67 vendors all doing sustainability efforts and things like that to teach people the importance of our environment and our natural resources.

This is our 25th year celebrating Clean Air Fair, and it also happily coincides with the celebration of our 250th birth of our nation.

You know, it pairs patriotism with the conservation and protection of our environment.

That's one thing we want them to learn.

That's about our environment and the resources that are available and how they can connect with the county department and particular EPC to learn more about why clean air is so important to our community.

It makes me feel fantastic to see everyone out here today and come and add another educational piece to their life about environment and why the environment is so important to us.

We have nearly 70 exhibitors of the cross-section of the of the community from civic groups to uh restaurants and shopping uh centers to utilities.

I could thank many people, certainly one city one Tampa City Center in the Hilton because they provide the venue.

Um just some of our mainstays like public sprouts was a big contributor this year.

This is an event that takes place every year.

I don't think I've ever seen it as crowded as it is this year.

People recognize the importance of clean air as an issue.

It's a great event, the Clean Air Fair 25th year that uh they've been doing this.

Tons of environmental resources.

What's been incredible to learn is just how many different organizations we have.

And it's just a really cool aspect to be able to say, hey, I went to this event to celebrate clean air and came away with a free plant.

Well, it's really exciting for me because I've been here all 25 years, and this started as a grassroots, just small crowd of people that we've blossomed into this large event.

So it's really exciting to see how it's grown, and uh the mission is to educate.

Some of the things that we've grown with.

We found live music.

It was a really, really popular edition.

This everyone's been playing here for the last 10 years.

We also started having a photo contest for local high schools, and we take the winners and exhibit them here so we get a chance for the public to observe them.

It's so amazing being out here today.

I mean, it fills my heart with joy and pride that people really care about the environment.

Everybody's celebrating not only the USA, not only EPC, but our environment.

And I just think it's wonderful.

As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Clean Air Fair, we are proud of how far the event has come and the positive impact it continues to have on our community.

For a quarter century, the fair has provided an opportunity to educate, engage, and inspire residents while strengthening partnerships that support environmental stewardship throughout Hillsborough County.

We are grateful for your continued support, Commissioners, of the EPC and the Clean Air Fair.

Your commitment has helped to make this event a lasting success, and we look forward to building on that success for many years to come.

Thank you for your time.

This concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much.

What was an awesome event?

So I'm pretty sure we'll forgotten next year how we get on Goodman in America on one of the TVs.

But it was just phenomenal to just to see the number of citizens that supported this event this year.

I mean, you all went all out in celebration of the 250th uh anniversary that will be coming up for America.

Okay, I don't see anyone in the queue, so thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Okay, Elaine.

Commissioners, next we have our Brownfield's annual report that will be given by Alice and Amran and our waste division.

We'll also have a small recognition after this as Alison is retiring, and we will be missing her and enjoyed these last 10 years as she's been our Brownfields coordinator.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners.

As they said, my name is Alison Amram, and I've been the Brownfield coordinator for EPC for the last 10 years.

And today I want to kind of show you the community benefits of the Brownfield program here in Hillsborough County.

I want to talk a little bit about your role as the BOCC in establishing Brownfields.

And I also want to show you a little bit about what's happened in the past year.

So this photo shows two redevelopment parcels within the Independence Park Brownfield site.

They were an abandoned vacant golf course, and now they are being redeveloped for private housing.

And I also usually when I talk with you all about brownfields, I talk about the specifics of the plan.

And this time I want to start off with the results.

So this is a mixed commercial development south of the airport that was redeveloped over an old landfill through the Brownfields program.

These are all cleanup sites.

This is an industrial facility that used to be an aluminum smelter and now has the building has been upgraded and repurposed to be a trash transfer station.

A commercial redevelopment along Dale Mabry that was formerly a nursery.

And apartments over another former landfill in the West Shore area.

So what is the Brownfield program?

It is a program started by EPA that provides incentives for voluntary environmental cleanup of a property when there's a redevelopment plan.

So there are two requirements to become a brownfield program site.

And also the current property owner didn't cause or contribute to the contamination, and that's where you get the incentives.

So there are no incentives if you make the contamination yourself.

But if you want to come in and clean up somebody else's impacts, then there's some incentives that will help you get over that hurdle of do I really want to redevelop this property for my, you know, for a better purpose for the community?

Do I have enough time and money?

And what will that be to address the contamination?

The photo at the right is some of the contamination that was found in the repair bays at the Tampa Armature Works.

It used to be the city streetcar repair.

So there are two paths in the Brownfield program.

There's a redevelopment approval, and there's also the environmental cleanup process path.

So a Brownfield project starts with the redevelopment approval, and a plan is submitted to the local government agency to review and say, is this a redevelopment plan that will match with what the city or the county have in mind for this area?

And then they'll look to see what are going to be the community benefits, the brownfield component of the redevelopment.

Will it have will it spur economic development?

And that's demonstrated by creating at least five jobs.

Will it preserve land for recreation or conservation or will it create affordable housing?

If it meets those criteria, the application is then presented to you all as the BOC.

And then there's a public meeting near the project to get community input.

And finally, there's another public hearing at a BOCC meeting where the local government agency will make a recommendation to the board to either create a brownfield area or not.

But once that brownfield area resolution has been made, then there's some incentives that are available for for redevelopment of that property.

If affordable housing is being created, there is a sales tax refund on all the building materials used to construct the affordable housing.

So that's begun to play an important part in creating affordable housing in the county.

The photo on the right is the uptown sky affordable housing that was created using this incentive.

Also, I want you to let you know that any property within a community redevelopment area, a CRA, has sort of gone through the same process as becoming a brownfield area, and they also are available for the same brownfield area incentives.

Plant City took a different sort of a city planning approach to establishing large areas of brownfield, large brownfield areas, and this was done to sort of pre-package large areas for redevelopment in case there was contamination to incentivize redevelopment.

Bless you.

And there was one private redevelopment area that was established, and that was for the plant city hospital.

And you may recall that was the one that was redeveloped over an agricultural area that had a chicken farm that had some arsenic impacts, and it's now functioning as a plant city hospital.

It's all cleaned up.

So that's the redevelopment path.

The environmental path starts when that brownfield area resolution is complete.

At that point, if contamination has been documented, then the person who didn't cause or contribute that to that contamination can sign a voluntary cleanup agreement with EPC.

And that agree that agreement says that the property owner will go through Florida's cleanup rule to assess the contamination at the site, what's there, is it in the soil or groundwater, where's it going, remediate it and clean it up and control it so that it's clean.

And that's the majority of what EPC does.

We take these sites, we make sure that they're cleaned up through Florida's rules.

We also support other brownfield activities in the county.

And there's a picture up here of their last job training cohort.

They have almost an 80% environmental job placement rate in this program.

It's really phenomenal.

And EPC also spends some time presenting to professional meetings about the brownfields program and also doing community outreach.

This map shows in red the EPC Brownfield sites.

We have 56 cleanup sites.

And you'll see that the cleanup sites are concentrated in industrial areas.

And as Tampa grows, some of the industrial areas are turning into more business areas or mixed-use redevelopments.

So there are a lot of brownfield sites located in the east side of downtown Tampa, Ybor City, the Port, Orient Park.

These are all Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Brownfield incentives for going through the cleanup.

Every incentive is tied to an activity that the property owner who didn't cause the contamination has to go through to clean up the site.

So as soon as that voluntary cleanup agreement is signed, the property owner receives liability protection for any claims about the contamination.

So this has been a very strong incentive, very desired for cleaning up property, especially if you're going to have a residential redevelopment or a park setting, something like that.

And as you can see, they're all tied into a different aspect of the cleanup or redevelopment that's based on the cleanup.

And then at the end of the cleanup process, EPC issues a site rehabilitation site rehabilitation completion order, which is the end goal for contaminated sites.

It says your contamination is gone or it's controlled and you have controls in place so that no one will be exposed to the contamination and they won't contribute to an more environmental impacts.

The photo at the right is a picture of a groundwater treatment system that was used at the Plant City Hospital to remove arsenic from the groundwater.

EPC just submitted last month our report to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection about our delegated brownfield program.

EPC manages the brownfield program in Hillsborough County under a delegation agreement with the Florida DEP.

And so we tell them every year what we've done.

This year we've received five new programs, five new projects into the program.

The IOS Hemlock project is a redevelopment at the port on an industrial site.

There, the photo on the right, the kind of light background.

They're creating outdoor industrial storage for the port.

The East Hillsboro and Chateau Lawn Brownfield site is going to be cleaned up to become a new fire station and fleet maintenance for the city of Tampa.

Cypress Housing and Las Vias are going to be cleanup sites for affordable housing.

And the Channel Side Drive Park is a new park coming next to the Channel Side Garage.

EPC has also closed three sites this year.

They've reached that site rehabilitation completion order.

The Rome Yard is a 12-acre multi-use redevelopment on the west side of the Hillsborough River.

They had impacts to their soil that they excavated and removed from the site.

And this large redevelopment area will also have the West River Walk going through the development.

We also closed two other sites.

The Pitch Pine site was a wood treatment facility that used the copper chromated arsenate, and that was some contamination that needed to be cleaned up, but it's still in redevelopment.

And the Tampa Livestock Parcel C had agricultural impacts from a fish farm.

This is a very large multi-use redevelopment that is going on right now between downtown Tampa and Ybor City.

EPC has a three-city block area brownfield site, and that was created for impacts from an old landfill.

Whenever there's redevelopment over an old landfill, EPC offers a director's authorization to look at those special requirements of redeveloping an area that had solid waste buried in it before.

So this site is both a brownfield site and an old landfill redevelopment.

You can see a little progression in the construction over the last two years.

They found an abandoned tank.

Whenever there's a large excavation, there always seems to be a large surprise.

And the redevelopment, this is a picture, a rendering of what they envisioned the project will look like.

And they also have a recreation green space component to their redevelopment and are proposing a pedestrian walkway that would ideally connect the city of downtown Tampa to Ebor City.

So these are some of the projects that we've had.

The ones that have redeveloped this year.

So you can look at economic development with the jobs, or you can also look at it with the property values.

There's the affordable housing component, and these five properties are spread through the county.

We actually have seven that have used the brownfields area incentives to redevelop for affordable housing, and we have three cleanup sites for affordable housing that have come to EPC in the last two years.

So that's getting used more and more.

And once in once Waterworks Park redeveloped, armature works was close behind.

And so this synergy where one project serves as a catalyst for the next is like the ultimate goal for Brownfields.

You clean it up, you reuse it for a better purpose for the community today.

And that is what I have for you all today.

I'm I love the Brownfields program.

Always happy to talk about it, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much for an excellent presentation.

We know that with Brownfield, how with the contempt contamination, always cleaning up sites to be on those sites.

So thank you so much.

I'm going to recognize now Commissioner Bowles.

Thank you.

Yeah, again, very useful and informative uh presentation.

Couple questions.

With uh you mentioned that Plant City did some, I can't recall exactly how you worded it, but kind of like some large scale changes for designation of brown fields.

Did they do that on their own?

Did they have to coordinate with DEP or FDP?

Those large areas are there the Brownfield area designation process is done by the local municipality.

So the plant city commissioners can did that redevelopment, set those up as redevelopment areas for brownfields incentives.

Okay, you know, and you just mentioned in the very end of your presentation, independence park, uh, independence park.

Yes.

And that was a golf course.

And someone wouldn't really think of golf courses as necessarily being a brown field or not, but given that there's a lot of uh fertilizers, lots of pesticides that are used.

That's what it is.

And even though that they're probably, you know, there's probably some state law that allows that to happen.

Are those typically or not typically designated brown fields, and who has the authority to do that?

That's a lot.

Um a golf course has a their business is keeping the grass green.

So they are allowed to legally apply pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, whatever they need to do to keep the grass in plain condition, as long as it's in accordance with the manufacturers directions.

It can be a heavy load.

Um there are no cleanups required of golf courses unless they change land use.

And then if they have contamination, then they will generally go through a cleanup that's managed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, or if they want to become a brownfield site and they have a redevelopment plan that the local commission approves.

Um if they become a brownfield site, then they do voluntary cleanup instead of cleanup that could be mandated by consent order.

So if there are abandoned sites and the golf courses, meet and I say abandon, not like no one's looking after them, but they're not being utilized for a golf course anymore.

And I think there's a few in South County, some in North County that uh they're possibly being considered for that.

Is that something that a developer could come in or the new owner, presumably a developer could come in and ask for?

Yes, yes, and they do.

Um, but their redevelopment plan has to meet those brownfield criteria, create five new jobs, preserve the land for recreation or conservation, or create affordable housing.

Okay.

So the incentives are you didn't cause the contamination, and you're going to create this community benefit.

So if they don't meet that criteria for the brownfield area designation in the redevelopment project, then it's not going to be a brownfield site.

And the funds that are used to help you know clean up these sites.

Where does that come?

Is that federal, state, local?

There are no funds provided.

They're all they all come as tax credits.

The sales tax is a refund, so they provide the State Department of Revenue with their receipts for affordable housing, and they get a refund back on the sales tax.

So the state decides to forego that tax.

And the same thing happens with the voluntary cleanup tax credits.

Those are tax credits that the property owner shows their receipts to DEP that we have paid this much for our site rehabilitation, our cleanup activities, and then they are, you know, they have certain maximum limits, and that comes off of their corporate income tax bill.

It's issued as a tax credit certificate.

So if they don't pay to corporate income tax, then that tax credit certificate can be sold on a secondary financial market for 88, 90 cents on the dollar.

So it's typically, but it does not like typically it has nothing to do with like an avalorum or some kind of development incentive along those lines.

I I don't understand quite what you mean.

They wouldn't have to pay their property taxes, wouldn't be less than it's it's strictly kind of related to the sales tax and a lot of people.

The credits are on a sales tax refund for affordable housing and corporate income tax.

Yeah, not on property tax.

All right, well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cameron Cepeda.

Yes, I'd like to thank you for your many years of service and caring for our community.

And I really hope you have a really great retirement, a long and healthy life, full of happiness, peace, and joy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Miller.

Thank you, Chairman.

I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation.

Actually, all three presentations this morning have been wonderful and informative, and um thank you for the work that you're doing.

It's such a privilege to be able to sort of have a front row seat to the good work that you're doing in our county.

So thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, I have uh Stephanie and our waste director who's who has a few words for Allison.

May I just pinch in just for a second.

Sure.

Hold on one second.

By the way, I didn't mean to grill you at on your last day on the job.

I just want to get all the expert knowledge that you're pro that you have.

And kind of, you know get as much as we can.

But thank you very much.

I I wasn't trying to attack you right.

I truly appreciate your service to the community.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners.

I've had the pleasure of working with Alison for her 10 years at the EPC, and I would just like to take a few moments of your time to recognize Alison for her dedicated service to the agency for the past 10 years and her upcoming retirement in July.

Since joining EPC as the Brownfields coordinator in 2016, Alison has brought strong environmental expertise, technical knowledge, and a deep commitment to community focused remediation.

She has built trusted relationships with partners and consultants across Florida and is widely respected as a leader in the Brownfields community.

In fact, some of those partners are here in the audience today.

At this time, I'm honored to present Allison with her 10-year service recognition and to thank her for her outstanding work.

On behalf of the agencies and staff, we wish her all the happiness in her well-deserved retirement.

And Allison, would you like to say a few words?

Maybe about your pictures.

It's kind of thank you, Stephanie.

So for our tenure rewards or recognitions, we're allowed to pick pictures.

So I picked Tampa Armature Works and it shows the deserted armature works and then the redeveloped one.

So it means a lot to me.

And um I'm also really really thankful that as when I announced my retirement that we were able to internally recruit.

And Charles Dalman is here today, and he's going to be EPC's next Brownfield coordinator.

And we've had the last six weeks to train together, and um I look forward to seeing the Brownfield program thrive and move forward and all, and it's been an honor.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, Alison.

You know, how long before you leave?

Well then as one chapter closes in EPC, you have your future endeavor, what you so desire, so enjoy life, and thank you for your service.

Thank you.

And welcome above aboard.

We'd like to get a picture with Allison and Frank.

I see Frank and his son Travis and her husband Paco in the audience, if everyone could come up.

Okay, Lane, we have the executive director's report.

Yes, if um HTML.

Could pull up the report.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Commissioners, I'll be presenting Janet's executive director report.

We could go to the next slide.

Okay, along with the changes with Alison and Charles that we just saw, we have some changes in our waste division.

Ron Cope retired from the EPC after 35 years of service.

Nicole Garcia, who's in the audience with us today, has been promoted to the department's senior environmental manager.

Nicole brings over twenty-five years of experience across several roles within EPC's waste division.

Next um EPC staff attended Commissioner Myers Town Hall meetings on May nineteenth in Progress Village and June 16th in Riverview.

Next we also attended Commissioner Woosel's town hall at the Riverview Public Library.

Next.

The Arbor Day ceremony uh took place at EL Bing Elementary School.

We thank EPC Chair Commissioner Gwen Myers and the school who selected a southern magnolia pine.

Um we would like to thank the Florida Forestry Service for the grant that made this tree planting ceremony possible.

Next in the community we participated in several Earth Month events, including the sixth annual Great Port Cleanup and Earth Day at the Tampa International Airport.

Next staff participated in outreach events focusing on environment and education.

These included EcoFest at Learning Gate Community School and the GEO Expo at the University of South Florida.

Next slide.

This year marked the tenth anniversary of the FLIP program and the fifth time EPC had participated.

Next and Commissioners, we already have a date set next year of May sixth for the twenty-sixth annual clean air fair.

Oh Commissioner Cameron Sipada.

No, I probably didn't drop you off on the last.

Any future items?

Hear none.

Our meeting is adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.