INDEX

• President's column
• Editorial: The Need to Account for All Costs in Government Programs
• New nominee for State Bird
• Nominating Committee
• Bird ID Course
• Recovering Banded Birds
• The First Great POGO Campout
• Christmas Bird Counts
• Newsletter Editor

The Bird-A-Thon is our only fundraising event each year.  For those unfamiliar with the Bird-A-Thon, allow me a brief explanation.  The Bird-A-Thon is similar to the March of Dimes Walk-A-Thon with which you may be more familiar.  In that event participants solicit pledges from friends, family or local businesses for a dollar amount per mile the participant walks.  In our case, teams of birders compete to see how many species of birds each team can see in one twenty-four hour period.  Team participants solicit pledges on either a per species basis or a flat amount, as the donors prefer.  We also contact our membership and past contributors via phone and or mail asking for their continued support. The success of the Bird-A-Thon is essential, as it is our most important revenue source.

The monies collected will help our chapter accomplish its primary objectives of conservation and environmental education. One example would be our placement of Audubon Adventures environmental teaching kits in as many fourth and fifth grade classrooms as we can afford.  Another example would be our chapter’s proposed contribution to Florida Audubon’s ongoing efforts to return Zellwood Farms to its pre-agricultural state.  On a recent visit to Zellwood, Ellen and I observed twelve hundred feeding Woodstorks at one time.  The newsletter and monthly educational programs also serve these objectives.

In order for us to be successful we will need your help.  First, we need teams of birders to participate in the competition and solicitation of pledges.  All skill levels are needed and anyone may participate.  Second, we will need volunteers to telephone during our pledge call nights.  Third we will need hands to help with addressing, sorting, and mailing pledge forms and solicitations.  Lastly we need donors.  If you cannot help physically, I am positive your pledge will be appreciated.  If you wish to participate in any way please let us know.  Beth Nichols has again agreed to chair the Bird-A-Thon committee and can be reached at 224-1602 for information or offers of help. I can be contacted at 942-5194 or birdjim@sprintmail.com.   -- Jim Shelton
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• A City/County Government plans to build a new domestic wastewater treatment facility.
• The Public Service Commission is asked to approve a new coal burning electric generating station.
• The state’s environmental protection agency proposes new water quality standards.

Take, for example, the issue of domestic wastewater disposal.  Central sewer systems and treatment facilities serve 74% of Florida's population (11 million people).  Almost 3,100 active domestic wastewater treatment facilities exist in Florida, which produce 1.4 billion gallons per day of treated wastewater -- 382 of these facilities treat 90% of the total treated wastewater.

Domestic wastewater is a major source of water pollution in Florida. At present, 600 million gallons per day (40%) of wastewater from centralized treatment systems are disposed in Florida’s waterways, including the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Much of Florida’s surface waters are of good quality, but problems exist around densely populated urban areas, primarily in central and southern Florida.

Every day, at least 50 wastewater treatment plants process 300 million gallons (20%) of Florida’s treated wastewater and inject it below the surface of the earth through deep wells. In the past, facility operators and state regulators believed that underground rock layers could keep the injected wastewater from moving upward into underground sources of drinking water. However, in recent years, monitoring at deep well facilities has shown that significant amounts of injected wastewater has moved upward into the overlying drinking water.

Finally, the remaining 40% of Florida’s domestic wastewater is used through reuse systems, including landscape and agricultural irrigation, ground water recharge, industry, and others.

A by-product of domestic wastewater disposal is sewage sludge. Sewage sludge (also known as residuals or biosolids) remains after wastewater treatment and can be used as a fertilizer supplement or soil additive.
Sludge is regulated in order to protect the public’s health and the environment. Sludge may be applied on farms, ranches, forests, parks or used in land reclamation projects such as restoration of mining properties. High quality sludge can be used like other commercial fertilizers.  At least 25% of sludge is managed as waste rather than a useful product.

Generally, when utilities select a wastewater disposal and sludge management method, they look at the financial burden to the ratepayer and consider public concerns about environmental quality. The utility does not factor in the benefits of cost prevention options such as water conservation. Nor does the utility actually calculate the costs and benefits of the selected methods on people’s health or the environment.  It presumes that if the selected methods are legal, the health and environmental costs will be acceptable even though these costs are not part of the calculation.

For example, utilities that use underground wastewater disposal do not consider the future treatment and reconstruction costs resulting from pollution of underground drinking water supplies. (More than 90% of Floridians receive their drinking water from these supplies.) Nor do utilities that burn sludge consider costs to health and air quality from the additional air pollution.

Further, if all government accounted for all costs in their decisions on wastewater disposal, disposal options may change and sustainable options used. For example, utilities could go a long way toward preventing environmental degradation by reducing the amount of wastewater produced. They could require or at least encourage customers to practice water conservation, i.e., traditional toilets use 3.5 to 4 gallons of water per flush, whereas water conserving toilets use 1.6 gallons and provide equal customer satisfaction. The problem is in how we make decisions.

If local and state governments were required to conduct full cost accounting, considering direct, short-term costs and external costs (i.e., costs resulting from the impact of a project on public health and the environment) when making wastewater management decisions, their decisions would be more economically sound in the long run and would ensure greater environmental protection. Full cost accounting is now being used in Florida for solid waste management decisions and should be used in wastewater management decisions. Only when “full cost” and “full benefit” are known, can we make intelligent and informed decisions. – the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, Inc. Tallahassee, Florida  leaf@lewisweb.net
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Legislative action is required to change the designation.  This legislative session a bill is being sponsored to designate the Florida Scrub Jay as the state bird.  The sponsors are Representative Howard E. Futch and Senator Patsy Ann Kurth.  If you are interested in seeing this bill passed, call or write the members of the local delegation and ask them to support the bill.  You can also add your support by accessing www.phoenixat.com/ audubon/x.htm.
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The class will be offered in three class settings and two field trips.  Participants are asked to come to class with a field guide and a pair of binoculars.  The participants are to read the introductory and descriptive pages at the beginning of the guide (the pages that precede the description of the Loons) and also read and study the page or pages that describe the Loons.

The course will be team taught by Jim and Ellen Shelton, and Bob Henderson. The cost of the course is $35.  All proceeds go to the Chapter treasury.

The course schedule is:

Class (Tuesday) April 20
Class (Thursday) April 22
Field Trip (Saturday) April 24
Class (Thursday) April 29
Field Trip (Saturday) May 7

To register for the course, call the Sheltons at  942-5194.
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What is POGO?  It is a coalition working to create a wildlands corridor connecting Pinhook Swamp, Osceola National Forest and the Greater Okefenokee Swamp, and working across political lines to protect the health, connectivity, biodiversity and natural processes of the ecosystem.

The coalition is sponsoring a campout on February 27 and 28 at Okefenokee Pastimes Campground, Folkston, GA. entrance to the Okefenokee Swamp.  Events include canoeing the waterways of the swamp, bird walks and discussions with naturalists regarding the wildlands corridor.

For more details and to register for the campout, contact Larry Thompson, Florida Audubon Society, 102 E. 4th Avenue, 222-2473, lthompson@audubon.org.
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If you have an interest in writing or in newsprint production, you have an outlet for your interest.  Bob Henderson has served as the Chapter newsletter editor for the last two years.  He is retiring at the end of this administrative year and we are looking for a replacement.  The production activities began during the planning sessions that take place over the summer.  The planning sessions involve, among other activities, planning for the new administrative year calendar, which is published in the September edition of the newsletter.

To have a successful year publishing the newsletter and to provide a smooth transition, you should volunteer before the end of this year to benefit from working with Bob in producing the newsletter.  There will be three more editions during this administrative year.   Let President Jim or Bob know of your interest and get involved in this important part of our Chapter’s life.
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