HomeMy WebLinkAbout08172010NRB MinutesPresent:
Robin Graves Chair
Albert Alvarez
Barbara Salmon
Jane Schnee
Ken Grudens
Eric Spokas Vice Chair
SEsAsTaN
HOME OF PELICAN ISLAND
NATURAL RESOURCES BOARD
MINUTES
TUESDAY, AUGUST 17th, 2010 6:00 P.M.
City Council Chamber, 1225 Main Street, Sebastian
1. Chairperson Graves called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
2. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
3. ROLL CALL:
Staff Present: Margie Reynolds, Board Liaison and Donna Cyr, Recording Secretary
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: June 29, 2010 meeting
MOTION by Ms. Salmon and SECOND by Mr. Spokas to approve the June 29th, 2010
minutes as written, passed with unanimous voice vote.
5. ANNOUNCEMENTS:
No announcements
6. PUBLIC INPUT:
No public input.
7 OLD BUSINESS:
A. Recap of Spoil Island Clean -Up Proiect, Saturday, July 24th. All members felt the
cleanup went well and everyone had a good time. Everyone was commended for their
hard work setting up the cleanup. There was a problem with the kayaks. Kayaks Etc.
didn't show up for the event. Mr. Grudens stated that he had confirmed twice with
Christy before the event and they were ready to go. There was some discussion about
the weather possibly contributing to the miscommunication. It rained in Vero Beach that
morning and some people thought the event had been cancelled.
Ms. Schnee will contact April Price of Treasure Coast Waterway Clean Up to get the
numbers of trash debris that was turned in from island IR1. Ms. Reynolds needs to
turn this information over to FDEP for their records on our island cleanups.
Natural Resources Board Meeting
August 17, 2010
Page Two
B. Spoil Island Clean -Up, Saturday, September 18th with State of Florida The time for
the event will be at 8:OOam with departure at 8:30am. Robin Graves will be the contact
person for this clean up. Ms. Graves will contact the press regarding exposure for this
event. Mr. Grudens will contact Steve Philipson at All About Kayaks, for kayaks for this
event. After some discussion about the problem with getting volunteers, boat, etc. it was
decided that the focus of this clean up wi4pe on the islands around Riverview Park and
not necessarily our Spoil Island. The dum ster will be located south of the bathrooms at
the Yacht Club boat ramp and the kayaks will launch out of the open area at Riverview
Park. Any boats will be asked to launch out of the Main Street boat ramp. All supplies
will be supplied for volunteers.
The fourth Spoil Island Clean Up for IR1 will be done sometime later in the year or early
next year. This will fulfill our obligation to the State for the adoption program.
Ms. Schnee passed on a contact list of past volunteers from the Vero, Fellsmere,
Sebastian area that April Price had. Ms. Graves will create an informative flyer and the
group will be emailed. Any names that have the email bounce back or any contacts
without an email address will be telephoned by Mr. Grudens. Then the last way to
contact is mail to anyone we can't reach by email or phone.
C. Boy Scouts Wetland Enhancement Project in October This project is to clean up
the area on CR512 near the City Compound. Ms. Reynolds still has not had any word
back from the Boy Scouts on this project. It was decided that the project would be
tabled for now.
8. NEW BUSINESS:
No new business.
9. MEMBER MATTERS:
Mr. Spokas passed out information (attached) on Kudzu smog. There isn't much in
Sebastian Indian River County. Ms. Reynolds said that there was a problem in the
1980's but it was eradicated. It was suggested to educate the public on the Kudzu vine
at Earth Day.
Ms. Salmon brought up coming up with a way to make it easier for business on US1 and
the CRA district with recycling. She would like to talk to City Council or the City Manager
to see if it was something that could be renegotiated with Waste Management. Or have
a central location for the business to take their recycling. It was also suggested to
contact non profits like the Boy Scouts to see if they would want the project to collect the
recycling. It was decided that Ms. Salmon would talk with the City Manager and offer
suggestions to resolve the issue.
10. STAFF MATTERS:
Next regular board meeting is October 5th. Both Mr. Grudens and Ms. Schnee will be
unavailable to attend the meeting and request an excused absence. The members
were asked to start thinking about Earth Day 2011 and decide if they would like to
continue with the event. There was discussion in the past about ending the event and
Natural Resources Board Meeting
August 17, 2010
Page Three
spending the board's time doing small projects instead. Mr. Grudens stated he would
like to end the event.
11. Being no further business, Ms. Graves adjourned the meeting at 7:17 p.m.
(fJ L y e, c
Nature Resources Chairperson Signature
li
Date
This roundup summarizes
some notable recent items
about scientific research,
selected from news reports
compiled in Sigma Xi's free
electronic newsletters Sci-
ence in the News Daily and
Science in the News Weekly.
Online; http. /sitn.sigmaxi.
org and http://www.arneri-
canscientist.org /sitnweekly
Animals sans Oxygen
The salty depths of the Medi-
terranean Sea are home to
the first known anaerobic
animals. Measuring just a
hundredth of an inch long,
three new members of the
phylum Loricifera spend their
lives in oxygen starved sea
sediments. To convince them-
selves that these surprising
creatures were really alive, bi-
ologists confirmed that in the
lab, the loriciferans absorbed
dyes and incorporated radio
labeled amino acids into their
cone shaped bodies. Electron
microscopy revealed that the
new species lacked mitochon-
dria, but were replete with
hyd rogenosomes— metabolic
organelles previously known
only from anaerobic single
celled organisms.
Danovaro, R., et al. The first
metazoa living in permanently
anoxic conditions. BMC Biology
8:30 (April 6)
Kudzu Smog
Add air pollution to the list
of kudzu's evildoings. The
invasive vine (Pueraria mon-
tana) has taken over millions
of acres in the eastern and
southern United States. Sym-
biotic bacteria in the plant's
roots incorporate atmospheric
nitrogen into the soil, where
other microbes metabolize
it to nitric oxide —an ozone
precursor. Researchers found
that, in the summer, soil in
three kudzu infested plots
released twice as much nitric
oxide as three kudzu -free
plots. Based on atmospheric
models and a worst -case kud-
zu invasion, the authors fig-
ure that the vine could boost
ozone levels above air quality
limits for seven extra days per
summer.
Hickman, J. E., et al. Kudzu
(Pueraria montana) invasion
doubles emissions of nitric oxide
and increases ozone pollution.
Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (published
online May 17)
Ball Lightning Solved?
Despite thousands of eyewit-
ness reports, the nature —and
even the existence —of ball
lightning remains uncertain.
Now a pair of physicists claims
that the orbs of light might be
storm- induced hallucinations.
A clinical technique known
as transcranial magnetic
stimulation focuses a mag-
netic field on parts of peoples'
brains and can cause them
to perceive glowing bubbles
of light. Calculations reveal
that a lightning strike pulsing
back and forth between cloud
and ground could generate
a comparable field, causing
hallucinations of ball light-
ning among observers up to
a tenth of a mile away. The
authors speculate that such il-
lusions could account for up to
half of ball lightning sightings.
Peer, J., and A. Kendl. Transcranial
stimulability of phosphenes by
long lightning electromagnetic
pulses. Physics Letters A (pub-
lished online May 12)
Fountains in Palenque
Ancient Mayans enjoyed pres-
surized water in the city of
Palenque a good millennium
before the Spanish arrived.
The city's residents regularly
routed streams through un-
derground channels to make
space for buildings. Archaeolo-
gists recently noticed that one
of these aqueducts suddenly
narrowed before emerging
from the ground. Forcing the
water through a small space
would have pressurized it,
and could have powered a
fountain up to 15 feet high.
Archaeologists aren't sure
how the Mayans used the
pressurized water, but it may
have washed away waste or
filled water vessels. The find
is the only known example of
engineered water pressure in
the pre- Hispanic Americas.
French, K. D., and C J. Duffy.
Prehispanic water pressure: A
New World first. Journal of Ar-
chaeological Science 37:1027-
1032 (May)
Queasy Quolls
A dinner of invasive cane
toad (Bufo marinus) doesn't
taste bad to Australia's native
predators, but it's deadly. The
toxic amphibians have driven
the northern quoll (Dasyurus
hallucatus), a cat -sized carni-
vore, to the verge of extinc-
tion. Even after surviving an
unpleasant toad encounter,
most quolls are willing to try
it again. Determined to help,
conservation biologists edu-
cated 31 of the predators by
feeding them small non lethal
cane toads spiked with a nau-
seating chemical. Indeed, cap-
tive quolls that suffered upset
stomach were four times less
likely than naive quolls to at-
tack another toad. They also
survived longer when released
into toad infested habitats.
O'Donnell, S., et al. Condi-
tioned taste aversion enhances
the survival of an endangered
predator imperilled by a toxic
invader. Journal of Applied
Ecology 47:558 -565 (June)
Who's the Better
Mushroom Hunter?
Men may take pride in their
spatial aptitude, but women
have unique navigation skills
of their own. Evolution prob-
ably honed men's route find
ing during the Pleistocene,
when hunters followed their
quarry into unknown terrain.
Women would have gathered
immobile plant foods —a role
that might favor different
navigational tactics. To test
this idea, biologists outfitted
themselves with GPS devices
and heart-rate monitors and
followed 21 men and 21
women mushroom hunting
in central Mexico. Men chose
longer and more strenuous
routes, but in the end, they
collected no more fungi.
Women indeed may be op-
timized to efficiently gather
food that doesn't run away.
Pacheco Cobosa, L., et al. Sex
differences in mushroom gath-
ering: Men expend more energy
to obtain equivalent benefits.
Evolution and Human Behavior
(published online April 23)
A Speedy Cold Current
An ocean current that shut-
tles near freezing water from
Antarctica toward Australia
is now the fastest deepocean
current on record. It flows
at eight times the rate of all
Earth's rivers combined. Re-
searchers knew that a frigid
stream moved through that
part of the ocean, but there
were no reliable measure-
ments of how much water it
carried. Using remotely oper-
ated submarines, researchers
moored more than 50 cur-
rent and temperature sensors
across 100 miles of seafloor.
The data reveal a remarkably
intense and consistent cur-
rent, moving at a half -mile
per hour along a path only
30 miles wide. The newly
measured flow will be an
important element in future
climate models.
Fukamachi, Y, et al. Strong ex-
port of Antarctic Bottom Water
east of the Kerguelen plateau.
Nature Geoscience (published
online April 25)
l rz'Yn I r fl(t'l(/v'1cK+ S C op: 3 7 2009 July- August 293
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