1000 Friends of Florida

Chipola River Economic & Environmental Council

UP THE CREEC

Periodic Report
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council
September 2003
P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951

A sense of cautious optimism reminds me of a quote from David Brower, "Have fun saving the world or you will just depress yourself". Part of having fun is enjoying some successes and there can be no doubt our hard work together of late is beginning to bear fruit. Several examples come to mind. A collaboration of multi-state, determined and very dedicated efforts by many groups and individuals stopped the politically expedient route, and disaster for the Apalachicola River and Bay, represented by the Georgia sponsored MOU and allocation formula agreement for the ACF River Compact. While we all preferred and worked extremely hard for a negotiated settlement, the court process is our only other choice, for now. Even the best and final proposal by Florida left much to be desired and so let's make our best case in the courts until and if some better possible options reappear. Time will allow our counterparts in Georgia to further build and organize the case for the ecological issues, similar to ours, facing the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers.

We have the high road and can be proud of that! Even closer to home, our Jackson County Board of County Commissioners has reversed by a 4 to 1 vote their course to build a redundant and poorly conceived Wastewater Treatment Facility, WWTF, at the confluence of Rocky Creek and the Chipola River just west of State Highway 71. If built this facility will threaten groundwater quality that impacts both waterways and a world class "necklace" of springs that encompasses this section of the Chipola River, the largest tributary in Florida to the Apalachicola River and Bay. It would also promote a form of rural sprawl extending south of Interstate 10 for five miles down Highway 71, when by any reasonable measure there are thousands of undeveloped acres and years of potential future development north of Interstate 10 and between Marianna already planned for development and adequately serviced by wastewater infrastructure.

If successful and I repeat, if, for this is not yet a done deal, such a reversal of course will strike a blow to short-sighted, special interest, politically expedient, poorly planned rural infrastructure planning development that leads to a host of community threats and problems. Our Commission is to be commended for their courageous votes for collaborative governance, capital improvements planning and a high quality environment represented by this decision to continue negotiations on a partnership agreement with the City of Marianna. A successful negotiation and partnership agreement will send the County generated wastewater to the City of Marianna WWTF currently undergoing upgrades and that will remove the treated effluent and its impacts from the Chipola River to an upland sprayfield. This option also offers the very farsighted opportunity for reuse of the treated effluent throughout a wider area of dispersal that follows the dictate that one solution to pollution is dilution. This decision also answers a question posed by Imagine Jackson in our countywide Vision document A Vision For Jackson County, "will this decision support or obstruct our continuing Vision?"

We are very pleased to report that since the last edition of Up the CREEC Imagine Jackson has a Board of Directors and Jackson County has a Council of Government that includes representatives from each of our eleven municipalities, the County Commission, the School Board and the Constitutional Officers. Both groups are geographically representative of Jackson County and the public, private and not-for-profit sectors of our community. We are working to implement A Vision For Jackson County and blaze a path for other similar efforts at various stages throughout the six riparian counties of the Apalachicola River Basin and elsewhere in the Florida Panhandle.

Franklin, Gulf and now Wakulla Counties have efforts underway and we receive calls from throughout the Panhandle and the State of Florida about Imagine Jackson. It is important to keep this all in perspective and remember a vision is not an end but a beginning and "a vision without implementation is a hallucination"! We can just accept whatever change we get in the future or we can shape that change that will determine our communities of tomorrow and our quality of life. One doesn't have to look hard or far to see, "the good, the bad, and the ugly". A regional vision for the Apalachicola River Basin is next, then the Panhandle and then implementation. This grassroots, broad based, citizen representative effort offers us a way forward, for comprehensive planning has failed us miserably.

Your point of entry and opportunities to participate are innumerable and convenient to your choice of effort; through a local visioning effort like Imagine Jackson; support of a natural resource like a river or spring, the Chipola River, Torreya State Park, Florida Caverns, or the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines; support of an organization like CREEC, the Apalachicola Bay and Riverkeeper, or the Nature Conservancy. Join this effort, share in our joy and gain, help stop our losses and "have fun saving the world"! Contact and follow Imagine Jackson. The Vision document is available to download at our website www.imaginejackson.org.
E-mail: vision@imaginejackson.org o Web Site: http://www.imaginejackson.org o Telephone: 850-718-0438 o Fax: 850-718-0440 Mailing Address: 3530 Wiley Drive - Marianna, FL 32446 o Physical Location: 3530 Wiley Dr., Marianna, Florida

Submitted by,
C. Chadwick Taylor, Spokesperson
CREEC
Marianna, Florida
850/594-7951
cct@phonl.com

Periodic Report
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council
CREEC
February 2003
P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951

The new year starts off where last year finished. In a repeat performance, Jackson County, a new player separate from the City of Marianna in wastewater treatment, plans wastewater absorption fields near the flood plain of the Chipola River and probably in springs and aquifer recharge areas to support continued development of the Interstate 10/73 interchange. In a Position Statement CREEC supports the Northwest Florida Water Management District in their Review of Jackson County Proposed Comprehensive Plan Amendment, DCA Amendment Number 03-1, in which they outline the inadequacies and risks of the proposed county wastewater treatment facility.

In a previous Position Statement and now that the City of Marianna has moved their proposed wastewater spray-field complex from the recharge area for Blue Spring to a more appropriate site, CREEC encourages the City and the County to re-establish and continue negotiations to a successful conclusion, for a joint wastewater treatment facility that would eliminate the need for the County project. Protection of the Chipola River; the Floridan aquifer and source of all our drinking water; springs and other natural resources; economic and operational common sense and perhaps new windows of opportunity suggests the benefits for redoubling efforts at this time to negotiate a common solution for wastewater treatment. Department of Community Affairs and Apalachee Regional Planning Council apparently are also expressing concerns and we are hopeful negotiations for a joint facility will be back on track soon.

Intergovernmental coordination is a part of the Jackson County Comprehensive Plan and a strategy in the Imagine Jackson, County adopted, Vision For Jackson County. One of the recommended "Five Initial Bold Steps" is to form a Council of Government or COG to establish a vehicle for commissioners, mayors and councilors to collaborate on issues and opportunities of mutual interest, such as wastewater treatment and other major infrastructure, economic development and a host of other "countywide" issues. There are eleven municipalities in Jackson County and with the County Commission and School Board a long list of other governmental entities that need to work together.

The Imagine Jackson citizen based vision process moves forward to a working group of citizens looking to establish a non-governmental organization to facilitate vision implementation, another of the "Five Initial Bold Steps". This will provide a continuing process for monitoring, improving and carrying out the Vision. This process now moves to the municipalities for their endorsement and adoption.

Franklin County and now Gulf County have begun Comprehensive Plan review processes with visioning in Franklin County. The Imagine Jackson citizen driven vision process can perhaps in some important ways serve as a model for these and what should follow next, a regional vision for the Apalachicola River Basin that includes the six riparian counties. The key ingredient for all this is broad public participation by all the stakeholders, citizens, businesses, government and the non-profit sectors of our communities. Change is progressing rapidly for our region. Through such citizen driven projects as Imagine Jackson there is a narrow window of opportunity to address the change we know is coming. ABARK is our best regional voice in this process. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Periodic Report

Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council

June 2002

P. O. Box 27

Marianna, Florida 32447

850/594-7951

An issue comes to head as the City of Marianna considers their two primary sites for the placement of wastewater sprayfields in the recharge area of Jackson Blue Springs. One might reasonably ask, “what’s that got to do with the Apalachicola River”. Well, “everything’s connected to everything else” and Blue Spring is the largest single source of spring water, a first magnitude spring of 122 million gallons of water a day, through Spring Creek to the Chipola River. The Chipola River is the largest tributary to the Apalachicola River in Florida and like the Flint River in Georgia predominately a spring fed river. Blue Spring already has the second highest nitrate rates of any first magnitude spring in Florida. There are only 77 first magnitude springs in the world and Florida has 33 of them. Following is a position statement that should apply to sprayfields in general, an issue of the first magnitude with the City of Apalachicola.

POSITION STATEMENT ON WASTEWATER SPRAYFIELDS

CREEC supports the City of Marianna in efforts to remove our treated wastewater discharge from the Chipola River. We support the concept of wastewater reuse through land application in sprayfields that benefit agricultural enterprises. We support and encourage efforts and a process by the City of Marianna and Jackson County to work together on developing one city/county wastewater treatment infrastructure plan and operation for the community that encompasses Marianna and surrounding Jackson County jurisdiction. We support a broad based, countywide, citizen inclusive, capital improvements and site selection planning and process for major community capital improvement projects such as wastewater treatment, among others. We recognize the Floridan aquifer and springs as irreplaceable and invaluable natural resources for our community. Likewise, we value the established communities throughout Jackson County as irreplaceable and invaluable cultural and quality of life assets.

Accordingly, wastewater facilities and such other community infrastructure should not be planned or designed in such a way as to negatively effect our natural resources, our communities or our quality of life. Wastewater sprayfields should not be placed in spring and aquifer recharge areas or near where they may negatively impact an established community. The City of Marianna in collaboration with Jackson County and a citizen inclusive site selection process should back down the list of 30 identified potential sites for wastewater sprayfields and assess the sites that meet the above criteria and conduct a full cost and benefit analysis, that includes natural resource and community asset values, to determine the most appropriate sites on the list. Such analysis should include recommendations from agencies that have particular expertise in such matters, such as the Florida Springs Task Force, the Northwest Florida Water Management District and the Jackson County Department of Community Development. Experience from other communities, where data is beginning to indicate groundwater pollution from sprayfields to other first magnitude springs like Jackson Blue Spring and Merritts Millpond, should be carefully considered so that our community does not repeat mistakes learned in those communities. Due to the nature of our geology and topography we should recognize that Jackson County may not have one site suitable in size and attributes to accommodate one sprayfield complex of six hundred acres or more and that more than one and smaller sprayfields may have to be designed in the project. Given Jackson County’s large agricultural land base, consideration should be given to utilizing existing agricultural fields and enterprises in preference to clearing up “new ground”.

Thank you to the Apalachicola Bay and River Keeper for sending a resolution of support opposing the placement of wastewater sprayfields in spring and aquifer recharge areas! Now that’s effective collaboration, basin wide! Keep your fingers crossed.

Imagine Jackson, the Jackson County Vision project has completed 12 area workshops in different communities in four quadrants of Jackson County. Saturday, June 1st was the first countywide forum where citizens from all the areas came together for the first time. Five themes have been identified: Economic Health, Community Character, Environmental Health, Support Systems and Transportation Network. The Vision Committee meets June 11 to begin discussing how to implement a vision document we plan to have complete by October 2002. Another possible goal, a vision document for each of the five other counties bordering the Apalachicola River and then a regional vision. For more information check out the Imagine Jackson website listed below.

Contact and follow Imagine Jackson at: mailing address, Imagine Jackson, 3094 Indian Circle, Marianna, Florida 32446; location address at Imagine Jackson, Continuing Ed./Conference Center #106, Chipola Junior College, 3158 College Street, Marianna, Florida 32446; phone 850/718-2315, Fax 850/718-2472 and email at vision@imaginejackson.org and on the web at www.imaginejackson.org.

Periodic Report

UP THE CREEC
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council
March 2002
P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951

Perhaps by now the Jackson County Vision Project sounds like old news or at best remote, curious and irrelevant news. A couple of months back CREEC and ABARK attended a presentation at Port St Joe regarding proposals to move, or in professional planning/engineering terms, realign, U.S. Highway 98 along the Gulf of Mexico between Port St Joe and Mexico Beach. At this meeting attended by hundreds and presented by professionals, in a back corner of a very large room was a representative from Opportunity or Visit Florida, or both, it was not particularly clear. A map outlined the proposed new Gulf Parkway limited access four-lane divided highway beginning at Bear Creek just north of Panama City on U.S Highway 231 and ending at the realigned Highway 98 near Pine Street near Beacon Hill and St Joe Beach and very near what locals know as the Wonder Bar. Wonder will be an extreme understatement if we fail to appreciate what this and other plans, if/when accomplished, have as a "vision" for the "Old Florida" we know as the Panhandle. Urban sprawl, par excellence!!!!!!!

Back to the vision, as Dave McLain, our Executive Director of ABARK, so aptly stated, "if some effective restoration of Graham's 1985 legislation for controlled growth in Florida isn't re-vitalized in Tallahassee soon, good-bye Apalachicola Bay, and welcome, South Florida strip malls and I-4 traffic, to the panhandle." The "vision" or "present trends scenario" for now is just that, unless some alternative plan is introduced.

Imagine Jackson is the evolution of the Jackson County Vision Project to a broad based citizens effort by all the stakeholders in Jackson County to establish a twenty year vision with action and strategic plans for our community, and the only alternative, for now, to the "present trends scenario" outlined above. Imagine Jackson is also a model for the other five counties bordering the Apalachicola River, and other rural counties throughout the Panhandle. Welcome to the future, its not as remote or irrelevant as one might think and you better get involved or just accept what happens.

Contact and follow Imagine Jackson at: mailing address, Imagine Jackson, 3094 Indian Circle, Marianna, Florida 32446; location address at Imagine Jackson, Continuing Ed./Conference Center #106, Chipola Junior College, 3158 College Street, Marianna, Florida 32446; phone 850/718-2315, Fax 850/718-2472 and email at vision@imaginejackson.org and on the web at www.imaginejackson.org.

And that's not all for CREEC but it is all the space for now.

September 29, 2003

UP THE CREEC
Periodic Report
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council
December 2001
P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951

The list of issues and activities continues to broaden for the Chipola River Basin and the Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council. For all the volunteers, professionals, staff, paid or otherwise, the central theme seems to be how to keep the boat afloat in the rising tide and how to prioritize our time and efforts. Of course, this only makes sense as we all know everything is connected to everything else. For our river basins the issues run the gamut from international agricultural free trade negotiations and tariffs on forest products, to the national peanut production quota program, to regional ACF water allocation negotiations, dredging, growth management, an eco-tourism panhandle birding trail, and collaboration with Apalachicola Bay and River Keepers (ABARK) and others, to local county-wide visioning and wastewater re-use spray fields in a spring recharge area, to in the river fall river clean-up. Fundamentally, we are all working to mitigate the inevitable impact of the growth of human population on the natural resources that sustain our quality of life. One might reasonably ask, "but what does all this have to do with the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers"? The answer is land use and the impact of change in land use on the river ecosystems. Hundreds of thousands of acres of row crop agricultural and forestlands are in flux. The recently released and anxiously anticipated Southern Forest Resources Assessment Report lists urbanization and/or "trailer sprawl" as the major threat to forest sustainability in the southeast and we would add agriculture, natural resources and quality of life. The central questions, "what do we/you want our home place to be like as a region, community, neighborhood, 5, 10, 20, 50 years from now and what can we do about it"? Are we going to plan our future or just accept what happens? Where do you want to be like, New Jersey, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Panama City, Marianna, or Port St Joe? Join your friends and neighbors, CREEC and ABARK, and find out.

UP THE CREEC Periodic Report
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council
October 2001
P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951
SPECIAL EDITION ON NATURE -BASED TOURISM

PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT
For bird lovers and those interested in eco-tourism, The Great Florida Birding Trail is coming to Jackson County in the near future! The Trail will eventually be a collection of sites throughout Florida selected for their excellent birdwatching or bird education opportunities, designed to conserve and enhance Florida's bird habitat by promoting birdwatching activities, environmental education and economic opportunity. The East Florida Section of the Trail has been open since November 2000, generating more than 60,000 information requests from birders in 46 states and 6 foreign countries! Site nominations for the Panhandle Florida Birding Trail begin in Spring 2002. We need to begin now!!! We envision a loop trail uniting sites from the coastal trail beginning at Hwy 98 in Eastpoint, north through the National Forest and up the east side of the Apalachicola River to the Woodruff Dam. Birding tourists would then cross on Hwy 90 into Jackson County, and then depending on the route and time, spend the night, eat, camp, canoe, fish or whatever, before continuing south on the west side of the river. We'd like to include as many sites in Jackson County and along the Chipola River as possible, with the loop ending back at St. Joe and Hwy. 98. Anyone can nominate a site: birders, tourism professionals, citizen conservationists, public land managers. Know any good birding sites in Jackson County, along this route or elsewhere? Think about it!! Check out the Birding Trail project at www.floridabirdingtrail.com and join us for our program presented by Julie Brashears with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Thursday, October 18, 2001, 7:00 P.M., Continuing Education Conference Center, Chipola Junior College.

Also on the program the City of Marianna, in an educational informational forum, is presenting proposed plans for a wastewater spray field. CREEC is all for the City of Marianna, Jackson County, and anyone else for that matter, removing their wastewater (treated or otherwise), untreated storm-water, and any other pollution, from the Chipola River, it's tributaries, springs and recharge areas. At our recent program on the Springs of the Chipola River, September 20, we learned Blue Springs has the second highest nitrate rates of any first magnitude spring in Florida and that groundwater pollution is a serious risk for every citizen of Jackson County. Do you drink from a well? The questions for the City of Marianna, will any of the proposed sites and the project impact the Floridan Aquifer, the groundwater source for almost all our potable water, springs and much of the flow in the Chipola River, and, if so, how???

Also in attendance, Dave McLain, Executive Director of Apalachicola Bay and River Keeper, Inc. our, CREEC's, partner for a successful outcome for the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, Flint River Tri-state water allocation negotiations, to report on the status of our efforts and the negotiations. Thank you to the Jackson County Commission for their Resolution of Support on this vital issue to Jackson County's future.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST
National Public Lands Day and the Chipola River Clean Up 2001, Saturday, September 29, was a tremendous success, as measured by piles of trash and the hard work of many volunteers. You name it we found it, from old tin beer cans, tires and freezers to TV screens, chairs and items of unknown origin. The message, and one from CREEC, managed public access will be necessary to maintain the quality of our many natural resources in the Chipola River basin! Mark your calendars for next year. Thanks to Main Street Marianna, Florida Caverns State Park and Jackson County for sponsoring the Clean Up and the Jackson County Commissioners for budgeting parks and recreation for the upcoming year.
The Jackson County Visioning Project kicks off October 17 when facilitators Jim Stansbury and Jean Ward Scott return to Jackson County to present to the steering committee the results of their initial visits and efforts to design the visioning project. With the Jackson County Comprehensive Plan the Vision is our road to the future, if we choose to build one. Otherwise, we just get whatever happens, like the rest of Florida. What do you want Jackson County to be like 10, 20, 50 years from now? The key to success is getting folks (stakeholders) to participate as individuals and groups!!! It's free to the participants and budgeted at $115,000+. For more information call the Jackson County Community Development Department, Ph. 482-9637.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

October 10, 2001, Wednesday, Compatible Nature-based Tourism in the Panhandle, noon to 4:00 P.M., Adventures Unlimited near Milton, Florida, topics include; Explore opportunities in compatible nature-based tourism in the Western Panhandle, Assess interest in creating a compatible tourism development strategy, Proposal for a Compatible Nature Tourism Initiative. Sponsored by 1000 Friends of Florida and The Nature Conservancy, Panhandle Initiative. A delegation from Jackson County should attend!! Contact Dan Pennington, dpennington@1000fof.org, (850) 222-6277.

October 17, 2001, Wednesday, Agricultural Conservation Issues Educational Forums, 9:00 A.M., Topics include Rural Land Conservation Issues, Land Conservation Programs, State & Federal Agricultural Programs, Tools for Protecting Sensitive Land and Valuable Agricultural Areas, Opportunities to Work on Land Conservation. Location: Chipola Junior College, Continuing Education Conference Center. Sponsored by 1000 Friends of Florida & American Planning Association, Fla. Chapter.

October 18, 2001, Thursday, The Great Florida Birding Trail and City of Marianna Information Forum on Waste Water Spray Field, 7:00 P.M., Chipola Junior College, Continuing Education Conference Center. Sponsored by CREEC.

September 2001

UP THE CREEC
Periodic Report
Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council

P. O. Box 27, Marianna, Florida 32447
850/594-7951

Mark your calendars for two important and interesting meetings sponsored by CREEC.

Florida's Springs - Natural Gems; Troubled Waters, Springs of the Chipola River presented by Jim Stevensen, Chairman, Florida Springs Task Force. Jackson County is blessed with many springs most notable of which is Blue Spring, a first magnitude spring, that feeds Merritts Millpond, Spring Creek, and the Chipola River. The slide presentation will include photographs of many springs of the Chipola River and provide guidance for the protection of the county's magnificent springs. Come find out what's really going on at the Millpond and how to fix it! Check out a map of the caves of Blue Spring and the Chipola River basin. Want to know about the geology and where all that water comes from? What about water quality, quantity and the future? Come join your neighbors and learn about and enjoy photos of; Waddells, Blue, Clear, Hayes, Maund, Danials, Gadsden, Bazemore, Heart, Buzzard and others, all Springs of the Chipola River. Thursday, September 20, 2001, 7:00 P.M. at the Agricultural Complex in Marianna on Penn Avenue.

And for bird lovers and those interested in eco-tourism, The Great Florida Birding Trail is coming to Jackson County in the near future! The Trail will eventually be a collection of sites throughout Florida selected for their excellent birdwatching or bird education opportunities, designed to conserve and enhance Florida's bird habitat by promoting birdwatching activities, environmental education and economic opportunity. The East Florida Section of the Trail has been open since November 2000, generating more than 60,000 information requests from birders in 46 states and 6 foreign countries! Site nominations for the Panhandle Florida Birding Trail begin in Spring 2002. We need to begin now!!! We envision a loop trail uniting sites from the coastal trail beginning at Hwy 98 in Eastpoint, north through the National Forest and up the east side of the Apalachicola River to the Woodruff Dam. Birding tourists would then cross on Hwy 90 into Jackson County, and then depending on the route and time, spend the night, eat, camp, canoe, fish or whatever, before continuing south on the west side of the river. We'd like to include as many sites in Jackson County and along the Chipola River as possible, with the loop ending back at St. Joe and Hwy. 98. Anyone can nominate a site: birders, tourism professionals, citizen conservationists, public land managers. Know any good birding sites in Jackson County, along this route or elsewhere? Think about it!! Check out the Birding Trail project at www.floridabirdingtrail.com and join us for our program presented by Julie Brashears with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Thursday, October 18, 2001, 7:00 P.M., Continuing Education Conference Center, Chipola Junior College.

So what else is happening with CREEC and the Chipola River basin? If you can't find anything to do in Jackson County, and even if you can, try some of these:

· Jackson County Visioning Project. What do you want Jackson County to be like 10, 20, 50 years from now? Now's your chance to put in your two cents! We have a nationally recognized consulting firm and facilitators Jim Stansbury and Jean Ward Scott and community planning firm Glatting Jackson et al, to help us, over the next year, through a comprehensive visioning and strategic planning process designed to include all interested and willing stakeholders. The key is getting folks to participate as individuals or groups. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Call the Jackson County Community Development Department, Anoch P. Lanh, Ph. 482-9637, to get in the act.

· Check out the ACF river water negotiations. The store was almost given away if not for the efforts of a few groups like CREEC that are holding out for sufficient water allocations, even during droughts, to maintain a healthy Apalachicola River and Bay ecosystem. A look at the Colorado River or the Rio Grande should lead one to worry if that can happen here!!! The rivers are pumped dry in the lower watershed. Imagine the Apalachicola River a dried up ditch and the bay just an inland extension of the Gulf. Imagine no shrimp, no oysters, no grass beds for spawning, no fishing etc., etc., etc. We could be left with whatever water Atlanta leaves in the river, which over the next 20 years could be, not much! And what about dredging, an economic and environmental boondoggle?! Join the Apalachicola Bay and Riverkeeper organization, our friends to the south, and CREEC, and help us with these difficult, and time-consuming issues. Call 850/670-5470 or surf the Internet at www.apalachicola.com/riverkeeper.

· And closer to home again. The Marianna Greenways and Trails project is working on a new river park on the Chipola River for Marianna, one of the largest city parks in the State of Florida. Thanks to the generosity and foresight of the Hinson Family a Land Management Advisory Group of local citizens and a Technical Advisory Team of local and regional experts, with City of Marianna staff, is working on a Land Management Plan for this magnificent piece of land along the Chipola River in south Marianna. Without a doubt this is one of the best things to happen to Marianna in a long time! Interested, check it out?

In addition, Calhoun County has just submitted an application to the Florida Department of Community Affairs, Florida Community Trust Program for the acquisition of land adjacent to a segment of the Chipola River known as "Look and Tremble" shoals. The hope is that this area would serve as a Calhoun County park and a point of exit for canoeist and kayakers headed down river from Marianna or a point to enter the Chipola River heading south to the Highway 20 exit point.

· And if you are interested in land trusts, conservation projects, and sustainable economic development the Panhandle and the Chipola River basin is the focus of a national effort in preserving biodiversity. Check it out and us, CREEC, at www.1000friendsofflorida.org then go to Apalachicola Eco-Region.

· Chipola River Clean Up, Spring Creek to Magnolia Bridge, Sat., September 29, 2001. Come help, have fun, do a good deed. For info call Main Street Marianna, pH 850/482-6046.

And that's not all, but it is all the space for this report.
We will be discussing these issues and a whole lot more at our general meetings and programs as scheduled and outlined above. There is much to do and time is always short. Have you gotten wind of The Great Northwest?

JUNE 2001

UP THE CREEC

The Chipola River Economic and Environmental Council (CREEC) is an ecosystem management group for the Chipola River Basin. Over the years they have supported efforts to protect and enhance the Chipola River through: the purchase of land by the Water Management District and the State of Florida; effective comprehensive planning in Jackson County and other government entities; ecotourism; political forums; meetings; education; collaboration; and, communication.

Currently they are participating on a citizen's steering committee to do Visioning, Strategic Planning and Action Plans for the geographic area encompassing Jackson County and much of the upper Chipola River Basin. The Chipola is the largest tributary of the Apalachicola River which opens to the Gulf. Called the Jackson County Visioning Project, this is a pioneering project for rural panhandle Florida and should serve as a model for the Apalachicola River Basin and adjoining counties. The process which includes twelve stakeholders on the steering committee (Chipola Junior College, Leadership 2000 and the Chamber of Commerce, Jackson County Development Council, The Jackson County Agricultural Community, Jackson County School Board, Board of County Commissioners and CREEC, among others) developed a Request for Proposal (RFP) and advertised statewide and nationally for consultants experienced to facilitate the project. The RFP generated 19 proposals from firms across America and through a subcommittee has been narrowed to 3 finalist recognized as leaders in the field of Visioning and Strategic Planning. An interviewing subcommittee is gearing up to conduct the final selection process over the next several weeks. Following the selection of a consultant the year long (+) process through the consultant will be designed to include "broad public participation by all the stakeholders throughout the community and geographic area of Jackson County" to develop a long-term, 20 - 50 year, "vision" of what we want the area and community of Jackson County to be. To ensure the viability of the project strategic planning and action plans are included in the process with a goal of adopting the outcome as a part of the Comprehensive Plan for Jackson County. At CREEC, through this process, we hope to make the Chipola River and associated natural resources a center piece of the Vision for Jackson County.

Some members of the CREEC at a recent planning meeting (Not in order- Bruce Stitt, Chuck Sims, Charles Brasher, Chad Taylor, Bruce Turnbull and Gary Shaffer{DEP Technical Advisor})

Upcoming projects include getting the Chipola River on the Great Florida Birding Trail, assisting with writing a tourist development plan, enhanced collaboration with ABARK and others, forming a Chipola River Basin Working Group, The Chipola River Trust, and a program on the Springs of the Chipola River. This is but a small measure of the task at hand. There is a wonderful network of folks out there working for a common goal. The enjoyment one gains from working with this group of fine folks is only surpassed by the satisfaction from the results of our efforts. Please, come and join !

Also, for your reading enjoyment and further enlightenment try The Ecology of Hope, Communities Collaborate for Sustainability, by Ted Bernard and Jora Young, ISBN: 0-86571-355-3

CREEC Contact Person: Chad Taylor 4226 Buckland Trail Greenwood, Florida 32443 850/594-7951