HERNANDO COUNTY LAND PROTECTORS www.flhelp.org E-mail the Webmaster

Meeting day change: Effective with the February 2012 meeting we will move our meeeting day to the Second Tuesday of the month.

Meetings are the second Tuesday of each month, except June, July and August

at the Weeki Wachee Area Club

7442 Shoal Line Blvd., Weeki Wachee FL 34607

Covered Dish dinner at 6:00 PM Meeting at 7:00 PM

The Speaker for the APRIL meeting on April 10 will be "Sonny" Vergera, former head of SWFWMD. He will be informing us of attempted changes in water use regualtions.

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Don't forget those less fortunate. We support Jericho Road's efforts to help those in need. For a list of their needs scroll down to the bottom of the page.

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The HERNANDO COUNTY LAND PROTECTORS Inc. (HELP) was established as a not-for-profit corporation on May 20, 1976 and is one of the oldest established environmental organizations in Hernando County, FL. Its overall objective is to promote and protect the environment of Hernando County, Florida lying west of US 19. This area includes a large variety of relatively unspoiled habitats for wildlife and the goal of HELP is to promote the preservation of these pristine wildlife habitats.

Hernando County is located on the West Coast of Florida due west of Orlando and is at the southernmost end of Florida's Nature Coast. The Weeki Wachee River is pretty much in the center of the north-south axis and is world famous because of the Mermaid attraction & water park which opened after WWII. The Weeki Wachee river begins at the spring at the junction of US 19 and State Rt. 50 and enters the Gulf of Mexico at Bayport approximately 8 miles downstream. The Weeki Wachee spring derives it's water from the Green swamp in central Florida somewhat north of the Tampa area. The river is 95% spring fed and does not rely from runoff as many rivers do. Obviously there is local runoff from the area west of US 19 so during periods of heavy rain the water may be tea colored, but most of the time the river is crystal clear, especially in it's upper stretches. A major factor of water clarity depends on the human usage which is increasing,especially on summer weekends.

We do not have the beaches so often associated with a persons vision of Florida, but rather saltwater marsh which is nursery area for many types of fishes and birds. Development in the area was minimal until the late 1960's but has been accelerating ever since.

2012 Officers

Chuck Morton, President,
Tom Canariato, Vice President
Paula Morton, Secretary
Shirley Knotts, Treasurer

On April 10, 2012 Sonny Vergara gave us an very informative presentation on the history of Water Managment in Florida and attempts from Tallahassee to take the control from the local citizens and shift it to Tallahassee.
His website http://swfwmdmatters.blogspot.com/ is very informative and I encourage you to check in often.

Sonny is an accomplished nature photographer and there are fabulous photos on his site as well.

The time will come when we must stand up for our rights or else we will surely loose them. It is extremely important for each citizen to make his / her views known to his / her representatives.

Another organizaton that is working on protecting Florida for the future is the Florida Conservation Coalition. Visit their website at http://floridaconservationcoalition.org/ and sign up for the updates. It's free, and your numbers count.

CURRENT WEEKI WACHEE SPRINGS FLOW RATE

On April 10, 2012 the river flow was 121 cbic feet per second or 78.2 Million gallons per day 81% of the average flow.

The best way to conserve water is to cut back on outside watering. Switch to FLORIDA FRIENDLY LANDSCAPING since nearly 1/2 of our water is used for landscape watering.

There is a flow gage on the upper river, .62 miles west of US 19, that measures actual flow flow and it's data is available on this link http://waterdata.usgs.gov/fl/nwis/uv/?site_no=02310525&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060

Take this value of cubic feet per second and multiply it times 646,272 million gallons/day per cfs to get million gallons per day.
For example the 168 cfs times 646,272 = 108,573,696 million gallons per day.

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Weeki Wachee Springs Lymbgia Removal Project.

Veronica Craw and her team got an award for the project cleaning the Spring up and removing the lymbgia, an algae that resembles sea snot.

Notice how well you can see down into the spring in the photo on the right.

In addition removing the lymbgia there was a lot of debris removed as well. Over the years sand had covered up some of it and other stuff was simply there out of sight in crevasses.

<<< Before project After Project >>>

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NEW REGULATIONS EFFECTIVE JUNE 1, 2008

New rules pertaning to reef fish, that means anything on a rockpile, go into effect on June 1, 2008. Basically you are required to have on board a dehooker and venting tool and only use NON stainless circle hooks with natural bait.
Go to New FWC Rules to get the official information.

SAVE A FISH!

When a fish is caught from depth the air in it's swimbladder expands and can force the stomach right out the fishes mouth causing death. Sometimes the bladder is ruptured as well, but it will heal if the fish is realeased quickly. This is a fish's equivalent to the Bends that affects divers, except it is easier to reverse.

To relieve this condition there is a process called venting where the swimbladder is pierced with a hollow needle which lets the air out. Then the fish can swim away back to his habitat to live. For more information on this please to go: www.flseagrant.org/program_areas/fisheries/venting/index.htm

Venting Tools and dehookers can be purchased from Aquatic Release Conservation at http://www.dehooker4arc.com/

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Partnership for Artificial Reef Development