“….AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM.”
Most of you don’t know that soon to be 5th grader Catherine Hicks of 45th St. South, Gulfport made a heartfelt presentation to the City Council seeking their help in saving Clam Bayou and her feathered friends who live and die there. It was a wonderful presentation and we have provided the full text below.
Through Mayor Yakes, she received a patronizing response that the Council had acted on the issue and that work was underway to fix the problem. What they didn’t tell her was that precious little was being done to preserve the Bayou in Gulfport, the part that serves as her back yard. The only thing that is being done in Gulfport is to remove some silt that had created a blockage to the flow. They didn’t tell her that the 6-7 feet of nasty runoff from St. Pete’s streets that had accumulated for 50 years is going to stay right where it is and that, instead, a 35 acre “water feature” is being created in St. Pete as a replacement for Clam Bayou.
Even though she made direct reference to the recent study by the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsboro County, (for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program), that showed that the muck in back of her yard was some of the most toxic muck in the Tampa Bay Area, they didn’t tell her that they were leaving it right there to aid in killing more of her bird friends and possibly to affect her own health as well. They didn’t tell her that instead of restoring Clam Bayou as they had promised, SWFWMD was turning it into a mudflat because, and we quote them, “the area needs more mudflats.” They must have felt that even though the Council of adults can accept such a horrible situation, (some even applaud it), that a straight answer would be too much for a person so young.
Maybe the reason you don’t know about Catherine’s remarkable plea for the saving of the bayou is that our local news source didn’t report on it except for a short quote in the Public Comments and Council Quotes section on page 31 of the publication. Strange, when you consider that Bay News 9 covered the story and then some and that the St. Petersburg Times ran a fine piece in the Neighborhood Times on Sun day, July 25. Is it a matter of editorial judgment or editorial bias that caused our local news source to take a pass on this inspirational and very local story?
Please read the full text of Catherine’s well written story below, it deserves everyone’s attention. Also, here’s a link to the Bay News 9 piece. Check it out and make a supporting comment if you are of a mind to. (http://www.baynews9.com/article/news/2010/july/125288/Young-activist-takes-on-city-council-over-toxins-in-Clam-Bayou)
Hi my name is Catherine Hicks and I am soon to be a 5th Grader at Azalea Elementary. In March of 2010, I moved to the Gulfport Claim Bayou area and in April Mrs. K from Swiftmud came to my school and talked to my class about storm water runoff, what kinds of toxins are in it and how it harms the environment. I had forgotten about Mrs. K. until one day in June, EEddie a Great White egret who lives in the Bayou was at my house for her daily visit. She was just standing in our flower garden and suddenly she collapsed. After about 30 second she managed to get back up but she looked disoriented and dizzy. Then she started flapping her wings and flying across the Bayou but in the middle of the Bayou she fell into the water and couldn’t get out. I had so many questions running through my mind all at once. What happened? Will she be o.k.? What should I do? What is wrong with her? The first idea that came to mind was to go ask my neighbor if I could use his canoe but right then she seemed to have a burst of strength and flew out to her home in the mangroves. For days I worried about her and I asked my mom, dad, uncle and big sister what is wrong with her. Then my big sister told me about a paper she wrote for college about toxins in storm water runoff and helped me find a report about the toxins in Claim Bayou that the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County did in March of 2009. I found out that here are some really bad toxins that make people and animals sick. I read that there is DDT in the mud which is really bad because DDT caused eagle eggs to be so weak that an a mother eagle does to sit on them, she breaks the eggs. I started writing many people to try to get answers and find help for EEddie and other animals of Clam Bayou.
City Councilwoman, Jennifer Salmon found out about my letters and asked me to come and share them with you. So I am here today to implore you to take actions that will stop the pollution of Clam Bayou and being healing and restoring my birdie friends home. I want to say thank you to the council members for giving me the opportunity to share EEddie’s story and for taking time to help me find a way to make sure the other animals of Claim Bayou live happy, healthy toxin free
lives. ” SAVE MY BIRDIES.”Catherine Hicks
July 20, 2010
My heart hurts everytime I come face to face with the truth of what SWFWMD is doing to our side of the bayou. Catherine is mad and rightly so. If I can help you Catherine please let me know. I am 12 years old and I love the birds and the Bayou just like you do. Gulfport City Council completely ignores the adults who try to get their help on Clam Bayou. Maybe they will help the kids. I am on your side.
Miss Lassie, I think you are onto something….perhaps if you and Catherine and some other young folks get together and keep driving home your message to the Council in Gulfport AND St. Pete and SWFMUD, etc, perhaps they will listen. You are right—the message from the adults has fallen on deaf ears!!
Wonder if Councilmember King met with Catherine too??
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Clam Bayou Restoration Update: Gulfport Council Woman Meets With Swiftmud
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Councilwoman Michele King toured the restoration at Southwest Florida Water Management’s (SWFWMD) invitation. The invitation came after Councilwoman King sent SWFWMD an e-mail about the progress of the restoration.
Last Friday morning, Gulfport councilwoman Michele King met with Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) representatives Brandt Heningson and Janie Hagberg to review the progress of the Clam Bayou restoration. Councilwoman King was, she said, impressed with the progress.
“The trip was extremely informative. It’s going to be a fantastic thing when it’s done,” she said. Monday morning she met with the Gabber at Clam Bayou and discussed the progress.
At the North Pond, heavy equipment continued digging out the pond in hopes that it will divert stormwater runoff away from the Bayou and into the pond, assisting in cleaning it of contaminants before the water enters Clam Bayou’s estuarine system.
King said the District’s plans for enlarging the North Pond involve removing what it deems invasive vegetation and replanting the non-invasive vegetation.
“They are reusing some of the plants that they can. They have a whole line of full-grown palms that they moved. They’re trying not to destroy anything,” she said, crediting Janie Hagberg for preserving the trees.
“The way Janie drew her ponds, she actually drew her ponds around some of the trees they wanted to save,” Ms. King added.
While touring Clam Bayou, she said she was amazed at the vast scope of the project. “We talk about it being three retention ponds, but it is so much more than that, it really is,” Councilwoman King said. “The thoughtfulness of nature taken to insure a project that not only captures and cleans stormwater runoff but also provides habitat for bird, fish and mammals- including us. When the project is complete kayakers will be able to travel to almost all of the preserve.”
The tour was also a learning experience for her, the councilwoman said as she explained that two freshwater ponds would provide food for birds not quite old enough to eat food that comes from saltwater.
Along the tour, Ms. King said she witnessed life existing in tandem with the backhoes and other machines.
“I saw blue crabs in there and little tiny fish… it was amazing to me. We saw osprey hunting, tri-color herons, great blues, and ibis on this trip,” she said. As she reviewed the list of creatures seen on the tour, an immature black-crowned night heron perched on a remaining tree limb above the dry pond.
In determining how to try and fix the damage to the Bayou, King said the District opted to use a baseline from 90 years ago.
“In spite of things that were done to the bayou in the 50s and 60s, this project brings it back as close as possible to what nature intended. This project uses the 1920s as a baseline, which enables the project to be more natural than using any time after,” she explained.
At this point, the councilwoman said, the city has the chance to address other stormwater issues.
“We have an opportunity with them, at this point, to resurrect the other stormwater project. If they do that project there’s a couple of other things that they want to address in Clam Bayou,” including adding baffle boxes or something similar in two areas by 29th Avenue and 45th Street, where the roads drain directly into Clam Bayou. If SWFWMD can resurrect the 49th Street project, they will add that in, she said.
If all those things happen, the District “will have done everything they can to restore that Bayou,” according to the councilwoman.
For more information and updates on the Clam Bayou restoration, please visit swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/clambayou. Future updates on the restoration will detail other areas of the bayou.
••
Contact Cathy Salustri at
CathySalustri@theGabber.com
A Child’s Built Environment
An etiological synopsis from the (CDC) Center for Disease Control
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/articles/The%20Built%20Environment%20and%20Children%20Health.pdf
Though the analysis addresses buildings mostly, built environments is what it is actually addressing and the Bayou Project is a planned and built environment.
When all is said and done, will the Bayou be safe for children?
As society marches on creating more complication toxins, whether petroleum based or not, the future and today’s children will have to live with and address the growing concern.
Today Catharine sees a sick bird, tomorrow she comforts a sick friend. She lives on the Bayou and has nowhere to go. She is captured by her youth and choices made by adults who may not have known how polluted Gulfport was, or how reckless the City Government is with the air and water when they moved here.
The story Catharine told is compelling, the photo taken in her environment has captured the eye of the world. In response, Councilwomen King has taken an interest in the Bayou project and has contacted the local media to shower it with praise, and demonstrate that the plan is good, and that she is responsible. A shallow attempt, in my opinion, to play the environmentalist when the facts and voting record clearly demonstrates her reckless indifference.
Last Friday morning, Gulfport councilwoman Michele King met with Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) representatives Brandt Heningson and Janie Hagberg to review the progress of the Clam Bayou restoration. Councilwoman King was, she said, impressed with the progress.
“The trip was extremely informative. It’s going to be a fantastic thing when it’s done,” she said. Monday morning she met with the Gabber
http://www.thegabber.com/Stories_July_December_2010/072910/clam_bayou_restoration_continued.html
Question= does fantastic mean comprehensive? Or is it just one of those adjectives thrown out to fill in the blanks.
Young Lassie, you have a bright future ahead of you, my hope is that someday you will accompany your story with photos.
B
Just added Catherine’s full letter, so reread the above post if you did not see it before.
Vice Mayor King’s, rather unprecedented visit with the SWFWMD people and her subsequent, one-on-one press conference with the Gabber’s Cathy Salustri seems to have come in response to Catherin’s very effective plea. What we read in her article, Catherine is what we call “Spin” or an attempt to make a bad thing good simply by saying so. Ms. King, (and Ms. Salustri in an editorial) have long opposed removal of any of the toxic muck you describe in your essay. They want to replace the Bayou with a new, 35 acre “Water Feature,” as they call it, over in St. Petersburg and leave our Bayou essentially as it is. Ms. Hagberg of SWFWMD thinks the area needs more mud flats, but I hope she didn’t mean toxic mud flats like Clam Bayou has become. All the nice stuff Ms. King is talking about is in St. Petersburg. From the article you’d almost think she is a St. Petersburg Council Member.
Thanks webdog!
Big Dog, while viewing the City Council meeting for July-20-10
http://www.mygulfport.us/City_Meetings/Agendas/Meetings.htm
I heard Dr. Salmon say that the Gulfport portion of the “Plan” #8 the Last Step, was absent from the list, and when she questioned it’s absence someone reinstated it. Further conversation identified #8 as “The Plug” apparently something needing to be pulled out.
The Gabber and Clumsy Cathy quoted Mrs. King, she really didn’t put herself into the conversation on either side from my observation. I can understand King’s enthusiasm, we are all hopeful, and I’m sure given the resources SWFWMD would do more. That said, all the ponds in the world will not remove the toxix built-up for 90 years or allow the water to flow. The plan that Al & Cindy Davis have of surgically dredging the area should be published and explained so that we can see the specifics and the why’s and why-nots.
Let’s get down in the mud.
King shills for SWFWMD once again. Though she is paid to represent Gulfport citizens it appears her heart, and maybe her wallet, are focused elsewhwere. Has she ever, in years of requests by her own constituents, met with Gulfport folks on-site to see the estuary as they see it? The answer is “No.” Has she shown support for Gulfport’s interests at public meetings where she could have influenced action to restore the habitat as SWFWMD promised would be done at their 2006 public meeting at Thurgood Marshal School? To the contrary, she consistently vilifies those who see clean water and restored habitat as valuable aspects of quality of life in Gulfport. She made false public statements to the Pinellas Anclote Basin board that the public concern was a selfish lie and that the bayou had “never” been more than six inches deep and that no place in Boca Ciega Bay exceeded six feet of depth. Clam Bayou, prior to SWFWMD constriction of channals supported a commercial fishery, had a boat yard with 23 feet of water in the channal and was host to dolphin and manatee that can no longer enter or exit the north basin which is clogged with toxic stormwater sediments. The piers at Isla Del Sol are typically in 18 feet of water and the face pier is in more than twenty feet of bay water. Ms King is tight with the likes of Hagberg, Runnels, Henningsen and the other unaccountable agency wonks who have sucked up your tax dollars and have accelerated degradation of Clam Bayou. Though she has had all the facts and real science before her and continues to work against her constituents and the environment with willing assistance from the hapless but equally arrogant Henderson backed by what appears a spineless mayor. Gulfport can take no pride in the workings of its council while dysfunction rules the dias. I suspect that as long as the mayor provides a venue for the King to rule we have as much to be concerned about in city hall as we would if we were dumb enough to wade through known cancer producers in the bayou muck SWFWMD allows to accumulate with no protest by council. No call either for a cure from a city manager who seems to fear the wrath of King more than that of any legitimate diety. Is she really the best we can come up with in Gulfport? Be sure to vote in November; it will be a good start.
It saddens me to read the diatribes engendered by what seems an obvious and solvable problem. The solution harms none and would benefit many. A lot of what applies to Clam Bayou applies equally to many Florida impaired waters. Florida failure, politically and through FLDEP and the water management districts is what led EPA to seek application of credible, measurable numeric nutrient standards. FLDEP and SWFWMD have for decades avoided accountability on water standards through self initiation of a vacuous narritive method which renders a stormwater permit a self perpetuating license to pollute.
Clam Bayou has degraded as a result of that state wide systemic flaw. Those of us who came together to address the concerns in Clam Bayou have learned a lot about water, about the Clean Water Act and about how government really works.
We did a lot of research, put together well supported documents and began to work from the bottom up to solicit the involvement and support of our elected representatives of both parties at all levels. We soon found that the first, recurring and most entrenched obstacle sat on our own city council. That individual, for reasons that remain unclear to me, was averse to our citizen initiative even before I had ever met her. That initial animosity pervades all attempts to seek solutions for genuine habitat restoration. Over time, the links between council and SWFWMD and FLDEP have become ever more linked to defeat of citizen concern in favor of whatever latest SWFWMD current version of truth may evolve.
We learned that many politicians yield without question to agency bureaucrats with no effort on the part of the politician to see the issue from the constituents perspective or to do other than what we came to refer to as “ceremonial research.” With no chance of a solution through politicians we found for the most part ignorant, arrogant, condescending and self serving, I made the decision to move the issue to the courts primarily under the anti-degradation mandate of the Clean Water Act. SWFWMD and FLDEP were involved in order to gain discovery in preparation of a federal case now under way. Much furor resulted as no one had previously persued such a case with such persistance and documentation.
The case did not name Gulfport as is frequently and falsely reported. The minor SWFWMD portion resulted in both discovery and a settlement agreement which will provide some higher level and frequency of testing. Not sufficient to accomplish much but a small step in the greater effort. I opted to engage a highly qualified and nationally respected environmental attorney and to do so at my own expense to hopefully streamline the decision process by elimination of committee like debate. I may well loose this case, but I believe the cause is just and the effort worth the expense and even the chronic assaults on my character and that of my wife, Cindy, who has endured direct threats, insults and hate mail from known close associates of a single council member. I believe that FLDEP and SWFWMD have dug in their heels on this because they know any action that would require true restoration of Clam Bayou would apply to 308 other impaired Florida waters. EPA realizes the decesion may set precedent on waters nation wide. I fully expect to continue to be villified, or ignored completely, in the local print paper and to continue to be the recipient of the wrath of the dominant council member which that paper serves so well.
At a time where the City of Tampa is contemplating recycled sewage as drinking water it seems important to me to do what I and others can to protect all of our scarce water resources.
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.
The BS continues
(Toxic Avenger) if I’m reading your post correctly, Michele King was apposed to addressing the Bayou contamination before Al & Cindy Davis brought it to the Council’s attention, is that correct?
If so, then my next question is why? I thought she taken by surprise, coming down on the wrong side at Council and has stuck to her guns? Could it be as simple as that, or is there a background story? Was she defending a method of addressing an issue she was cognizant of, or did she blindly take a stand for the agencies from an ignorant state of mind.
From my experience with Michele King I have discovered that she does not have the depth of experience or education to comprehend environmental systems. She appears authentically concerned about issues but lacks a background in physics. She has good people skills and a talent for political abstracts which makes her popular but not comprehensive.
As far as the lies you claim she told, they could be isolated and shown to be inaccurate. If there is an audio recording of her making false claims we can balance her statements against the historical fact and demonstrate her inaccuracies, but that will not address why. Why would she risk being caught lying? Is it not more likely that she was misled by someone else or just in over her head?
I’m not defending her here, her recklessness and ignorance buried us in toxic smoke for more than 100 days, but I suspect that if she knew what a commercial smoker would do in this ravine of building and trees, she may have voted against it. I have a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt, which has proven to be an expensive outlook.
(Mr. Davis) You have fought the good fight. Whether you win or loose they have had to face the reality of Clam Bayou. You have brought the problem to the attention of Gulfport, Pinellas, Florida and the world. Children will be enlightened by your sacrifice. Advocates for the environment will be reenergized and future planners will be considering your observations.
The courts may decide against you, for reasons that have little to do with a balanced ecosystem, I’m sure you understand the economic implications of having to address the rest of Florida’s waters.
I’ve recently returned from the Beltway, where I discovered that the State of Maryland has implemented a Flush Tax to begin to address the water runoff in the Chesapeake Bay. The tax applies to everyone, including those using their own wells.
The work you have done in Gulfport will have far reaching affects, and you should be proud of that fact, as you should be proud of your wife for standing at your side. Good Luck!
(dogfish) you’ve given up your fight, we get it, but do we have to watch you die on your own sword?