1
1 DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION, STATE OF FLORIDA
2
CASE NOS. 92-3038
3 92-3039
92-3040
4
SUGAR CANE GROWERS COOPERATIVE OF )
5 FLORIDA, et. al., )
)
6 Petitioners, )
)
7 vs. )
)
8 SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT )
DISTRICT, )
9 )
Respondent. )
10 )
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et. al., )
11 )
Intervenors. )
12
13
14 99 Northeast 4th Street
Miami, Florida
15 April 7, 1994
9:20 a.m. - 12:02 p.m.
16 12:54 p.m. - 4:38 p.m.
17
18
19 Deposition of Doctor Frank Jay Coale
20
21 Taken before Stan Seplin, Certified Shorthand
22 Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of
23 Florida at Large, pursuant to Notice of Taking
24 Deposition filed in the above cause.
25 - - - - - - -
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
2
1 APPEARANCES:
2
3
ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS:
4
Earl, Blank, Kavanaugh & Stotts, P.A.
5 Two South Biscayne Boulevard, Suite 3636
Miami, Florida 33131
6 BY: Jonathan Gaines, Esq.
7 ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES:
8 United States Department of Justice
Environmental and Natural Resources Division
9 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004
10 BY: Stephen M. MacFarlane, Esq.
11
12 - - - - - - -
13 I N D E X
14 WITNESS DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS
Dr. F.J. Coale 3 --
15
GOVERNMENT'S EXHIBITS
16
Coale Exhibit 1 - Page 4
17 Coale Exhibit 2 - Page 8
Coale Exhibit 3 - Page 36
18 Coale Exhibit 4 - Page 42
Coale Exhibit 5 - Page 47
19 Coale Exhibit 6 - Page 55
Coale Exhibits 7,8,9 - Page 91
20 Coale Exhibits 10 and 11 - Page 159
Coale Exhibit 12 - Page 168
21 Coale Exhibit 13 - Page 203
Coale Exhibit 14 - Page 228
22
23
24
25
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
3
1 Thereupon:
2 Doctor Frank Jay Coale,
3 was called as a witness by the United States, and
4 after being first duly sworn, was examined and
5 testified under oath as follows:
6 DIRECT EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
8 Q. State your name, please.
9 A. Frank Coale.
10 Q. Mr. Coale, would you give us your
11 address, please.
12 A. 14428 Bradshaw Drive, Silver Spring,
13 Maryland.
14 MR. GAINES: Incidently, it's Doctor
15 Coale.
16 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm sorry. I apologize.
17 THE WITNESS: I answer to both, and other
18 things.
19 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
20 Q. Doctor Coale, how are you employed?
21 A. I'm an associate professor at the
22 University of Maryland.
23 Q. Well, good mornng. My name is Steve
24 MacFarlane. I'm with the Department of Justice, and
25 one of the attorneys representing the federal
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
4
1 intervenors in the present SWIM Plan challenge,
2 which you were listed as a witness, and the purpose
3 of this deposition today is to learn what testimony
4 you plan to give at the final hearing, if there is
5 to be a final hearing, and let me just ask you, have
6 you ever been deposed before?
7 A. No, I haven't.
8 Q. You should tell me if I ask questions
9 that are unclear to you, and-- I'm sure your lawyer
10 will object if it's appropriate to do so.
11 Unless he instructs you not to answer,
12 you should-- if you possibly can, you should go
13 ahead and answer my question, if you understand it,
14 but please don't hesitate to ask me to rephrase or
15 make myself clear, if that's necessary.
16 A. All right.
17 Q. Also, if you need to take a break at any
18 time, please don't hesitate to give a holler, and
19 we'll do that.
20 A. I will.
21 MR. MACFARLANE: Mark this as an exhibit.
22 (The document referred to
23 was thereupon marked as
24 Coale Exhibit Number
25 One for Identification,
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
5
1 a copy of which is attached
2 hereto.)
3 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
4 Q. Doctor Coale, I'm handing you what's
5 been marked as Coale Exhibit One, and I'll represent
6 that this is a supplemental list of witnesses, dated
7 January 20, 1994.
8 Would you please turn to the second page
9 and look at number three (indicating).
10 A. (Witness complies.)
11 Q. Let me ask you, have you seen this done
12 before?
13 A. No, I don't believe I have.
14 Q. Doctor Coale, you're listed as a witness
15 for the Florida Sugar Cane League and United States
16 Sugar in this proceeding.
17 Do you anticipate giving testimony at
18 the final SWIM Plan challenge?
19 A. I'm not quite sure what all these
20 procedures are entitled, but from what I hear,
21 there's a hearing proposed to come up--
22 MR. GAINES: Yes. For the record, it is
23 anticipated that Doctor Coale will provide testimony
24 at the final hearing, in areas listed on the witness
25 disclosure.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
6
1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. Let's look to the next page, then, page
3 three (indicating).
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The subject matter of your expected
6 testimony is listed as agricultural BMPs and
7 alternatives.
8 Is that consistent with your
9 understanding, of the areas which you're-- I'm not
10 sure what alternatives means, but primarily, my area
11 is agricultural BMPs.
12 Q. The alternatives have been used in a
13 number of different systems in this litigation.
14 Do you intend to give testimony about
15 the agricultural BMPs-- let me rephrase it. The
16 on-farm BMPs that are listed in the SWIM Plan?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Do you anticipate giving testimony about
19 other on-farm BMPs that are not in the SWIM Plan?
20 A. That's correct, yes.
21 Q. Do you anticipate giving testimony on
22 alternative treatment technologies, that is to say,
23 alternatives to storage water treatment areas, or
24 STAs?
25 A. No. I--
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
7
1 MR. GAINES: There's no secret what his
2 testimony is about, but the word alternatives is a
3 little fuzzy, especially in this case.
4 He's not going to give testimony on
5 areas, such as direct filtration, chemical
6 treatment, so forth.
7 MR. BARTELL: That is what--
8 MR. GAINES: How much, there are-- I
9 don't know if they follow the rubric of
10 alternatives, but however, some sedimentation
11 practices-- I don't know if they fall under that
12 label or not. It's not strictly on the on-farm BMP
13 plan, but just so it's clear--
14 MR. MACFARLANE: Sure. I think I
15 understand.
16 Another one of your witnesses, John
17 David Stewart, distinguished between alternative
18 BMPs and alternative STAs.
19 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
20 Q. Doctor Coale, you would anticipate
21 giving testimony about on-farm practices to reduce
22 phosphorus; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Now, I note the date of Exhibit One is
25 January 20, 1994 (indicating).
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
8
1 Doctor Coale, are you presently under
2 contract with either the Florida Sugar Cane League
3 or the law firm of Earl, Blank, Kavanaugh and
4 Stotts?
5 A. I have an agreement with Earl, Blank,
6 Kavanaugh and Stotts to serve as a consultant.
7 Q. Is that a written agreement?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. When did you enter into that agreement?
10 A. The exact date, I can't tell you.
11 It was about mid January of this year.
12 Q. Is that with the firm of Earl, Blank?
13 A. Kavanaugh and Stotts, yes.
14 Q. Doctor Coale, have you ever done
15 consulting work for the sugar cane industry in South
16 Florida before?
17 A. No.
18 Q. But you've done research down in South
19 Florida before, on sugar cane related issues; is
20 that correct?
21 A. That's correct.
22 MR. MACFARLANE: Let's mark this as two
23 (indicating).
24 (The document referred to
25 was thereupon marked as
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
9
1 Coale Exhibit Number
2 Two for Identification,
3 a copy of which is attached
4 hereto.)
5 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
6 Q. Doctor Coale, I'm showing you what's
7 been marked as Exhibit Two.
8 Do you recognize that document
9 (indicating)?
10 A. Yes, I do. It looks like my current CV.
11 Q. I note on the first page, you indicated
12 you were an associate professor of agronomy at the
13 University of Maryland (indicating).
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You have tenure; is that correct?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. And how long have you been an associate
18 professor at the University of Maryland?
19 A. Since July of '93.
20 Q. I note under your work experience, the
21 second paragraph, that you have done work at the
22 Everglades Research and Education Center at Belle
23 Glade, Florida.
24 How-- are you still affiliated with
25 EREC, as it's known?
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
10
1 A. No, I'm not.
2 Q. Are you still conducting research in
3 South Florida?
4 A. No, I'm not.
5 Q. When did you stop conducting research in
6 South Florida?
7 A. I resigned from my position with the
8 University of Florida in July of '93.
9 Q. Was there any particular reason you
10 resigned from your position?
11 A. To take the new position at the
12 University of Maryland.
13 Q. Do you work out at Bellsville, at the
14 agriculture extension?
15 Is that where it's--
16 A. No, in College Park, the University of
17 Maryland campus.
18 Q. Right. Doctor Coale, I would like you
19 to turn to-- let's see. Turn to page four
20 (indicating).
21 A. Uh-hum.
22 Q. Of your resume. It's a continuation of
23 your list of your refereed publications, and the
24 third publication down from the top, lists you as
25 author, along with and F.T. Izuno and A.B. Bottcher,
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
11
1 an article, sugar cane production impact on nitrogen
2 and phosphorus in drainage water from Everglades
3 histosols.
4 Is that currently in press?
5 A. No. That is published.
6 MR. MACFARLANE: Could we have a copy of
7 that?
8 MR. GAINES: Did we not give you a copy
9 of that one?
10 I thought that was one of the three that
11 we had sent you.
12 MR. MACFARLANE: Oh, I believe it is.
13 I'm sorry. I apologize.
14 MR. GAINES: Just for the record, we sent
15 to you three of his articles, copies of them, that I
16 think were the most germane to the subject matter of
17 this case.
18 There could possibly be other articles
19 in here that, you know, have some tangential
20 relationship, but we sent you the three, I think,
21 most--
22 MR. MACFARLANE: I would like to ask you
23 about some of the things on his resume that he
24 hasn't produced.
25 MR. GAINES: Okay.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
12
1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. Let me ask you about the next article
3 down, the fourth down from the top on the same page.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Coale, F. J., D.B. Jones, reflood timing
6 for ratoon rice grown on Everglades histosols.
7 Has that been published yet?
8 A. No. That has not come out in print yet.
9 Q. Could you give me a brief idea of what
10 that article is about?
11 A. When you're growing rice on the
12 histosols in South Florida, a lot of-- you grow two
13 crops; you plant one and you let it grow, and let it
14 mature and harvest, and the stubble that remains is
15 referred to as ratoon, so you essentially get two
16 harvests off of one planting.
17 There's a very not well understood
18 effect of-- of course, you grow rice under a-- most
19 of the season, under a flooded condition, and at
20 harvest time, you take the water off and then you
21 come in with the combines and harvest the rice, and
22 if you are going to grow ratoon crops, you have to
23 to put the water back on to support the growth, and
24 that is the topic of that article, when to put the
25 water back on.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
13
1 Q. What was the conclusion of your article?
2 A. The conclusion was that there was a-- I
3 guess, an ideal time, you would say, if I recall,
4 having-- if I recall, it was approximately 25 or 30
5 days of drained time, before reflooding the ratoon
6 crop, which is the best treatment.
7 Q. Was the research that you did that's
8 reflected in that article, done while you were
9 associated with EREC?
10 A. EREC?
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. Yes, it was.
13 Q. Let me ask you, previously about the--
14 it would be the sixth article down from the top,
15 Coale, Porter and Davis, soil amendments for
16 reducing phosphorus concentration of drainage water
17 from histosols.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Has that article been published?
20 A. No, not presently. Not yet.
21 Q. Could you give me an idea what that
22 article is about?
23 A. That was a laboratory study where we
24 collected some soil from the field, some histosol
25 organic soil from the field, and put it in columns,
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
14
1 cylinders, pipes, and we added different amendments
2 to the soil, and then we put on some high phosphorus
3 water on these columns and leached them with
4 distilled water, and measured what phosphorus
5 concentration came out the bottom of these columns.
6 Q. What were the amendments?
7 A. We had four amendment treatments. One
8 was a control, where there was no amendment, and
9 another one, dolominic lime, which is a natural
10 dolomoite product, and the third one was using
11 gypsum, and the fourth was using waste products from
12 a drinking water purification facility.
13 Q. What was that?
14 A. It was mainly calcium carbonate, what
15 the-- mainly calcium carbonate used for the
16 purification system, and an organic based polymer
17 they had, and I forget what that one was, and I'm
18 not sure what the total analysis was, but primarily
19 calcium carbonate.
20 Q. What did you conclude as a result of
21 this experiment?
22 A. Most of the treatments had no effect.
23 There was some evidence that the gypsum
24 amended soil tended to retain more phosphorus in the
25 soil and prevent it from leaching out than the other
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
15
1 amendment did, but we went to pretty great lengths
2 in the end, saying we are unsure about this.
3 There's some evidence, but it needed much more
4 study.
5 Q. Let me ask you to turn to page six of
6 your resume--
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Or your CV, and at the top, you have
9 identified a book chapter, which you are an author.
10 Is that correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Titled Sugar Cane Production in the
13 Everglades Agricultural Area, in a book, titled
14 water, agriculture and the environment in the
15 Everglades.
16 Has this book been published yet?
17 A. That's a very good question.
18 I don't know. It's been a long, long,
19 long drawn out process.
20 It's supposed to be coming out this
21 year, but I haven't seen it.
22 Q. When did you do the research for this
23 article?
24 A. It was just a review article. No
25 original research in there.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
16
1 It was done-- it was-- I'm guessing I
2 wrote that in about '85, '86-- no, excuse me. That
3 can't be right.
4 About '87 or '88.
5 Q. Was that article written in connection
6 with or work undertaken for the Institute of Food
7 and Agricultural Sciences for the University of
8 Florida?
9 A. Yes, there was.
10 There was an enlarged project at that
11 time, which the first part of the project
12 encompassed a literature review, and there were
13 several people involved with that, and it was
14 decided after the literature review was complete,
15 this would be a nice stand-alone publication for--
16 and we proceeded for publication, with that in mind.
17 Q. Let me ask you to flip it to the next
18 page, page seven (indicating).
19 A. (Witness complies.)
20 Q. And you have listed a number of
21 publications in the Everglades Rice Newsletter.
22 A. Uh-hum.
23 Q. Could you tell me what research you're
24 doing on rice?
25 Is this research you're doing at the
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
17
1 present time, or is this research-- I know the dates
2 of these publications are from '88 to '91.
3 There are various volumes of the
4 Everglades Rice Newsletter.
5 Let me ask you first, are you currently
6 doing research on rice cultivation in South Florida?
7 A. No, I'm not.
8 Q. During what period of time-- well, have
9 you done research on rice cultivation in South
10 Florida?
11 A. Yes, I have.
12 Q. During what period of time?
13 A. During my whole tenure on the faculty of
14 the University of Florida, which was '86 through
15 '93.
16 Q. Was the research you did on rice
17 cultivation, focused on the Everglades agricultural
18 area?
19 A. Yes. All the work that I did, was on
20 production, practices on the organic soils, which
21 are predominantly in the EAA.
22 Q. Would this be cultivation of rice in
23 conjunction with sugar cane or vegetable
24 cultivation?
25 A. In conjunction-- I'm taking that-- it's
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 the same types of land, grown in rotation with each
2 other.
3 That's what you mean-- our studies were
4 independent. They were just rice-- our studies were
5 just rice studies.
6 Q. Would this be cultivating rice on lands
7 that were also used for sugar cane production, just
8 as part of the growing cycle for sugar cane?
9 A. Yes. Most of the rice that's produced
10 in the EAA, is in rotation with sugar cane, so
11 that's the way it works.
12 Q. Were you investigating rice cultivation,
13 as a best management practice for sugar cane?
14 A. No, not really. I just like rice as a
15 crop to work with.
16 It's-- I think it's a nice crop, has a
17 good place in that area, and there's a lot of
18 unknownds on how to grow it.
19 We were just looking at production
20 practices.
21 Q. Do you think that rice cultivation is a
22 viable BMP for reducing phosphorus in the EAA?
23 A. I think it can play a role. How
24 important, I'm not sure, but it can play a role.
25 Q. But you have never investigated for that
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 purpose?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Page 12--
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. I want to direct your attention-- these
6 are a continuation of lists of non-refereed and
7 extension publications, printed fact sheets and
8 research reports, and I want to direct your
9 attention to the fourth article from the top, where
10 you are listed as a coauthor, I believe.
11 Is that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. A 1989 study of manganese and phosphorus
14 studies (indicating).
15 A. Uh-hum.
16 Q. Can you tell me briefly what that paper
17 was about?
18 A. I--
19 Q. Or that report?
20 A. Let me tell you what that report is.
21 This is a field day report, and it says 12th Annual
22 Rice Field Day.
23 That grandiose title refers to about a
24 one paragraph description that was given to farmers
25 on a tour of research plots, so there's not much to
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 it. There's not much substance.
2 It essentially describes the experiment
3 in place, what the treatments were and observations
4 were that we made to date.
5 Q. What was the treatment?
6 A. Well, this study-- this is one that--
7 one explanation-- this is little publication, if I
8 remember correctly, again, and it's a while since I
9 have seen this-- actually was describing several
10 different experiments at one stop on a tour, if you
11 would.
12 My involvement there was I have this
13 interest in root system development of different
14 crop plants, and I was looking at the effect of
15 manganese treatments as a fertilizer treatment on
16 the root system development of rice, and that was my
17 role.
18 Some of the other cooperators, like
19 George Sniden, was looking at the phosphorus
20 fertility at rest.
21 Q. You weren't focusing on phosphorus,
22 yourself?
23 A. No.
24 If I remember correctly-- a caution,
25 that I might not remember correctly, because I
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
21
1 haven't seen this since 1989-- I was looking at the
2 manganese, the effect on rice root growth.
3 Q. Did you come to any conclusion about the
4 use of manganese as a fertilizer, or--
5 A. Well, there are several situations where
6 it's very helpful, but there's other ways to-- when
7 you get a high PH soil, that manganese becomes
8 deficient, but an easy way to correct that is to put
9 the rice crop-- flood water on the rice crop, which
10 causes reduction of the soil and liberates the
11 manganese, so you can avoid it.
12 Q. It--
13 A. It works, but you don't need it.
14 Q. Where was the rice actually being grown,
15 that was displayed on this--
16 A. That was at the Everglades Research and
17 Education Center.
18 Q. Was that being grown in high PH soil?
19 A. Yes. I believe the PH was about seven.
20 Q. Let me ask you about the next article
21 down from that, Phosphorus Fertilization of Rice On
22 a Low-P Histosol.
23 Is this the similar kind of report to
24 the previous article you just discussed?
25 A. Let's see. Yes, very similar.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 That was-- a two-page-- let's see. Page
2 17 and 19-- report in a growers seminar proceeding,
3 which is a very similar type of deal of-- of
4 presentation, where we invite the rice growers in,
5 and talk to them about what we have going on, and
6 give them little proceedings, and--
7 Q. Do you remember or do you recall what
8 the point of this particular presentation was?
9 A. No, I don't, and as the priority of
10 authorship, I'm on the tail end-- I probably had
11 very little to do with it.
12 Q. Can I assume that priorty of authorship,
13 holds through most of the publications listed here
14 (indicating)?
15 A. Yes. That's true.
16 Q. Do you have any views about the use of
17 phosphorus fertilization on rice, in low phosphorus
18 histosols?
19 A. Generally, there hasn't been very good
20 response to phosphorus fertility treatments in
21 rice.
22 It's an invariable, and inconclsive.
23 The last time I looked at the
24 recommendation a couple of years ago, we weren't
25 recommending the use of phosphorus fertilizer.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 Q. Why would that be?
2 Is that because whatever phosphorus the
3 rice needs, it can get from the soil directly?
4 A. Apparently.
5 Q. Have you done any studies on phosphorus
6 uptake in rice?
7 A. Not that I can recall.
8 Q. Have you done research on that subject?
9 A. I can't say for sure, but most probably,
10 I have.
11 Q. And that would be the basis-- would that
12 be the basis of your conclusion that phosphorus
13 fertilization of rice is not recommended?
14 A. Oh, yes.
15 There are publications that say that.
16 Q. Let's move right along here to page 16
17 (indicating).
18 A. (Witness complies.)
19 Q. Doctor Coale, the two articles at the
20 top of page 16, and this is a list of abstracts,
21 incidently--
22 A. Uh-hum.
23 Q. Concerning sugar cane variety trials
24 (indicating).
25 A. Yes.
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 Q. Have you undertaken research on sugar
2 cane varieties?
3 A. Yes. The work I have done pertained to
4 doing side by side comparison of commercially
5 available varieties, and make an assessment of their
6 production potential.
7 Q. And have you done any research on the
8 development of sugar cane varieties, that are more--
9 I'll use the term, resistant to inundation by water?
10 A. No, I haven't done any research on that.
11 Q. Are you aware of research that's being
12 done on that subject?
13 A. I have one project that I observed.
14 I didn't have any involvement in it. It
15 was Doctor Christopher Darin, a University of
16 Florida faculty member.
17 He screened a pretty large population of
18 varieties. I'm not sure of the numbers, but I'll
19 guess somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred--
20 to get an idea of the variation amongst this big
21 population, in tolerance, and he's a breeder, plant
22 breeder, and he's studying a heritable variation, in
23 terms of whether it was truly heritable.
24 Q. Do you recall if he came to any
25 conclusions?
JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES
150 WEST FLAGLER STEET, MIAMI, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537
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1 A. I believe he did.
2 Probably, at the time-- it still doesn't
3 mean a lot to me, because he had these hundred
4 varieties or so, and as I said, maybe 20 percent of
5 them produced nicely, and 80 percent of them didn't,
6 or what have you, but I think his results were that
7 it was quite a variation in productivity potential.
8 Q. Where you aware of whether this research
9 is ongoing?
10 A. I haven't spoken with him recently. I'm
11 not sure what the status is.
12 Q. Are you aware of any other research
13 that's going on regarding the development of sugar
14 cane varieties that could withstand inundation for
15 lengthier periods of time?
16 A. Other than the work that Doctor Darin
17 and--
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. No.
20 Q. Let me direct your attention to-- let's
21 see. The fourth article from the bottom on page 16,
22 which lists you along with Doctors Izuno and
23 Bottcher on Drainage Water Quality and Phosphorus
24 and Nitrogen Utilization by Sugar Cane Grown On
25 Everglades Histosols.
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Is that article one of the produced-- on
3 one of the papers that you have produced for your
4 deposition today?
5 MR. GAINES: Which one?
6 MR. MACFARLANE: It's the fourth from the
7 bottom, John.
8 MR. GAINES: Okay.
9 THE WITNESS: That's an abstract of an
10 oral presentation.
11 Actually, it was a poster presentation
12 given at the American Society of Agronomy meeting,
13 and one paragraph type of abstract, and this is a
14 summary of-- I think the three papers that John sent
15 over to you.
16 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
17 Q. Would that be true also for the next
18 paper down, Sugar Cane, Phosphorus Water, The
19 everglades and a Pinch of Science?
20 A. Yes, same topic.
21 Q. Same topic?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Can you briefly summarize what the
24 conclusions were, if you can recall?
25 A. That it was-- there's a lot of
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1 information packed in there.
2 We can spend some time going through all
3 the conclusions, if you would like.
4 What the conclusions of those
5 manuscripts, the three--
6 Q. We'll get to those, then.
7 A. On page--
8 Q. All right. On page 17, the fourth
9 abstract listed from the top, Affected Area of
10 Nutrient Acquisition for Sugar Cane Grown on
11 Everglades Histosols.
12 Do you recall that abstract?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And what was the conclusion?
15 A. That was a study in which it was mainly
16 a research techniques type study, where we were
17 putting-- conducted fertility trials, or any trial
18 on these-- it sounds trivial, but how much bigger
19 the plots you need to use before you start getting
20 cross or contamination from one plot to the adjacent
21 plot, so we used in 15 labeled nitrogen, a
22 non-radioactive tracer to get a handle on how far
23 from-- how much sugar cane plants could acquire
24 nutrient.
25 We couldn't distinguish what was moving,
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1 the nutrient in the soil, and how far the roots went
2 out to get them, but we just decided, if you have a
3 plot of sugar cane, you need to have a certain size
4 plot, and a certain buffer distance between plots,
5 before you start getting contamination between
6 plots.
7 Q. Do you recall offhand what the size of
8 that area was?
9 A. The buffer area, I believe, was two or
10 three rows, which would be 10 or 15 feet.
11 Q. Have you made recommendations or do you
12 know if recommendations have been made to the sugar
13 industry, based upon your findings in this study?
14 A. Well, we presented this, with this--
15 this publication, and it's an abstract in the sugar
16 journal, which is an industrywide journal, so that's
17 available to them through that.
18 Q. Page 18--
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Right at the top there you have two
21 papers in which you're listed as a coauthor here,
22 with others?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. First, Phosphorus Concentrations From
25 Drainage Water In Fields From the EAA, and Potential
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1 BMPs.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Is that article-- let me ask it this
4 way: Are the conclusions in that article,
5 essentially covered in the three papers that you
6 have produced for your deposition today?
7 A. I'm-- I can't recall what the
8 conclusions of that article were, or was.
9 It depends on how many there were.
10 Q. Right.
11 A. But it's all the same group of projects,
12 so it would all be encompassed.
13 Q. The next paper down, Phosphorus
14 Concentrations in Drainage Water in the Everglades
15 Agricultural Area.
16 That's an abstract?
17 A. Yes.
18 The one above it, also.
19 Q. Do you recall what you reported in that
20 abstract?
21 A. What I believe that was, was the
22 results-- I can't say for sure. It's been a long
23 time since I have seen that, but it was the same
24 group of studies.
25 We did one collection of studies, and
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1 all these presentations and publications were
2 derived from that same group of studies.
3 Q. This group of studies concerned BMPs
4 that were appropriate for sugar cane cultivation?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Do you generally come to any conclusions
7 about which BMPs were most effective in the sugar
8 cane cultivation?
9 A. No. That really wasn't my intent in the
10 work that I did.
11 We were trying to not rank them or
12 prioritize them, the relative effectiveness of any
13 of the BMPs listed?
14 A. We were trying to compare one BMP,
15 versus a control, and trying to get some more
16 individual data on practices.
17 Q. Would it be fair to say, you were just
18 trying to find out what you worked and what you
19 didn't?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. About midway down the page, you are
22 listed as a coauthor with D. J. Pitts.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. D.L. Myer and J.M. Grimm, Influence of
25 Depth to Water Table on Yield of Sugar Cane Grown on
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1 Sandy Soil.
2 Do you recall what you were doing on
3 that abstract?
4 A. Yes. The whole project-- I was a very
5 congenial member of that team. I didn't have a great
6 deal of involved with it, and I think the outcome of
7 that project pretty much flooped.
8 Q. What do you mean flopped?
9 A. I think-- this happens with
10 environment-- the way it was designed in the field,
11 we couldn't do what he wanted to do, and as far as
12 controlling water levels, etcetera, and therefore,
13 the data was all confounded, very difficult to make
14 a conclusion.
15 Q. Was this experiment done in connection
16 with IFAS?
17 A. Yes. It was conducted at the Southwest
18 Florida Research and Education Center over in
19 Immocolee, Florida.
20 Q. And what was the point of the
21 experiment?
22 What were you trying to find out?
23 A. The people involved Doctor Pitt, Mr.
24 Grimm and Doctor Myer, were looking at-- Doctor
25 Pitts is an ag engineer who handled irrigation,
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1 drainage, water table problems, so forth, didn't
2 know anything about sugar cane.
3 My role-- set up the-- my role was to do
4 some measurment of the sugar cane production and
5 essentially let him know what his manipulation of
6 water management impact was on the sugar cane
7 production, so my role was just to document what's
8 going on with the crop.
9 Q. Do you have any understanding of why the
10 experiment flopped?
11 A. From what I understand, and this is--
12 again, this is recollection that might be a little
13 hazy-- what I understand was that the water table
14 levels that they were able to maintain, they
15 couldn't maintain.
16 In other words, you had to find
17 treatments, and you couldn't maintain the
18 treatments, so therefore the whole thing is
19 compromised.
20 Q. Was that a pumping problem? Do you
21 recall?
22 A. I don't really recall.
23 I think it was a plot design problem, a
24 pumping problem, a plumbing problem-- I think there
25 were all kinds of things that messed it up.
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1 MR. GAINES: Sounds like a flop to me.
2 THE WITNESS: It was a flop, but we did
3 it.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Do you intend to testify about
6 phosphorus loads in water discharged from the EAA
7 into the Everglades protection area?
8 A. No.
9 MR. GAINES: Well, wait a minute.
10 THE WITNESS: In the Everglades
11 protection area?
12 MR. GAINES: Do you know what he is
13 referring to by that?
14 THE WITNESS: I'm assuming you mean the
15 water conservation areas.
16 MR. MACFARLANE: I'll clarify it.
17 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
18 Q. Do you intend to offer testimony about
19 phosphorus loading in water discharged from the EAA
20 into the water conservation areas?
21 MR. GAINES: I guess I'm not
22 understanding-- maybe you guys are understanding
23 this question better than I am, but the BMP
24 testimony, it's a very central testimony, in all of
25 the BMP testimony, unless there's some more
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1 technical aspects about your question I'm not
2 following.
3 MR. MACFARLANE: I guess it was a lead in
4 to the papers that Doctor Coale has produced for
5 this deposition, but I--
6 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
7 Q. Have you actually gone out and done
8 water sampling in connection with runoff from farms
9 in the EAA?
10 A. Yes. We have done some work in that
11 area.
12 Q. Will your testimony be based on that
13 research?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Will it-- and that research has been
16 undertaken by you, as well as others?
17 A. Yes, in collaborating with others, at
18 times.
19 Q. And how long have you been carrying on
20 research or-- withdraw that.
21 How long have you been sampling, doing
22 the sampling of water quality in the EAA?
23 A. Yes. Well, there is a team of scientists
24 working for the University of Florida, that I was
25 part of that team, so there's-- multifaceted team
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1 effort of taking-- it started, I believe, roughly
2 about 1988, and it was continued through the time I
3 left the University of Florida in 1993.
4 Q. Is it fair to see or would it be correct
5 for me to infer from what you've said about moving
6 from Florida up to Maryland--
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. That you are no longer engaged in water
9 sampling activities in the EAA?
10 A. That's correct.
11 Q. And you stopped doing that in July of
12 '93?
13 A. Yes.
14 Probably in a practicle sense, some time
15 before that.
16 Q. Do you know if that water sampling-- if
17 the team of scientists is still conducting that
18 water sampling?
19 A. I believe some of the people are still
20 there, and some of the similar type of work is
21 continuing.
22 Q. Was that water sampling activity done in
23 connection with field tests of specific BMPs that
24 were being implemented in the EAA?
25 A. Parts of it were, yes.
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: Let me mark this as
2 Number Three (indicating).
3 (The document referred to
4 was thereupon marked as
5 Coale Exhibit Number
6 Three for Identification,
7 a copy of which is attached
8 hereto.)
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Doctor Coale, I have handed you Coale
11 Exhibit Number Three.
12 This is an article entitled Nutrient
13 Accumulation and Removal By Sugar Cane Grown On
14 everglades Histosols, and you are listed as an
15 author (indicating).
16 Is that correct?
17 A. That's correct.
18 Q. And, in fact, you were listed, as I
19 understand from the first page here, as the
20 corresponding author.
21 A. That's correct.
22 Q. What is the corresponding author?
23 A. That is the person responsible for
24 handling all the correspondence with editors and
25 management editors of the journals, and handle the
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1 billing, for page charges, etcetera.
2 Q. How much of this article, if you can
3 recall-- how much of this article did you actually
4 write, yourself?
5 A. Virtually all of it.
6 Q. What was the work that Doctors Izuno and
7 Bottcher-- what was their input?
8 A. This was a resulting product of an
9 overall large project that was initiated to the-- of
10 Izuno and Bottcher, so they were team members.
11 Q. And the project concerned what?
12 A. It was looking at BMPs or on-farm--
13 on-farm type, and it originally started out for
14 nitrogen and phosphorus reduction in the EAA.
15 Q. Doctor Coale, I would like to direct
16 your attention to the first paragraph (indicating).
17 A. Uh-hum.
18 Q. And just a little bit above half way
19 down that paragraph, there's a sentence that reads,
20 "Phosphorus has been determined to be the
21 biologically limiting nutrient in neighboring Lake
22 Okeechobee."
23 Do you see that sentence?
24 A. Yes, I do.
25 Q. Do you agree with that statement?
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1 A. Referenced with Federico in this
2 publication-- the date that he presented it, I
3 believe it was true.
4 Q. What is your understanding of the
5 phrase, biologically limiting nutrient?
6 A. In a general sense, it refers to the
7 growth of microorganisms and small macroorganisms,
8 like algae, etcetera, that-- their growth and
9 productivity is limited, because they essentially in
10 this case, have run out of phosphorus, there's not
11 enough there to support expansion of their
12 populations, and therefore, that's why-- that is why
13 phosphorus is a limiting nutrient, and you add more
14 into the system, then the population is going to
15 continue to be able to expand.
16 Q. Would it be an inference to be drawn
17 from that statement, that large amounts of
18 phosphorus would greatly expand the population of
19 those algae and other plant organisms that you were
20 mentioning?
21 A. Yes, until the point where something
22 else, other than that one element, becomes limiting.
23 Q. The next sentence down from that,
24 "Hence, the influx of P into Lake Okeechobee
25 through agriculture drainage has been proposed as a
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1 contributing factor to the Lake's eutrophication."
2 MR. GAINES: I object to the form of the
3 question.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Do you agree--
6 MR. GAINES: I don't know if you are
7 asking him whether he agrees it has been proposed,
8 or he agrees with the proposal.
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Let's start with, do you agree it was
11 proposed as a contributing factor to the Lake's
12 eutrophication?
13 A. Yes, and I have a citation there, and
14 that was the source of that.
15 Q. And would you agree that the influx of
16 phosphorus into Lake Okeechobee, your understanding
17 of the research reflected in the citation there, was
18 a contributing factor to the Lake's accelerating
19 eutrophication?
20 A. I really can't say.
21 I really don't have any firsthand
22 experience of measuring eutrophication.
23 Q. Have you studied the eutrophication
24 process?
25 A. No, I haven't.
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1 Q. Let me go back to the previous sentence.
2 Do you believe that phosphorus is a
3 biologically limiting nutrient in the WCAs?
4 A. I have--
5 MR. GAINES: You can answer. I object.
6 It's outside his area of designation of
7 his testimony, but if you have an opinion--
8 THE WITNESS: I haven't done any studies,
9 and I really don't know.
10 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
11 Q. Let me ask you to turn to page 313
12 (indicating).
13 A. {Witness complies.)
14 Okay.
15 Q. And there's a-- I guess it's the
16 paragraph that begins on that page (indicating).
17 I would like you to look at the last two
18 sentences, "Crop P removal, was equivalent to 63
19 percent of total crop accumulation and 179 percent
20 of added fertilizer P. Apparently fertilizer P was a
21 minor contribution to the total soil pool of plant
22 available P," and that's-- as far as you are
23 concerned, that's a true statement?
24 A. Yes, it is.
25 Q. Could you explain very briefly, why
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1 fertilizer P is a minor contribution to the total
2 soil pool of plant available P?
3 I assume you--
4 A. Right.
5 Q. I'm assuming you are including sugar
6 cane.
7 A. Right. The first of those two sentences
8 you read, where we said that the crop accumulated--
9 where I am now, crop accumulated certain amount of
10 phosphorus in the plant, and that accumulated
11 phosphorus, was equal, then, to 179 percent, or one
12 and three quarters times the amount of fertilizer
13 phosphorus that was put on the field to grow that
14 crop.
15 The efficiency of fertilizer phosphorus,
16 is not a hundred percent. You don't get it all back
17 in the crop that you put on.
18 Q. Why is that?
19 A. The chemical reaction of the phosphorus
20 fertilizer in the soil-- a lot of it becomes
21 chemically unavailable or physically unavailable for
22 the plant, and therefore, to have the plant
23 accumulate 179 percent of what you added, the--
24 there are-- the derivation from that is, what you
25 added is a minor part of what the total available
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1 amount to the crop was.
2 Q. So is the inference to be drawn-- well,
3 let me ask you, what inference would you draw from
4 that, as to where the phosphorus is coming from that
5 the sugar cane is taking up?
6 A. These organic soils, the histosols, have
7 a large background level of plant available
8 phosphorus that's there, whether you add fertilizer
9 or you don't.
10 It's a background level, and it's
11 apparently fairly substantial, and the sugar cane
12 crop can utilize that.
13 MR. MACFARLANE: Mark this as the next
14 exhibit, Four (indicating).
15 (The document referred to
16 was thereupon marked as
17 Coale Exhibit Number
18 Four for Identification,
19 a copy of which is attached
20 hereto.) A
21 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
22 Q. Doctor Coale, I have shown you Exhibit
23 Number Four. This is an article entitled Sugar Cane
24 Production Impact on Nitrogen and Phosphorus in
25 Drainage Water from an Everglades Histosol, and you
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1 are listed as a coauthor with F.T. Izuno and A.B.
2 Bottcher; is that correct?
3 A. That's correct.
4 Q. Once again, Doctor Coale, did you do
5 most of the writing and the research that went into
6 this article?
7 A. Yes. I wrote this article (indicating).
8 Q. Where was the histosol that was the
9 subject of this research?
10 A. Let's see. This one was at the
11 Everglades Research and Education Center in Belle
12 Glade, Florida.
13 Q. Let me direct your attention to page
14 120, last page (indicating).
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And at the top paragraph, it-- the third
17 sentence down, reads, "Much of the P loading in
18 drainage water may be attributed to these high
19 levels of soil P."
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. I assume you would regard that as
22 consistent with the finding of the article as it
23 exists in this Exhibit Three (indicating)?
24 A. Yes, that would be the same information.
25 Q. Continuing, "Biological oxidation of
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1 soil organic matter which results in land
2 subsidence, has been identified as the primary
3 source of nutrients in drainage waters."
4 Do you agree with that statement, still
5 (indicating)?
6 A. That was reference statement from a
7 publication I have cited there in the text, on--
8 I have no reason to believe that it's
9 not true.
10 Q. And it continues, "It has been estimated
11 that subsidence in the EAA, generates 24,800
12 milligrams phosphorus."
13 A. That's megagams.
14 Q. I apologize, megagrams of phosphorus per
15 year, or 87 kilograms of phosphorus per hectare per
16 year?
17 A. Right.
18 Q. Do you have any reason to disagree with
19 that statement?
20 A. No, I don't.
21 Q. Have you undertaken research on
22 subsidence in the EAA?
23 A. No, not directly.
24 Q. Do you anticipate giving any testimony
25 at the final hearing on subsidence?
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1 A. If asked, I have some opinions.
2 MR. GAINES: I think that general topic
3 of subsidence would be within his scope.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. While we're on the subject, can you tell
6 me what your opinions are with regard to subsidence?
7 A. Well, just based on the chemistry and
8 biochemistry that is going on in these organic
9 soils, the-- if-- maybe I should ask you to narrow
10 that down.
11 MR. KOBELINZKI: And maybe I should
12 object to the form. It's kind of a broad question.
13 THE WITNESS: It was kind of a huge
14 question.
15 MR. KOBELINZKI: If you could focus a
16 little more on what you're asking him. That would
17 help.
18 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
19 Q. Well, let me come at it this way: You
20 conclude here that phosphorus loading in drainage
21 water is treatable to high levels of soil
22 phosphorus.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. While the contribution of fertilizer to
25 phosphorus, to total drainage water, was
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1 undetectable.
2 I don't know--
3 A. I was looking--
4 Q. I'm sorry. I apologize. I don't think
5 that's what you said directly.
6 Would maintaining a high water table,
7 slow down the oxidation of soils of histosols in the
8 EAA?
9 A. Let me make sure we have the same
10 terminology going here, because-- water table, high,
11 inordinate--
12 A. I consider a high water table being
13 closer to the surface.
14 Q. That's my understanding, as well.
15 A. A soil can only oxidize if it's in an
16 aerobic state, aerated, and if it's saturated with
17 water, it's primarily in an anaerobic state, and
18 oxidation would be reduced.
19 Q. Does it follow, maintaining high water
20 table and anerobic conditions in the soil, would
21 retard subsidence?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether
24 subsidence will continue in the EAA on the
25 histosols?
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1 A. Given the way the soils are managed,
2 currently?
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. As long as these organic soils are
5 aerated, there will be some degree of subsidence.
6 Q. Do you-- would it follow from the
7 sentences we have just focused on this paragraph,
8 120, that water table management BMP, would have an
9 impact on reducing soil oxidation?
10 A. Water-- that would really depend on what
11 the water table management BMP did, what its final
12 outcome was.
13 Q. I think we'll get to that in a minute,
14 so--
15 A. Okay.
16 (The document referred to
17 was thereupon marked as
18 Coale Exhibit Number
19 Five for Identification,
20 a copy of which is attached
21 hereto.)
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Doctor Coale, I have shown you the third
24 paper that's been produced as-- for your deposition,
25 and this is entitled, Phosphorus in Drainage Water
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1 from Sugar Cane in Everglades Agriculture Areas As
2 Affected by Drainage Rate.
3 You were listed, again, as a coauthor
4 with Doctor Izuno and Bottcher; is that correct?
5 A. That's correct.
6 Q. Once again, did you write-- were you the
7 primary author of this paper?
8 A. Yes, I was.
9 Q. What-- can you just generally describe
10 for me, what it was that-- what the experiment was
11 that you were undertaking here, that's reported on
12 (indicating)?
13 A. Okay.
14 Q. These were studies involving sugar cane
15 growing on histosols. What the treatments were, with
16 simplisticly, a fast and a slow drainage rate from
17 different plots at that site, and measuring the
18 impact of these drainage rate treatments on crop
19 productivity and the water quality parameters of
20 nutrients in the water coming off those plots.
21 Q. If you can recall, and we can look at a
22 specific passage--
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Let me ask you generally, if you recall
25 what the conclusion of this paper was.
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1 A. I recall, because it was the opposite of
2 what we thought it was going to be when we started
3 out, which is enlightening sometimes.
4 I believe our general conclusion was
5 that in reference to field drainage water, as the
6 water coming comes the fields, that it was-- had
7 your least amount of-- lowest concentration, I
8 should say, of phosphorus, under the faster drainage
9 rate reatment, than under the slow.
10 Q. All right.
11 A. That was the bottom line.
12 Q. Why was that a surprise?
13 A. Well, our original hypothesis was if you
14 drained it faster, you would get more turbulent
15 flow. You would get more of an erosion type of
16 runoff drainage coming off that field, and
17 therefore, your sediment load or particulate or
18 phosphorus, would be much higher, but we didn't see
19 that.
20 Q. What was the recommendation or-- let me
21 ask you this way: Was there a recommendation that
22 came out of this paper?
23 A. Let me look, to make sure (indicating).
24 Q. The best thing to do would probably be
25 for me to point you to a particular passage
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1 (indicating).
2 A. Okay.
3 Q. Let's turn to 125, at the very end
4 (indicating).
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Almost at the very end there, there's a
7 sentence, "If, at the initiation of a drainage
8 event, main farm canal water which has relatively
9 low TP and TDP concentrations was rapidly pumped off
10 farm, a steep drainage gradient would develop
11 between the main farm canal and field water tables.
12 Further, if unobstructed field ditches that provided
13 minimal physical resistance to drainage water flow,
14 were maintained, the field drainage rate would be
15 fast. This situation would ensure field draining
16 water with relatively low TP and TDP
17 concentrations."
18 Let's stop there (indicating).
19 A. Okay.
20 Q. Is what you're recommending there, then,
21 that farmers employ a fast drain approach or fast
22 drainage approach when they pump?
23 A. I think there's a critical distinction
24 that needs to be made, and I think it's in here
25 somewhere (indicating.)
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1 Yes. The same paragraph you were
2 reading, but the first couple of sentences of that
3 paragraph, I just want to make sure we are both on
4 the same page--
5 Q. Yes.
6 A. This study is relative to field
7 drainage. Farm drainage, which is what comes out of
8 the main farm canal and into the area network
9 canals--
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. Is a different phenomena that we need to
12 study.
13 This is referring to field drainage
14 coming out of the farm ditches, into the receiving
15 canals.
16 Under that condition, yes, we want to
17 see the water come off those fields into the main
18 farm canal as fast as possible.
19 Q. Did you make any recommendation here
20 about the duration of pumping at the fast drainage
21 rate?
22 Is that a subject--
23 A. I don't believe we did at all.
24 Q. Let me ask you generally about the three
25 articles we just looked at briefly.
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1 How would you or would you use the
2 analysis in these three papers to make
3 recommendations, if you were called upon to do so,
4 for reducing phosphorus loads from the EAA into the
5 Everglades, the water conservation areas?
6 A. On these three papers, the first one we
7 looked at was a descriptive paper, was just ascribed
8 for-- when a sugar cane crop accumulated different
9 nutrients.
10 It gives you an idea what part of the
11 growth cycle and what part of the calendar year was
12 the most rapid accumulation rate of nutrients from
13 the soil water matrix the plant is grown in.
14 That gives you some idea what the plant
15 demand is when there's low plant demand and high.
16 We can use information like that if
17 you're trying to time applications of a nutrient. If
18 you make a nutrient available to the plant at the
19 point of high demand, the chances of that plant of
20 accumulating that nutrient is greater, than when
21 there's a low time, so-- which is common sense.
22 The second one, the second paper here,
23 is marked as number four--
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. Number four is-- was essentially
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1 comparing sugar cane-- growing sugar cane and fallow
2 land side by side, and looking at what the relative
3 contributions to phosphorus and nitrogen in drainage
4 water coming off those lands were, and the bottom
5 line was there was no distinguishable difference.
6 Q. Let me stop you and ask you what--
7 A. Okay.
8 Q. Do you see an implication in that
9 conclusion, for a recommendation on agriculture BMPs
10 to reduce phosphorus?
11 A. The main-- I say it with a smile on my
12 face. The court reporter can't get that down, and
13 there's a--
14 Q. Let the record reflect Doctor Coale is
15 smiling.
16 A. The main practical application of that
17 study was to see that if you just stop producing
18 sugar cane on these soils and let them sit idle,
19 you're going to have the same situation as far as
20 the quality of the water coming off the land, as you
21 have now with the sugar cane being grown, so if
22 they-- having vacant land is not a BMP. That was the
23 practical use of that data.
24 Q. Do you see any other conclusion as to
25 BMPs that might relate to that finding?
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1 I know that's awfully broad, but--
2 A. At that time-- I-- I think that's about
3 all it says.
4 Q. What about the last one?
5 A. The third one as we just recently talked
6 about, was the drainage rate, and we can talk about
7 our conclusion, as far as-- about how you would use
8 these drainage rate differences and the data we
9 collected on the different drainage rates and how
10 that could be incorporated into farm water
11 management.
12 Q. So you say that primarily is a finding
13 that would lead to a recommendation that you or
14 someone else might make to individual farmers, as to
15 using what-- a pump BMP?
16 A. I wouldn't even call it a pump BMP,
17 because this whole study, we never used pumps. We
18 were at the whim of the commercial pump operation.
19 All it does, management of water within
20 the property.
21 It wasn't-- there were no BMPs involved
22 in it.
23 Q. Was it concerned at all with water table
24 management, or just strictly speaking, getting water
25 off the fields, let's say, during a rain event or
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1 just after?
2 A. Right. The topic was strictly drainage
3 rate, getting the water off, how fast it came out.
4 Q. And was any phosphorus loss within the
5 water, strictly in relation to which the-- speed to
6 which the water was gotten off?
7 A. Right.
8 Q. I'm going to shift gears here.
9 Do you want to take a brief break?
10 MR. GAINES: Yes. Let's take two minutes.
11 (Thereupon a recess was taken
12 in the deposition, after which
13 the deposition continued as follows:)
14 MR. MACFARLANE: Back on the record.
15 Let's mark this as the next exhibit.
16 (The document referred to
17 was thereupon marked as
18 Coale Exhibit Number
19 Six for Identification,
20 a copy of which is attached
21 hereto.)
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Doctor Coale, I've just handed you a--
24 an extract of the planning document of the
25 Everglades SWIM Plan.
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1 Do you recognize that (indicating)?
2 A. I have seen it.
3 Q. Have you had occasion to read the SWIM
4 Plan?
5 A. No. I have never studied it from front
6 to back.
7 I have looked at bits and pieces of it.
8 Q. Have you read the portion that I have
9 excerpted there, from-- let's see. It would be page
10 110 to 117, dealing with the regulatory-- the EAA
11 regulatory program (indicating).
12 A. Let me briefly walk through it.
13 Q. Sure. Take a look. Take your time
14 (indicating).
15 A. Part of this I recall, and other parts,
16 I don't recall having read it before.
17 Q. Let me direct your attention to page 113
18 (indicating).
19 A. (Witness complies.)
20 Q. And on page 113 is this list or
21 beginning of a list of BMPs with associated
22 phosphorus reduction ranges (indicating).
23 A. Uh-hum.
24 Q. Are you familiar with this particular
25 list of BMPs?
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1 A. Yes, I have seen this list.
2 Q. Let me just-- let's just go through
3 this, and let me ask you, directing your attention
4 to BMP number one, calibrated soil test
5 recommendations.
6 What is your understanding, if you have
7 one, of what that BMP is?
8 A. A calculated soil test is a tool to use
9 to give guidance to a farmer about how much
10 fertilizer is needed to be applied to a crop, to
11 achieve his maximum productivity potential.
12 Q. How does that work?
13 A. It's kind of a long, evolving process.
14 There's two phases to it, really.
15 First, the researcher must identify a
16 laboratory methodology by which they can take a
17 soil, collect it from a field, and essentially, what
18 you do in a crude nutshell, is put it in a glass and
19 shake it up with an extracting solution, and then
20 you measure the concentration of the nutrient and
21 solution that you pool off of that soil sample that
22 you are working with, and try to find, identify an
23 extracting solution that has a representative
24 extracting power from very low on soils, that
25 doesn't have a lot of nutrient that you're looking
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1 to-- as opposed to extracting it from soils that
2 have a lot of nutrient in it, and so that's the
3 correlation phase, and so you have this extractant
4 that you are using with the soils, and then you
5 identify levels of extractable nutrient from a soil,
6 and you make a relationship between that soil test
7 level and crop response to the fertilizer, and from
8 that, you can say if you have a soil test, using an
9 arbitrary number, ten units, then we recommend you
10 need to put on X-number of pounds of whatever
11 nutrient you're interested in.
12 Q. Do you have an opinion as to whether
13 implementation of calibrated soil test BMP, could
14 reduce phosphorus losses from zero to 25, zero to
15 ten percent, for vegetables and sugar cane,
16 respectively?
17 A. As far as the exact ranges, I can't say.
18 They're probably in the ballpark.
19 Truly, zero is a realistic number on one
20 end, because if a grower is already doing that, it's
21 not going to do him any good to continue doing it,
22 so he has it in his base already, so it's standard
23 operating procedures, and the end number is
24 depending on how poor of a manager the farm was-- if
25 he was grossly over-applying, a soil test may give
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1 him a tremendous, one, savings in fertilizer cost,
2 and two, savings in application of the nutrient, but
3 if he was a reasonable manager, maybe it wouldn't
4 help him at all. Maybe he was on target to begin
5 with.
6 Q. Have you undertaken any study of this
7 particular BMP, yourself?
8 A. I haven't done any soil test
9 calculations with sugar cane.
10 What I-- my experience is, I manage this
11 soil testing lab at the Everglades Research and
12 Education Center for a couple of years.
13 Q. So in that capacity, did you actually
14 perform soil tests?
15 A. I didn't perform them. We had
16 technicians that actually did the laboratory work,
17 but I supervised them.
18 Q. Would you-- were you called upon to
19 recommend a BMP to sugar cane growers-- would this
20 be a BMP you would recommend?
21 A. Yes. I would like to see every grower
22 use soil testing.
23 Q. Let me draw your attention to the second
24 one, "Banding fertilizer for vegetable production,
25 instead of broadcasting it could reduce P losses
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1 from 10 to 40 percent, and application rates of 50
2 percent."
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. What is your understanding of this BMP?
5 A. I watched this work being done by
6 colleagues. I wasn't involved in-- and I had some
7 discussion, informal discussions with them, and I
8 heard some of the conclusions they came up with, and
9 banding fertilizer, in this case, phosphorus
10 fertilizer, looked like it was a very good
11 practice.
12 It looked like utilizing that practice,
13 you could reduce your fertilizer application rate
14 without sacrificing yield, so it looked like it was
15 a viable BMP.
16 Q. Does that conclusion you have just
17 given, or that opinion, apply to the statement-- let
18 me rephrase that.
19 Do you have an opinion whether that
20 particular BMP could reduce phosphorus losses from
21 10 to 40 percent, and application rates of
22 fertilizer in the order of 50 percent?
23 A. I'm not familiar with phosphorus loss
24 data.
25 In talking to some of the researches,
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1 and some of the-- some of the people that do
2 research for some vegetable growing corporations, I
3 think that 50 percent application rate reduction is
4 realistic. It's somewhere near what they can do.
5 Q. Let's move on to the third BMP,
6 "Prevention of fertilizer spills and the direct
7 spreading of fertilizer into drainage ditches, could
8 reduce P losses by zero to 15 percent."
9 What is your understanding--
10 A. I think it's a very good BMP that should
11 be 100 percent implemented.
12 Q. That's your opinion?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. How would you go about reducing
15 fertilizer spills, or how would a farmer go about
16 reducing fertilizer spills, if you were going to
17 recommend to him that--
18 A. What you are primarily concerned with
19 there is the education of the labor who is involved
20 in transferring the fertilizer, either from the
21 tractor-trailer, or whatever means it's delivered to
22 the farm, into the spreader which takes it out into
23 the field.
24 An educational program aimed at those
25 individuals, telling them how important it is not to
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1 spill, techniques to use not to spill-- it's very
2 simplistic, but it's just a matter of educating the
3 labor who is handling the material.
4 Q. Were you working at IFAS in connection
5 with IFAS researchers, at the time this particular
6 recommendation or recommended BMP was developed?
7 A. The answer is yes to that, but I'm not
8 sure of the exact date it was developed.
9 I was there, I think, during the
10 formulation process.
11 Q. Did you have occasion to go out to farms
12 and observe what the usual practices were on the
13 farms for handling fertilizer?
14 A. Oh, frequently.
15 Q. Would you say based upon your
16 observation, you would think this was a good BMP to
17 implement?
18 A. Very good.
19 Q. Do you have an opinion whether the
20 prevention of fertilizer spills and direct spreading
21 of fertilizer into drainage ditches, could reduce
22 those losses by zero to 15 percent?
23 A. Again, zero I think is the sound number,
24 because of some people that didn't spill any, to
25 start with, and 15 percent, I don't know what the
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1 number would be.
2 Q. Number four, minimizing water table
3 fluctuations in vegetable and sugar cane fields--
4 What is your understanding of this BMP?
5 A. My understanding is that what you're
6 trying to minimize is two things, or are two things;
7 one being the exposure to acres, again, of soil that
8 you don't necessarily have to have exposed to
9 oxygen, and therefore, have mineralization taking
10 place, and therefore having phosphorus release, and
11 you don't have to do that. You don't have to expose
12 more soil than necessary for farm management.
13 And the second thing relates back to
14 some of the drainage rate studies that we talked
15 about a little while ago, in that you want to--
16 well, no use revisiting that, but want to get the
17 water off as fast as you can, and not-- off the
18 field, reiterate, the field-- this is field data--
19 off the field as fast as you can, and not have the
20 zone of aeration going from the top of the soil
21 profile to the bottom of the soil profile during the
22 event.
23 Q. Is that what-- is that what is meant
24 here by fluctuations, as you understand it?
25 A. As I understand it, yes.
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1 Q. Do you, from your knowledge, know if
2 this particular water management BMP, I'll
3 characterize is as such--
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Is currently in use in the EAA?
6 A. Yes, I believe it is.
7 Q. Do you have an opinion whether it could
8 reduce phosphorus losses from zero to 50 percent?
9 A. I-- yes. I think phosphorus losses could
10 be reduced by-- by using these water management
11 BMPs, and in that range-- that's a pretty broad
12 range-- I think it would fit in there.
13 Q. Have you done research into water
14 management BMPs, yourself, as a part of the drainage
15 studies?
16 A. No.
17 MR. GAINES: I want to make sure that I
18 understand that. I think I do, but when you say has
19 he done any research, himself, you're referring to a
20 formal experimental study that he's conducted and
21 written up, rather than--
22 MR. MACFARLANE: That's correct.
23 MR. KOBELINZKI: Rather than informal
24 research that he's looked into the--
25 MR. MACFARLANE: That's correct. I'll
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1 make that distinction.
2 THE WITNESS: That's the way I was
3 interpreting it.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Have you reviewed other studies
6 undertaken by other people, you just following
7 along, of this water management practice?
8 A. Yes, I have.
9 Q. Can you, just off the top of your head,
10 list for me whose studies you have reviewed?
11 A. The research team at U.S. Sugar
12 Corporation has done a very extensive study in this
13 area, and they've-- I have looked at some of their
14 data, and have to admit it's quite impressive, how
15 much data they have collected.
16 Q. Can you give me approximately the time
17 frame which this data was collected?
18 A. The time frame?
19 Q. Yes, the data that you looked at.
20 A. Okay. The data that I looked at, was a
21 summary of data for the calendar year of 1993.
22 Q. Did you produce that data as part of
23 your document production?
24 Do you recall?
25 MR. GAINES: Yes, we did.
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: All right.
2 MR. GAINES: I hope you got it.
3 MR. MACFARLANE: I believe we did.
4 Off the record.
5 (Off the record discussion.)
6 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
7 Q. Back on the record.
8 Where has the U.S. Sugar team undertaken
9 this research, if you know?
10 A. At numerous locations throughout the
11 EAA.
12 Q. Do you know if this research was in
13 progress prior to 1993?
14 A. I don't know for sure. I don't know for
15 sure when they started it.
16 I'm trying to recall some of the data
17 sheets we looked at, what the dates were.
18 The summary sheet that I'm most familiar
19 with, was a '93 annual summary, and I don't know
20 when the whole project commenced.
21 I'm not sure about that.
22 Q. And is it your understanding that the
23 research that the U.S. Sugar team was undertaking,
24 was based upon this particular BMP, the minimizing
25 water table fluctuations?
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1 A. Well, I believe that was one of the
2 strong premises behind the work they were doing,
3 yes.
4 Q. And based upon that research and your--
5 whatever other knowledge you have about that-- this
6 particular BMP, would you recommend that BMP to the
7 sugar cane industry?
8 A. Yes. It looked very good.
9 Q. Let me move to BMP number five,
10 retention of on-farm drainage (indicating).
11 What is your understanding of that BMP,
12 if you have one?
13 A. That has potential.
14 It-- the way I understand it works, is
15 that you would have the capability and the
16 infrastructure in place on the farm, to be able to
17 route water that you needed to drain off of one
18 field, because of-- because there's too much water
19 on that field, to get it to other areas on the farm,
20 or an adjacent farm, whatever, that could tolerate
21 more water at that period of time, and therefore, be
22 able to potentially move this water around your
23 system of internal drainageways on the property.
24 Q. Do you know if this BMP is currently
25 being used in the EAA?
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1 A. I understand that it is.
2 Q. Do you know where?
3 A. In some of my discussions with
4 individuals at the U.S. Sugar research department,
5 they indicated on some of their property, they were
6 doing this.
7 Q. Do you have an opinion, whether the
8 implementation of on-farm retention of drainage,
9 could reduce phosphorus losses from 15 to 60
10 percent?
11 A. Again, as I said before a couple of
12 times, I'm really uncomfortable with the
13 percentages, because I don't have enough information
14 at my disposal to critique them.
15 I think it could be universal, and I
16 think it would have an impact on reducing overall
17 phosphorus drainage, but the range-- again, it's a
18 very broad range, and probably a reasonable
19 ballpark, and that's a-- 15 to 60 percent, that's
20 pretty large.
21 Q. I understand. The last item, do you
22 understand that this BMP could only be used for
23 sugar production (indicating)?
24 A. I guess I'm not clear as to what-- to
25 me, that sentence is excluding other operations.
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1 I'm not sure what other operations there
2 are.
3 Q. Vegetable.
4 A. Oh, vegetable--
5 Q. Could you use this BMP--
6 A. Vegetables, from what I understand-- I'm
7 not a horticulturist, but typically vegetables have
8 a lower tolerance for too much water, and their per
9 acre value is so much higher, etcetera, if that's
10 what is meant there, then they probably wouldn't
11 want to hold water on vegetable land. Probably ruin
12 your crop.
13 Q. Except if it was fallow?
14 A. Right.
15 Q. Let's move on to BMP number six,
16 retention of vegetable field drainage water in sugar
17 cane or fallow lands.
18 Do you have an understanding of that
19 BMP?
20 A. I believe that's very similar to the one
21 before, just a more specific case of some literature
22 which has shown that phosphorus in drainage water
23 from vegetable fields, tends to be higher than from
24 sugar cane fields, and sugar cane has some tolerance
25 to more inundation by water than vegetables do, so
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1 you could perhaps support some of that water-- that
2 you wanted to take off your vegetables fields, and
3 put it on the sugar cane field, without having much
4 impact on the sugar cane.
5 Q. Do you have an opinion whether
6 implementation of this practice, could reduce
7 phosphorus losses from 20 to 90 percent from any
8 particular farm?
9 A. That's even a bigger one.
10 Yes. I would say somewhere in that
11 ballpark, yes, 20 to 90 percent.
12 Q. It would be correct, that this would be
13 a BMP you would be prepeared to recommend, if it
14 were appropriate for a particular farm?
15 A. Right. If the situation was right, and
16 they had a-- all the necessary factors in place, it
17 would be a good BMP.
18 Q. What sort of situation would one need to
19 have, in order to implement these BMPs?
20 A. Well, if your operations didn't include
21 any vegetable land, it would be a moot point. This
22 BMP wouldn't be usable.
23 Q. Are there any other factors that you
24 could think of, that--
25 A. You have to be physically able to move
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1 that water from that point where you're draining it
2 off the vegetable producing area-- physically be
3 able to move it to the area where you want to put it
4 on the sugar cane or fallow land.
5 If you don't have the right connections
6 and the ditch workings, and then you wouldn't-- if
7 you could only dump it in one direction-- if you
8 need to take it north and you can only take it
9 south, then you couldn't use it.
10 Q. Number seven, aquatic cover crop for
11 off-season vegetable production and fallow rotation
12 of sugar cane, could reduce P losses from five to
13 twenty percent.
14 What is your understanding, if you have
15 one, of that particular BMP?
16 A. The only practical cover crop I could
17 think of in that situation, would be the-- would be
18 the use of rice.
19 When you harvest a rice crop, the rice
20 crop you harvest, the rough rice, as it's called
21 when it comes off the field, there is some
22 phosphorus content in the grain which is physically
23 removed, or-- I would say the last recommendation I
24 saw for rice production, was we didn't recommend any
25 phosphorus inputs, no fertilizer on that, so it
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1 makes sense that if you're growing a crop that is
2 physically removing phosphorus from a field in the
3 harvested product, the grain, which is hauled away
4 in a truck, and not adding a new source of
5 phosphorus to the field, it seems like a pretty good
6 BMP for removing phosphorus from the system.
7 Q. Would the use of an aquatic cover crop,
8 like rice, affect the phosphorus production in any
9 other way?
10 A. Well, during the period when the crop
11 was-- the aquatic parts of the year when the rice
12 crop was flooded, you would be essentially
13 eliminatng soil oxidation during that period of
14 time, and therefore, you wouldn't see the
15 mineralization of soil or phosphorus, for that
16 matter, than you normally would if it was aerated.
17 Q. Am I correct in thinking this would be a
18 BMP you would recommend, again, if it were
19 appropriate to do so for a particular farm?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And do you have an opinion whether
22 implementation of this BMP, could reduce phosphorus
23 losses from five to twenty percent?
24 A. I haven't done the calculation about how
25 much phosphorus is removed in the grain of a rice
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1 crop.
2 But to me, if you are looking at the
3 entire-- the system, which I call the water, the
4 soil, the plant, put together, that whatever is
5 removed in the grain harvest, is the net reduction
6 from the system, that has the potential to go
7 somewhere else, if you didn't take it off from the
8 grain crop.
9 Q. Assuming that you weren't fertilizing?
10 A. Right.
11 Q. Number eight, on-farm retention ponds
12 utilized to store excess rainfall for later use as
13 irrigation water.
14 Do you have an understanding of this
15 particular BMP?
16 A. I believe I understand what it means,
17 that they have retention possibility as a--
18 physically constructed area for holding water.
19 I have not seen this in practice
20 anywhere in sugar cane production in the EAA.
21 Q. Do you have an opinion as to its
22 practicality or effectiveness as a BMP?
23 A. No, I really don't, because I haven't
24 seen it, and I haven't seen any data relating to it.
25 Q. When you say you haven't seen it, you
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1 haven't seen it in action?
2 A. Right.
3 Q. So would it be correct in thinking that
4 you would not be prepared to give an opinion as to
5 whether it could reduce phosphorus losses from 10 to
6 60 percent?
7 A. That's true.
8 Q. And number nine, coordinated farm crop
9 cropping patterns.
10 Do you understand what that BMP entails,
11 as it's indicated here, BMPs four through seven?
12 A. I think it touches back on what we
13 talked before, about if a person doesn't have the
14 capacity to move his water north, and his only place
15 he could use the water or store the water, is in a
16 sugar cane field, for example, on the north side of
17 his property, not on the south, he couldn't use it.
18 If he wanted to use that BMP in the
19 future, he may need to pump in the other direction,
20 or flip-flop the cropping on these two areas, so he
21 could move from south to north, and not from north
22 to south, vice-versa, with his water movement.
23 You can use an aquatic cover crop, and
24 if you don't have the water available, you can't, so
25 those are the examples.
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1 I tend to think of these as coordinating
2 cropping patterns, and you have to mesh these
3 different BMPs, like I said, to give them the
4 physical ability to work on that location. It's
5 very location specific, farm by farm specific.
6 Q. Are you aware of any attempt in the EAA
7 to change the particular pattern of crops, in order
8 to maximize the effectiveness of a certain group of
9 BMPs?
10 A. I'm hesitating, because I'm trying to
11 recall if I do.
12 Q. Take your time.
13 A. I can't recall that this has been done,
14 historically.
15 Q. Do you know whether it's being done at
16 the present time?
17 A. I can't say for sure.
18 I-- that some of the BMPs are being
19 used, for example-- I mentioned before, for example,
20 that we saw-- well, we're taking about the people at
21 U.S. Sugar, they are draining water from vegetables
22 and retaining on-farm. We mentioned that earlier,
23 so that is-- that is some of these BMPs in
24 practice.
25 Maybe I should change back what I said
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1 earlier, but that's one case they are being used.
2 Q. Did that particular instance involve
3 actually changing the crops that were grown on
4 adjoining fields, let's say, or adjacent fields, to
5 implement a number of these BMPs?
6 A. I don't think I can say.
7 I don't know what their original plans
8 were, and if they changed them from what the
9 original-- I don't know if they have a ten year plan
10 for what they are going to do, and they changed it,
11 whether it was going to happen on that field,
12 anyway-- I can't say.
13 Q. When did you-- if you can recall, when
14 did you discuss with the U.S. Sugar research
15 department, these particular practices?
16 A. I spent two days with them, and-- in
17 March of this year, and we covered it, a lot of--
18 the practices that they are doing.
19 That's where I learned this information.
20 Q. Did you actually go out to the field and
21 look at what they were doing, or were you basically
22 presented with a, you know, lectures or--
23 A. No. We spent quite a bit of time running
24 around the fields, and a lot of time around a
25 conference table looking at data and looking at
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1 descriptions, plans, etcetera, so we did both.
2 Q. Let me ask you to look a little bit down
3 the page, on 114, just below BMP number nine, and--
4 oh, before I do that, do you have an opinion as to
5 whether BMP number nine would be an effective BMP?
6 I note that a specific reduction is-- in
7 phosphorus, is not given here, but--
8 Q. Yes. I believe it would be a
9 coordination of effort-- it is a good BMP.
10 Q. Let's move on to the next paragraph.
11 The first sentence sentence reads, "Please also note
12 that the above reductions are not cumulatve, in that
13 the effectiveness of one BMP may be significantly
14 reduced by the implementation of another BMP, or the
15 second BMP may not even be possible."
16 My question is, do you agree with that
17 statement?
18 A. Yes, I do.
19 Q. When you attended the U.S. Sugar
20 presentation in March--
21 MR. GAINES: Object to the form.
22 Go ahead.
23 Presentation-- I don't think it was a
24 presentation.
25 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
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1 Q. When you visited with the U.S. Sugar
2 research department there--
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did you see evidence of multiple BMPs,
5 or more than one BMP being used on a particular
6 site?
7 A. I believe I did, yes.
8 Q. Can you recall any specifics of that?
9 A. There was one location where I believe
10 there was a block of vegetable production land, and
11 now that-- the drainage water from that vegetable
12 production land was being rerouted, instead of going
13 right into a main canal, rerouted into sugar cane
14 production level, and so that's-- that's putting
15 sugar cane, vegetable drainage water on sugar cane
16 land, and also the water within that sugar cane
17 production land that was receiving the vegetable
18 drainage water, was being rerouted, and not-- from
19 the way I understood it, not directly pumped off
20 farm, as the way it had been in the past, so there
21 was two of them put together in that instance.
22 Q. When you visited with the U.S. Sugar
23 research department in March, were you told about or
24 did you review data as to the amount of phosphorus
25 reduction in loading that could be achieved through
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1 BMPs?
2 A. Yes. We went through a lot of data they
3 had, and they had done a very good job. I was quite
4 impressed.
5 We were looking at different
6 comparisons, different types of comparisons on
7 discrete plots, and then they had overall
8 comparisons, broke it down to, like, 19 different
9 comparisons at the end, and they had estimates of
10 these comparisons on what the reduction of the
11 non-BMP lands were, versus what the BMP lands were.
12 Q. When you say 19 different variations of
13 BMPs-- are these BMPs that were currently in use?
14 A. What they had done-- let me make sure
15 my-- 19 different variations-- they took, you know,
16 essentially the same data set, the data that they
17 had collected, and by looking at this parcel versus
18 this one, that was one comparison, and then they
19 said, "Let's look at this parcel versus this
20 parcel," another comparison, and some of them,
21 general, general type and some specifics, and--
22 Q. I understand it. So--
23 A. Can you repeat the rest of the question?
24 I kind of lost myself there.
25 Q. Well, let me try to ask it in a slightly
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1 different way.
2 The different combinations or the
3 different sites that you reviewed with the U.S.
4 Sugar research department team--
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Were you reviewing data that had been
7 collected for particular combination of BMPs, or
8 were you looking at estimates of what could be
9 accomplished, if particular BMPs were combined in
10 the field on a particular site?
11 A. No. This was hard data they had
12 collected from BMPs that had been implemented.
13 Q. All right. And do you recall what the
14 period of time was that-- for this hard data?
15 A. Like I mentioned previously, the data
16 set that I paid most attention to was for the
17 calendar year of 1993.
18 Q. And that would be the entire calendar
19 year? Do you recall?
20 A. Yes, the entire calendar year.
21 Q. Do you recall or do you have any
22 knowledge of whether calendar year 1993, was
23 particularly wet or a rainy year in the EAA?
24 A. I don't recall. I don't recall.
25 I wasn't living in that-- but for the
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1 first half of the year, in that area.
2 Q. Do you think, based upon your knowledge
3 of the agricultural BMPs, it would make a
4 difference, in terms of what the climactic--
5 A. Yes, there's going to be a lot of
6 variation from year to year, and I think the best
7 evaluation would be to look at as long of a term
8 data set as you had available.
9 Looking at a five year data set is
10 better than one year, and one year is better than
11 one month.
12 Q. And the data set that you looked at, was
13 for one year?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Are you familiar with what has been
16 termed the BMP rule?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Do you understand that-- well, let me
19 ask you what your understanding of that rule is.
20 A. That is the rule that simply-- the main
21 point I recall from reading it, is that the rule
22 states the target of a 25 percent reduction in
23 phosphorus loads from the EAA into the water
24 conservation areas, and-- areas south of the EAA,
25 and also a--
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1 Q. Right.
2 A. And also I believe-- I can't remember
3 right off exactly how it is stated, but there is
4 reference to, that this 25 percent reduction of
5 phosphorus load had to be accomplished with no more
6 than a 20 percent reduction in water flow, I
7 believe.
8 Q. Based upon your understanding of the BMP
9 rule, do you have an opinion whether a 25 percent
10 reduction in total phosphorus load discharged from
11 the EAA, could be achieved through the
12 implementation of the SWIM Plan BMPs, in combination
13 as appropriate for a particular site?
14 MR. GAINES: Let me object to the form of
15 the question.
16 Here's my reason: I think the second
17 half of the question, you said can a 25 percent
18 reduction of phosphorus be achieved through the
19 implementation of the SWIM Plan BMPs, and the first
20 part, based on your understanding of the BMP rule--
21 I don't know--
22 MR. MACFARLANE: I am sorry. Let me--
23 MR. GAINES: I don't have any problems
24 with him giving his understanding of the BMP rule.
25 I should have made this statement earlier, it's a
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1 legal rule, and I would object to the extent he's
2 asked to give a legal opinion, but I have no problem
3 with him answering the question.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Based upon your understanding of the
6 SWIM Plan BMPs--
7 A. This list of nine?
8 Q. Yes.
9 A. Okay.
10 Q. Do you have an opinion whether the
11 implementation of those BMPs in the EAA, could
12 result in a 25 percent reduction in load phosphorus,
13 from the--
14 A. Okay. I understand now.
15 Let me tell you what my answer is based
16 on.
17 Q. Please do.
18 A. The data set that I reviewed, that was
19 researched by the U.S. Sugar research department.
20 They did a comparison of essentially 25 percent of
21 their property, which-- say, roughly 25,000 acres, I
22 think it was.
23 They maintained water management
24 practices, as pumping practices and fertilizer
25 practices, that historically had been done-- I think
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1 the way they did it-- this is old time, what had
2 been done for a long time, and there's the data
3 from, I think it was 107,000 acres, we think of
4 implementing these pumping BMPs and fertilizer BMPs
5 on, and I believe I'm clear on that-- from my
6 recollection, I think that's what the numbers were.
7 And then they did some comparisons of
8 sugar cane land, which had these water management
9 BMPs and fertilizer BMPs initiated. They were in
10 place on similar land which was being managed,
11 again, the old way, without the BMPs in place, and--
12 Q. As part of that 75 percent?
13 A. That was a subset, the 75 percent, yes.
14 There were two very similar areas that
15 were on a head to head comparison, because they were
16 very similar to management areas, because one had
17 BMPs implemented and one didn't.
18 From that data that they presented, they
19 achieved at least a 25 percent reduction, if-- I
20 have lost your original question, but--
21 Q. Let me-- I think you may have answered a
22 somewhat different question. Let me just rephrase
23 it.
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. Based upon your understanding of these
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1 particular BMPs-- and we'll get into some other BMPs
2 in a few minutes-- do you have an opinion whether
3 implementation of these BMPs could lead or would
4 lead to a result of 25 percent phosphorus load
5 reduction, as we've just described?
6 A. Based on the data I saw, what I just
7 described to you, if that was implemented all across
8 e EAA, and if it was a true representation of the
9 impact of what would take place over the rest of the
10 EAA, then these BMPs in the plan could have a 25
11 percent reduction of phosphorus, yes.
12 Q. Let me ask you, what we-- I don't think
13 we need to make this an exhibit, but I want to ask
14 you if you recognize this document (indicating).
15 A. Yes, I do.
16 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm not going to ask him
17 any detailed questions about it--
18 MR. GAINES: Let's state for the record,
19 if we can-- this was a deposition exhibit at John
20 Bert's deposition, Exhibit 13, on April 1, 1993, and
21 it's titled final report and the effect of on-farm
22 agriculture practices in organic soils of the EAA,
23 nitrogen and phosphorus transport, at Bates number
24 0889283 through 0889593-- I'm sorry, 94.
25 MR. MACFARLANE: So noted for the
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1 record.
2 MR. GAINES: I just wanted to participate
3 in some fashion here.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Let me ask you, Doctor Coale, you're
6 listed as a contributing author on that study; are
7 you not?
8 A. Yes, I am.
9 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
10 (Off the record discussion.)
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. Before that brief interruption, Doctor
13 Coale, I was asking if you had been listed as a
14 contributing author on this final report, and I
15 believe you confirmed-- you confirmed that you were
16 listed as such.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Let me just ask you, what did you do as
19 a contributing author in producing the final report?
20 A. In producing the report, I-- virtually
21 nothing, really.
22 Some of the information and data in the
23 report is in a preliminary or raw form, the same
24 information as published in the manuscripts that we
25 went through for the last couple of hours.
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1 And that is my contribution to it, was
2 some of that data that I generated, that eventually
3 came out in this publication, is also in here
4 (indicating).
5 Q. Did you do any drafting or writing up of
6 the final report or parts of it?
7 A. I don't believe I wrote any of it.
8 Q. Had you contributed to the drafting-- I
9 believe my understanding is that there were previous
10 drafts to this; is that correct?
11 A. I'm not certain.
12 There were quarterly reports, project
13 reports, and then this was a final report, so if
14 those preliminary quarterly type reports were
15 considered previous drafts, it matches.
16 Q. Did you contribute to those quarterly
17 reports?
18 A. In the same manner as this.
19 Q. Basically going out and collecting data
20 or generating data?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Have you had any-- were you formally
23 affiliated in any way with IFAS, at the time you
24 were a contributing--
25 MR. GAINES: Did you say formerly or
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1 formally?
2 MR. MACFARLANE: Formally. I'm sorry.
3 MR. KOBELINZKI: Like a tuxedo.
4 MR. MACFARLANE: Formal.
5 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was on the faculty
6 of the University of Florida.
7 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
8 Q. So it was in your capacity as a
9 University of Florida member, you were participating
10 there in--
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And have you had any continuing
13 relationship with IFAS, in any capacity, since you
14 left the University of Florida in 1993?
15 A. Well, it's hard to draw lines, because
16 we have professional acquaintances and friendships,
17 and there's been some contact.
18 We finished up some projects that were
19 near finished when I left.
20 For example, some of these publication
21 we went over, the Publix ace dates are after I left
22 there because just because you leave one place, you
23 don't-- doesn't mean you abandon what you have 90
24 percent finished when you leave.
25 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
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1 Q. Sure.
2 A. In that case, yes.
3 MR. GAINES: It depends on where you're
4 leaving from, I guess.
5 Off the record.
6 (Off the record discussion.)
7 MR. GAINES: I have left some law firms
8 where I--
9 THE WITNESS: Well, in the scientific
10 community, you tend to finish up everything.
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. Let's move on to other BMPs that you may
13 be familiar with, and I'll ask you now, if you
14 anticipate giving any testimony on BMPs, other than
15 those we have identified in the SWIM Plan.
16 A. Uh-hum.
17 Q. Could you tell me which ones?
18 A. The ones I'm familiar with and have seen
19 data pertaining to, are mainly sediment control type
20 BMPs.
21 Q. Before we get into sediment control type
22 BMPs, do you have any-- do you anticipate giving any
23 testimony on what had been described as pump BMPs,
24 or the floor of the-- do you-- I'm not sure that I
25 know what that title refers to.
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1 If-- well, maybe you can explain it to
2 me.
3 Q. Well, no, I won't explain it to you, but
4 let me ask you, would you anticipate giving
5 testimony on BMPs having to do with pumping
6 practices?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. All right.
9 A. Just for our communication, I tend to
10 refer to this as water management type BMPs.
11 Q. Let me go back to some sediment control
12 type BMPs.
13 Well, you refer to this as a range of
14 BMPs? Did I understand you correctly? Did you-- for
15 the sediment control?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. I don't recall whether I used that term
18 or not.
19 Q. Sediment control BMP, one particular
20 BMP, or a group of BMPs?
21 A. No. There's many different practices.
22 Q. Can you describe some of them for me,
23 please?
24 A. Well, I--
25 Q. Before we get into the details, let me--
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1 what is your understanding of the general purpose of
2 a sediment control BMP?
3 A. Okay. Data has been published and
4 presented in different places somewhere in this
5 neighborhood, and this is a ballpark neighborhood of
6 half of the phosphorus that's coming off of a farm
7 or in the drainage canal system, is a particulate
8 phosphorus, and roughly is half dissolved
9 phosphorus.
10 What sediment control BMPs are aimed to
11 do, is to trap the particulate forms of phosphorus
12 that are on particulate matter, sediments, and keep
13 them from entering the drainage system.
14 So they are all targeted at the same,
15 end goal, is to keep that particulate-- action of
16 the phosphorus, from getting into the system and
17 going downstream.
18 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
19 (Off the record discussion.)
20 (The documents referred to
21 were thereupon marked as
22 Coale Exhibit Numbers
23 Seven, Eight and Nine for
24 Identification, copies of
25 which are attached hereto.)
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1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. Back on the record.
3 Doctor Coale, let me show you exhibits--
4 what's been marked as Exhibit Number Seven, and ask
5 you if you recognize it (indicating).
6 A. Yes. I've seen this before.
7 Q. And for the record, it's titled United
8 States Sugar Corporation Best Management Practices
9 for On-farm Reduction Through Sediment Control,
10 reading upside down (indicating).
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And would it be fair to say that this is
13 a collection of overheads, illustrating sediment
14 control practices?
15 Would that be consistent with your
16 understanding of this document, Doctor Coale?
17 A. I don't know if these were originally
18 overheads, how they were presented, in what form,
19 but it clearly could be overhead.
20 They are very concise and to the point,
21 simple, simplistic, examples of these practices.
22 Q. Have you had occasion to review this
23 document?
24 A. Yes, I looked through it.
25 Q. How did you come across or how did you
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1 acquire that document, which, for the record, was
2 produced as part of your document production for
3 today's deposition?
4 A. Right. I believe I received that from
5 the-- Mr. Gaines.
6 Q. So you didn't receive this document
7 during your visit to the U.S. Sugar research team in
8 March of 1994?
9 A. No. I believe I had it prior to that.
10 Q. I would like you to take a flip through
11 there, Doctor Coale, and ask you if those sediment
12 control BMPs that were listed that are there, and
13 we'll go through some of them in detail-- were among
14 those that you were briefed on or had an opportunity
15 to observe, when you visited U.S. Sugar's facilities
16 in March of '94 (indicating).
17 MR. GAINES: Is this one Number Eight or
18 Nine?
19 MR. MACFARLANE: That's Number Eight
20 (indicating).
21 THE WITNESS: Yes. This list has-- I
22 can't see say whether this is all inclusive or
23 exclusive, but this is a similar list to the one we
24 observed and talked about previously (indicating).
25 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
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1 Q. Doctor Coale, let me direct your
2 attention to page five (indicating).
3 A. Page five?
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. (Witness complies.)
6 Okay.
7 Q. And let me ask you to describe what you
8 see there (indicating).
9 A. This looks like a drawing depicting the
10 laser leveler operated in a field, to give an idea
11 how laser leveling equipment makes the soil surface
12 plat, compared to some other method, without laser.
13 Q. Is this a settlement control BMP?
14 A. Yes, I believe it could be.
15 Q. How would it work as a sediment control
16 BMP?
17 A. If you had an underlying terrain, you
18 tend to have drainage canals on the surface and rain
19 water collected on the surface, channeled through
20 the drainiage paths, and through the action of the
21 water, would carry down sediment, down to the ditch.
22 Q. That's basically erosion?
23 A. Yes. I'll agree with that.
24 Q. Do you know if laser leveling of fields
25 is being implemented in the EAAs?
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1 A. Laser leveling is very common in the
2 EAA.
3 Q. Has it been common for a period of time?
4 Do you know?
5 A. It's been more widely used, I believe,
6 in the vegetable industry than in the sugar cane
7 industry.
8 Q. Let me ask you just generally about this
9 document, exhibit seven.
10 Do you have any idea when this
11 particular collection of material was produced?
12 I don't see a date on there, but what is
13 your understanding, if you have one, about this
14 (indicating)?
15 A. I don't really know when this was
16 produced.
17 MR. GAINES: When you guys are talking
18 about produced, you are talking about when this
19 document was created, as opposed to to discovery?
20 MR. MACFARLANE: I apologize. I'm sorry.
21 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
22 Q. Do you understand when this was created?
23 A. I don't know when this was created.
24 Q. Do you have any idea for what purpose it
25 was created?
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1 A. There was a presentation given by Mr.
2 Andreis at the American Society of Agronomy
3 meetings, and-- in November of '93, which he-- I
4 didn't attend the presentation, but from talking to
5 people who were there, etcetera, some of these
6 topics were covered.
7 Whether it was prepared prior to that, I
8 can't say, but I think some of these topics were
9 talked about at that meeting.
10 Q. Let me ask-- let's move on to page
11 seven, use of cover crops to reduce wind and water
12 soil erosion.
13 Based on your understanding of the EAA,
14 is wind erosion common?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Primarily on fallow fields or--
17 A. They would be a prime candidate for wind
18 erosion, and, of course, when you have a field that
19 isn't fallow but just recently planted, but doesn't
20 have a standing vegetative mat there to block the
21 wind, you can have serious big broad clouds of dust
22 blown up in the air, serious wind erosion.
23 Q. So use of cover crops to reduce wind and
24 water soil erosion, is mentioned here as a sediment
25 control BMP; is that correct?
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1 A. Yes, it could be.
2 Q. Is it-- what cover crops would you--
3 would be used for that purpose?
4 A. A wide variety of crops could be used.
5 Growing across-- rice crop is a cover
6 crop, even though it has other production uses,
7 also.
8 You can grow any variety of plants,
9 grass, whatever, as long as it didn't become a pest
10 and didn't interfere with your overall production
11 plans for that field.
12 Were you to use aquatic cover crops,
13 like rice, for example, there really wouldn't be
14 much difference between the use of the rice and--
15 you would be doing the same thing, as--
16 A. You would be doing the same thing.
17 Q. So wind and water erosion prevention,
18 would be an added benefit, correct?
19 A. An added benefit--
20 Q. For the use of aquatic--
21 A. Yes, alone with-- but--
22 Q. Please continue.
23 A. Aquatic cover crops is just one example.
24 There are all types of crops you could
25 use, that wouldn't be aquatic crops, that would fall
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1 into the rice crop scheme that's laid out in the BMP
2 plan.
3 Q. Have you got sort of examples of aquatic
4 and non-aquatic cover crops being used in the EAA?
5 A. No, I haven't.
6 Q. When you went out to U.S. Sugar's
7 research-- visited with the U.S. Sugar research team
8 in 1994, did you have occasion to discuss this
9 particular sediment control BMP?
10 Do you recall?
11 A. I believe we did discuss it.
12 Q. Were you shown any examples of this
13 particular BMP or told of any examples of this BMP
14 being implemented, that you recall?
15 A. I believe we did talk about it, and I
16 believe they showed me some data pertaining to it.
17 We went through a long list of
18 practices, and we looked at data being collected off
19 of a list of practices.
20 I'm not sure we-- they were all
21 representative, but I believe this one was.
22 MR. GAINES: I think that's among the
23 documents that we have produced, and it might be
24 among these three exhibits that we have just marked.
25 THE WITNESS: It may be in that Number
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1 Nine there (indicating).
2 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
3 Q. I tell you what-- let's go ahead and go
4 through Numbers Eight and Nine, and see if we can
5 speed things along, and using these in conjunction
6 with each other.
7 Let me ask you, Doctor Coale, if you can
8 identify what's marked as Exhibit Number Eight
9 (indicating).
10 A. I have seen this.
11 Q. Could you tell me what it is?
12 A. What it is, is a list of data tables, of
13 data collected off of experiments evaluating
14 sediment control BMPs, versus non-BMPs.
15 Q. Did you-- do you know who produced these
16 data sheets?
17 A. Yes. I believe these data sheets were
18 produced by the university research-- sugar research
19 department.
20 Q. Did you see these sheets?
21 A. When you visited-- did you see these
22 sheets when you visited the U.S. Sugar--
23 A. I believe we had them prior to that.
24 MR. KOBELINSKI: Just for whatever it's
25 worth, there were a series or stack of documents
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1 provided to Doctor Coale, prior to his going down to
2 visit with those guys, and he may have gotten one or
3 two additional documents while he was there, and I
4 frankly couldn't tell you the--
5 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
6 Q. I'm just trying to get an understanding
7 of the time frame which you received this document.
8 A. That was about spring of '94, I think.
9 Q. That was about a month or so ago?
10 A. I--
11 MR. GAINES: I think most of the U.S.
12 Sugar documents that were produced to-- were
13 provided to Doctor Coale prior to his going down to
14 meet with the U.S. Sugar research people.
15 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
16 Q. To get you up to speed, what was going
17 on with--
18 A. That would make the best use of my time.
19 Q. Did you have occasion to review these
20 documents with members of the U.S. Sugar research
21 team, while you were there?
22 A. Yes, we did.
23 Q. Now, let me just, so we've got all our
24 cards on the table here, ask you if you can identify
25 what's been marked as Exhibit Number Nine
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1 (indicating).
2 A. Yes. This is very similar to the one
3 marked as Number Eight (indicating).
4 It's, again, a series of data tables,
5 looking at sediment control BMPs, versus non-BMPs.
6 Q. I note on the first page of Exhibit
7 Nine, the bottom left-hand corner, more or less, is
8 what appears to be a date, 2-24-94.
9 Do you have any understanding of the
10 significance of that date?
11 A. No.
12 Q. You don't know if that's the date which
13 these data sheets were prepared, or--
14 A. I don't know what that date is.
15 Q. Let's see if we can go back now and
16 coordinate here.
17 We were talking about, a moment ago,
18 the-- the use of cover crops to reduce wind and soil
19 erosion.
20 I want to direct your attention, Doctor
21 Coale, to Exhibit Eight, and item five, or the sheet
22 that's numbered five at the top, and for the record,
23 you-- for the record, Exhibit Eight, the cover sheet
24 of Exhibit Eight, has what appears to be a list of
25 16 sediment control BMPs.
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1 Is that correct? If you look at the
2 front page, are those all sediment control BMPs?
3 A. Give me a chance to look down the list.
4 Q. Sure, take your time (indicating).
5 A. They look like they ought to be
6 construed as sediment control BMPs, and some, but
7 not all of these-- of the 16 BMPs itemized here,
8 have a check that has been-- what appears to be hand
9 entered on the left margin, and at the bottom is a
10 check, equals, data included.
11 Doctor Coale, do you have any
12 understanding of why only some sediment control BMPs
13 have data sheets here, and not the entire list of
14 16?
15 A. No. I don't know why.
16 Q. Would that-- would you think that-- is
17 it your understanding that those BMPs on this list
18 with checks next to them, are those BMPs that are
19 currently being implemented, or have been
20 implemented?
21 A. No. That's not my understanding.
22 My understanding is that from the
23 footnote, that check equals date, means that
24 included in this package that they put together
25 here, those are just the ones that have data tables
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1 included in this package.
2 Q. Do you know whether those BMPs that do
3 not have checks listed next to them?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Do you know whether there's been hard
6 data collected for those BMPs?
7 A. I don't know.
8 If the data is not presented, then
9 it's-- in this Exhibit Number Nine, I probably
10 haven't seen it.
11 Q. Okay. Fair enough.
12 Now, let's go on and talk about number
13 five, which appears, in fact, as the fourth sheet,
14 in use of cover crops to reduce wind and water soil
15 erosion.
16 MR. KOBELINSKI: Actually, I think it's
17 several pages.
18 That sheet, is either three pages-- that
19 sheet and the three pages after that, all relate to
20 that. It's not just one sheet.
21 MR. MACFARLANE: I stand corrected. Thank
22 you, counsel.
23 MR. GAINES: Just to keep things clear.
24 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
25 Q. Let me ask you what your understanding
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1 is of the use of wheat as a sediment control BMP in
2 the area of cover crop, based upon your
3 understanding of sediment control BMPs and the first
4 of these papers?
5 The one that's hand lettered five at the
6 top, what is your understanding of what this data
7 sheet, for example, purports to show?
8 A. Okay. There's six enumerated pages at
9 the top, which basically gives a brief description
10 of how the data was collected and what the
11 treatments were, and then there's a table headed by
12 the heading, results, that shows sediment, pounds of
13 soil per acre per day which was collected in these
14 collection points that were set out in the field--
15 one field had-- one treatment having no wheat cover
16 crop, and the one being a fallow field-- one with
17 the wheat cover crop, showed an average mean pounds
18 of soil collected in those areas, which presumed to
19 be collected from airborne wind erosion, airborne
20 particulates, and wheat, 24 hours per day, and for
21 the fallow field, it was 89.8, and the next column
22 over, a percent reduction of the 24 pounds from
23 the-- it was a 73.2 reduction in the air
24 transported, I guess you call it, sediments, across
25 these fields.
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1 Q. Let me ask you, did you actually go out
2 and visit or go to the site where this experiment or
3 this activity was underway?
4 A. No.
5 Q. So you don't know, do you, where the
6 sampling pans were placed in each wheat field or in
7 the fallow field?
8 A. No, I don't.
9 Q. If you were going to design an
10 experiment or a test to evaluate the use of this
11 particular cover crop, would you design it in this
12 way, having six sampling pans in the control field
13 and in the wheat field?
14 A. I-- it's not a bad procedure.
15 It's-- I have to be careful here, by--
16 what I think as an academic scientist-- we try to do
17 everything very strictly by the book, if you will,
18 and very rigorously, and other researchers who have
19 like, missions, say, other than academic, may have a
20 different procedure that they will follow, okay?
21 And sometimes they-- they find
22 conclusions maybe the same, and sometimes not.
23 If I was to set this up from my academic
24 background, academic status, I-- six sampling sites
25 within a field is good.
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1 I would have done several tests, each
2 treatment over a time period-- I would have made
3 this a huge study, which time and resources may not
4 have been available to look at this.
5 Q. Well, let me ask you, line five on this
6 page, reads "After seven days, the pans were
7 collected for other dry soil determinations."
8 From your perspective as an academic
9 scientist and researcher, would you regard seven
10 days as a sufficiently long period of time to
11 collect samples for analyses on a--
12 A. It very well could be, depending on the
13 weather patterns, if there is-- a seven day period
14 of time, done five times during the year, may have
15 be a better sample, or may not have been.
16 Q. Do you know if these results are based
17 on more than one seven day observation period?
18 A. I don't recall, and in riding over this
19 brief outline, it doesn't say.
20 I don't recall. I don't know.
21 Q. Let's go and look at the table here
22 (indicating).
23 A. Okay.
24 Q. The table gives mean pounds soil per
25 acre per day, forever wheat, as 24 pounds.
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. With a mean reduction of 83.2.
3 How do you interpret that mean
4 reduction?
5 Mean reduction from what? Let's put it
6 that way.
7 A. I interpret that to be the mean
8 reduction in the amount of soil moved by wind, of--
9 of what's collected in the wheat field, versus what
10 was collected in the fallow field.
11 Q. Do you know if these fields were
12 adjoining fields?
13 A. I don't know.
14 Q. Doctor Coale, are you-- are you
15 familiar-- let me put it this way: Do you understand
16 the weather patterns in the EAA or throughout the
17 Everglades area, to be highly variable?
18 A. Yes, highly variable.
19 Q. Would it make a difference whether you
20 had fields that were in an area such as this--
21 fields that were widely separated, or that had
22 joined one and another, in order to test the
23 erosion?
24 A. Yes. You would want them close together,
25 regardless of what assessment you are doing or what
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1 I are trying to show.
2 I want to make all the factors as equal
3 as possible, so knowing that there's a difference in
4 climactic conditions across the EAA, you would want
5 to elimiate that, but most of these go--
6 Q. Do you understand the assumption from
7 this table, to be that the 27.2 percent mean
8 reduction given here, is 73.2 percent of the 89.8
9 pounds soil per acre per day, for the fallow field?
10 A. Yes. As I understand it, without
11 punching up the numbers and calculating the
12 difference between those two numbers, is-- there's a
13 73.2 percent reduction.
14 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
15 (Thereupon a lunch recess was
16 taken in the deposition, after which
17 the deposition continued as follows:)
18 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
19 Q. Back on the record.
20 Good afternoon, Doctor Coale.
21 What I think I would like to do is focus
22 on Exhibit Eight, I believe, and--
23 MR. GAINES: Okay.
24 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
25 Q. And not trying to keep all these things
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1 juggling in the air at the same time.
2 I have one last question to ask you or I
3 have some questions to ask you about the data sheet
4 we were looking at before we broke for lunch.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. This is the first of the data sheets
7 marked five at the top.
8 It pertains to the mean percentage
9 reduction figure of 73.2 percent that is given in
10 the table.
11 That is a mean reduction in soil; is
12 that correct?
13 A. That's mean reduction in the amount of
14 soil collected in those pans, the way I understand
15 it.
16 Q. That is the custom it follows, then,
17 that 73.2 percent figure is not a mean reduction in
18 particulates or any other kind of phosphorus?
19 A. No. I don't think it is.
20 It's a pound of soil.
21 Q. Do you know whether that soil was ever
22 tested for phosphorus?
23 A. I don't know.
24 Q. Let's go on.
25 As long as we're talking about cover
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1 crops, let's go on to the next data sheet in the
2 set.
3 This titled Cover Crops to Reduce Soil
4 Entering Canals, Sorghum Sudan.
5 What's sorghum sudan?
6 A. It's a species of grass.
7 Q. Did you have occasion to discuss this
8 particular data sheet when you were out at U.S.
9 Sugar in March of 1993?
10 A. I believe we did.
11 Q. Can you describe for me what the
12 experiment was that-- or the tests that this data
13 sheet reflects?
14 A. I believe this was a very similar one to
15 the wheat study that preceded it.
16 I'm reading through the details that are
17 numbers, one, two, three, four, to see what
18 differences there were.
19 I-- it looks like it was similar
20 (indicating).
21 Q. Let me ask you, under the numbered
22 paragraph two--
23 A. Uh-hum.
24 Q. The last sentences, two sites per field
25 were done two times, but further study was stopped
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1 due to the rain.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Do you know when these two sites per
4 field were done?
5 A. Well, let's see. The sorghum was planted
6 June 23, 1992, and the sorghum was 12 to 18 inches
7 high.
8 I don't have the growth set for sorghum
9 in my brain, but 12, 18 inches-- I would say the
10 summer of 1991.
11 Q. Do you think-- do you know if the
12 experiment was continued after the indication here,
13 that it had been stopped because of rain?
14 A. I don't know.
15 Q. In paragraph four, it states, "Samples
16 were collected and processed twice."
17 What would it prove to process the
18 samples twice?
19 A. The way it's phrased, it was a little
20 ambiguous. It can mean one of two things, the way I
21 read it, is that three samples were collected and
22 then analyzed, two controls, a replicate analysis,
23 so there were two entirely separate sets of samples
24 collected, and each of those were sampled ones.
25 Q. And the table indicates a mean reduction
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1 of 35 percent in terms of pounds per soil acre per
2 day; is that correct?
3 A. That's what it looks like, yes.
4 Q. And again, you-- do you know whether the
5 soil was tested for phosphorus?
6 A. I don't know.
7 Q. At the bottom it indicates, just below
8 the table, that-- it reads, sampled over a ten day
9 period.
10 Do you have any indication what time of
11 the year that ten days happened to be?
12 A. Well, presumably from your previous
13 question, I thought-- the study was probably done in
14 the summer of '92, so ten day period, sometime-- the
15 sorghum was planted June 23rd, and given time for
16 sorghum to grow 12 to 18 inches, so it was, like,
17 late July.
18 I'm just speculating.
19 Q. That's speculation on your part?
20 A. Yes. I would have to say--
21 Q. If you were designing an experiment to
22 use this particular variety of sorghum as a cover
23 crop to reduce sediment--
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Erosion, would you think that a sampling
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1 period of ten days would be sufficient to yield
2 results that you would have some confidence in?
3 MR. GAINES: Object to the form.
4 MR. MACFARLANE: You can go ahead and
5 answer.
6 THE WITNESS: Okay. It--
7 MR. GAINES: Go ahead. I was going to
8 tell you what my objection was, but I won't, if you
9 don't care.
10 MR. GAINES: You can go ahead and tell
11 the-- when you say if you were to design an
12 experiment, I don't know if you're talking about an
13 experiment of unlimited resources and interest-- the
14 ultimate experiment-- I don't think you have given
15 him enough of the parameters to--
16 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
17 Q. If you were designing an experiment to
18 test the reliability of this particular form of
19 cover crop--
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Given the kinds of constraints you
22 underwent up at the University of Florida--
23 A. Okay.
24 Q. Would you be satisfied with a sample
25 over a ten day period? Would that be sufficient, in
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1 your point of view?
2 A. If I was to do these in my role as an
3 academic researcher, it would have been a better
4 experiment, and-- incorporating more factors and
5 looking at more factors than are in here.
6 For example, this ten day period, it
7 would have been reasonable to-- let me say, I think
8 ten days is a reasonable period, but I might have
9 been interested in doing a five day sample, 10, 15,
10 and 20 day sample. They may have told me the same
11 thing, or there may have been a difference in the
12 duration, and if you only have a-- the time or
13 resources or what have you, to do a one-shot
14 estimate, trying to get some useful data that could
15 be, in their case, incorporated into production
16 practices, try to guide them, ten days is a
17 reasonable time period to look at.
18 Q. So you would agree that the 35 percent
19 reduction figure that's given in this table, is a
20 reduction of a one-shot test?
21 A. Yes. This is-- this experiment is done
22 one way.
23 Q. Let's move on to the next data sheet,
24 Cover Crops to Reduce Soil Entering Canals: Airborne
25 Soil Entering Canal Water in Fallow Versus Ratoon
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1 Cane.
2 Do you have any understanding of how
3 this particular experiment was conducted?
4 A. I don't recall talking about this one.
5 We may or may not have talked about it.
6 I can read through here and tell you
7 what it says on paper, but this one, I don't recall
8 (indicating).
9 Q. All right. Let's move on to the next
10 one.
11 A. Okay.
12 Q. Cover crops to reduce soil entering
13 canals: Fallow Versus Ratoon Cane, Water Sampled
14 After Rains for Particulate Phosphorus.
15 Do you have any recollection of having
16 discussed this particular experiment?
17 A. No. This is very similar to the other
18 one. I don't recall either one of them.
19 Q. Can you tell from either of these two
20 experiments, just looking at what is on the page,
21 what time of the year or what season these
22 experiments were conducted?
23 A. Let's see. Looking at the one that has
24 the 5-6 written at the top--
25 Q. Yes.
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1 A. It's stubble cane, which means ratoon
2 cane, stubble cane, one to two feet tall, so you
3 would expect that would be sometime in-- depending
4 on when it was-- they plant cane-- the earlier
5 stubble crop was harvested, but one to two foot
6 stubble could be any time from, I guess-- any time,
7 approximately, December through April.
8 Q. It says in paragraph three, "Five paired
9 fields, up to 14 sample dates per field over a two
10 month period in spring."
11 A. Okay. I said December-- that's about
12 roughly the time, yes.
13 Q. And what about the next page?
14 Can you-- do you see any indication
15 there of--
16 A. The same information about how tall the
17 stubble cane was, and again, that's relative to when
18 the canals-- I have no--
19 Q. Are you on this particular one--
20 A. I have no information.
21 Q. The results on this one, indicate a
22 reduction of 29.4 percent in particulate phosphorus
23 from ratoon cane, with a 90 percent confidence level
24 (indicating).
25 A. Uh-hum.
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1 Q. From your standpoint as a researcher, is
2 a 90 percent confidence level, one equivalent to
3 statistical significance?
4 A. This is a common used level, statistical
5 significance.
6 Q. Is-- generally, from looking at this
7 particular data sheet, what's going on here, simply
8 leaving the stubble cane on the field?
9 Is that what's happening here?
10 A. I think it's even more simple than
11 that.
12 I think we're just looking at, trying to
13 document what the particulate phosphorus
14 concentration on a fallow field, versus ratoon
15 field.
16 In other words, they are saying if
17 there's a ratoon crop out there, we have a 29.4
18 percent lower concentration.
19 Q. So this wouldn't be a best management
20 practice, would it?
21 A. Yes, it was.
22 Q. In what respect?
23 A. Because there's two different ways sugar
24 cane is planted. One is called the-- has several
25 different names, fallow planting system and
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1 successive planting system.
2 The fallow planting, a more traditional
3 system, you plant the sugar cane. It grows for 15
4 months or so, you havest it, and the stubble grows
5 back, and then-- so forth, until three or four
6 cycles, whatever, and when one of your last crops,
7 your yields are starting to decline, you're trying
8 to rest that crop, you-- and that land is prepared
9 fallow, left fallow until planted again, so that
10 fallow planting-- it's-- when you come back and
11 plant, you're planting new fallow land.
12 The other system, after your last ratoon
13 harvest, you very quickly prepare that filed and
14 replant it that same winter, so you don't have that
15 open planting.
16 If this is a viable BMP, saying we have
17 less phosphorus concentrations on ratoon cane land
18 than fallow land, then planting more of your area in
19 the successive planting system, would be a practice
20 that would be beneficial.
21 Q. So the implication here is simply you
22 wouldn't leave a field fallow for a lengthy period
23 of time?
24 A. Right.
25 Q. Now, let's go on to the next page.
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1 This one is-- has a seven written at the
2 top, and it's entitled, Use Sumps with a Discharge
3 Pipe to Minimize Sediments in Water Runoff from Farm
4 Land.
5 Doctor Coale, what is your understanding
6 of this sediment BMP?
7 A. What this refers to is surface water
8 will run off of a field-- with a heavy rainstorm, it
9 will run off, and a lot of runoff is carried with
10 it, and-- soil, and a sump is a depression, and
11 whereas that water will collect there, the sediment
12 will collect there, and I believe there's a pipe
13 coming out of the sump at the field edge, and what
14 this is, a pipe that-- the opening to the pipe is
15 above the surface of the soil.
16 Q. Would it help-- sorry to interrupt you.
17 Would it help to refer to this diagram
18 (indicating)?
19 A. Yes. That basically is it.
20 Q. For the record, this is from Exhibit
21 Seven, I believe; is that correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And it is page 21, the diagram on page
24 21.
25 A. Let me get my own copy here
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1 (indicating).
2 So what happens is, as the water
3 collects in the sump, of course, the sediment is
4 heavier, and it settles to the bottom, and the
5 water, it cascades over the top of the standpipe,
6 and relatively little sediment goes out to the
7 drainage ditch, and limits the bulk of it to the
8 drop in the field.
9 Q. Would implementation of this, call for
10 operation maintenance procedures to keep the pipes
11 clear or keep the sediment from building up too
12 much?
13 A. Eventually, but I think it's pretty
14 minor.
15 Q. Why is that?
16 A. Because a well maintained farm, they
17 should be going through and cleaning out these
18 ditches periodically, anyway, and it would be a very
19 simple procedure, once a pipe is enclosed, you come
20 through with a backhoe, you just clean that out.
21 You know, slightly different, but very
22 little difference.
23 Q. What does this data sheet on this
24 particular BMP tell you?
25 Can you basically run through it with
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1 me?
2 A. The data there?
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. It looks like they measure the amount of
5 sediment, the mass of sediment that's left with the
6 water leaving the field, one treatment being where
7 there is no sump, and apparently just the water
8 coming off the edge of the field, and the other,
9 where there's a sump and pipe apparatus installed,
10 and it looks like with the sump, the mean mass of
11 sediment per liter was 10.8 grams of sediment, and
12 with the sump, the sediment was 2.6 grams per liter,
13 which leads to a reduction of 79.8 percent reduction
14 in sediment loss per liter.
15 Q. Do you know if that was analyzed for
16 phosphorus?
17 A. No, unless it says in here, I don't
18 know.
19 Q. Did you actually go out into the field
20 and see this in action, or visit a farm field where
21 these-- this particular BMP had been installed?
22 A. No. This one we did not see.
23 We did see some pictures, some
24 photographs, that were taken of this, in place.
25 Q. And based on those photographs, it would
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1 be your understanding that this particular BMP is
2 currently being implemented?
3 A. I can't say.
4 I can say, at least one spot where they
5 took a picture of it.
6 Q. Do you know roughly, where the farm
7 field was that was used to generate this data sheet?
8 A. All I know, it was on organic-- well,
9 the Ritta farm, at the top line--
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. I don't have a U.S. Sugar map committed
12 to memory, but it's one of these parcels-- it's
13 pretty much central of their properties, kind of in
14 the middle.
15 Q. Would the-- would this BMP be used for
16 discharge of sediment laden water into the ditch or
17 into a maintenance canal, into a farm canal?
18 A. I would anticipate it would be a-- into
19 a field ditch.
20 Q. Is there any indication here, or do you
21 know when this BMP test was undertaken?
22 A. No. I don't know when it was done.
23 Q. Let's move to the next one (indicating).
24 This one has-- is numbered eight at the
25 top, and it is entitled Use Sumps with a Discharge
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1 Pipe, to Minimize Sediment in Runoff From Swales
2 Between Fields and Roads.
3 Just for the uninitiated readers of this
4 deposition, what is a swale?
5 A. A swale is a depression.
6 If you were walking from a road into the
7 field, you would go down a small incline, back up--
8 a bowl shaped depression at the end of the field.
9 Q. What is your understanding of this
10 particular sediment control BMP?
11 A. I think this is very, very similar to
12 the one we just discussed.
13 I'm just thinking-- I'm-- on Exhibit
14 Seven, page 19 and page 21, even though they have
15 different diagrams of the-- these two are very, very
16 similar.
17 Q. Would you say, in effect, these are the
18 same BMPs?
19 A. The same theory.
20 They look like they have a slightly
21 different application, but they have the same
22 resulting effect.
23 Q. Turning back to the data sheet--
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. It indicates, in paragraph one, that the
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1 experiment was performed at the Ritta farm, again.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Under-- on paragraph three, there-- it
4 reads, "The rain event began 6:00 a.m., 1-25-93, and
5 ended 10:00 a.m., 1-26-93, 1.7 inches total."
6 Do you know whether the samples or--
7 yes, the samples were taken on other occasions?
8 A. I don't know that, whether they were or
9 not.
10 Q. So would you agree that this data sheet
11 gives the impression that this is-- the measurements
12 were simply made after a single rain event?
13 A. Yes. That's the impression that I get.
14 Q. Again, the table here on this data
15 sheet, indicates a reduction in sediment per liter,
16 on the order of 28.5 percent, between the drain with
17 no sump, and with a sump, and-- is it your
18 understanding that that 28.5 percent is not a
19 measurement in reduction of phosphorus?
20 A. I understand that to be a measurment
21 and-- of an amount of sediment.
22 Q. Let's move on to the next-- this is
23 numbered nine at the top, and it's entitled Sumps
24 Upstream from Culverts.
25 What is your understanding, if you have
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1 one, of this BMP, that--
2 A. The way I understand it, the field ditch
3 outlet, that is-- that's typically a culvert that
4 the water flows through to go into the main farm
5 water canal, and apparently the study here, and I
6 looked at it-- enlarging the size-- not the size,
7 but the depth of the drainage canal-- of the field
8 drainage ditch upstream from the culvert, and
9 attempt to drain some of the-- that water flow to
10 the draining ditch, but it goes out into the culvert
11 and out into the drainage canal.
12 Q. Would that be essentially using the
13 drainage ditch as a sediment trap?
14 A. Yes, that section of the drainage ditch
15 which was enlarged.
16 Q. Do you see any indication here on this
17 particular data sheet, of how often samples were
18 taken over-- how many samples were taken over time?
19 A. Over time?
20 I can't find any indication about the
21 consideration of the--
22 Q. Paragraph five reads, "Pumping started
23 after 2.5 inch rain."
24 Would it appear to you that the results
25 that are reported in these tables, are the results
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1 obtained after a single 2.5 inch rain?
2 A. That's the assumption that I would have
3 to draw.
4 Q. If you were recommending-- well, let me
5 ask you this question first: Would you recommend any
6 of these sump forms of sediment control BMP to
7 farmers in the EAA, as one particular way of
8 reducing phosphorus loading?
9 A. I would say that they have merit, and
10 they should be investigated.
11 They-- it's tough to stand behind a
12 measurement of one time, but that still is a very
13 good indication that there's great potential that it
14 could be successful, and it should be-- efforts to
15 investigate it, if they are successful, expanded.
16 Q. So let me see if I can be clear about
17 what you're saying.
18 Are you saying that you would feel on
19 the basis of the three sump applications, that you
20 would feel confident about running further studies?
21 A. Depending on the time frame you had to
22 work with, where there's two days to do studies, one
23 day to do studies, so forth.
24 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
25 (Thereupon a recess was taken
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1 in the deposition, after which
2 the deposition continued as follows:)
3 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
4 Q. Doctor Coale, let me return to my
5 question. I'm not sure you got an answer in before
6 we took a brief break, and my question was, just to
7 be clear, we looked at three different versions of
8 sediment control BMPs, involving the use of sumps.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Based upon the data that we have gone
11 through on these three data sheets, am I correct in
12 understanding that you would feel confident,
13 recommending that these sump BMPs, were worthy of
14 further testing?
15 A. I--
16 Q. Based upon what you reviewed in these
17 data sheets?
18 A. Definitely, for the-- further testing, I
19 think I started-- I don't-- depending on the time
20 frame you had to work in, you can test while
21 implementing, because they are very-- it's easy to
22 do this kind of testing, and you may find out they
23 are not worth doing.
24 You can put them in and attempt them on
25 the run, and if they they don't run, stop them.
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1 Q. Do you have-- well, let's go down and
2 look at the one, numbered nine.
3 At the bottom, there is a lower table
4 that reads, "Phosphorus in drainage water from sugar
5 cane field ditches with and without a sump. Ditches
6 not drained to the bottom."
7 And could you tell me what you
8 understand this table to say?
9 A. That looks like the phosphorus, the
10 chemical analysis of the water that was collected
11 and reported in the table above.
12 I would-- now, without digging deeply
13 into this--
14 Q. As opposed to sediment?
15 A. Right. The first table on that paper, is
16 the mass of sediment per liter of water, and the
17 second, concentration of phosphorus per liter
18 (indicating).
19 It is listed as either total phosphorus
20 or particulate phosphorus.
21 Q. And I note the table indicates the
22 number of observations as being 12.
23 Do you have any understanding of when
24 these 12 observations occurred?
25 A. I-- on number four above there. And
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1 number four, it indicates when they were collected.
2 The-- auto samples were used to collect them during
3 the drainage event.
4 Q. Do you have any idea when these drainage
5 events were occurring?
6 A. No. After a rain, after a 2.5 inch rain,
7 but we don't know when that was.
8 Q. Do we know what year it was?
9 A. No, I don't.
10 Q. Would this be a-- would you think that
11 the figure, or the figures of 26 and 54 percent
12 reductions of total P and particulate P,
13 respectively, that are given in the lower table,
14 are-- would you think that those figures might be
15 different, depending upon the amount of rain during
16 a-- during a rain event or drainage event?
17 I guess another way of asking the
18 question, would the amount of rain have an influence
19 on these figures?
20 A. Oh, yes.
21 We publish data that is shown. From
22 event to event, there's a big variation in what you
23 measure.
24 Usually the difference is, the data we
25 published that we talked about this morning, that is
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1 in those manuscripts. The relative difference has
2 totaled up pretty consistently, but absolute
3 magnitude of total P were highly variable.
4 Q. Can you tell from this table, whether
5 the percentage reduction in total phosphorus and
6 particulate phosphorus, represents means or medians,
7 or just a total reduction?
8 A. The way data like this is usually
9 presented, would be a reduction of the-- between the
10 means.
11 Q. Okay.
12 A. Again, I haven't gone back and checked
13 these calculations, but I would-- that would be my
14 first thought about how it would have been--
15 Q. Would you agree that it doesn't indicate
16 that on this?
17 A. No, but it would be easy to check with a
18 calculator.
19 Q. Let's flip the page, and we have another
20 table that says, "Phosphorus in drainage water from
21 sugar cane field ditches, with and without a sump,
22 ditch drained to the bottom."
23 And my question is, what difference does
24 it make where you drain the ditch to the bottom or
25 not, in implementing this BMP?
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1 A. Well, usually you are draining the ditch
2 down, and-- the lower you get to the bottom, the
3 more sediment you are pulling with the drainage
4 water, which it makes sense on a practical basis;
5 therefore, in the first table you're referring to,
6 if they don't drain to the bottom, you expect the
7 total concentration of phosphorus, especially
8 particulate numbers to be lower, than if you drain
9 to the bottom, bottom, and they are, in this case.
10 And with some reductions, you would
11 expect to be-- if the sump was effective, you expect
12 the percent reductions to be greater, than if you
13 drained it all the way to the bottom, than if you
14 just drained it partially.
15 Q. Have you seen this particular sump in
16 action, as it were, out of the EAA?
17 A. We saw some fields-- of course it wasn't
18 a rainy day when we were there, and we weren't
19 pumping, but-- you're looking down into-- we didn't
20 go put on scuba gear and go down and investigate,
21 but they showed us several sites where sumps had
22 been installed.
23 Q. Do you know how long this particular
24 practice has been going on in the EAA?
25 A. This experiment?
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1 Q. Yes.
2 A. I don't know what the duration of this
3 experiment was.
4 Q. Do you know if it's still going on?
5 MR. GAINES: Are you--
6 MR. MACFARLANE: Sorry. Let me clarify
7 what this is.
8 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
9 Q. I'm talking about strictly about the
10 sediment control BMP, using a sump, as described on
11 that page.
12 MR. GAINES: You're talking about the
13 practice, that practice by farmers, in general, as
14 opposed to this expermental data gathering?
15 MR. MACFARLANE: Well, let's do both.
16 MR. GAINES: I was just confused.
17 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
18 Q. As far as the experiment is concerned,
19 do you know whether it's still ongoing?
20 A. I don't know.
21 Something like a sump, unless you
22 physically fill it in and got rid of the sump,
23 it's-- that has happened, and-- probably still
24 there, but on an experimental basis, I don't know if
25 the experiments are going any further, in a
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1 practical-- on a general farming community basis. I
2 don't know if they are still ongoing or not.
3 Q. Let's move along to number 10, parallel
4 canal, and tell me what your understanding is of
5 parallel canal as a sediment control BMP.
6 A. What a parallel canal is, is you would--
7 you have your main farm drainage canal, and you
8 would excavate an additional canal for a given
9 length, parallel and in close proximity.
10 I don't remember how far they were
11 apart, maybe 50 feet, a hundred feet, right around
12 there.
13 And what you would do, you would-- you
14 would have-- you have a pump in-- in the main,
15 existing main farm canal, that would pump water
16 through the parallel canal, which is a short length
17 of canal that was at a higher elevation than the
18 main pump canal.
19 Q. Let me stop you. Just so this is clear
20 in my mind, this parallel canal, would it be between
21 the main farm canal and the field ditch, field
22 ditches?
23 A. It--
24 Q. Or would it be outside?
25 A. It would be independent of the field
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1 ditches.
2 Think of it as a trough, like a watering
3 trough that was set parallel to the main farm canal,
4 roughly the same width and some given length.
5 So that the parallel canal was excavated
6 and--
7 Q. Yes.
8 A. So water could be pumped from the main
9 farm canal, as it was going toward the outlet from
10 the farm, up on to-- into this trough, this parallel
11 canal, and then it would, because the materials
12 are-- weren't impervious, it would slowly trickle
13 and percolate through the broken rock and soil that
14 the parallel canal trough was made out of, and that
15 water would eventually go back into the main canal,
16 hopefully leaving a lot of the sediment behind in
17 this canal, or in the rock fragments.
18 Q. And you would use the head differential
19 between the trough, as you would describe it, and
20 how that seepage would occur, back into--
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Okay. Would the trough or the parallel
23 canal, have to be cleaned on a regular basis, in
24 order to continue to function?
25 A. I guess it depends on how big it is.
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1 I guess in theory, you can make it big
2 enough, you never had to, theoretically, but if you
3 made it too small, you would have to.
4 Q. Did you have an opportunity to see this
5 particular BMP in action, as it were, out on the
6 EAA?
7 A. We saw it in static condition, because
8 again, we weren't in a drainage mode. There was no
9 pumping going on, except for the test.
10 We saw it, and it--
11 Q. Do you have any idea how long parallel
12 canals have been used out in the EAA for this
13 purpose?
14 A. I don't know of any of them that have
15 been used, except in this one instance.
16 This is the only one I have seen.
17 Q. I note on paragraph eight, it says, "We
18 will still have to calculate how fast and how much
19 water can be treated."
20 Is it your understanding from that, the
21 results that are reported on this data sheet, are
22 not final results, if you understand-- perhaps
23 that's not the best way of phrasing it.
24 A. Number seven above that says
25 approximately 5,000,000 gallons were pumped, so they
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1 collected this data off of 5,000,000 pumped gallons,
2 and my-- again, my intepretation was-- again, I
3 think what they are saying, they don't know what the
4 ultimate capacity of this thing is.
5 Q. I direct your attention to paragraph
6 five, samples were taken from 4-7-93 through
7 10-14-93.
8 A. Uh-hum.
9 Q. My understanding of the climate of South
10 Florida, would seem to suggest that that-- is that
11 primarily during the dry season or primarily during
12 the rainy season?
13 A. During the rainy season.
14 Q. Would you think that in paragraph six,
15 it indicates the 13 composite samples were taken--
16 would you think that 13 samples taken during that
17 time period, would-- would be sufficient to give you
18 confidence to recommend this particular BMP to
19 farmers?
20 A. That's a good data set.
21 There are 13 discrete samples taken at
22 different points, through that-- that's a pretty
23 good time period.
24 It gives you pretty good confidence in
25 this data.
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1 Q. Let's flip to the next one, number 12,
2 Construct Sediment Traps Upstream from Drainage
3 Pumps.
4 And the first paragraph indicates a
5 sediment trap was constructed during the winter of
6 1992, and-- Doctor Coale, do you know where this
7 sediment trap was constructed?
8 A. We visited it.
9 I was there. I don't know the name of
10 the parcel of land that it was put on, but it's--
11 it's in the EAA, due south of-- if I remember which
12 direction we were heading, south of South Bay,
13 Florida. In that area.
14 Maybe down, south of Lake Harbor.
15 I don't know.
16 Q. Can you explain to me with reference to
17 this particular experiment, how the sediment trap
18 operates?
19 A. Yes. This is a tremendous construction
20 project. This is a huge thing.
21 I think-- I can read it in here, the one
22 they built, is 250 feet upstream, 125 feet long.
23 That's downstream of the barrier, and-- so the whole
24 thing is 357 feet long.
25 What they have done, on a main farm
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1 canal, before you got to the off-farm pump facility,
2 that they have taken a section of the main farm
3 canal and enlarged its width and its depth, and
4 made, if you will, a great big swimming pool out
5 there and then down-- which is a sump, this huge
6 sump, and in the middle of it, I think-- not in the
7 middle, but one third of the way from-- from the
8 downstream end of it, they left a wall of rock that
9 they didn't excavate when they made the sump, so if
10 you were coming down the canal and tracing the
11 bottom surface, or the bottom contour of the
12 drainage canal as you're going from upstream in the
13 farm, downstream toward the pump station, you would
14 have your main farm canal, about-- at a normal
15 depth, and at a certain point, the canal depth would
16 drop, and I believe-- the way they explained it, was
17 eight to ten feet, something like that, deep, and
18 the width increased by three fold, and this large--
19 enlarged area continued for-- and this description
20 says 250 feet, and then there's a wall, vertical
21 wall, and it came up to the upper surface of the
22 wall, was below the surface of the water because of
23 the submerged wall, and that wall was of a certain
24 thickness, 12, 15 feet, the-- thick wall, and then
25 it dropped down again on the other side, so you had,
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1 like, this freestanding wall in the middle of this
2 big sump, and the theory being, as the water came
3 down the main farm canal, when it reached the pipe
4 where the volume increased, because the depth and
5 width was greater, the velocity of the water would
6 decrease, and as the velocity decreases, there's
7 more chance for sediment to fall out, because
8 there's less of a vector force carrying it
9 downstream.
10 That's the idea of-- behind this
11 enlarged sump area.
12 Further, as the sediment was dropping
13 out and the water moving downstream, encountered
14 this wall, the sediment would be physically
15 encouraged, I don't know if that's the proper term--
16 physically encouraged to drop down at the base of
17 that wall, and the water goes up and over, and the
18 water going to the pump, in theory, would have much
19 less sediment, than the sediment trap area.
20 Q. You say in theory.
21 Let me ask you, does the success or
22 ability of this particular sump to settle out--
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Particulate phosphorus, depends on the
25 rate of flow of the water?
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1 A. Yes. It does, yes, and one thing we
2 discussed in detail while we were there, was why
3 this size, and--
4 Q. And why this size?
5 A. I-- and it was-- from the information
6 they had available, was they thought it would work,
7 and I think these people are the first ones to
8 admit, if they see it's working a little bit, not as
9 much as they hope, it might be a matter of making it
10 a little bit bigger, and slow down the velocity--
11 Q. In other words, the point of making it
12 that big, is to slow down the velocity of the water
13 in the canal, so you would have the settling effect?
14 A. Yes. Right.
15 Q. Did you discuss the people who were
16 showing you this, the cost of constructing this
17 particular--
18 A. No.
19 Q. Sediment trap on this scale?
20 A. No. We didn't discuss costs of any of
21 these.
22 Q. But you described this as, I think you
23 said, huge project-- this would be-- would you guess
24 that this would be a much costlier project to
25 implement, than the sediment control BMPs we've been
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1 discussing up to this point?
2 A. Let me object to the form of the
3 question.
4 Asking the witness to guess.
5 MR. MACFARLANE: I will guess. I
6 shouldn't do that, and you shouldn't guess.
7 THE WITNESS: I'm not going to guess. I'm
8 not a civil engineer, and I don't know what it costs
9 to move a yard of rock, but--
10 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
11 Q. But it was a big project?
12 A. It was a big hole in the ground.
13 Q. Let's go to number 13 on the next page,
14 cleaned versus non-cleaned ditches.
15 And let me ask you, does a cleaning
16 ditch really come into play on all these sediment
17 control BMPs involving the sediment trap we've just
18 discussed, or the use of sumps or the use of
19 parallel canals or field ditches, as sediment traps?
20 Q. No. It's-- I think it's-- it comes into
21 play, but also of interest.
22 It can be its own practice, but-- I have
23 seen farm field ditches that are so plugged up with
24 sediment, they are desperately in need of a
25 cleaning, that they are very effective, even for
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1 water control, much less sediment control.
2 Q. Do you have any idea, based on your
3 research you have done or research you are aware of,
4 of how often it would be necessary to clean a ditch
5 so it can continue to function as a collector of
6 sediment?
7 A. I think it's highly variable across the
8 area.
9 Q. Let's go back to the first couple of
10 sediment control BMPs in this collection, and let me
11 ask you about the first one, which is actually
12 number three at the top, and it's entitled Ditch
13 Banks Stabilized by Vegetation, and can you tell me
14 a little bit about how this sediment control BMP
15 works?
16 A. Well, in the past, there's-- there's a
17 pretty concerted effort across the industry, to keep
18 ditch banks bare, because they harbor rodents and
19 pests and everything else, and-- but when you do
20 that, you are also subjecting them to be eroded by
21 rainwater and ditch water moving downstream, and
22 this was an attempt to compare a bare ditch bank
23 with one which had been sodded, so it had a solid
24 grass covering on it, and to look at the sediment
25 load in the drainage water of those two treatments.
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1 Q. And there is a table here, and-- which
2 gives percentage reductions, and let me just ask,
3 again, those percentage reductions are reductions of
4 sediment; are they not-- sediment content of
5 drainage water?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And they don't purport to report
8 reductions in particulate phosphorus?
9 A. That's-- phosphorus is not listed here,
10 no (indicating).
11 Q. Let's go to the next page (indicating).
12 It's-- it doesn't have a number. I
13 assume it's of the same variety, called grassed-in
14 stabilized ditch banks, and very briefly, Doctor
15 Coale, what is your understanding of this particular
16 practice?
17 Is this essentially the same as the one
18 you just looked at?
19 A. Very similar idea. I think the theory is
20 the same.
21 Q. What is paragrass?
22 A. Oh, a just a species of grass.
23 Q. Let's look at Exhibit Nine (indicating).
24 A. I don't have Nine.
25 Q. Here it is (indicating).
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1 A. Okay.
2 Q. Let me ask you to-- this is-- you have
3 already identified this particular exhibit. It's
4 titled Updated Data for Certain Sediment Control
5 BMPs.
6 Let me ask you, did you receive-- was
7 this among-- along with the other materials,
8 Exhibits Seven and Eight, part of the material you
9 received prior to visiting the U.S. Sugar research
10 facility in March?
11 A. As far as I remember, yes.
12 Q. And let's look at the first data set
13 recorded here, Grass Ditchbank Experiment at Ritta
14 Farm, and let me just ask you, in the table here--
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Which gives figures for total
17 phosphorus, total dissolved phosphorus and
18 particulate phosphorus-- the table indicates that
19 number of observations was 15 (indicating).
20 Is that correct?
21 A. That's correct.
22 Q. Do you have any knowledge or
23 understanding of when those 15 observations were
24 taken?
25 A. From what's presented here, no, I can't
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1 tell.
2 Q. The same question for the next table,
3 which is entitled field ditch sump experiment at
4 Ritta Farm.
5 A. No. There's no indication of times or
6 dates, what's on here (indicating).
7 Q. Same question for the ditch cleaning
8 experiment at Boy Farm (indicating).
9 A. No indication. No indication of time or
10 dates (indicating).
11 Q. How about the parallel canal experiment
12 at Vaughn Farm?
13 Do you have any indication of when these
14 observations were made?
15 A. No. There's no indication here.
16 Q. Let me ask you, with respect to this
17 one, or, indeed, any of these, would the results
18 of-- differ, depending upon the season, results,
19 meaning the figures for phosphorus that are given in
20 each of these tables?
21 Would these vary, according to season or
22 whether it was a wet year or dry year?
23 MR. GAINES: Object to the form, to the
24 extent it calls for speculation, but if it doesn't,
25 in your opinion, you can-- if you can answer it, you
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1 can answer it.
2 THE WITNESS: Phosphorus concentrations
3 do vary from season to season, from day to day, and
4 from drainage bank to drainage bank.
5 That's obvious from all of the published
6 information that's out there.
7 If in their number of observations-- for
8 example, there is 15 observations they collected
9 over 15 discrete points in time. That's a pretty
10 good representation of that time period, but we
11 don't have an indication of what that time period
12 is.
13 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
14 Q. So looking at the parallel canal
15 experiment figures for Vaughn Farm, the percentage
16 reduction in particulate phosphorus in the table is
17 given, is 55 percent.
18 A. Uh-hum.
19 Q. You don't really know, do you, what time
20 period that 55 percent reduction took place over, do
21 you?
22 A. No, I don't.
23 Q. Let's go on to the next one.
24 The cascade experiment at Wetherald
25 Farm.
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1 Do you have any indication here as to
2 the time or the frequency of the observations?
3 A. No.
4 Q. What is your understanding of the
5 cascade experiment?
6 A. As he described it, we didn't see this
7 one.
8 We saw some photographs of it.
9 There was a-- essentially, a mound of
10 broken rock in the canal, that the water, drainage
11 water was forced by flow to cascade down over, and
12 hence the name, and hopefully, sediment would be
13 drained, as it tumbled and percolated through this
14 broken rock, as it made its way down the canal.
15 Q. Do you know whether this is a technique
16 that had been implemented anywhere else in the EAA,
17 other than Wetherald Farm?
18 A. I have never seen it.
19 Q. Have you been to Wetherald Farm?
20 A. I believe that was one of the stops we
21 made the day we were out there, and in the past
22 years, I'm sure I have been on that property before.
23 Q. This has come up in other depositions,
24 but there seemed to have been some testing, BMP
25 testing going on there involving BMPs, at one point
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1 in time.
2 Are you familiar with those experiments?
3 I keep hearing about different BMP
4 experiments at Wetherald Farm.
5 MR. GAINES: I think that was the one
6 with documents that we produced to you.
7 There was a report on that. It--
8 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes.
9 MR. GAINES: Were all one, I believe--
10 Doctor John Davis was involved with it. I think
11 that's some of the documents that we produced.
12 If you want me to, I can check on that.
13 MR. MACFARLANE: No. I'll agree that you
14 did produce it.
15 I just wondered if the witness was
16 generally familiar with what had gone on out there.
17 THE WITNESS: I can't say for sure what
18 was done on what property, what the names of the
19 properties were.
20 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
21 Q. Fair enough. Setting up a sediment trap
22 experiment at Mott Farm-- this table only gives
23 reduction for total phosphorus, and indicates a five
24 percent reduction based on 17 observations.
25 Am I reading that correctly?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you know whether there are any
3 figures for total dissolved phosphorus or
4 particulate phosphorus?
5 A. No, I don't.
6 Q. Have you seen this particular sediment
7 trap?
8 A. I don't know which sediment trap this
9 data was derived from.
10 If there-- it could have been collected
11 from that one, large engineering structure I told
12 you about, but--
13 Q. That was going to be my next question.
14 A. Like I said, I wasn't sure that was your
15 farm or his farm or whose farm it was.
16 Q. Okay. Main canal sump experiment,
17 Prewitt Farm.
18 Do you know what kind of sump experiment
19 this involved (indicating)?
20 A. Main canal sump-- that is the way I
21 understand it. We have gone through these sumps
22 here-- would be one of these field ditch drainage
23 pipes-- with the pipes, I expect, because it's to
24 the main canal sump, just my interpetation of the
25 title of this table, it was-- main canal sump, where
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1 the main drainage canal was enlarged and deepened to
2 help provide a reduction in the velocity, and have
3 sediment drop out in the bottom of that area.
4 Q. The results that are reported in this
5 table, indicate for total phosphorus, six
6 observations, and then for TDP and particulate
7 phosphorus, two observations, with negative
8 reductions.
9 How would you interrupt that?
10 A. Well, you have to-- I see that, and if
11 you go up to the next line, paired T-test--
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. That is the statistical test used, and
14 those numbers being as large as they are,
15 essentially tells you you can't tell anything from
16 this data.
17 Q. Would you agree this data is essentially
18 worthless?
19 A. This is worthless.
20 Q. Let's flip to the final page, Ditch Berm
21 Experiment, South Shore Farm.
22 What is a ditch berm?
23 A. This is one we didn't see, and I don't
24 even think we saw photographs of it, but just one
25 verbally mentioned quickly.
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1 And essentially it was building up the
2 elevation of the field, absolutely, at the ends of
3 the field, to reduce overland flow into the ditches,
4 either with soil material on the-- over the berms,
5 or rock material in the ditch, but I don't really
6 know much about this.
7 Q. How would you evaluate the data that's
8 reported in this particular table?
9 A. Well, again, the test is extremely high,
10 which means that the data is not telling you a heck
11 of a lot.
12 Q. Let's go back very quickly to Exhibit
13 Number Eight, and we-- let me ask you, we've
14 discussed later-- have we discussed Grassed or
15 Polymerized Field Ditch Entrances to Minimize Ditch
16 Bank Soil Erosion?
17 Are you aware of how this sediment
18 control BMP works?
19 A. I think it's very similar to sodding the
20 ditch banks, or allowing the native grasses to grow
21 that we had on the ditch banks, just holds them in
22 place.
23 Q. Number 11, large sumps in main canals
24 upstream from drainage pumps.
25 I think we discussed that.
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1 A. I think it was one of the next to the
2 last ones that we talked about here.
3 Q. Installing risers and adjusting boards
4 to slope field ditch drainage.
5 Is that a variation on the-- discussion
6 that works the same way that installing that
7 submerged wall would work, only you're doing it in a
8 ditch?
9 A. No. The way I understand it, it's a
10 different purpose there.
11 Q. Please explain.
12 A. At the end of drainage ditch, there's a
13 culvert and riser, which you can regulate the height
14 of the outlet by putting boards, you know, in the
15 riser.
16 And you can determine to what level you
17 can draw down a field ditch about where you set that
18 board in that riser, so if you wanted to relate how
19 fast or slow a certain ditch drained, you can seat
20 those boards where you wanted to, and therefore, it
21 couldn't drain lower than the level of the top of
22 the board.
23 Q. How about rerouting water flow in fields
24 near pump stations to slow drainage?
25 What it's your understanding as to the
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1 particular BMP?
2 A. Essentially, that would be blocking the
3 outlet of the field ditch, and opening it on the
4 upstream side?
5 A. So as the water level in that ditch was
6 increased, due to rainfall, the water would have to
7 go the long way around, to put it-- to-- to get to
8 the main farm canal, so you're rerouting it to go
9 the long way around, than where it eventually would
10 have been straight through to the ditch.
11 Q. How would that work to control sediment?
12 A. That would work to control sediment,
13 because a lot of times you tend-- if you have a main
14 farm pump station on the main farm canal, and 16
15 field ditches leading into that, the field ditches
16 closest to the pump station, tends to-- I think the
17 term a lot of people like to use, dewater, they draw
18 down quicker than the other-- from the other
19 station, and that last water near the bottom, when
20 you take the water down, has the most sediment load
21 in it, so if you bring the whole volume that is
22 coming off that farm down evenly, it would be
23 advantageous-- would help keep the sediment in the
24 field.
25 Q. And how about the last one, number 16,
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1 construct Canal Connection Between Farms or
2 Interconnects, to Delay and Reduce Drainage
3 Discharge?
4 How does that work?
5 A. Well, that ties right back to what we
6 talked about earlier, the BMPs in the SWIM Plan,
7 about where to put the water if you need to pump
8 north and you can only go south, and you have
9 these-- you have these hydraulic connections where
10 you can move it and reroute it, based on your needs
11 at that time.
12 It gives you more options and
13 flexibility.
14 Q. Are these settlement controlled BMPs,
15 the sediment controlled BMPs that you would be
16 testifying about, if called upon to do so at a
17 hearing?
18 A. These are the ones, yes.
19 Q. Are there any others that you can think
20 of, that you would testify about?
21 A. Not that I can recall at this time.
22 MR. GAINES: Can you make a-- I don't
23 know if this is an appropriate comment or not, but
24 just as long as we're on this point on the record,
25 when you asked about number two on this list, and I
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1 don't know if it was in your question or his answer,
2 and I'm not trying to coach him at all-- maybe I
3 am-- but this is-- this number two, related to field
4 ditch entrances, and I don't know if you asked it,
5 as far as field ditch banks.
6 I think there's a slight difference
7 there, and forgive me if I'm intruding-- I thought
8 the way the question came out, it may have come out
9 as banks, not entrances.
10 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
11 Q. Okay. Could you describe that particular
12 BMP?
13 You may have picked up--
14 A. I forgot what we said, either banks or
15 edges, but the theory is the same.
16 The soil stays on there with vegetation
17 on there, better than bare soil, so regardless of
18 where it is in the farm operation, having a soil
19 covered with a vegetative layer helps hold sediment
20 in place, instead of running off, so it's the same
21 theory as some of those that we talked about.
22 Q. Doctor Coale, based on the data sheets
23 that we've gone through and the information that's
24 been made available to you about sediment control
25 BMPs, do you have an opinion as to the percentage
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1 reduction in phosphorus that sediment-- any of these
2 sediment control BMPs could achieve over the--
3 A. I think what percentage of reduction of
4 phosphorus-- it's going to be very site specific.
5 It's going to be site specific, and some
6 of them are going to be more applicable in some
7 locations than other locations.
8 A lot of these show promise for being
9 effective, and I think they could have a-- a fact of
10 having substantial reduction, promoting a
11 substantially phosphorus load downstream.
12 Q. What would you understand a substantial
13 reduction to be?
14 A. I wouldn't be surprised if these
15 sediment control BMPs, were implemented everywhere
16 they were appropriate, and they function as the data
17 has told us they can function, the preliminary data,
18 somewhere in the neighborhood of roughly ten
19 percent, I would say, reduction.
20 Q. And you're willing to make-- willing to
21 make that estimate, for-- feel comfortable making
22 that estimate, based upon the results that you have
23 reviewed here?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Let me-- let's move on.
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1 And let me go back to just before we got
2 off on the subject of sediment control BMPs.
3 Do you anticipate testifying about other
4 BMPs, other than the ones that are listed in the
5 SWIM Plan, or said the SWIM Plan sediment control
6 BMPs?
7 A. I'm trying to think of what those
8 examples might be.
9 The only other practices I've observed,
10 was-- were how they are managing the discharge water
11 from some of the mills, the sugar mills, but, again,
12 I'm not an engineer or expert in mill functioning.
13 Some of the observations we made and
14 some of the diagrams I have seen, how some of these
15 retention areas around these mills-- they seem to
16 have some promise.
17 Q. Let me ask you, then, and I don't think
18 I need to get-- first of all, have you been out and
19 seen those BMPs in the vicinity of mills on site, as
20 it were?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Did you receive an explanation at the
23 time, as to how they were supposed to work?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Do you believe that the kind of BMPs
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1 that were employed in the vicinity of mills, would
2 have more general application in the EAA, let's say,
3 on farms, for example?
4 A. Not-- no. I wouldn't stretch it that
5 far.
6 I would say these are just definitely
7 relating to mill discharge water. That's how it was
8 explained to me.
9 Q. Do you anticipate giving any testimony
10 on pumping practice of-- pumping practice BMPs?
11 A. On-farm pump management?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Let's take a look at--
15 MR. GAINES: Actually, I was going to
16 chime in at this point. You asked him, do you
17 anticipate, you know, other than the ones listed in
18 the SWIM Plan--
19 MR. MACFARLANE: Or sediment control.
20 MR. GAINES: And as far as what is
21 specifically listed in the SWIM Plan, and your
22 question is exactly what I was thinking of, and I
23 know there was something like water table
24 management, and in our minds, that includes the
25 various pumping practices.
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1 I don't know if it does-- we are now
2 clear on not one, but-- it would include that.
3 THE WITNESS: Earlier this morning, I
4 think I made the distinction, I consider this all--
5 I consider this all on-farm water management.
6 MR. MACFARLANE: Let's mark these two as
7 exhibits.
8 (The documents referred to
9 were thereupon marked as
10 Coale Exhibit Numbers
11 10 and 11 for Identification,
12 copies of which are attached
13 hereto.)
14 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
15 Q. I'm going to do these backward,
16 actually, and let me ask you, Doctor Coale, showing
17 you what's been marked as Exhibit 11 first.
18 Do you recognize this document
19 (indicating)?
20 A. Yes, I have seen it.
21 Q. Have you reviewed it?
22 A. Yes, I have.
23 Q. And and what do you understand it to be?
24 A. This is essentially, the operation
25 guidelines for how a farm manager would-- of U.S.
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1 Sugar Corporation would manage his drainage pumps
2 after a rainfall event.
3 Q. Is it your your understanding that this
4 is a-- these are directions, if you will, that are
5 currently in practice at U.S. Sugar?
6 A. As far as I know.
7 Q. Did you discuss these-- this document or
8 the pump practices that are described here, while
9 you were visiting the U.S. Sugar research facility
10 in March?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And what is your understanding of the
13 operation of these pump practices?
14 A. Is that they are-- they are very rigid,
15 very rigorous, and I got the impression that if a
16 manager didn't adhere to them, he would have his
17 job-- had his pink slip.
18 They were very serious about it, but as
19 far as the actual practices, they are dependant upon
20 the amount of rainfall that has occurred in a given
21 length of time, and then relative to that, there is
22 a stage which is the elevation of water in the canal
23 for-- criterion, as far as when you can turn the
24 pumps on. There's a criteria as to how long the
25 rain event occurs, you have to wait before you turn
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1 the pumps on.
2 There's a minimum water stage, when you
3 can get a certain water level, you turn them off,
4 and I guess that a-- in a nutshell, that's what it
5 involves.
6 Q. Let let's make a little detour for a
7 second, and let me show you what's been marked for--
8 marked as an exhibit, Number Ten, and could you
9 identify that document (indicating)?
10 A. That is-- by pump station specifically,
11 how these guidelines have been implemented by each
12 pump station at U.S. Sugar Corporation.
13 Q. Would it be fair to say that this chart
14 represents the instructions that you were just
15 describing?
16 A. Yes.
17 It's just the new method or the best
18 management method for operating these discharge
19 pumps.
20 Q. To your understanding, is this applied
21 at the present time at U.S. Sugar?
22 A. From what I understand-- this-- it is in
23 practice, approximately three quarters of their
24 acreage.
25 Q. Are these pumping practices, the same
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1 thing as what's been called the Florida Sugar Cane
2 League pump BMP? Are you familiar with--
3 A. I don't know that term.
4 Q. Are you familiar at all with the Florida
5 Sugar Cane League, undertaken by Huchin Engineers?
6 A. I believe there was a report in that set
7 of documents that they prepared.
8 I'm not sure who commissioned the
9 report, but I remember seeing Huchin Engineers on
10 the cover of a report.
11 Q. Do you know David Stewart?
12 A. I have never met him.
13 Q. Do you know anyone else from Huchin
14 Engineers?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Have you ever met anybody else from
17 Huchin Engineers?
18 A. No, not personally.
19 Q. Let's go back to Exhibit Number 11, and
20 let me ask you, are-- do you know whether the
21 pumping practices that are described or pumping
22 procedures that are described in this document,
23 facility pumping or slow pumping, according to the
24 approach that you used in the article that you
25 coauthored with Izuno and Bottcher?
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1 A. This is a different-- remember when we
2 discussed that, I said there's two tiers of water
3 management here.
4 This is main farm canal discharge.
5 Q. Okay.
6 A. Okay. All the data in that paper refer
7 to field drainage, okay, and they are not
8 comparable.
9 Q. We are talking apples and oranges?
10 A. Yes. I think we are.
11 Q. These are different pumping practices.
12 One is appropriate for pumping ditches and one, you
13 don't pump ditches.
14 Q. Drainage--
15 A. Drainage. This is pumping main farm
16 canals.
17 MR. GAINES: We're talking about sugar
18 cane and rice in this case.
19 MR. MACFARLANE: That's a more apropos
20 metaphor.
21 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
22 Q. Out of curiosity, how do you affect the
23 speed with which you drain a ditch?
24 A. It all depends on the hydraulic head
25 difference, between canal, main part of the canal,
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1 which is receiving the water, and the water level in
2 the field drainage ditch, itself.
3 Q. When you were describing in your article
4 earlier the difference between fast and slow
5 drainage, how would you actually get a farm to-- a
6 field to drain faster?
7 A. Well, I--
8 Q. Is there a mechanical means, or is it
9 all done in the design of the ditch?
10 A. Well, in the conclusion of that
11 article-- I think we went through that this morning,
12 we said there are some-- what you need to do is
13 maximize that drainage gradient. In other words,
14 lower the main farm canal level quickly, and
15 minimize physical resistance; in other words, have
16 clean ditches that have large enough flow channels
17 to carry water off.
18 Q. Thank you for clearing that up. I'm not
19 sure I was following that.
20 Let me ask you to turn to the second
21 page of Exhibit 11, and the bottom is-- is what
22 appears to be a date, 10-1-92, and do you know
23 whether that was the date on which U.S. Sugar began
24 implementing this pumping procedure, or was it
25 simply the date this document was prepared?
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1 A. I have no way of knowing that.
2 Q. Do you have any idea how long U.S. Sugar
3 has been employing these pumping procedures?
4 A. I don't know when they started.
5 I-- that data that I said to-- referred
6 to earlier, involving the three calendar years,
7 involved these pumping practices, so January 1,
8 1993.
9 Q. Let me ask you to look at the last
10 paragraph on page two, and I believe the next to
11 last sentence, reads, "Also, when the schedules are
12 put into actual practice, it may become necessary to
13 revise some of the these operations."
14 Do you know whether any of these
15 operations have been revised?
16 A. Well, up here at the top of this chart,
17 on-- it says, revised, February of '93, so-- that's
18 all the information I have.
19 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
20 (Thereupon a recess was taken
21 in the deposition, after which
22 the deposition continued as follows:)
23 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
24 Q. Back on the record.
25 Doctor Coale, before the break, we were
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1 talking about the pumping procedure BMP employed by
2 U.S. Sugar.
3 And let me, just to be clear-- let me
4 ask you, has data been collected that you're aware
5 of, that shows the effect of this particular pumping
6 practice on water quality?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Where would I find that data?
9 Is that part of the data that was
10 produced?
11 A. Yes, it was.
12 It should have been. I don't know what
13 was produced, but it should have accompanied all
14 this stuff.
15 Q. And--
16 MR. GAINES: That is some of it, but the
17 big stack you showed me earlier, that is the data.
18 And I think this is analysis of the data
19 you're holding up right now. That was also
20 produced.
21 MR. MACFARLANE: Okay.
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. So it's the monthly sampling data sent
24 U.S. Sugar by the South Florida Water District,
25 February of 1993, as part of your documents?
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1 That would be the data on water quality?
2 A. Yes.
3 MR. GAINES: I think January was in
4 there, also.
5 THE WITNESS: It was a full year, I know.
6 MR. MACFARLANE: I'll go back and check.
7 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
8 Q. Have you analyzed that data?
9 A. I have reviewed it, and spoken with the
10 scientists who were in charge of gathering it, and
11 supplying it to the Water Management District, but
12 as far as analyzing it, I'm not sure what you meant
13 there.
14 I haven't numerically crunched all the
15 numbers.
16 Q. Do you have an opinion whether this
17 pumping practice BMP, will reduce phosphorus load in
18 the EAA?
19 A. Based on the data that I reviewed, yes,
20 I do think it will.
21 Q. Do you have an opinion as to the
22 percentage reduction of phosphorus?
23 A. From this data that was-- nobody looked
24 over, they-- they had-- they could show a 50 percent
25 reduction of phosphorus.
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: Let's mark this as
2 Number 12.
3 (The document referred to
4 was thereupon marked as
5 Coale Exhibit Number
6 12 for Identification,
7 a copy of which is attached
8 hereto.)
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Doctor Coale, I'm handing you Exhibit
11 12, and this consists of a number of handwritten and
12 then what appear to be typewriter printed pages, and
13 finally, a data sheet for-- various calculations,
14 and the first page reads, "Example calculation of
15 flow weighted P concentration, Bourne one: January
16 1st to January 27, 1993."
17 A. Uh-hum.
18 Q. Are you familiar with this document?
19 A. Yes. I have seen it and I have reviewed
20 it.
21 Q. Did you prepare it?
22 A. No, I didn't.
23 Q. Do you know who did?
24 A. I believe that's Doctor McCray.
25 Q. Who is Doctor McCray?
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1 A. He's a scientist that works for U.S.
2 Sugar Corporation research department.
3 Q. Do you know what his first name is?
4 A. Mabre.
5 Q. Can you tell me, Doctor Coale, what the
6 first page of this document purports to show?
7 A. This is an example, based on the first
8 27 days of January, of 1993, of how flow weighted
9 phosphorus concentrations are calculated on a daily
10 basis.
11 Q. And there are three columns, and one is
12 flow in millions of gallons.
13 A. Right.
14 Q. For-- then for each day, you-- and
15 concentration is given in milligrams per liter?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And then flow time concentrations-- is
18 that correct? Is that how it's done?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Let me ask you to skip the next page and
21 go to the third page.
22 Unfortunately, the pages--
23 MR. GAINES: Let me-- if we're skipping
24 the next-- I think pages one and two are supposed to
25 be taken together.
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1 The page two is a continuation of the
2 analysis that starts on page one, just so we have a
3 clear record.
4 MR. MACFARLANE: Would you care to adopt
5 your counsel's testimony?
6 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure what-- I agree
7 that the second piece of paper is the summation of
8 the data presented on the first piece of paper.
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. What does the second piece of paper
11 show?
12 A. What it shows for that time period were,
13 for the concentration values, and what the total
14 gallons flow recorded were.
15 And then what the total concentration,
16 divided by gallons, is the flow weighted average
17 concentration.
18 Q. And that flow weighted average
19 concentration, is what?
20 A. 0.116, and-- the units are left off
21 there, and-- but by going back, you can't-- I can't
22 convert that in my head.
23 We were assuming, and this is-- it would
24 be parts per million, milligrams per liter P.
25 Q. Let's flip it to the next page, which
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1 has at the top, Actual Flow, Load and Rainfall
2 Information from Different Drainage Categories.
3 Can you tell me--
4 A. Can you pause for a second?
5 Q. Yes. Sure. Go ahead.
6 A. Without recalculating, I want to go back
7 and say, I can't tell whether it's parts per million
8 phosphorus, the equivalent of milligrams per liter,
9 or what that number is.
10 I'm just guessing, because I don't have
11 the units to determine that.
12 Q. I appreciate the clarification.
13 The next page, can you tell me what this
14 purports to be?
15 A. This is an example of the data that's
16 used in the following calculation, I believe.
17 Q. Okay. Can you relate these various
18 categories-- categories here, to the data that
19 appears on the succeeding pages, and basically, what
20 I'm trying to figure out here, is how these things
21 work (indicating).
22 A. Well, on this-- on the pages that
23 follow, these are just acreages per-- the numbers in
24 parentheses, are just acres in that-- certain areas.
25 Q. Okay.
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1 A. For the next one, one, two, three--
2 several pages. It just keeps going, just a list of
3 farms or drainage units.
4 I don't know what these are called,
5 but-- how big each one is.
6 Q. And can you tell me how these-- the page
7 that reads Actual Flow, Load and Rainfall
8 information at the top, has these different
9 categories; period flow, cumulative, yearly flow,
10 phosphorus load, so forth-- can you tell me where I
11 would find this information for each of these
12 categories in the succeeding pages, or would I find
13 them in the succeeding pages?
14 A. In the printout portion, and it's been a
15 while since I looked at this-- the part that looks
16 like it's computer generated.
17 Q. Toward the back of the documents?
18 A. Yes, and the drainage summary report--
19 see across the top, a lot of those same headings.
20 Q. Looking at the printout page, page one
21 of the printout page that's stapled to the back of
22 this exhibit, on the left-hand column, it gives the
23 name of Bourne One, hand checks, so forth.
24 A. Right.
25 Q. Are those particular fields or farms?
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1 A. I believe they correspond to drainage--
2 I mean pump stations at discharge stations, which
3 would be the same as this-- there's no page numbers,
4 but this time, you see what I'm pointing to, we have
5 these different names-- current south, current
6 north, so forth.
7 Q. Let me ask you, staying on the page that
8 you just pointed to-- it's the page that begins,
9 with one cane base line, and then in parenthesis,
10 21,947 acres--
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. What is the meaning, if you understand
13 it, of cane base line?
14 A. The way I understand it, those are the
15 areas that list one, two, three, four, five, six,
16 seven, eight-- eight units, parcels of land, shall
17 we say, are the areas that are still being managed
18 under non-BMP conditions.
19 Q. Okay, and is that also the case for the
20 next group of pump stations he did, vegetable base
21 line?
22 A. I believe it is.
23 Q. All right. Then flipping the page to
24 three, where it says three, BMP cane, with southern
25 unit two and--
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. What do you understand those BMP
3 stations to--
4 A. Those are, from what I understand, are
5 areas of sugar cane production areas that are being
6 managed with the BMP pump water management, BMP
7 practices, and the fertilizer management, BMP water
8 management that are in place.
9 Q. Can you tell me which particular group
10 of BMPs are being used on these, I guess, farms?
11 A. Farms is a good term.
12 From what I understand, all these farms
13 are receiving the same package of BMPs.
14 Q. And what is the package?
15 A. That package is the BMP, control, or
16 water management package of that chart.
17 Q. That is reflected in Exhibits 10 and 11?
18 A. Exactly, that one, and also adhering to
19 the fertilizer management BMPs that are outlined in
20 the SWIM Plan.
21 That's the way I understand it.
22 Q. Any other BMPs as part of that
23 particular package?
24 A. Not that I know of.
25 Q. And so if I wanted to look up the water
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1 quality sampling data for these particular farms, I
2 could turn to the printout at the back, and put them
3 down in the left-hand column and read the water
4 quality data?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Okay. Number four, BMP cane, without
7 southern unit two.
8 Is-- what do you understand that to be?
9 A. We had quite some discussion about that.
10 Apparently, southern unit two is an
11 operation management unit, that most of it is in
12 sugar cane, but part of it is in native unimproved
13 swampy, range land, intermittent swamp, whatever.
14 I have never been there. I haven't seen
15 it, but that's the way to describe it.
16 And it was number four, it was separated
17 out, because they didn't know what influence that
18 portion of that section, being non-sugar cane
19 production line, would however skew the data set, so
20 this is-- but part of southern unit two, it does
21 have sugar cane in it, under BMPs, so it's with that
22 and without that section, not knowing what the
23 impact of that non-sugarcane land is, by default,
24 included in there.
25 Am I correct in understanding you that
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1 that part of unit four that is planted in sugar
2 cane, it is planted in-- employing the same BMPs as
3 are employed in unit three?
4 MR. GAINES: You mean category three
5 and--
6 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes.
7 THE WITNESS: Okay.
8 MR. GAINES: You're--
9 THE WITNESS: Yes, the sugar cane in
10 southern unit two, is BMP managed sugar cane.
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. Okay. It's just that in number four, we
13 have some other things as well, and those aren't--
14 A. We don't know how that clouds the
15 picture.
16 Q. What about number five, the next page?
17 BMP acres, including mixed area--
18 A. I--
19 Q. BMP veg, and base veg?
20 A. Base, we just read-- that's combination
21 of different areas, different production practices.
22 I think that's pretty--
23 Q. Number six?
24 A. Number six is west section 34 Weth,
25 section three--
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1 Q. Would that be Wetherald?
2 A. I believe it is. I think it's shorthand
3 for Wetherald.
4 Vegetable base-- I believe from our
5 discussion, that is the vegetable production area,
6 exclusively production-- vegetable production area,
7 managed under non-BMP conditions.
8 Q. Number seven, EAA permit-- what's your
9 understanding of that?
10 A. I think it's a combination of, 73,000
11 acres, so it's a combination of-- preceding
12 categories.
13 I think that's, again, I-- I don't-- let
14 me just-- it's a combination of a lot of these
15 different subgroups.
16 Q. So the fields that are listed under
17 number seven, might also some of them be previously
18 listed?
19 A. I believe so. Look at number one,
20 occurring south and north of--
21 Q. Okay.
22 A. Look at number two, occurring south and
23 north.
24 Q. Okay. What significance, if any, do you
25 attach to the EAA permit title at the top of this
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1 column (indicating)?
2 A. For me, none.
3 I think what really-- permitting process
4 with the South Florida Water Management Distict, I
5 feel they are looking for specific permits.
6 Q. Finally, the next page, number eight?
7 A. EAA permit, plus Pahokee Two
8 (indicating).
9 Is that simply adding another area?
10 A. Yes. I think from our discussion,
11 Pahokee Two is on a different permit, for some
12 reason, than the rest of this land is.
13 I don't know why. I just remember it
14 being mentioned, it's different.
15 Q. When you refer to our discussion, are
16 you referring to the talks you have had at U.S.
17 Sugar in March?
18 A. Right, with the gentleman who prepared
19 these (indicating).
20 Q. Going to the next page, comparison of P
21 load into District canals from various components--
22 can you explain what is being supplied on this page?
23 A. There's numbers nine through 16, and if
24 you go down below it on the second half of the page,
25 it describes what number six is and number ten is,
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1 and nine is the data that came from the farms, I
2 think you told me-- farms, that's right listed under
3 category number one.
4 MR. GAINES: That's why he's the expert.
5 THE WITNESS: Technical terms, these
6 farms.
7 Number ten, comes from the group, number
8 four, in the preceding pages, and-- and let's see.
9 11 and 12 I guess are self-explanatory, the BMP
10 vegetable acres, so forth, and number 13-- just
11 describes where these came from.
12 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
13 Q. I notice in the inner portion of the--
14 period phosphorus, load per acre, and then load per
15 acre--
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you know why there were no numbers
18 for those?
19 A. Again, I think those are just for
20 example purposes of the type of data they were
21 collecting.
22 We haven't gotten the data in yet, but
23 just the framework of their data collection.
24 Q. Next page, we have number 12 and 11
25 calculation, and can you just explain to me what
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1 number 12 calculation is?
2 A. Go back on the page preceding, number,
3 BMP vegetable.
4 That's as we're taking the data from
5 those three farms that are listed, and Prewitt One,
6 Wetherald Two, and J.C. Ranch, and the data that
7 yields a total phosphorus load.
8 And then-- he has that designated as
9 12-A.
10 Q. Where would I find data number 12-A?
11 A. You would sum the load from those three,
12 and-- those three named farms out of this list, out
13 of these farms, and--
14 Q. So you would go and find the farms on
15 the printout; is that correct?
16 A. Right, and you would add up those three,
17 Prewitt One, Wetherald Two and J.C. Ranch, and that
18 gives you a total load from all of your, whatever
19 number 12 is-- all your BMP vegetable land, and that
20 generates 1-A.
21 Q. I understand. Is there a calculation for
22 12-A in this document, that you're aware of?
23 A. Yes. I believe at the end, that-- oh,
24 for 12-A?
25 Q. Yes. Well, actually, for the--
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1 A. Bottom line.
2 Q. Yes, for number 12, bottom line.
3 A. I don't think the interim numbers--
4 right here at the end. This is the-- what I have is
5 the next to the last page (indicating).
6 MR. GAINES: This looks like an extra
7 page on here, Steve (indicating).
8 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes, it shouldn't be
9 there.
10 MR. GAINES: You want us to excise that
11 (indicating)?
12 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes, if you wouldn't
13 mind.
14 THE WITNESS: Now this is the last page.
15 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
16 Q. Now the last page.
17 A. Okay. I see it now, okay. And this is
18 the-- these are the bottom line numbers from all of
19 these girations, so forth.
20 Q. All right.
21 A. Machinations.
22 Q. And just so we're clear, I can-- if I go
23 through the same steps, I could figure out how the
24 calculation for number 11 was put together?
25 A. I believe so. I believe those are all in
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1 here.
2 Q. And if we flip over to the page that
3 looks like it was done on a typewriter, title,
4 percentage reduction calculations--
5 A. Right.
6 Q. Does that work the same way?
7 A. Yes, I believe it does.
8 Q. So number 17-A, number 17-B and number
9 17-C would be where?
10 A. Well, back to 17-A, it says number nine,
11 times that 67,166, equals 17-A, so they have to go
12 back and find out what number nine was, plug it in
13 and multiply it by that, and get 17-A.
14 Q. Now, what do these-- are these basically
15 equations for determining percentage phosphorus
16 reductions from different groups of--
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Groups of farms?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And then let's turn to the printout and
21 look at that.
22 You-- I agree that there's some marginal
23 comments on the printout, and I take it these are
24 not your marginal comments?
25 A. No. I made no comments on this
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1 (indicating).
2 Q. Is it your understanding that this is
3 Mr. McRay's?
4 A. I--
5 Q. It appears to be the same handwriting.
6 This is his bailiwick, if you will,
7 and-- I suspect the alterations were his doings.
8 Q. And am I correct in that the data
9 reported on this particular printout, are data for--
10 let me ask you, just-- it says drainage summary
11 report, and is this for one month or one year?
12 A. Well, they are both on here
13 (indicating).
14 MR. GAINES: What page?
15 MR. MACFARLANE: The first page of the
16 computer printout.
17 THE WITNESS: Apparently they generate
18 one of these each month, and this happens to the one
19 for December, so it also had the full year.
20 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
21 Q. And where would you find the--
22 A. Oh, year to date.
23 I would assume, also, simply the column
24 headed phosphorus load, would, in fact represent the
25 entire year?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Let's go to the final page, the-- which
3 sums up, and I would appreciate it, Doctor Coale, if
4 you could take me through, line by line, and just
5 explain-- give me your understanding of what this
6 table shows.
7 Let's start with number nine, base
8 cane--
9 A. Yes.
10 MR. GAINES: We're starting with number
11 nine, not number one?
12 That's fine.
13 MR. MACFARLANE: There is no number one.
14 Oh, I'm sorry, there is. I apologize.
15 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
16 Q. Let's start with number one.
17 A. I--
18 Q. I just need to-- you can just go over
19 how the table works, in fact.
20 A. Well, the first eight are the one
21 format, and nine through 16 are on another format,
22 and 17 through 21, another format.
23 Q. Let's try to understand how these
24 formats differ.
25 A. We start with number one. That's your
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1 cane base line data, refers back to data set number
2 one as identified earlier, and across the top of the
3 table, we have data for millions of gallons that
4 were pumped or drained, on a period which is for the
5 month, December of '93, or for the yearly-- the
6 first two columns.
7 The next set of four columns is the
8 period, phosphorus load. That is the phosphorus load
9 for December of '93, in pounds, in kilograms, in
10 pounds per acre and kilograms per acre, and then we
11 have the same four pieces of data, for year to date
12 phosphorus load.
13 Q. So for the cane base line District, the
14 year to date would be what, approximately?
15 A. Year to date what?
16 Q. In pounds. I'm--
17 A. Phosphorus load?
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. Pounds per acre, 2.32.
20 Q. With a total of 50,000--
21 A. Yes, divided by however many acres are
22 in that category.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. The next two columns is period and flow
25 weighted phosphorus concentrations.
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1 Again, I believe that Doctor McCray told
2 me at the time, it does not indicate on here, these
3 are-- these are-- the numbers look about right, so I
4 believe that's probably true, but it doesn't say
5 so.
6 Q. It doesn't say so?
7 A. No.
8 The rainfall data over that period, are
9 that same, monthly or annual period.
10 And for the first eight listed here,
11 there's all the same data entries, for all of them.
12 Q. Now, before we go on to the next format,
13 am I correct, is-- are the data that is summarized
14 here, the same data that is reflected in the data
15 that was sent to the Water Management District?
16 Is that your understanding?
17 A. My understanding is that's true.
18 I haven't gone through the raw data,
19 step by step.
20 Q. This is the raw data?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And this is the summary?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. So in this first format, it-- we have
25 the first eight categories or groups of farms; is
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1 that correct?
2 A. Yes. That's correct.
3 Q. And then we go to the categories nine
4 through sixteen, and--
5 A. Right.
6 Q. Do you know why these are presented in a
7 different format than the preceding group?
8 A. Let me look at them for a second. I
9 believe it's a-- let me check it before I go on.
10 Well, if you go back-- I think-- I
11 wanted to hesitate there and make sure I was
12 straight.
13 These numbers are what-- these were--
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. Were mathematical manipulations of one
16 through eight, based on what we went through earlier
17 about what number nine, ten, eleven is, and
18 therefore, there's no reason to reproduce all this
19 raw data again.
20 Q. Would that also be true for 17 through
21 21 (indicating)?
22 A. Yes. I believe that's true.
23 Well, 17 through 21 is starting to show,
24 actually comparing two of the treatments, and-- like
25 nine through sixteen tells you what the values are
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1 for those situations are, and 17 through 21 is a
2 comparison of two situations.
3 Q. So from 17, load percent reduction
4 estimated with 100 percent BMP, 100 percent using
5 internal vegetable base loads, EAA permit.
6 A. Right.
7 Q. Would you translate that?
8 A. That's a tough one.
9 I would go back to probably-- the
10 definition is-- how it was derived, as we-- the
11 typewritten page--
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. On how 17 was derived, based on data
14 from-- there were some corrections made for-- you
15 know, for data, subtracting the load from number
16 seven, and corrected form number of acres in each
17 one, gives you a percent reduction as expressed in
18 17.
19 Q. Is that, then-- are we talking in number
20 17, where it says period--
21 A. Yes. That's for December of '93.
22 Q. Are we talking about 154.51 percent?
23 A. We had a long discussion about this, and
24 I think what it does, it shows you how you need a
25 long term data base to make these decisions.
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1 Some of the data we published and we--
2 from event to event, it changed drasticlaly, time
3 period to time period, and the longer time period
4 you have to integrate this information, the better
5 your estimate, so therefore, just-- these-- these
6 things can be more than one series.
7 Q. Right. The reduction from-- BMP
8 vegetable-- these down here, for-- we have a reading
9 of 400 percent.
10 A. Statistically, all that is telling you
11 about is the variation there is from month-to-month,
12 and over an infinite number of months, these numbers
13 would be the same, the year to date, and-- not the
14 year to date, but infinity, you know, dated to
15 infinity-- and the period would be the same, and so
16 the longer period, to integrate the variation-- the
17 more accurate your predictions are going to be.
18 Q. Do you know how long this data has been
19 collected and reported?
20 I know you have produced data for 1993,
21 but do we go-- do you know if U.S. Sugar has been
22 reporting data before 1993?
23 A. I don't know.
24 If they have, the District should have
25 it.
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1 I don't know. This is the only data I
2 have had a chance to look at.
3 Q. Let me ask you, for number 17 on the
4 final page, where it says 154.51 percent--
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. I infer from what you said, that you
7 don't think that is a believable figure.
8 A. I agree.
9 Q. Should we have similar scepticism with
10 the figures about the year to date, the 86.6 percent
11 reduction?
12 A. No. I think that's based on 12 times as
13 much data than that monthly figure.
14 We have seen the-- you have that many
15 number of entries into a data set, it cleans it up
16 quite a bit.
17 Q. Do you know how often sampling was done?
18 A. I--
19 Q. That went into this data set?
20 A. There was data entered every day, so--
21 Q. We're talking about days--
22 A. Some days-- some days, when there's no
23 drainage going on, it was zero, but entries every
24 day.
25 Q. In your opinion, does daily sampling
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1 make for more reliable data, than, let's say,
2 biweekly or weekly sampling, sampling, you know, not
3 on a daily basis, but on a regular, periodic basis?
4 A. I don't know if I can answer that or
5 not.
6 Subsequently, the more independent
7 measurements you have in a data set, the stronger
8 your conclusions can be from that data set.
9 As far as in this example, their water
10 quality data is a composite over a period of 14
11 days, something like that, then-- so they are
12 looking at two week intervals for water quality to
13 be measured, and that's a lot of data in a year.
14 That is giving you a pretty good data base to be
15 relied upon.
16 Q. How long a period of time, and I guess
17 I'm speaking now in terms of years-- would you feel
18 comfortable with, in-- against sampling data on a
19 daily basis, to know where the year to date
20 reduction is reported on this table, are, in fact,
21 what one could expect to see over the long run?
22 A. I can't give an answer to that.
23 I don't know how long it would take, but
24 there are statistical methods to let you know.
25 Q. Do you know if those statistical methods
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1 have been applied in this case?
2 A. I don't know.
3 Q. I just want to go back over, generally,
4 the-- we've talked about SWIM Plan BMPs, and within
5 that, I guess, a subset, I guess what we could call
6 the water management BMPs, also extended to include
7 the pump practices.
8 A. Right.
9 Q. We have talked in detail about sediment
10 control type BMPs.
11 Does that pretty much exhuast the BMPs
12 that you would be prepared to testify about at the
13 final hearing?
14 A. That's by far the bulk of them.
15 I think I mentioned earlier, I was given
16 a little discourse about what they have done around
17 the sugar mills for discharge, but I'm not an expert
18 in that area.
19 Just what I have learned from
20 observations and discussions with people.
21 Q. Do you anticipate giving any testimony
22 about lime rock sorption, for example?
23 A. I don't anticipate it.
24 Q. Do you consider lime rock sorption to be
25 practical as an on-farm BMP?
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1 A. In theory it makes sense, in some cases,
2 but I haven't seen any data.
3 Q. What is your understanding of lime rock
4 sorption?
5 A. There's-- the limestone rock has a
6 chemical affinity, for lack of a better term of
7 mixing with dissolved phosphorus in water sometimes,
8 and essentially, making it no longer dissolved, no
9 longer mobile, decrease the mobility, but I haven't
10 seen much data on lime rock sorption.
11 Q. Am I correct in understanding that most
12 of the phosphorus controlled BMPs that you focused
13 on, you're most familiar with, are BMPs to--
14 designed to reduce phosphorus in a particular form,
15 as opposed to dissolved phosphorus, or is that--
16 A. No, not necessarily.
17 Q. Are you aware of any places in the EAA,
18 where lime rock sorption has been put into practice?
19 A. No. Not that I can recall, no.
20 Q. Do you-- would you recommend lime rock
21 sorption as an on-farm BMP?
22 A. Not without reviewing any data that
23 shows its of use.
24 Q. How about on-farm chemical treatment?
25 Would you be expected to testify about
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1 that?
2 A. Could you define chemical treatment?
3 Q. Building a-- for example, building a
4 small facility on a farm in which a precipitator or
5 coagulator is added to farm drainage water, to
6 produce a precipitant that--
7 A. No.
8 Q. Are you aware of any on-farm chemical
9 treatment being tried in the EAA, on an experimental
10 basis?
11 A. Experimental basis, I have seen a
12 project underway.
13 I don't know what the results of that
14 project turned out to be.
15 Q. Do you know where that project is?
16 A. I know where it was.
17 Q. Where was it?
18 A. It was at the Everglades Research and
19 Education Center.
20 Q. But you don't know whether any hard data
21 has been produced?
22 A. I haven't seen any.
23 Q. How about algal turf scrubbers?
24 A. I have heard of them, but I haven't seen
25 them.
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1 Q. Are you aware of algal turf scrubbers
2 being used to treat agricultural runoff?
3 A. On a commercial-- all I heard-- I never
4 saw-- there was a triosize facility somewhere in the
5 EAA, and I think the Smithsonian Institution had
6 something to do with it, and I-- but you never saw
7 it, never saw the data.
8 Q. Algal turf scrubbers wouldn't be a BMP
9 that you would be able to recommend?
10 A. I wouldn't be able to talk about it, one
11 way or another.
12 Q. Sediment dredging-- are you aware of-- I
13 know we have talked about sediment control BMPs, but
14 are you aware of sediment dredging, a separate type
15 of BMP, or just another example of sediment control,
16 generic BMP?
17 A. Are you referring to hydraulic dredging
18 of canals?
19 Q. Yes, something like that.
20 A. I have heard of it.
21 I never seen it. I think it's a good
22 idea, it makes sense, but I couldn't testify as to
23 its efficacy.
24 Q. How about ASR wells?
25 A. I know nothing about them.
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1 Q. Rock pits?
2 A. For rocks?
3 No.
4 Q. Just taking the group of BMPs, on-farm
5 BMPs-- let me back up.
6 Have we pretty much exhausted the
7 on-farm BMPs that you would be prepared to testify
8 about?
9 A. I believe we have covered it.
10 Q. Taking those on-farm BMPs, do you have
11 an opinion whether implementation of those BMPs,
12 could meet State water quality standards for water
13 discharged from the EAA to the--
14 A. What--
15 Q. You're unaware of the State water--
16 A. Let me interrupt your question.
17 Are we talking about the reduction
18 stated in the SWIM Plan, the 25 percent reduction
19 in-- are those the standards?
20 Q. I'm interested in what your
21 understanding it, if you have one.
22 MR. GAINES: He's not listed as an expert
23 as to State water quality standards.
24 He can give testimony about what is
25 going to come out of the EAA, but where that fits
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1 into the universal State water quality standards, I
2 think is outside of his field.
3 MR. MACFARLANE: I believe he is listed
4 as being prepared to give an opinion, as to whether
5 State water quality standards could be met.
6 We'll get to that, but I'll just-- I was
7 interested in--
8 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
9 Q. Do you have any idea what, for example,
10 the class three water quality standards are for the
11 water conservation areas?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Let me ask you a hypothetical.
14 If it were shown that long term weighted
15 average concentrations of phosphorus in excess of
16 ten parts per billion would cause an imbalance of
17 flora and fauna in water conservation area one, for
18 example, do you think that the on-farm BMPs, alone,
19 could reduce phosphorus levels to reach that low a
20 concentration of phosphorus, ten parts per billion?
21 MR. GAINES: Let me object to the form of
22 the question.
23 I don't know what the first half of the
24 question has to do with the second half of the
25 question, and also, I would like to know, what
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1 hydroperiod changes and manipulations-- are you
2 talking about the current, unnatural hydroperiod
3 that's been imposed by the federal project, or
4 natural hydroperiod, or what?
5 I think--
6 MR. MACFARLANE: Let's hold the
7 hydroperiod constant, and just let me ask you.
8 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
9 Q. Do you think that the on-farm BMPs, with
10 which you're familiar or prepared to testify about,
11 could reduce phosphorus loading of the-- a
12 sufficient magnitude to meet ten parts per billion
13 contraction?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Do you think that the on-farm BMPs about
16 which you're prepared to testify-- could those, by
17 themselves, produce an 80 percent reduction in
18 phosphorus discharged from the EAA into the water
19 conversation areas?
20 MR. GAINES: Are you talking about from
21 the historic 1979 to 1988 base line?
22 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes. We'll assume that
23 base line.
24 THE WITNESS: I think 80 percent is
25 high.
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1 I don't think they can do 80 percent.
2 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
3 Q. Out of curiosity, do you have an opinion
4 as to maximum practicable phosphorus load reduction
5 can be achieved just from the implementation of the
6 on-farm BMPs that you're familiar with?
7 A. I would think that a practical-- you
8 could get reduction in the neighborhood of about 50
9 percent.
10 Q. And would those-- would it be-- well,
11 let me ask you first, is that opinion based upon the
12 data that you have reviewed and we've discussed
13 today?
14 A. That's part of it, in my opinion.
15 Q. What else would it be based on?
16 A. My experience I have had working in the
17 area and its diversity.
18 Q. Do you have an opinion whether a 50
19 percent reduction, and we're taking about-- when I
20 say 50 percent reduction, I'm talking about
21 basinwide-- would be cost effective?
22 A. I don't have an opinion. I don't.
23 I don't make any dollars and cents
24 judgements.
25 Q. So would it be your testimony, then,
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1 that to achieve an 80 percent or an 85 percent
2 reduction in phosphorus load over the 1979 or 1988--
3 to '88 base line period, some additional technology
4 over and above on-farm BMPs, would have to be
5 employed?
6 A. If a mandatory 80 or 85 percent-- I
7 believe so.
8 Q. Do you-- and I believe you have already
9 answered this, but let me just-- do you anticipate--
10 MR. GAINES: I object.
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. You don't anticipate testifying about
13 basinwide or EAA wide alternatives to STAs?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Let me ask you, have you reviewed or
16 been asked to review--
17 A. Can I stop?
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. I said no, I wanted to make sure-- I'm
20 trying to cover my terminology.
21 As an alternative-- getting us back to
22 the very--
23 Q. Let me ask you, basinwide or EAA wide
24 alternatives.
25 A. But on-farm BMPs are or are they not, an
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1 alternative?
2 MR. GAINES: Maybe I can help.
3 When you're asking about basinwide
4 alternatives to STAs, you're referring to
5 technologies, essentially treating on a basinwide
6 scale, probably associated with the four pump
7 stations--
8 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes. I'm distinguishing
9 basinwide from on-farm.
10 THE WITNESS: Okay. I've be talking
11 on-farm practices.
12 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
13 Q. Only?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Let me ask you, Doctor Coale, have you
16 reviewed or been asked to review, any report by
17 Burns and MacDonald, published on or about February
18 4, 1994?
19 A. I don't recall the name, Burns and
20 MacDonald, at all.
21 Q. Have you ever reviewed any reports by
22 Burns and MacDonald, produced for the South Florida
23 Water Management District?
24 A. I'm hesitating, because the names of the
25 different authors haven't stuck with me that
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1 tightly.
2 I don't recognize Burns and MacDonald.
3 Maybe they had a topic matter that I might be more
4 familiar with.
5 I don't remember Burns and MacDonald.
6 Q. Have you read a report entitled
7 Everglades Protection Project, Adjustment to EAA
8 Discharges Due to Implementation of Best Management
9 Practices, dated February 4, 1994, and I'll just
10 show it to you?
11 I don't want to make it an exhibit. If
12 you haven't read it, I don't want to ask any
13 questions about it.
14 A. No. I don't believe I have read that.
15 Q. Do you anticipate you might have
16 occasion to read it before the final hearing?
17 A. I don't have a copy of it.
18 MR. MACFARLANE: Let's take a break.
19 (Thereupon a recess was taken
20 in the deposition, after which
21 the deposition continued as follows:)
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Back on the record.
24 Doctor Coale, let me just ask you if you
25 have come across another report or had occasion to
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1 read a report, called Historical Phosphorus Loads
2 for the EAA.
3 Does that ring a bell, another Burns and
4 MacDonald report?
5 A. I don't believe so.
6 (The document referred to
7 was thereupon marked as
8 Coale Exhibit Number
9 13 for Identification,
10 a copy of which is attached
11 hereto.)
12 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
13 Q. Doctor Coale, you've just been handed
14 what's been marked as Exhibit Number 13, which is a
15 draft report entitled Evaluation of On-farm Best
16 Management Practices, submitted to the South Florida
17 Water Management District on February 18, 1993, by
18 Brown and Caldwell, Consultants.
19 Are you familiar with this report
20 (indicating)?
21 A. Yes, I am. I have seen it and read parts
22 of it.
23 Q. You have read parts of it?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Can you give me an idea from the table
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1 of contents, for example, what parts you have read?
2 A. It looks like-- as far as I can
3 remember, it's been some time, one, two, three-- I
4 believe chapter four has got-- let me back up a
5 second.
6 Not in its entirety.
7 I can tell you, any time we got into
8 discussion of cost of implementation, dollars and
9 cents, I skipped over it.
10 I told every one up front, I'm not going
11 to do any economic analysis.
12 Q. You don't anticipate offering any
13 testimony as to the cost effectiveness of the BMPs
14 or other on-farm practices on which you would be
15 called to testify?
16 A. Right.
17 Q. And you've done-- have you-- let me ask
18 you this: Have you ever done any cost analysis of
19 any BMP, on-farm BMP?
20 A. No.
21 Q. You don't consider yourself an expert in
22 that field, for--
23 A. No. Not at all, no.
24 Q. Well, let me ask you a few questions
25 about this report, and before I do that, let me ask
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1 you, would you be relying on anything contained in
2 this document as part of your testimony?
3 A. There's nothing novel-- let's see. I
4 won't be relying on anything that is solely in this
5 document.
6 I read through it. I didn't go over all
7 the dollars and cents issues.
8 Q. Would I be correct in thinking that to
9 that extent that you would rely on this document or
10 this document would form your testimony, it would
11 rest on the question of whether a particular BMP
12 worked and how well, in terms of reducing
13 phosphorus?
14 Would that be a fair statement?
15 A. Based on their evaluation as presented
16 here?
17 Q. Yes.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Fair enough.
20 Let me ask you to turn to page two-three
21 (indicating).
22 A. (Witness complies.)
23 Q. And in the second paragraph, it says,
24 "In addition to a review of the work by Bottcher
25 and Izuno," and I believe that would include some of
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1 the work that you're familiar with--
2 A. Uh-hum.
3 Q. Members of the Brown and Caldwell
4 project team held discussions with other IFAS
5 researchers and local representatives of the IFAS
6 extension service and soil conservation service, to
7 obtain their input on past and present farm
8 practices in the EAA.
9 My question, Doctor Coale, were you
10 among the people who had discussions with Brown and
11 Caldwell?
12 A. Not that I recall.
13 Q. This report was produced, I believe,
14 prior to July of 1993, when you left?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. When you left the University of Florida?
17 A. Right.
18 I don't recall-- of course, I talked to
19 so many people, that--
20 Q. You have no specific recollection of
21 having had your views solicited by anyone from the
22 firm of Brown and Caldwell?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Let's go to page 3-3, and I call your
25 attention first to the-- it's a little hard to read,
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1 but the marginal comment (indicating).
2 Do you recognize the handwriting to the
3 extent you can read it (indicating)?
4 A. I can't read it at all on my copy.
5 Q. I have the copy, that-- from which that
6 copy was made, and I have a hard time reading it,
7 too, but do you recall making any markings in the
8 copy that you reviewed?
9 A. I--
10 Q. Would this be your handwriting, for
11 example, to the extent that one can read it?
12 A. I don't recall making any marginal
13 comment, and I don't think-- I usually don't write
14 that small.
15 Q. All right.
16 A. I continued to use-- not to use
17 highlighters, instead of--
18 Q. Let me direct your attention to the
19 second paragraph from the bottom, "The effectiveness
20 of sediment control BMPs, may also be reduced by
21 implementation of the pump schedule BMP."
22 Do you understand that to be the same
23 pump practice BMP that we were discussing earlier?
24 A. I--
25 Q. If you look over to table 3-1 on the
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1 previous-- on this table, three-one, without
2 dissecting it, is the same one we looked at, from
3 the--
4 A. I'll accept that qualification. I
5 believe that it is. I'm not--
6 Q. We'll assume that it is.
7 A. Okay.
8 Q. "The effectiveness of sediment control
9 BMPs may also be reduced by implementation of the
10 pump schedule BMP."
11 Accepting that qualification, do you
12 believe that's a true statement?
13 MR. GAINES: Accepting--
14 MR. MACFARLANE: The qualification that
15 we're not certain that the Florida Sugar Cane League
16 modified pumping practices, is the identical to the
17 one we talked about today.
18 MR. GAINES: For purposes of this
19 question, you're referring to the sediment control
20 BMPs, that were talked about in the pump schedule,
21 BMPs--
22 MR. GAINES: Right.
23 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes.
24 MR. GAINES: Okay.
25 THE WITNESS: Let me, then--
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1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. You can reread the statement, and my
3 question is, do you agree with that?
4 A. Yes. That's a possibility.
5 Q. And I'll finish the paragraph, just so
6 we're-- I'm not reading stuff too much out of
7 context.
8 "With improved water table management,
9 the quantity of sediment being displaced from farm
10 fields, ditches and canals into the District canals,
11 will be reduced. Therefore, there will be less
12 potential for sediment control practices to further
13 reduce phosphorus load."
14 Would you agree with that (indicating)?
15 A. That statement makes sense.
16 It doesn't-- I can't stretch it to mean
17 that it would render any-- effective, ineffective,
18 any sediment control BMPs.
19 MR. GAINES: By the way, that's my
20 marginal comment.
21 THE WITNESS: What does it say?
22 MR. GAINES: It says, "Not well worded."
23 I thought I would throw that in.
24 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
25 Q. Let me ask you to turn to the tables
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1 that follow, page 3-37, and let me, in particular,
2 direct your attention to table 3-16, and let me ask
3 you to look at section D of that table, entitled
4 Sediment Control (indicating).
5 A. Uh-hum.
6 Q. And ask you to look over on the far
7 right-hand column, where it's headed, Phosphorus
8 Reduction on eAA Sugar Cane Land Percentage, and ask
9 you whether you agree or disagree with the
10 percentage reduction figures given in that table,
11 and take your time, and please-- please take your
12 time and review it.
13 A. (Witness complies.)
14 MR. GAINES: Just for my clarification,
15 you're asking him about the final column, as opposed
16 to the ranges?
17 MR. MACFARLANE: I'll also ask him about
18 the ranges, as well.
19 MR. GAINES: All right.
20 THE WITNESS: Okay. I would have to go
21 back and look at what their grouping-- I would
22 like-- maybe that wouldn't be necessary.
23 Overall, compared to the numbers I saw
24 that were generated, that we talked about, these
25 look very low, compared to the numbers that they
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1 generated.
2 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
3 Q. Would it be your opinion that these
4 numbers are too low, or to flip it around, that it
5 would be likely that sugar cane farmers could do
6 better than those numbers on sediment control BMPs?
7 A. I don't think I can say that, but I
8 don't know and I don't recall how much was presented
9 here, and how those were generated.
10 All I can say, there's a big different
11 between these numbers and the sediment control
12 practices, the data collected that I was familiar
13 with.
14 Q. Let me ask you to flip back to page
15 3-35, which has the bottom paragraph, which has
16 lines around it for-- let me read this, and again,
17 my question will be, again, would you agree or
18 disagree; "The effectiveness levels for the sediment
19 control BMPs used in this evaluation are necessarily
20 judgemental, due to the lack of available
21 performance data on which to prepare documentable
22 estimates," and my question about whether you agree
23 or disagree, really goes to the statement about the
24 lack of available performance data.
25 Do you believe that there's a lack of--
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1 do you agree that there's a lack of available
2 performance data on which to prepare documentable
3 estimates?
4 MR. GAINES: Object to the form.
5 You mean as to what Brown and Caldwell
6 had available when it came to this report?
7 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes.
8 MR. GAINES: If you know.
9 THE WITNESS: I don't know what they had
10 available.
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. Do you believe that the data that's been
13 produced and that you produced for your deposition,
14 since February of 1993-- well, let me withdraw that
15 question.
16 Do you believe that the data that you
17 reviewed from United States Sugar, presented to you
18 prior to you visiting in March of 1994, would
19 satisfy you as to the adequacy in calculating or
20 estimating a range of phosphorus reduction from
21 sediment control BMPs?
22 MR. GAINES: Object to the form.
23 You can answer.
24 THE WITNESS: I think we've already gone
25 over some of the limitations of that data, and I
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1 think, like I stated before, there are strong
2 indications there's great potential there, but we
3 need to flush it out with as much information as we
4 can get.
5 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
6 Q. I apologize, and should have asked you
7 to review the sediment control BMPs listed in table
8 3-13, which appears on 3-33, and let's be sure on
9 what we're considering here.
10 Would you review, just quickly, those
11 sediment controls and the way that Brown and
12 Caldwell had categorized them, into field erosion
13 control, ditch sediment and canal sediment control,
14 and my question is, do you understand this list of
15 BMPs to be the same as these we reviewed earlier
16 this afternoon?
17 A. It looks like a very similar list.
18 Q. So back back to table 3-16--
19 A. 3-16?
20 Q. Yes. Looking at the sediment control,
21 understanding now what they considered for field
22 erosion, ditch sediment control and canal sediment
23 control in section D of this table--
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Your testimony is that the ranges-- if
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1 these sediment control BMPs were fully implemented--
2 A. Okay.
3 Q. The ranges, for example, of field
4 erosion control from two to fifteen percent
5 reduction in phosphorus, could be improved upon?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. My question to you, Doctor Coale, is in
8 the data sheet that we reviewed earlier today, do
9 you recall reading percentage reductions in
10 phosphorus, as opposed to percentage reductions in
11 sediment or soil?
12 MR. GAINES: This was referring to all of
13 the data sheets?
14 MR. MACFARLANE: The data sheets having
15 to do with field erosion control.
16 THE WITNESS: I would have to go back and
17 review it.
18 Most of the sediment load, and some of
19 the practices had data on phosphorus load
20 reductions.
21 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm not sure which ones
22 were which at this point.
23 I have to go back and look at them.
24 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
25 Q. Do you recall having reviewed any data
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1 from U.S. Sugar on phosphorus reduction potential,
2 for each of the field erosion control BMPs?
3 A. I don't believe that data was available
4 for each one of them.
5 Q. How about ditch sediment control?
6 Working back and referring--
7 A. Some of them had some phosphorus
8 numbers, and some didn't.
9 Q. I understnad. I'm not trying to stump
10 you. It's been a long afternoon. Let's make sure we
11 aren't comparing apples and oranges or rice and
12 sugar cane.
13 MR. GAINES: Let's make sure we're not
14 doing that, but--
15 THE WITNESS: It's probably easier to see
16 which is--
17 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
18 Q. Could you identify which of these data
19 sheets provides phosphorus data?
20 A. I'm looking at both sets here
21 (indicating).
22 Vegetative ditch banks, there's
23 phosphorus data for.
24 Q. All right. That would be a-- that's a
25 field practice, I believe, under this
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1 categorization.
2 Cover crops, there is phosphorus data,
3 field cover crops, field ditch sumps-- there is
4 phosphorus data on those.
5 Parallel canal system, there's
6 phosphorus data.
7 Sediment trap, there's phosphorus data;
8 and ditch cleaning, there's phosphorus data.
9 That's all out of Exhibit Number Eight
10 (indicating).
11 Exhibit Number Nine, again, the grass
12 ditch bank, there's phosphorus data.
13 Q. And, in fact, I think we can agree that
14 all of the data sheets in Exhibit Number Nine, give
15 those.
16 A. Okay.
17 Q. Reduction data, so would it be correct
18 to say that your opinion that the data ranges in
19 table 3-16 in the Brown and Caldwell report, your
20 opinion that these data ranges are too low, would be
21 based upon the data that you have reviewed, in
22 exhibits-- what was it-- eight and nine, as to where
23 those data sheets give those reductions?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Would that--
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Would you be relying on any other data
3 as to phosphorus reduction to dispute the accuracy
4 of these estimates in table 3-16, the Brown and
5 Caldwell report?
6 Have you seen any other data?
7 A. No. None.
8 Q. Let me ask you, Doctor Coale, I know you
9 said you haven't reviewed or you stayed away from
10 the cost estimates that appear in chapter four of
11 the Brown and Caldwell report--
12 A. Also, the cost estimates--
13 Q. I understand that there were some in the
14 beginning, too, but let me ask you, did you review
15 at the beginning-- let me see. On page 4-5, there
16 are-- there's an evaluation--
17 I'll wait till you find it.
18 A. Okay.
19 Q. There's an evaluation of BMP
20 reliability.
21 Did you evaluate that evaluation?
22 A. No, I don't believe I did.
23 Q. So you have no opinion as to the
24 evaluation that's presented here (indicating)?
25 A. That's true.
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1 Q. And do you have an opinion as to the
2 reliability factors that are summarized in tables
3 4-4?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Do you recall having reviewed that
6 table?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Let me ask you to turn back to page nine
9 in the executive summary portion.
10 A. (Witness complies.)
11 Q. And let me read under effectiveness of
12 sediment control BMPs, the first paragraph, which
13 reads, limited data exists to document the
14 effectiveness of sediment control practices in
15 reducing phosphorus load from farms in the EAA.
16 A. Can you hold on one second?
17 Okay. I was on the wrong paragraph.
18 Q. I believe we have-- you have already
19 commented on that point, when it appeared later on.
20 I'll continue. "The Florida Sugar Cane
21 League has suggested that as much as 50 percent of
22 the total phosphorus pumped out of the EAA, may be
23 in the particulate form, based on its analysis of
24 historical water quality data from the District's
25 pumping stations."
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1 My question to you is, have you done an
2 analysis of historical water data from the
3 District's--
4 A. No.
5 Q. Would you agree with that statement?
6 A. I think I used that 50 percent, too.
7 Q. It was different. You were talking about
8 50 percent phosphorus reduction--
9 A. No. It was particulates.
10 Q. So would you agree with this statement?
11 A. I think 50 percent particulate and 50
12 percent dissolved phosphorus, fractions of totaling
13 phosphorus, is a ballpark average.
14 Q. And then to continue, "In theory,
15 retention of soil and sediments on-farm, should
16 reduce sediment buildup in the District's canals,
17 and eventually should result in reduced discharge of
18 particulate phosphorus out of the EAA. However,
19 there is no data to support a definitive statement
20 for those reductions resulting from sediment control
21 BMPs, either individually or as an aggreagate."
22 Do you agree or disagree with that
23 statement?
24 MR. GAINES: Again, are you asking him
25 whether--
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm asking whether he
2 disagrees or agrees with the last sentence.
3 MR. GAINES: I know. My question is, are
4 you referring to whether he agrees that Brown and
5 Caldwell had no data or whether as he sits here
6 today, there's no data?
7 MR. MACFARLANE: Well, I'm not going to--
8 MR. GAINES: Or something else.
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Do you-- well, do you know whether Brown
11 and Caldwell had any data to review?
12 A. I have no way of knowing that.
13 Q. I didn't think so.
14 I assume as you sit here today, would it
15 be fair to say that you would disagree with that
16 statement?
17 A. I have seen sediment control BMP data.
18 Q. Do you know whether that data reflects a
19 definitive estimate of phosphorus reduction
20 resulting from sediment control BMPs?
21 A. No.
22 As I mentioned earlier, I think it
23 indicates the potential usefulness of these sediment
24 BMPs.
25 Q. So you would agree with that statement,
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1 would you know not, the last sentence?
2 A. There's the data--
3 No, I can't agree with that, as it's
4 there now.
5 Q. You cannot agree with it?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Let me skip over the next paragraph, and
8 ask you to look at the next paragraph, and-- in our
9 opinion, ditch and canal sediment control practices,
10 can reduce phosphorus loads by as much as 15 percent
11 on some highly erosive farms.
12 Do you agree or disagree with that?
13 A. That's in line with the estimate I gave
14 earlier for the EAA, as a whole, but however, we
15 assume that the load reduction potential is less
16 than ten percent.
17 There's no specific performance data on
18 which to base these estimates, and I agreed--
19 Q. And I would imagine that you are-- would
20 you agree or disagree with this?
21 MR. GAINES: With which sentence?
22 MR. MACFARLANE: The third sentence in
23 the paragraph.
24 THE WITNESS: I believe now there is some
25 performance data.
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1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. Do you believe the performance data that
3 you've seen, is adequate on which to base a
4 definitive estimate of the performance of sediment
5 control BMPs?
6 MR. GAINES: Objection.
7 This has been asked and answered several
8 times now.
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Do you want to answer it one more time?
11 MR. GAINES: I am not instructing him not
12 to answer, but I think we have gone over the same
13 testimony a few times.
14 Go ahead and say it again.
15 THE WITNESS: I reitterate, unless
16 there's strong indication-- there's some great
17 potential there that needs to be further explored.
18 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
19 Q. I want to shift gears a little bit, and
20 ask you, Doctor Coale, have you ever studied or
21 reviewed data on the water quality in the-- water
22 quality in the water conservation areas?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Do you know if the BMPs that you're
25 prepared to testify on the final hearing, would
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1 reduce load of other nutrients, other than
2 phosphorus; for example, nitrogen?
3 A. They have a potential, too.
4 Q. Have you-- are you aware of any data
5 that has analyzed the effect of any of the BMPs on
6 which you would testify, any other nutrient, other
7 than phosphorus?
8 A. The only data I'm familiar with, would
9 be some nitrogen data that's incorporated into one
10 of the manuscripts we wrote last year.
11 Q. One of the three published papers that
12 you provided us?
13 A. Right.
14 Q. Do you know whether the BMPs on which
15 you're prepared to testify, would treat metals that
16 might be found in water flowing off the EAA?
17 A. How do you define metals?
18 Q. Any metallic compound, such as iron, for
19 example, and mercury--
20 A. Can you repeat the question, now that I
21 know what metals are?
22 Q. Do you have any opinion as to whether
23 the BMPs that you're prepared to testify on, would
24 reduce concentrations of metals, those metals in
25 water flowing out of the EAA?
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1 A. I haven't seen any data relative to
2 that.
3 Q. How about pesticide?
4 A. I haven't seen that data, either.
5 Q. Have you ever been to the Everglades?
6 A. Uh-hum.
7 Q. Have you been to the--
8 MR. GAINES: I thought you were asking
9 for a--
10 Off the record.
11 (Discussion off the record.)
12 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
13 Q. Have you been to, let's say, the
14 Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. When? Do you recall?
17 A. Several occasions when I was living in
18 South Florida.
19 Q. How about Everglades National Park?
20 A. I have never been there, no.
21 Q. Have you ever been to the interior
22 marshes of Loxahatchee?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Did you go on an air boat ride?
25 A. No.
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: I assume that Doctor
2 Coale would lawfully obtain a use permit to go and
3 undertake research, and not trespass.
4 MR. GAINES: I thought you were going to
5 try to get him arrested.
6 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
7 Q. Do you have any understanding of the
8 Everglades, or to be more precise, the Loxahatchee
9 National Wildlife Refuge, as an oligotrophic
10 ecosystem?
11 MR. GAINES: Wait a minute. You're
12 asking him questions about whether the Loxahatchee
13 is oligotrophic?
14 MR. MACFARLANE: I asked if he has an
15 understanding of that.
16 MR. GAINES: Why don't you ask him how he
17 thinks the Marlins are going to do this year.
18 That has nothing to do--
19 MR. MACFARLANE: Actually, I want to know
20 whether he has any understanding of the water
21 quality in which EAA waters are discharged, and if
22 that helps your-- to let you know where I'm coming
23 from, let me restate the question.
24 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
25 Q. Do you-- would you agree that the
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1 Everglades is an oligotrophic ecosystem?
2 MR. GAINES: Same objection.
3 I think it's outside his scope of expert
4 testimony.
5 MR. MACFARLANE: Are you instructing him
6 not to answer?
7 MR. GAINES: There are ample experts in
8 this case that have an opinion and have been asked
9 to form an opinion on that very issue.
10 MR. MACFARLANE: I understand that. I'm--
11 I just want to know if he knows, or if he has any--
12 MR. GAINES: If he feels comfortable
13 offering an expert opinion in that area--
14 MR. MACFARLANE: I am not asking if he
15 has an expert opinion in that area. I'm asking if he
16 has an opinion or if he agrees with the statement.
17 MR. GAINES: Well, if you're asking him
18 for an opinion and it's not expert opinion, then I
19 would instruct him that he's not here to give
20 non-expert opinions, and I don't think you should be
21 going into those kinds of questions.
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Do you have any understanding of the
24 ecosystem of the water conservation areas?
25 MR. GAINES: Object to the form.
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1 His understanding?
2 THE WITNESS: I'm not an ecosystem
3 biologist, so I would say no, by any stretch of the
4 imagination.
5 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
6 Q. Do you have any understanding as-- of
7 the phosphorus requirement for the receiving waters
8 below the EAA?
9 MR. GAINES: I'm just going to continue
10 to object to any question, and maybe you'll give me
11 a continuing objection, any question that has, do
12 you have any understanding, in it.
13 I object to that.
14 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
15 Q. Do you have any knowledge of the
16 phosphorus requirements of the receiving waters
17 below the EAA?
18 MR. GAINES: Same objection.
19 THE WITNESS: I don't know what you mean
20 by receiving waters.
21 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
22 Q. The waters into which the water
23 discharged out into the EAA.
24 A. No.
25 Q. Okay. Let me ask one last thing.
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1 Well, let's have this marked
2 (indicating).
3 (The document referred to
4 was thereupon marked as
5 Coale Exhibit Number
6 14 for Identification,
7 a copy of which is attached
8 hereto.)
9 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
10 Q. Doctor, I'm handing you what's been
11 marked as Exhibit Number 14 (indicating).
12 And this is a document entitled,
13 Pretrial Disclosure of Issues and Witnesses.
14 Have you ever seen this document before,
15 Doctor Coale (indicating)?
16 A. I don't believe I have.
17 Q. I'll represent to you that this document
18 consists of a series of numbered assertions by
19 petitioners, Florida Sugar Cane League and United
20 States Sugar, with the names and addresses of
21 witnesses who are to give testimony about these
22 assertions.
23 A. Uh-hum.
24 Q. And let me ask you if you would turn to
25 page four, and to look at assertion number three,
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1 and I would just like you to flip the page to page
2 five (indicating).
3 Do you recognize your name on the--
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. My question is, assertion-- the
6 numbered-- assertion number three, is whether the
7 SWIM Plan correctly identifies, evaluates the
8 impacts of and assigns remedies for all sources of
9 phosphorus loading into the EPA, and my question to
10 you, Doctor Coale, is do you anticipate giving
11 testimony on that assertion?
12 A. Well--
13 MR. GAINES: Wait a minute. Let me
14 object.
15 You said EAA, and I think you meant
16 EPA.
17 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm sorry. That's my
18 mistake.
19 MR. GAINES: This is essentially a legal
20 document, and I think you're asking him to interpret
21 legal issues, and it's not for him to do that.
22 This was a document that was put
23 together by the attorneys, and I'm not sure that
24 he's the appropriate party to interpret the legal
25 ramifications or issues that are set forth in this
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1 document, so I would object to that.
2 Just, for example, on this number
3 three-- we'll let him answer the question, and if I
4 have a different answer, I'll let you know.
5 THE WITNESS: Okay. Your question is
6 what?
7 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
8 Q. My question is, do you anticipate
9 testifying on any of the aspects or parts of that
10 assertion, which may be a different question,
11 actually?
12 A. That's not the way I would categorize
13 what I'm going to testify to.
14 MR. GAINES: And just so we're clear, I
15 think that his testimony would fall within that
16 description, or at least a portion of that
17 description, and this is the problem with him--
18 asking him to go through this legal document.
19 MR. MACFARLANE: Let me break it down,
20 then, because I don't want to mislead him or-- I'm
21 not looking for his views on legal conclusions.
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Do you anticipate testifying whether the
24 SWIM Plan correctly identifies, evaluates the
25 impacts of or-- let me back up. Correctly identifies
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1 all sources of phosphorus loading into the EPA?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Do you-- do you anticipate testifying on
4 whether the SWIM Plan correctly evaluates the impact
5 of all sources of phosphorus loading into the EPA?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Do you anticipate testifying whether the
8 SWIM Plan correctly assigns remedies for all sources
9 of phosphorus loading into the EPA?
10 A. I'll be addressing some of the potential
11 remedies.
12 Q. As we discussed today?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. That's what I wanted to know.
15 Let me ask you to turn to page eight
16 (indicating).
17 A. Whatever that meant.
18 I--
19 Q. I'm sorry, page seven and assertion
20 number eight (indicating).
21 The assertion is whether excessive
22 over-drainage caused by the federal project and not
23 addressed in the SWIM Plan, has resulted in more
24 vegetative and ecosystem damage and nutrients.
25 Doctor Coale, you're listed as a witness
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1 who will testify on that subject.
2 MR. GAINES: Where is he listed?
3 Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, he is.
4 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
5 Q. Do you know what the federal project is
6 that refers to?
7 A. No, I don't.
8 Q. I'll represent to you that is the
9 Central and Southern Florida project for flood
10 control and other purposes.
11 Do you understand what that is?
12 A. Not really, no.
13 Q. Do you anticipate giving any testimony
14 concerning excessive over-drainage?
15 A. Or drainage of what?
16 A. Over-drainage-- I think I'll just maybe
17 leave it.
18 Do you anticipate giving any testimony
19 as to vegetative or ecosystem damage?
20 MR. GAINES: I can just tell you, for the
21 record, I don't believe his name should be listed
22 under that one.
23 I don't believe--
24 MR. MACFARLANE: I'll accept that
25 representation, counsel, and move on.
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1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. To the next page, number nine, the
3 assertion is whether flooding or excess pooling
4 caused by the federal project but not addressed in
5 the SWIM Plan, has caused more vegetative or
6 ecosystem changes than nutrients.
7 Do you anticipate giving any testimony
8 on any of-- aspect of that?
9 A. No.
10 Q. You do--
11 A. Not as far as I understand what it says.
12 Q. Do you see your name listed there?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. I would like to ask you to turn to page
15 19 (indicating).
16 A. (Witness complies.)
17 Q. Let me ask you to look at assertion
18 number 22.
19 This states whether the SWIM Plan fails
20 to identify, evaluate and consider reasonable
21 practical and less costly alternatives to STAs.
22 Let me ask you first, Doctor Coale, do
23 you anticipate giving any testimony as to whether
24 the SWIM Plan fails to identify, evaluate and
25 consider reasonable alternatives to STAs?
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1 A. Again, alternatives, including on-farm--
2 Q. Is that--
3 A. Alternatives, including on-farm
4 management practices, yes, about the reasonableness,
5 about the practicality, and not about the cost.
6 Q. And the opinion testimony you would give
7 at the hearing, would be what essentially we have
8 gone over today, correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Have you reviewed any documents,
11 including the SWIM Plan, the passages in the SWIM
12 Plan, that discuss STAs?
13 A. Can you repeat that?
14 Q. Have you reviewed any documents
15 concerning STAs, and I include the SWIM Plan?
16 A. Excluding the Palm Beach Post, Miami
17 Herald?
18 Q. Is that the limit of----
19 A. That's about the extent of it.
20 Q. Let me ask you to look at the bottom on
21 page 19, assertion number 23, and if you look,
22 you'll see your name mentioned as giving testimony
23 in this area.
24 The assertion is, whether and to what
25 extent STAs are necessary to meet or will result in
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1 compliance with State water quality standards.
2 A. No.
3 MR. GAINES: I would say yes, and this,
4 again, is the problem with having this witness
5 interpret this document, to the extent that his
6 testimony would be that the SWIM Plan underestimates
7 the effectiveness of the BMPs, then I think it would
8 tend to go to the extent that-- STAs are necessary
9 to the extent they are called for in the SWIM Plan,
10 to do anything.
11 No--
12 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
13 Q. Doctor Coale, was that an accurate
14 statement of your understanding of what you would be
15 testifying to?
16 A. I'm not going to testify on what the
17 implication is-- the efficacy of BMPs are.
18 If they are construed to impact STAs or
19 not, that's what I'm going to talk about.
20 Q. Let me ask you, do you-- you don't
21 anticipate giving any testimony as to State water
22 quality standards?
23 A. No, I don't.
24 MR. MACFARLANE: Off the record.
25 (Off the record discussion.)
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1 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
2 Q. Back on the record.
3 After the brief interruption, let me ask
4 you to turn to page 22, and look at assertion 27
5 (indicating).
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you anticipate testifying on whether
8 farm BMPs, or on-farm practices or alternative
9 technologies will reduce or eliminate the need for
10 the STA program.
11 A. Again, my same answer I gave to the last
12 question, that-- I will testify as to my opinions on
13 the efficacy of on-farm BMPs and how they want to be
14 used after that, is out of my area.
15 Q. So you have-- you do not intend to give
16 any opinion testimony as to the STA program as
17 defined if the SWIM Plan, or any other--
18 A. That is true.
19 MR. GAINES: That is true. I can tell
20 you that.
21 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
22 Q. Page 24, number 31 (indicating).
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And if you flip the page, you'll see
25 your name listed under there (indicating).
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1 The assertion whether it is premature to
2 design and construction STAs, given the present
3 level of uncertainty surrounding both the STAs
4 design criteria and underlying factors that will
5 determine STA performance, and the lack of any
6 comparable project or field result.
7 To the extent that's-- well, that would
8 be--
9 MR. GAINES: It sounds like a true
10 statement to me.
11 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
12 Q. Do you-- to the extent that that is an
13 intelligent statement, Doctor Coale, do you
14 anticipate giving any testimony in that area?
15 A. I have no information about STA design
16 or uncertanties.
17 I think there's a lot of unanswered
18 questions regarding the effectiveness of BMPs
19 on-farm, and if that impacts design and function of
20 STAs, maybe it is-- if the unknown performance of
21 BMPs on-farm will impact STAs-- well, I don't know
22 if it does or not, then maybe it is time to go ahead
23 with the design of those STAs.
24 Q. Page 25, and again, I'm looking at
25 assertion 32 (indicating).
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And if you'll flip over to 26, you'll
3 see your name here again, and the assertion is-- I
4 hope you're trying-- I'm not trying to put words in
5 your mouth, Doctor Coale.
6 The assertion here is whether the
7 District has determined correctly a phosphorus
8 budget for the planning area of the SWIM Plan.
9 My question to you is, do you intend to
10 offer any testimony on the phosphorus budget for the
11 EAA?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Are there any phosphorus budgets for the
14 EAA?
15 A. Not that I reviewed.
16 Q. Have you reviewed any phosphorus budgets
17 at all, for the South Florida area?
18 MR. GAINES: Ever?
19 MR. MACFARLANE: Yes, ever. I believe
20 there was some phosphorus budgets generated on
21 experimental plots.
22 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. That I've seen and reviewed, but nothing
25 on a production scale.
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1 Q. And these experimental plots, would they
2 be in either EREC or IFAS experimental plots?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. But you haven't reviewed any phosphorus
5 budgets for the water conservation areas, for
6 example?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Page 30, and assertion number five, and
9 if you'll flip the page over to number 31, you'll
10 see your name there, and the assertion is whether
11 the SWIM Plan or the implementation thereof,
12 balances environmental benefits with threats to
13 urban and agricultural areas, consistent with the
14 legislative intent of the SWIM Act, as set forth in
15 Section 373.451 (2)(a)(d), Florida Statutes, 1993.
16 Let's break this down.
17 Have you ever looked at that provision,
18 Doctor Coale?
19 MR. GAINES: Wait a minute.
20 MR. MACFARLANE: He is listed as a
21 witness who will offer testimony in that area.
22 MR. GAINES: Right, but this petition
23 also seeks resolution of the law and ultimate facts,
24 and again, even more strenuously here, I would
25 object to him being asked to make a legal
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1 determination, about what legal issues--
2 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm not--
3 MR. GAINES: Let me finish my objection.
4 To make a legal determination as to what
5 issues, what legal issues his testimony could
6 potentially be used to address.
7 MR. MACFARLANE: I understand, but that
8 wasn't my question. I'm not asking for any-- for you
9 to speculate about any legal conclusion.
10 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
11 Q. My question is very simple. Have you
12 ever looked at that section of the Florida Statutes?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Do you anticipate giving any--
15 A. Let me back up and say, not that I know
16 of.
17 Q. Fine. I'll accept that.
18 Do you anticipate giving any testimony
19 about balancing environmental benefits with threat
20 to urban and agricultural areas, as addressed or not
21 addressed in the SWIM Plan?
22 MR. GAINES: Same objection as before.
23 MR. MACFARLANE: You can answer, if you
24 feel you can.
25 THE WITNESS: I don't think I am.
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1 MR. GAINES: And let me just state for
2 the record, I believe Doctor Coale is appropriate
3 listed under this categories, and should remain
4 there.
5 MR. GAINES: Which again, illustrates the
6 difficult to trying to get him to look at a legal
7 docoument.
8 MR. MACFARLANE: It puts us in a
9 difficult position, John, because we're trying to
10 figure out what your witnesses are going to testify
11 about, and there's a real distinction how they are
12 listed in the document, and how they--
13 MR. GAINES: If there's areas he was
14 listed in inappropriate areas, I'll tell you that.
15 MR. MACFARLANE: But that necessitates
16 that I go through these.
17 MR. GAINES: I understand.
18 BY MR. MACFARLANE:
19 Q. Let me ask you, with respect to number
20 five, Doctor Coale, do you have any opinion as to
21 whether the implementation of the SWIM Plan, would
22 threaten urban or agricultural areas?
23 MR. GAINES: To that extent that you're
24 asking him in relationship to the statutes that are
25 referenced--
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1 MR. MACFARLANE: I'm not asking him that.
2 I don't want to get into that.
3 I'm just asking him generally as a
4 citizen, do you have any opinion.
5 THE WITNESS: Now, let me say that the
6 SWIM Plan, the provisions of the SWIM Plan, are to
7 create these STAs, which I know nothing about, other
8 than from the Palm Beach Post and Herald, and they
9 will impact both, because they both are-- they are
10 altering the use of the plan, which alters the
11 community we're living in.
12 Q. Do you perceive that as a complete
13 threat?
14 A. As a threat?
15 Personally, I'm not threatened by it.
16 Q. Page 33, number ten, whether the
17 District adequately considered and addressed adverse
18 effects the SWIM Plan, or its implementation, will
19 have on the agricultural resources of the EAA and
20 the State, and correctly determined that such
21 adverse effects do not exceed the beneficial effects
22 on these resource pursuant to Section 373.455 (5),
23 Florida Statutes, 1993.
24 And my question is, again, Doctor Coale,
25 have you ever, that you can recall, reviewed that
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1 section of the Florida Statutes?
2 A. Not that I can recall.
3 Q. Do you have any opinion whether the
4 District adequately considered and addressed the--
5 well, let me back up.
6 Do you know that the SWIM Plan or its
7 implementation, will have an adverse effect on the
8 agricultural resources of the EAA?
9 MR. GAINES: I think that was just
10 answered.
11 THE WITNESS: It will all-- if it alters
12 the use of marsh land, yes, it will have some
13 effect.
14 BY MR. MACFARLANE: