1

 1           Division of Administrative Hearings
 2      Department of Administration, State of Florida
 3 
      SUGAR CANE GROWERS COOPERATIVE      )
 4    of FLORIDA; ROTH FARMS, INC.; and   )
      WEDGWORTH FARMS, Inc.,              )
 5              Petitioners               )
         V                                )  DOAH Case
 6    SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT      )  No. 92-3038
      DISTRICT, an agency of the State    )
 7    of Florida; et al.,                 )
                Respondents.              )
 8 
      FLORIDA SUGAR CANE LEAGUE, INC.;    )
 9    UNITED STATES SUGAR CORPORATION;    )
      and NEW HOPE SOUTH, INC.,           )
10                Petitioners,            )
         V                                )  DOAH Case
11    SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT      )  No. 92-3039
      DISTRICT, an agency of the State    )
12    of Florida; et al.,                 )
                  Respondents.            )
13 
      FLORIDA FRUIT and VEGETABLE         )
14    ASSOCIATION; LEWIS POPE FARMS;      )
      W. E. SCHLECHTER & SONS, INC.,      )
15    and HUNDLEY FARMS, INC.,            )
                    Petitioners,          )
16        V                               )   DOAH Case
      SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT      )   No. 92-3040
17    DISTRICT, an agency of the State    )
      of Florida; et al.,                 )
18                  Respondents.          )
   
19 
                     Deposition of Eric Flaig
20 
               Taken before Elaine V.  Williams,
21   Professional Reporter and Notary Public in and for
     the State of Florida at large, pursuant to notice of
22   taking deposition filed by the Plaintiffs Sugar Cane
     League, U. S. Sugar and New Hope South in the above
23   cause.
                             -  -  -
24   Wednesday, February 24, 1992
     319 Clematis Street, Suite 500
25   West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
     9:00 a.m. - 3:20 p.m.

                                                 2

 1    APPEARANCES:
 2 
          On behalf of the Petitioners Florida Sugar
 3         Cane League, Inc., United States Sugar Corp.,
           and New South Hope, Inc.:
 4             Peeples, Earl & Blank, P.A.
               One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3636
 5             Two South Biscayne Boulevard
               Miami, Florida  33131
 6             By:  ROBERT H. BLANK ESQUIRE
   
 7        On behalf of the Respondent SFWMD:
               Popham, Haik, Schnobrich & Kaufman, Ltd.
 8             4000 International Place
               100 Southeast Second Street
 9             Miami, Florida  33131
               By:  PATRICK COUSINS, ESQUIRE
10 
          On behalf of the Intervenor, United States of America:
11            Department of Justice
              155 South Miami Avenue, Suite 627
12            Miami, Florida  33130-1693
              BY:  ROBERT ROSENBERG, ESQUIRE
13 
   
14                         -  -  -

                                                 3

 1                         -  -  -
 2                      I  N  D  E  X
 3                         -  -  -
 4 
 5  WITNESS:            DIRECT  CROSS  REDIRECT  RECROSS
 6  Eric Flaig
 7 
    BY MR. BLANK:        4
 8 
   
 9                         -  -  -
10                     E X H I B I T S
11                         -  -  -
12 
13  NUMBER           PAGE NO.      DESCRIPTION
14  EXB. NO. 1         5             CV
    EXB. NO. 2        56           phosphorous budget
15  EXB. NO. 3       115           draft graphic
    EXB. NO. 4       117           graphic
16  EXB. NO. 5       122           pgs 33, 38 1992 SWIM
                                   Planning Document
17  EXB. NO. 6       132           draft Evaluation of EAA
                                   phosphorous reduction
18                                 alternatives

                                                 4

 1                    P R O C E E D I N G S
 2                       -  -  -
 3   Thereupon,
 4                      Eric Flaig,
 5   being by the undersigned Notary Public first duly
 6   sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
 7              THE WITNESS:  I do.
 8                      DIRECT (Eric Flaig)
 9   BY MR. BLANK:
10       Q.    For the record, sir, would you state your
11   name and address?
12       A.    My name is Eric George Flaig.  I live at
13   131 Eider Court, Royal Palm Beach, Florida.
14       Q.    My name is Robert Blank.  I am an attorney
15   for U.S. Sugar Corporation, the Florida Sugar Cane
16   League, and New Hope South and am taking your
17   deposition in the context of the SWIM plan
18   administrative challenge.  If I ask you any questions
19   that you don't understand, would you please indicate
20   that to me, and I'll attempt to rephrase the
21   question.
22       A.    Yes, sir.
23       Q.    Okay.  Where are you presently employed?
24       A.    South Florida Water Management District.
25       Q.    And what is your position with the

                                                 5

 1   District?
 2       A.    I'm a senior civil engineer.
 3       Q.    Are you assigned to a particular
 4   department?
 5       A.    I am in the Kissimmee and Okeechobee
 6   Systems Research Division of the Research Department.
 7       Q.    And when you say Kissimmee and Okeechobee,
 8   what geographic area does that include?
 9       A.    That geographic area includes the upper
10   east coast, the lower west coast, Kissimmee River
11   Valley and Lake Okeechobee.
12       Q.    Does it include regions south of Lake
13   Okeechobee?
14       A.    It does not include the EPA or the EAA or
15   those areas south of that.  I believe it includes
16   some parts of the lower east coast, which are,
17   latitudewise, south of Okeechobee.
18       Q.    I show you a document which we will mark as
19   Flaig Number 1.
20             (The document was marked
21             Flaig Exb. No. 1.)
22   BY MR. BLANK:
23       Q.    Can you identify that document, sir?
24       A.    That is my Curriculum Vitae.
25       Q.    Is this the most recent Curriculum Vitae

                                                 6

 1   that you have?
 2       A.    Yes, sir.
 3       Q.    Under the first item on that document
 4   marked 1992, which I would assume means 1992 to
 5   present; is that correct?
 6       A.    Yes.
 7       Q.    That's a reflection of your current
 8   position with the District?
 9       A.    Yes.
10       Q.    The first item there, Developed GIS data
11   base for dairy region --
12       A.    Yes.
13       Q.    -- can you tell me what you did in that
14   regard?
15       A.    That is converting the design plans and the
16   site plans for the dairies and adjacent lands into a
17   digital data base to be used for analysis and
18   interpretation of water quality and data.
19       Q.    What is a GIS data base?
20       A.    GIS is Geographic Information System.  A
21   way to relate spacial data with tabular information
22   for analysis and interpretation.
23       Q.    And is that work complete?
24       A.    At this time it is ongoing.
25       Q.    When do you anticipate it will be complete?

                                                 7

 1       A.    The major components of it should be
 2   complete by June.  The remainder we would hope would
 3   be complete by mid '94.  However, with any geographic
 4   information system, it is continually updated and
 5   improved.
 6       Q.    And the next line item there, provide
 7   direction for activities of several research and
 8   planning contracts, does that item also refer to
 9   matters involving the Lake Okeechobee and Kissimmee
10   basins?
11       A.    Yes, sir.
12       Q.    And what type of research and planning
13   contracts were you involved in?
14       A.    Fate and transport of phosphorus and
15   regional analysis of best management practices.
16       Q.    What sources of phosphorus were you
17   concerned with in that regard?
18       A.    We are concerned with all imports of
19   phosphorus into the Okeechobee basin and particularly
20   those sources used for animal feed and fertilizer.
21       Q.    This did not relate to sources of
22   phosphorus relating to sugar cane, farming or farming
23   south of Lake Okeechobee?
24       A.    Not at this stage.
25       Q.    What about sources of phosphorous with

                                                 8

 1   regard to mineralization or oxidation of soils?  Was
 2   that involved in this project?
 3       A.    There was some work done in these projects
 4   on mineralization.
 5       Q.    Can you describe that work?
 6       A.    Yes.
 7       Q.    Would you do so?
 8       A.    Yes.  Ramesh Reddy of the University of
 9   Florida is on contract with us to look at rates of
10   phosphorus absorption and participation, and as
11   necessary, ambient levels of mineralization firm
12   organic matter in streams and wetlands in the
13   Okeechobee basin.  As such, he's looking at
14   mineralization; however, he is not looking at
15   mineralization of organic soils per se, as would be
16   found in the EAA under the contracts that I manage.
17   I believe he is doing so under other contracts that I
18   am not familiar with.
19             MR. COUSINS:  Can I just interrupt one
20        second off the record?
21             (Discussion held off the record.)
22   BY MR. BLANK:
23       Q.    You said that Dr. Ramesh Reddy was involved
24   in other contracts relating to mineralization of muck
25   soil similar to ones found in the EAA; is that

                                                 9

 1   correct?
 2       A.    I believe so.
 3       Q.    Do you know who would be administering
 4   those contracts?
 5       A.    I'm not sure.
 6       Q.    It would be somebody with the District,
 7   though, that would be supervising that work?
 8       A.    Yes, sir.
 9       Q.    Who is your immediate supervisor?  Let me
10   rephrase.  Maybe you can just explain briefly the
11   hierarchy of your department.  Who do you report to
12   and who reports to you?
13       A.    Briefly, huh?  Depending on the assignment,
14   I report to either engineering supervisor Dr. Todd
15   Tisdale, division director Nick Ammon, or department
16   director Tony Federico.
17       Q.    Who reports to you?
18       A.    Nobody.
19       Q.    Do you have any other staff that work with
20   you on various projects that you're involved in?
21       A.    Depending on the assignment and the nature
22   of the data I require to complete the work, I
23   interact with many people in many departments.
24       Q.    Have you interacted with anybody, any
25   people involved with projects located in the EAA?

                                                 10

 1       A.    Currently I make every effort not to be
 2   involved in Everglades issues.
 3       Q.    Have you been successful in that effort?
 4       A.    Not by my presence here today.  For those
 5   who may read this later, my activities in the basins
 6   north of the lake are a full-time job plus.
 7       Q.    What have been your activities in the EAA?
 8   What projects have you been involved in in the EAA?
 9       A.    From what point in time?
10       Q.    From the start of your employment with the
11   District to date.
12       A.    Okay.  From approximately the time I was
13   employed with the District, I was assigned the
14   responsibility for managing what we refer to as the
15   EAA BMP contract with Forest Izuno and Del Botcher of
16   the University of Florida.  I worked on that project
17   for approximately five years, ending one year short
18   of completion of that work effort.  I worked on the
19   first draft of the Everglades SWIM Plan, which was
20   completed in 1989.  Pursuant to that, I worked on
21   developing literature review on soil phosphorus
22   behavior and phosphorus budgets for the EAA.
23             As part of the EAA BMP contract I, worked
24   with the University of Florida on delineating
25   information relative to best management practices.

                                                 11

 1   All of my work in the Everglades region has been
 2   limited to the EAA.
 3       Q.    The last item you mentioned, work with the
 4   University of Florida on a BMP contract -- did I get
 5   that correctly?
 6       A.    Yes, sir.
 7       Q.    How does that differ from the first item
 8   you mentioned, which was the EAA BMP analysis?
 9       A.    Only in the sense that there were two
10   things I did:  One was the EAA BMP contract, and the
11   other was back-up information for the SWIM plan.  And
12   under the heading of back-up information for the SWIM
13   plan, there were three activities; soil phosphorus,
14   phosphorus budgets, and best management practices.
15   So that is a subtitle underneath that.  One is review
16   of BMPs and the other is contract management.  And in
17   review of data sets.
18       Q.    All right.  I missed the third item you
19   mentioned.  Soil phosphorus, phosphorus budget and --
20       A.    Best management practices.  BMPs.
21             So I believe your question is how does 1
22   differ from 2C, as it were?
23       Q.    Yes.
24       A.    1 is contract management and review of data
25   sets, and 2C was review of BMPs as best available

                                                 12

 1   information.  And that all pertains only to the 1989
 2   draft of the Everglades SWIM Plan.
 3       Q.    What was your involvement in the current
 4   Everglades SWIM Plan, the 1992 SWIM plan?
 5       A.    I have had no direct involvement and I do
 6   not know how much of materials I developed previously
 7   were used.  I have not read the '92 SWIM plan.
 8       Q.    Were you involved in the formulation of the
 9   District BMP rule?
10       A.    I believe I was.
11       Q.    What was your involvement in that?
12       A.    Beginning in June of 1991, I participated
13   in discussions with the Federal Government and the
14   District in defining what components ought to be
15   included in the -- what do we call it -- the BMP
16   rule.
17       Q.    That's what I call it, yes.
18       A.    Okay.  I think it would work for the
19   District.  The Everglades Rule.  I'm not sure.  Okay.
20   Either way.
21             My discussions at that point continued for
22   a couple of months with various individuals in
23   defining what kind of components ought to be in the
24   rule, what kind of policy instruments, and my
25   participation ended somewhere around October of '91.

                                                 13

 1   However, the rule was completely adopted considerably
 2   later, and I am not sure how much of the
 3   communications I was involved in were directly used
 4   in the rule, as opposed to developed from other
 5   sources or modified after my discussions with the
 6   feds.
 7       Q.    You said in discussions with the feds.  Can
 8   you identify who was involved in those discussions?
 9       A.    Yes.
10       Q.    Who?
11       A.    Myself, Dick Rogers, John Burt and Dan
12   Scheidt.
13       Q.    Who is John Burt?
14       A.    John Burt is a program administrator with
15   SCS USDA.
16       Q.    And who is Dick Rogers?
17       A.    Dick Rogers at the time was director of the
18   Planning Department.
19       Q.    Of?
20       A.    South Florida Water Management District.
21       Q.    Is he still there?
22       A.    He is still at the District.
23       Q.    Why were discussions held with federal
24   employees concerning the components of the BMP rule?
25       A.    I don't know.

                                                 14

 1       Q.    Who arranged for these discussions?
 2       A.    I don't know.
 3       Q.    What concerns were expressed by either Mr.
 4   Burt or Mr. Scheidt concerning the necessary
 5   components of the BMP rule?
 6             MR. COUSINS:  Object to the form.
 7             Go ahead and answer it.
 8             I guess when you say what concerns were
 9        expressed, there is no record that any concerns
10        were necessarily expressed.
11   BY MR. BLANK:
12       Q.    You understand the question?
13       A.    I believe I do.  I do not recall specific
14   concerns in the sense of a list of this, this, this
15   and this.  The general concerns, of course, from Dan
16   Scheidt, who represented the Park, were protection of
17   the downstream system and long-term protection.  The
18   concern of John Burt, in general, was, of course,
19   protection of the downstream environment, but also
20   protection of agricultural production systems in the
21   EAA.  He did not wish to see a rule adopted that
22   would unnecessarily limit ag production.
23       Q.    Did Mr. Scheidt share that concern, to your
24   knowledge?
25       A.    I do not remember him expressing such a

                                                 15

 1   concern.
 2       Q.    Did these discussions that you had result
 3   in a definition or a delineation of the components to
 4   be included in the BMP rule?
 5       A.    At that time we completed the meeting with
 6   a list of policy instruments that ought to be
 7   considered in the development of a successful rule.
 8       Q.    Can you tell me what those were?
 9             MR. COUSINS:  Can I just state, to the end
10        we are getting involved in any kind of
11        settlement negotiations or discussion, just a
12        general objection as to the relevancy of this
13        presently in this particular action.  I am not
14        going to stop you from asking questions, but I
15        just want to make that note on the record.
16             MR. BLANK:  All right.  I would also like
17        to note for the record I don't think we are
18        talking about settlement discussions at this
19        point in time.
20   BY MR. BLANK:
21       Q.    You can correct me if I am wrong, but these
22   discussions were not part of a general settlement
23   discussions with regard to the federal lawsuit, were
24   they?
25       A.    I believe that was the intent of the

                                                 16

 1   discussions.
 2       Q.    Oh, okay.
 3             MR. ROSENBERG:  I concur in the objection.
 4   BY MR. BLANK:
 5       Q.    What components did you arrive at?
 6       A.    As I said, we came up with a list of
 7   components that ought to be considered in the
 8   development of a rule.  What in the end was included
 9   in the rule involves further discussions much later,
10   of which I was only partially involved.
11             The component that we discussed there --
12   and I don't remember all of the components, and I
13   have not had time to review the documents completely --
14   is we wanted to make sure there was education and
15   training of both ag managers and field staff, we
16   wanted monitoring of BMP implementation, on-site
17   water quality monitoring of some reliability, and, of
18   course, basin spill monitoring, essential for
19   determining inflows into the EPA.  There should be
20   some form of staged incentives for quick development
21   of BMP technology.  There should be some staged
22   penalties for significantly penalizing those who
23   would not participate to the best of their ability,
24   in development and implementation of a BMP program.
25       Q.    These various components were directed at

                                                 17

 1   reducing phosphorus loads from the EAA; is that
 2   correct?
 3       A.    Yes, sir.
 4       Q.    Did you establish any goal with regard to
 5   the amount of reduction that could be achieved by
 6   implementing these components?
 7       A.    I don't remember that.  There was
 8   considerable mixed feelings as to how much phosphorus
 9   load reduction could be achieved by BMPs, and the
10   numbers that various people considered had
11   considerable disagreement on what the load reductions
12   could be, so I don't believe we focused on what
13   phosphorus load or concentration reduction goals
14   ought to be considered in the rule.
15       Q.    And you did not participate in drafting of
16   the final rule; is that correct?
17       A.    I participated in some of the early drafts,
18   but I was not involved in the final drafts.
19       Q.    Did any of the drafts that you participated
20   in have a phosphorus reduction goal?
21       A.    I don't recall.  My intent was to make sure
22   that a broad spectrum -- there were broad spectrums
23   of policies that would help encourage the
24   implementation of practices to reduce phosphorus
25   loads.  I was not particularly concerned with the

                                                 18

 1   target goals that the District or anyone else wanted
 2   to see developed in the rule because that involved
 3   targets set for EPA, targets set for the STAs, of
 4   which I was not knowledgeable.  So I could not
 5   discuss the question of what load reductions were
 6   necessary or required.
 7       Q.    When you say targets set for EPA, are you
 8   referring to the Everglades Protection Area --
 9       A.    Yes, sir.
10       Q.    -- when you say EPA?
11       A.    Yes.
12       Q.    Did you analyze the various components that
13   you have just described to determine what type of
14   reduction in phosphorus load would be achievable if
15   these components were implemented?
16       A.    No.
17       Q.    Did you ever reach any opinion concerning
18   the amount of phosphorus reduction that would be
19   possible if these components were implemented?
20       A.    Yes.
21       Q.    What was that?
22       A.    I believe if all components of the rule
23   were developed to completion, we should see 60, 70
24   percent reduction in load, and I have stated that in
25   public forum to our Board.

                                                 19

 1       Q.    Can you give me a breakout of the various
 2   components that would lead to that type of a
 3   reduction?
 4       A.    Could you restate that?
 5       Q.    Yeah.  What components of BMP, best
 6   management practices, if implemented, would result in
 7   that type of a reduction?
 8       A.    Can you re-read the question?
 9             (Thereupon, a portion of the record
10              was read by the reporter.)
11             THE WITNESS:  The components of BMPs and
12        how much load reduction they would achieve is,
13        of course, separate from implementation of these
14        various other policies, because BMP
15        implementation is only one of the policies that
16        were being considered at the time.  Of the BMPs
17        that you could recommend for the Everglades
18        Agricultural Area, there are several BMPs that
19        have been recommended, which, depending on the
20        site and the soil and the crop type, could
21        achieve phosphorus load reductions.  Primary
22        among these are more careful fertilization.
23   BY MR. BLANK:
24       Q.    Let's take these one at a time because I
25   want to get into some detail with them.

                                                 20

 1             When you say more careful fertilization,
 2   can you describe that a little more specifically?
 3       A.    That's where I was going with it.  Within
 4   fertilization, first would be soil testing to
 5   determine the appropriate fertilization rates that
 6   are specific to the field that is being fertilized.
 7   That's one component.
 8             A second component is where --
 9       Q.    Hold on that just a minute.  When you say
10   soil testing to determine the appropriate
11   fertilization rates --
12       A.    Right.
13       Q.    -- how would the soil testing tell you what
14   fertilization rates to utilize?
15       A.    Soil testing would tell us about the
16   availability of the phosphorus already in the soil
17   and how much we expected was available for crop
18   uptake and for sufficient yield from that field to
19   meet production goals.
20       Q.    Is phosphorus the only element that we are
21   concerned with when we talk about fertilization?
22       A.    No.
23       Q.    What other aspect, what other chemical
24   components of fertilizer, are we concerned with here?
25       A.    All of them.

                                                 21

 1       Q.    Which are?
 2       A.    Depending on the crop and the soil, other
 3   macro micronutrients and trace metals.
 4       Q.    Can you describe those?
 5       A.    Not in detail.  Overall, nitrogen,
 6   potassium phosphorus, your macronutrients, other
 7   components of fertilization.  They are concerned with
 8   boron, copper, zinc, calcium silica, manganese in
 9   some locations.  I don't recall the full list from
10   there.
11       Q.    Would there be any other components of
12   fertilizer other than phosphorus that would create a
13   concern to downstream ecosystems?
14       A.    Yes.
15       Q.    Which would those be?
16       A.    I'm not really in a position to give you a
17   comprehensive list.  The list goes in a couple
18   different directions.  First of all, those components
19   of a standard fertilizer that affect phosphorus
20   uptake will affect the phosphorus loss and in
21   loadings downstream, and that's the most obvious.
22             I think your real question is, do the other
23   metals in the fertilizer affect downstream metal
24   loads to EPA?  I'm not an expert in that area, so I
25   can't answer that.

                                                 22

 1       Q.    Do you know of anyone that has expressed a
 2   concern with regard to those other metals and their
 3   effect downstream?
 4       A.    I don't know of anybody who has expressed a
 5   concern other than the general concern over mercury,
 6   and I know of no analysis that has been done relative
 7   to fertilizer imports on mercury fate.
 8             MR. BLANK:  Could you read back the last
 9        part of his answer?
10             (Thereupon, a portion of the record
11              was read by the reporter.)
12   BY MR. BLANK:
13       Q.    Is mercury normally a component of
14   fertilizer used in the EAA?
15       A.    I would believe, as with most fertilizers,
16   it is at least a trace contaminant.  On the more
17   obvious layman interpretation, I doubt that they
18   include mercury for fertilization.
19       Q.    Why do you feel it would be a trace
20   contaminant in fertilizer?
21       A.    Because most fertilizer materials come from
22   impure processing of mineral materials, of which it
23   is nearly impossible to remove trace metals; so
24   consequently, from the rock phosphate and other
25   materials going into it, there will be a trace of

                                                 23

 1   other associated elements that it is not economical
 2   to remove from the material.
 3       Q.    Are you aware of any studies that have
 4   analyzed fertilizer used in the EAA to determine
 5   mercury contents?
 6       A.    I'm not aware of any.
 7       Q.    All right.  That was the first item you
 8   mentioned; more careful fertilization as a BMP
 9   practice.
10       A.    That was part of that answer.
11       Q.    Was there more to the answer?
12       A.    Yes.
13       Q.    What is that?
14       A.    Briefly, application methodology and
15   handling of materials.
16       Q.    What do you mean by application
17   methodology?
18       A.    One instance of that would be band
19   fertilization of row crops versus -- particularly
20   vegetables -- versus broadcast application.  And
21   other techniques may include, depending on crop and
22   soil type, immediate incorporation versus surface
23   application, liquid application versus solid
24   materials.
25       Q.    Is this a BMP practice related primarily to

                                                 24

 1   vegetable production?
 2       A.    The primary application would be
 3   vegetables.  It is possible that these techniques
 4   could also be adapted for sugar cane.  At what
 5   expense, I'm not sure.
 6       Q.    All right.  Are there any other components
 7   to the category of more careful fertilization?
 8       A.    None that I can think of at this moment.
 9       Q.    When you say handling methodology, are you
10   referring there to prevention of spills?
11       A.    Right.  And wastage of materials and clean-
12   up of handling equipment, containment of spills.
13       Q.    Do you have any opinion with regard to the
14   percentage of phosphorus reduction that may be
15   achievable by soil testing and the application of
16   fertilizer based on that testing?
17             MR. COUSINS:  Are you asking him the
18        percentage of the 60 percent or --
19             MR. BLANK:  Yes.
20             MR. COUSINS:  Do you understand the
21        question?
22             THE WITNESS:  Yes.  It can range between 5
23        and 25 percent, depending on soil crop
24        combinations as well as what we believe is going
25        on regionally in the EAA.

                                                 25

 1   BY MR. BLANK:
 2       Q.    What do you mean by what you believe is
 3   going on regionally in the EAA?
 4       A.    Well, from a small sampling of observations
 5   of handling of materials and the kinds of practices
 6   we believe the growers are using, it is possible we
 7   could get upwards of 15 percent reduction from these
 8   BMPs.  However, if we find that our observations
 9   represent the poorest handling techniques, then the
10   reductions may only be as much as 5 percent.
11       Q.    Well, the first category that we have kinds
12   of labeled soil testing would seem to be directed at
13   the prevention of overfertilization; is that correct?
14       A.    Overfertilization plus spills and handling
15   errors associated with that additional unnecessary
16   phosphorus.
17       Q.    Well, I have that under my category of
18   application methodology as distinguished from soil
19   testing --
20       A.    Right.
21       Q.    -- and what I was trying to get at you is
22   an opinion with regard to percentage of reduction via
23   soil testing and then via application methodology.
24   And you gave me a figure of five to 25 percent.  Did
25   that encompass both categories?

                                                 26

 1       A.    I really don't feel comfortable giving a
 2   percentage of reduction for each of the three
 3   subcategories under fertilization methods.
 4       Q.    Are you aware of any testing that has been
 5   done or research that has been done with regard to
 6   these three categories and the possible phosphorus
 7   reductions that could be achieved?
 8       A.    I believe the University of Florida
 9   experiment station at Belle Glade has been looking at
10   the ramifications of each of these techniques.  How
11   far they have gone in the analysis and
12   interpretation, I'm not sure.
13       Q.    This work that you referred to by the
14   University of Florida at Belle Glade, was that work a
15   part of the EAA BMP contract that you administered
16   for five years?
17       A.    Only one part of it was.  And that was
18   considering comparing banding versus broadcasting of
19   fertilizer on cabbage.
20       Q.    What individuals were responsible for that
21   research work from the University of Florida?
22       A.    Del Botcher and Forest Izuno.
23       Q.    All right.  Is there anything else under
24   the general category of fertilization practices that
25   would result in a more -- let me restate the

                                                 27

 1   question.  Are there any other categories under the
 2   more fertilization discussion that we have been
 3   having that would be part of the BMP program?
 4       A.    I believe, in a general sense, that covers
 5   it.
 6       Q.    All right.  What other aspect of BMP
 7   program were you concerned with?
 8       A.    Pump rate reductions.
 9       Q.    And what is involved in that category?
10       A.    Reducing off site pumpage from the farms
11   into the primary canal system in response to
12   potential flooding.  The intent was to come up with a
13   new point system for determining when the growers
14   pump to reduce pumping poor water quality into our
15   system.
16       Q.    When you say "our" system, what do you
17   mean?
18       A.    The District -- well, it is not the
19   District.  The Corps of Engineers, I guess.
20       Q.    Is this the same thing as not overdraining
21   and keeping the water table at an optimum level?
22       A.    That's one component of the pumping.  In a
23   sense, I guess that could be developed into a
24   separate category.  That would then result in this --
25   the whole category would be improved water

                                                 28

 1   management, of which there would be three categories.
 2   One would be reduce off-site pumping, another --
 3       Q.    What do you mean by off-site pumping?
 4       A.    Well, that's what we were discussing about
 5   pump rates.  Pumping from the farm off site into the
 6   primary canal system.
 7       Q.    As contrasted to pumping within the farm
 8   system itself?
 9       A.    Right.
10             A second component of water management
11   would be improved on-farm pumping of water from
12   sensitive crops to areas not as drastically affected.
13             And then the third area would be water
14   table management/irrigation.  And that could also
15   include, in a general sense, water conservation.
16       Q.    What would be involved in determining an
17   opinion at the water table that would trigger pumping
18   off site?
19       A.    I'm sorry; could you repeat the question?
20       Q.    Yeah.  You had previously indicated that
21   one of the goals here was to determine a point at
22   which -- or some method for the farmers to determine
23   when to pump and when not to pump --
24       A.    Right.
25       Q.    -- which, I assume, means the level of the

                                                 29

 1   water table; is that a correct assumption?
 2       A.    That's a partially correct assumption?
 3       Q.    What else would be involved other than a
 4   water table level?
 5       A.    Anticipated rainfall.
 6       Q.    That, in turn, would relate to the existing
 7   water table, though, wouldn't it?
 8       A.    No.
 9       Q.    Why not?
10       A.    If you were in the wet season and you get a
11   heavy rain at a given water table, you're much more
12   concerned with consequences of another significant
13   rain occurring on subsequent days; whereas if you're
14   in the dry season and you receive -- at a given water
15   table -- and you anticipate a given rainfall, you may
16   not have the expectation of additional severe weather
17   in the accompanying following days, and consequently
18   your concerns about off-site pumping are lower.
19   Depending on the season and the crop, you may or may
20   not be concerned about pumping at all.
21             Obviously, if the land is fallow, you
22   couldn't care, as long as it does not endanger your
23   equipment or your facilities.  On the other hand, of
24   course, if you're in the middle of a very sensitive
25   cropping season, where you're in the water table, the

                                                 30

 1   amount of rain you expect will significantly impact
 2   your decision when you need to pump.  So it is not
 3   single factor.  Soil type, crop type, season, water
 4   level, as well as your drainage capacity on site all
 5   affect off-site pumpage.
 6             If one wants to go further, you're also
 7   concerned about what your neighbors are doing,
 8   because if everybody pumps at once, there is no
 9   capacity in the system, and the water is going to end
10   up flowing back onto your property.
11       Q.    Is seepage a concern here with regard to
12   pumping from your neighbors?
13       A.    I don't know at what degree it is a
14   concern.  I mean, if you're doing a mass balance on
15   water movement, it has to be considered in the
16   equation.  How significant it is, I am not sure.  And
17   again, it depends on where your property is in the
18   EAA, soil type, rock type and canal structuring.
19       Q.    Has anyone, to your knowledge, developed a
20   set of guidelines that would be useful for farmers
21   within the EAA to determine when to pump and when not
22   to pump?
23       A.    Yes.
24       Q.    Who has done that?
25       A.    The EAAEPD.

                                                 31

 1       Q.    What is the EAAEPD?
 2       A.    The Everglades Agricultural Area
 3   Environmental Protection District.
 4       Q.    EPD?
 5       A.    EPD.  Sorry.
 6       Q.    Okay.  Have you reviewed those guidelines?
 7       A.    Yes.
 8       Q.    Did you agree with them?
 9       A.    I found at the time there was insufficient
10   information to agree or disagree with them.
11       Q.    When was your review conducted?
12       A.    In 1990 and '91.
13       Q.    Do you know if anyone else has conducted a
14   review of those guidelines?
15       A.    I believe several people have looked at
16   those guidelines.
17       Q.    Who else has looked at them?  I am
18   concerned here with the District or consultants
19   employed by the District.
20       A.    Oh, in a broader sense?
21       Q.    Yeah.
22       A.    There were several individuals involved in
23   our review of those guidelines, and I believe that
24   they have been reviewed subsequent to our review as
25   applicable to the entire EAA, but I was not involved

                                                 32

 1   in that activity, so I'm not sure who looked at them
 2   then.  As for specific individuals, I can't remember
 3   names right now.
 4       Q.    Do you know if the District retained a
 5   consultant to review these guidelines?
 6       A.    At the time I reviewed them, no, we had
 7   not.  Subsequent to that, I believe they have, but
 8   I'm not sure who.
 9       Q.    Can you give me a range of phosphorus
10   reduction that might be achievable by pump practices,
11   pump rate reductions?
12       A.    Yes.
13       Q.    What do you think that range would be?
14       A.    10 to 40 percent.
15       Q.    Does that range vary with crop type?
16       A.    Yes.
17       Q.    What type of crops do you think would
18   achieve the most reduction in phosphorus loading by
19   improved water management?
20       A.    Sugar cane.
21       Q.    Why is that?
22       A.    Largest acreage involved.
23       Q.    Can the sugar cane farms retain more water
24   without the possibility of crop damage than perhaps
25   other farming types?

                                                 33

 1             MR. COUSINS:  I object to the form of that
 2        question.  When you say other farming types, are
 3        you talking about other crops?
 4             MR. BLANK:  Other types of crops, yes.
 5             THE WITNESS:  In general, yes.  However,
 6        when one reviews the pumpage rate BMP, it is not
 7        simply a question of crop type, it is also
 8        involves soils, cropping sequences, adjacent
 9        fields, internal canal structure.
10   BY MR. BLANK:
11       Q.    So could you explain each of those items a
12   little bit more specifically?  How does it involve
13   soils?
14       A.    Only in general terms, because the answer
15   becomes site specific, and since the analysis of site
16   specific information has not been done, to my
17   knowledge, to make general statements about which
18   crop would be more affected or where this pump BMP
19   would result in greatest load reductions, conclusions
20   cannot be drawn, or I cannot draw conclusions on that
21   at this time.
22             Soil type matters in terms of how deep the
23   soil is and what its water holding capacity is, so
24   that gives you information on how much storage
25   capacity there is on a given farm, and how much

                                                 34

 1   flexibility the grower has in terms of how much he
 2   can vary the water table.  Obviously, crops grown on
 3   very shallow or very thin organic matter are not
 4   going to have the holding capacities or flexibilities
 5   of management that those grown in a deep muck soil
 6   will have.
 7       Q.    What types of different soil depths are we
 8   dealing with in the EAA?  What is the range of soil
 9   depth?
10       A.    I believe the range is from almost no muck
11   to four meters.
12       Q.    What areas would have almost no muck?
13       A.    The south end of the EAA.
14       Q.    And what type of crops are grown in this
15   area?
16       A.    I'm not sure what the current distribution
17   is.  Historically, I believe there is a lot of
18   pasture and cane in the south end.
19       Q.    And generally, as you get closer to the
20   lake, your muck depth increases?
21       A.    Yes, sir.
22       Q.    Is that correct?
23             You also mentioned that cropping was a
24   factor in terms of the ability to implement better
25   pumping practices.

                                                 35

 1       A.    Correct.
 2       Q.    Could you explain that a little bit?
 3       A.    In general, many vegetables are extremely
 4   sensitive to variations in water table depth.  Cane
 5   crops generally are less sensitive in terms of yield,
 6   but it depends also on what period in the -- what
 7   stage of the crop growth the crop is in, and that
 8   varies across the EAA, depending on planting time and
 9   ratoon.  And of course, at the farthest extreme, if
10   you're doing aquatic cropping, either aquatic crops
11   specifically, or rice, they are much less sensitive
12   to changes in the water table, particularly on the
13   getting wetter side, and that, in turn, of course,
14   affects the distribution of crops the farmer is
15   likely to select from; and that, in turn, affects the
16   markets that are being exploited.
17       Q.    All right.  Within this broad category of
18   improved water management, would you include within
19   that category retention of on-farm drainage?
20       A.    Yes, sir.
21       Q.    Could you explain a little bit what that
22   practice would involve?
23       A.    It depends on how it is implemented, but
24   generally it means having a canal structure internal
25   pumping capacity to move water from sensitive crops --

                                                 36

 1   which are likely to be vegetables, where you're
 2   highly fertilizing -- to other areas of your farm
 3   property with either less sensitive crops or fallow
 4   areas, and hold the poor water quality on site.  Poor
 5   quality water on site.
 6       Q.    This practice would involve moving water
 7   continuously from field to field within the farm,
 8   would it not?
 9       A.    It depends.
10       Q.    That would be one aspect of retaining
11   drainage.  That would be one mechanism to retain
12   on-farm drainage.
13       A.    I object to the "continuous".  There will
14   be periods where you have to move the water on farm,
15   but I don't see it as a continuous process.
16       Q.    Periodic?
17       A.    Periodic.  Thank you.
18       Q.    Now, would these improved water management
19   techniques result in a reduced volume of water being
20   discharged from farms in the EAA?
21       A.    Yes.
22       Q.    Do you have any opinion with regard to the
23   amount of flow that would be reduced by implementing
24   improved water management techniques?
25       A.    Yes.

                                                 37

 1       Q.    What is that?
 2       A.    It could be large or small, depending on
 3   how implemented and what operation it was implemented
 4   on.
 5       Q.    What type of range would we be talking
 6   about?
 7       A.    I don't remember enough of the details.
 8       Q.    Are you aware of anyone that has done an
 9   analysis on anticipated flow reductions by
10   implementation of BMPs?
11       A.    I believe the EPD produced information in
12   their first report on the amount of flow reductions
13   that would occur to achieve the load reduction is
14   they were looking at, and I do not remember the
15   details.
16       Q.    Do you know if anyone at the District has
17   calculated the amount of flow reduction likely to
18   result from BMPs?
19       A.    I am unaware of any analysis.
20             MR. COUSINS:  Just note for the record;
21        Mr. Flaig has been designated to testify on
22        phosphorus budget, and to the extent that any of
23        these questions that are being asked are
24        relating to that, that's fine, but I think it is
25        a little difficult for him to answer questions

                                                 38

 1        at the realm of his designation because that's
 2        all he's really prepared for.
 3   BY MR. BLANK:
 4       Q.    As part of your BMP analysis, did you
 5   consider utilization of on-farm retention ponds as a
 6   BMP practice?
 7       A.    It was introduced as one method of
 8   achieving the water conservation, but I have not
 9   participated in any analysis of the impact of
10   implementing that practice.
11       Q.    What about retention of vegetable field
12   drainage water and sugar cane or fallow lands?  Was
13   that a BMP considered?
14       A.    It was considered.  No specific analysis
15   was done.
16       A.    Again, much of the analysis there would be
17   site specific.
18       Q.    Were there any other BMP practices that you
19   considered that we haven't discussed?
20       A.    I don't recall any.
21       Q.    We kind of got off base from your
22   Curriculum Vitae.  I might go back to that a minute
23   and keep in some sequence here.
24             The next item under 1990 to '91, senior
25   civil engineer, do you see that item?

                                                 39

 1       A.    Yes, sir.
 2       Q.    Did this work involve the preparation of
 3   the lake SWIM plan?
 4       A.    No.
 5       Q.    What was involved there?
 6       A.    Working on preparation of the update to the
 7   SWIM plan.
 8       Q.    Again we are talking about the lake?
 9       A.    Lake Okeechobee Interim SWIM Plan.
10       Q.    And who were the complex research contracts
11   with, mentioned under that item?
12       A.    Well, one of them was this EAA BMP
13   contract, a second one was the soil phosphorus
14   contract for the areas north of the lake.
15       Q.    Any others?
16       A.    The Class I and III analysis for
17   tributaries draining to Lake Okeechobee, development
18   of the Lake Okeechobee Agricultural Decision Support
19   System.
20       Q.    I'm sorry.  You said Lake Okeechobee
21   Agricultural Support?
22       A.    Decision Support System.
23       Q.    What was that?
24       A.    A GIS regional planning tool.
25       Q.    And attended for what purpose?

                                                 40

 1       A.    Evaluate the impact of alternative
 2   phosphorus management strategies for the basins
 3   draining into Lake Okeechobee.  In laymen's terms,
 4   what would be the impact of implementing a specific
 5   set of BMPs for given land uses or given basins or
 6   other kinds of incentives for reductions of
 7   phosphorus loads to the lake?  Give the managers a
 8   big picture view of the implementation strategies.
 9       Q.    When you say impact, what type of impact
10   are you referring to?
11       A.    Phosphorus loads and economics.
12       Q.    To your knowledge, has a similar system
13   been constructed for the BMP practices in the EAA?
14       A.    No.
15       Q.    Why not?
16       A.    I don't know.
17       Q.    The next item on your resume' under the
18   category '89 to '90, do you see that item?
19       A.    Yes, sir.
20       Q.    The last -- well, actually three sentences
21   of that item, first one, negotiated and managed
22   complex research contracts, are we referring to the
23   same contracts you have previously mentioned?
24       A.    Yes.
25       Q.    And the next item, performed water quality

                                                 41

 1   data interpretation --
 2       A.    Yes?
 3       Q.    -- what did that involve?
 4       A.    Evaluating tributary water quality draining
 5   to Lake Okeechobee.
 6       Q.    What water quality parameters were you
 7   looking at?
 8       A.    Primarily phosphorus, but also nitrogen.
 9       Q.    And what type of interpretation did you
10   make of the data?
11       A.    Statistical.
12       Q.    Could you explain that a little bit
13   further, please?
14       A.    The intent here was to evaluate the
15   geographic distribution of BMP implementation in the
16   basins draining to Lake Okeechobee and determine if
17   there was a statistically significant trend in
18   phosphorus load reduction.  This is a problem because
19   of the high variability of hydrologic conditions and
20   considerable variability in distribution of
21   implementation.
22       Q.    And what was the results of that work?
23       A.    That BMPs are effective for reducing
24   phosphorus loads to Lake Okeechobee.
25       Q.    You did find a decreasing trend?

                                                 42

 1       A.    A significantly decreasing trend.
 2       Q.    How significant?
 3       A.    Alpha less than point zero zero zero zero
 4   one.
 5       Q.    That's very significant, is it not?
 6       A.    It is.  Highly significant.
 7       Q.    What type of -- just in layman's terms,
 8   what type of reductions were we talking about that
 9   resulted from your interpretation of the data?
10       A.    None.
11       Q.    None?
12       A.    No phosphorus load reductions occurred as
13   an effect of my interpretation of the data.
14       Q.    No.  But your interpretation of the data
15   revealed a reduction, did it not?
16       A.    Yes.  Sorry.  A 20 percent load reduction.
17       Q.    What types of just range of concentrations
18   of phosphorus are we dealing with in terms of water
19   draining into Lake Okeechobee?
20       A.    It ranges from point 2 milligrams per liter
21   to slightly over one milligram per liter.
22       Q.    Slightly over one point zero?
23       A.    Yes.
24       Q.    And what about phosphorus concentrations in
25   the lake water itself?  What are the ranges that we

                                                 43

 1   are looking at there?
 2       A.    Point zero five to point zero nine
 3   milligrams per liter.
 4       Q.    Did you participate at all in what is
 5   generally referred to as the Interim Action Plan and
 6   the formulation of that plan?
 7       A.    No.
 8       Q.    The last item on that category on your
 9   Curriculum Vitae says, "Develop strategy for field
10   standard operating procedures".  Are we referring to
11   BMPs --
12       A.    No.
13       Q.    -- by that?
14       A.    No, sir.
15       Q.    What are you referring to there?
16       A.    Sampling protocols for collecting water
17   quality and hydrologic data.
18       Q.    And were you responsible for developing
19   those protocols?
20       A.    No.
21       Q.    Who was?
22       A.    I don't believe anybody was specifically
23   assigned the task of developing those protocols.
24       Q.    They were developed, were they not?
25       A.    They have never been published as such.

                                                 44

 1       Q.    But were they developed?
 2       A.    Yes.
 3       Q.    Were they implemented?
 4       A.    Yes.
 5       Q.    Who participated in the development of the
 6   protocols?
 7       A.    Many individuals of staff; of District
 8   staff.
 9       Q.    Any outside consultants?
10       A.    Not that I am aware of.  The development of
11   the standard protocols is an ongoing effort that
12   depends on our monitoring strategy as well as
13   equipment.  It also depends on what regional area and
14   what projects are included.  There is generally a
15   project specific standard operating protocol, and I
16   was involved with those associated with monitoring
17   dairies and the basins north of Lake Okeechobee.
18       Q.    Okay.  The next item on your CV, '86 to
19   '89, perform water quality data interpretation, is
20   that the same item we just discussed?
21       A.    Yes.
22       Q.    And design and develop comprehensive water
23   quality monitoring program, what was that program?
24       A.    That was the expansion of our monitoring
25   program in the basins north of Lake Okeechobee from

                                                 45

 1   an ad hoc monitoring of ambient water quality to a
 2   program designed to elucidate the impacts of
 3   implementation of BMPs on dairies and beef pastures.
 4       Q.    And none of this work involved anything
 5   south of Lake Okeechobee then?
 6       A.    No.  I have not been involved in any
 7   monitoring program designed south of the lake.
 8       Q.    Have you been involved in the
 9   interpretation of any water quality data south of the
10   lake?
11       A.    Only as it was directly related to the work
12   of Forest Izuno and Del Botcher.r. They had field
13   projects on four sites, and I looked at their data
14   fairly closely.  But in terms of looking at ambient
15   measures throughout the basin, I did not interpret
16   work on interpreting that data in a general sense.
17       Q.    When you say "in a general sense", that
18   leads me to believe that you did do something there.
19   Can you tell me what you did?
20       A.    Yes.
21       Q.    Please do so.
22       A.    I did not do an analysis of water quality
23   on a basin scale, as I did north of the lake.
24   However, in development of the phosphorus budgets for
25   the EAA, I looked at the data to try to determine

                                                 46

 1   concentrations and loads in the system from published
 2   information.  In short, I reviewed the data with a
 3   very specific goal.
 4       Q.    Which was to develop a phosphorus budget
 5   for the EAA?
 6       A.    Right.
 7       Q.    Did you actually prepare a phosphorus
 8   budget for the EAA?
 9       A.    Yes.
10       Q.    What was the purpose of that budget?
11       A.    The intent of that budget stems from a
12   mandate given to us by Lake Okeechobee Technical
13   Advisory Committee to identify sources and source
14   areas of phosphorus draining to Lake Okeechobee.  And
15   at that time, the northern half of the EAA was
16   considered part of the Okeechobee basin, and thus,
17   part of the Okeechobee SWIM planning effort, so the
18   intent of the budget was to identify probable sources
19   pursuant to identifying methods for reducing those
20   sources.
21       Q.    Did the budget encompass the entire EAA or
22   only those portions draining to Lake Okeechobee?
23       A.    We built the budget to incorporate the
24   entire basin because it was a basin scale analysis
25   and we lacked sufficient specific information to

                                                 47

 1   construct budgets for specific sub-basins within the
 2   EAA.
 3       Q.    So am I correct in assuming then that the
 4   EAA budget that you prepared was not based on each
 5   individual sub-basin?
 6       A.    Correct.
 7       Q.    It was just for the entirety of the EAA?
 8       A.    Yes, sir.
 9       Q.    And when did you prepare the budget, the
10   EAA budget?
11       A.    Spring of 1989.
12       Q.    Have you worked on it since that date?
13       A.    Only minor work.
14       Q.    When?
15       A.    Periodically it becomes interesting, and
16   periodically I do additional analysis.
17       Q.    At whose direction?
18       A.    No specific direction.  Various managers or
19   other people express interest in interpreting the
20   budget, and I do some additional work effort on
21   trying to specify certain parts of it in more detail;
22   however, it does not come as an assignment.
23       Q.    Was the budget ever finalized; your EAA
24   budget?  Did you ever finalize it?
25       A.    No, I have not.

                                                 48

 1       Q.    What additional work needs to be done on
 2   it?
 3       A.    I am not -- well, "finalized", to my
 4   expectations, means producing a refereed journal
 5   article publication describing the budget; and as
 6   such, I want to reduce the uncertainty about some of
 7   the estimates and do another review of available
 8   information to ascertain that I have got the best
 9   available information in the analysis.
10       Q.    Was the EAA budget you prepared published
11   in any format?
12       A.    No.
13       Q.    To your knowledge, was it a part of the
14   1992 SWIM plan?
15       A.    Not that I know of.
16       Q.    Was it used, to your knowledge, in
17   fashioning any of the remedies contained in the SWIM
18   plan?
19       A.    I do not know.
20             MR. BLANK:  Maybe it would be appropriate
21        to take a five-minute break.
22             (Thereupon, a recess was taken.)
23   BY MR. BLANK:
24       Q.    You indicated that there was some
25   additional work that you wanted to do with regard to

                                                 49

 1   the phosphorus budgets regarding uncertainties about
 2   some estimates.  Can you identify which estimates you
 3   are referring to there that are related to
 4   uncertainties?
 5       A.    Well, in a general sense, I'd like to go
 6   back and review all the data that had been used to
 7   develop the budget and just do a recheck of all the
 8   different data sets.
 9       Q.    And what data was used to develop the
10   budget?
11       A.    Well, as you probably already know by
12   looking at the different materials on it, I used
13   information from many sources to develop the budget.
14       Q.    Can you just in general describe those
15   sources?
16       A.    Fertilizer sales records from TVA.
17       Q.    From who?
18       A.    Tennessee Valley Authority.  The
19   International Fertilization Laboratory and Research
20   Center.
21       Q.    These fertilizer sales records, did they
22   maintain records specifically related to farms within
23   the EAA?
24       A.    No, sir.
25       Q.    Why did you review those records?

                                                 50

 1       A.    Those records are based on sales of all
 2   formulations of fertilizers sold by county within all
 3   states.  Of course, the stuff I was interested in
 4   were the counties surrounding Lake Okeechobee.  This
 5   information was developed in response to developing
 6   phosphorus budgets for the basins, for Lake
 7   Okeechobee.  As the EAA was a sub-set of those of
 8   particular interest, and because we were stuck with
 9   the quandary of how to separate out those portions of
10   the basins draining to the lake from the total EAA,
11   one of the concerns we had was to first build a
12   budget for the EAA.  As we built the budget for the
13   EAA, it became its own analysis because there was the
14   interest in knowing what the budget was for; the EAA
15   specifically.  And in the end, if I remember
16   correctly, we simply took an aerial fraction of that
17   for what goes back to Lake Okeechobee.  And since the
18   analysis for Lake Okeechobee has focused on what is
19   going on north of the lake, we haven't gone back and
20   reviewed, trying to split out specific basins.
21             It would be an interesting analysis, but
22   first they have to complete development of the
23   geographic information data base that includes
24   wetlands use, historical patterns of cropping
25   rotation on sugar cane fertilization practices,

                                                 51

 1   et cetera.
 2             The data we used from TVA was for one year;
 3   1987.  I want to go back and look at least at the
 4   last ten years of data to see what the trends in
 5   usage of fertilizer are.  I suspect that they have
 6   not been constant.  This is a farming area that has
 7   varied considerably over time, and some major jumps
 8   in programs occurred in the '60's and the '70's and
 9   the '80's, so it is likely that the phosphorus budget
10   could be dynamic in nature.
11       Q.    How did you take the sales records,
12   fertilizer sales records, and determine an amount of
13   fertilizer that was used within the EAA?
14       A.    That's an involved process.  I don't
15   remember the exact details.  I'd have to read through
16   exactly how we did it, which is in there, in writing.
17   But generally, we went, we looked at the amount of
18   land use in specific crops, we looked at the
19   recommendations of fertilizer for those specific
20   crops, and estimated how much phosphorus fertilizer
21   was used, based on the cropping times, the number of
22   acres in that crop on the average, over a five-year
23   period for which it had taken SCS and the District to
24   accumulate land use information.  We subtracted away
25   from the fertilizer purchases the amount of

                                                 52

 1   fertilizer used for lawns, the amount of fertilizer
 2   used in the agricultural areas not in the basin,
 3   probably contribution of fertilizer purchases in
 4   Hendry County and surrounding counties, and compared
 5   that to the amount of fertilizer that was estimated
 6   to be used based on cropping and recommendations, and
 7   found a very close approximation between the two
 8   different sets of data.  And we used that for our
 9   estimate.
10       Q.    Did you obtain any information or records
11   from farmers within the EAA in terms of fertilizer
12   usage?
13       A.    Not directly.  We obtained indirect
14   information in terms of did they follow
15   recommendations, did they have their own set of
16   recommendations, did they do it like grandpappy and
17   pappy did before them, and checked to see if that
18   anecdotal information conflicted or confirmed our
19   previous interpretation of land use and cropping
20   practices and fertilizer usage, and we found it
21   pretty much went in the same line.
22       Q.    All right.  Are there any other estimates
23   contained in the budget that you think need
24   refinement?
25       A.    Or at least verification.  Refinement, I

                                                 53

 1   don't expect that many of the numbers that we used
 2   are going to change grossly.  What we want to do is
 3   when we verify the numbers, determine how certain
 4   they are on the limited data that can be made
 5   available and how variable the estimates are likely
 6   to be through time.  We don't expect that the gross
 7   numbers will change.  Another set of data that we
 8   would like to verify is transport of phosphorus in
 9   ash from both field burning of cane and from the
10   mills.
11       Q.    Does your budget, right now, or the budget
12   you prepared, contain estimates for transport of
13   phosphorus in ash?
14       A.    Yes.
15       Q.    And how did you arrive at that number?
16       A.    Those two numbers?  The one from -- there
17   are two numbers.  One is the composite of the mills
18   and refineries.  It is my understanding that all of
19   the cane materials that arrive at the mills are
20   burned in the processing of sugar.  At least raw
21   sugar.  And of that, it is all converted to an ash.
22   And their system for ash recovery is required to
23   recover 95 percent of the ash; and, therefore, the
24   estimate of how much phosphorus leaves the mill would
25   be five percent of all the phosphorus that comes into

                                                 54

 1   the mill.
 2       Q.    And that would leave the mill in ash; is
 3   that what you're saying?
 4       A.    Yes, sir.
 5       Q.    In other words, it would be airborne?
 6       A.    Right.
 7       Q.    Did you do any studies or how did you
 8   determine what happened to that airborne ash?
 9       A.    I cannot remember at this point how we
10   handled those numbers.  I haven't had a chance to
11   review that analysis.  I believe we assumed a certain
12   percent would be, and a small percent would be
13   dropped locally, but most of it would be carried out
14   of the EAA on whatever the local wind patterns were
15   that day either to the east coast or over Lake
16   Okeechobee or out to the EPA.  I believe there exists
17   data that the farmers are required to collect to
18   determine the ash contents in the air for EPA
19   standards, but I have not seen those data sets.
20       Q.    This would be data on the ash leaving the
21   mills or refineries?
22       A.    Right.  And it is my understanding that
23   there are a handful of EPA required sampling stations
24   in the EAA to evaluate the amount of ash that is
25   being distributed primarily for health reasons.

                                                 55

 1       Q.    You say EPA again.  Did you mean --
 2       A.    Now I mean the Environmental Protection
 3   Agency requirements.
 4       Q.    Okay.  Have you reviewed any data from any
 5   of the EPA stations?
 6       A.    No, I have not.  Unfortunately, I have not
 7   had the opportunity to hunt that data down.  I have
 8   only heard of rumors that it exists.
 9       Q.    Do you know where the stations are located?
10       A.    No, sir.  That information will be used in
11   a peripheral sense to confirm the distribution of ash
12   from the mills.  It cannot directly confirm or deny
13   the generation of phosphorus and ash from the mills
14   because it is not likely that those sampling stations
15   will collect a representative amount of the ash that
16   falls or is produced from the mills.  So it can only
17   define one category of ash fall-out.
18       Q.    Would you, from that data, anticipate you
19   would be able to distinguish ash leaving the mill
20   from ash resulting from the burning of cane fields?
21       A.    I'm not sure.  The characteristics of the
22   ash should be different because the material in the
23   field will be differed from the material burned at
24   the mills, and the degree of completeness of
25   combustion should be different.  It depends on the

                                                 56

 1   construction of the sampling device and when it
 2   samples and how.  It is possible to separate it.  I
 3   don't know if the data will be good enough to do
 4   that.  It depends what parameters they measure from
 5   the data from the samples collected.
 6       Q.    All right, sir.  Are there other areas of
 7   uncertainty that you can identify at this time?
 8       A.    Well, as I say, every one of the numbers
 9   used in the analysis has an uncertainty associated
10   with it, and they all should be quantified.
11       Q.    Let me show you a document that we will
12   mark as Number 2.
13             (The document was marked
14             Flaig Exb. No. 2.)
15   BY MR. BLANK:
16       Q.    Can you identify this document?
17       A.    This is a summary of the phosphorus budget
18   that I prepared for the 1989 Everglades SWIM Plan.
19   The intent was to produce a very brief analysis of
20   the fate of phosphorus.
21       Q.    Now, on the first page of this document,
22   the last sentence that starts with, "The list of
23   exports attempts to account for marketable goods and
24   waster material", there is a paren; "ask Eric".  Do
25   you know who actually wrote that sentence?

                                                 57

 1       A.    I believe these are edits that were made by
 2   Dave Swift.
 3       Q.    What were you referring to or was
 4   Mr. Swift, if you know, referring to in terms of
 5   marketable goods?  Is that the agricultural product
 6   itself?
 7       A.    Yes.
 8       Q.    So that would be sugar or vegetables or
 9   some commodity?
10       A.    Or sod or furfural.
11       Q.    And what about waster material?  What would
12   that refer to?
13       A.    Well, I suspect he meant to say waste.
14   Waste materials would be the ash, sludge from the
15   mills, poor quality water coming from other areas, as
16   well as for the vegetables.  The trimmings before the
17   vegetable is sent to market, such as with carrots,
18   you are going to -- you may or may not cut off the
19   tops and, therefore, where does this pile of tops go?
20   And in the specific case of rice, the chafe from the
21   rice may or may not be a marketable good and it may
22   or may not be a waste product, depending on the
23   market.  And, of course, all this material, it may or
24   may not leave the EAA once you account for the
25   phosphorus that's in it.

                                                 58

 1       Q.    So that is another area of uncertainty in
 2   terms of what actually happens to that waste material
 3   and whether it is exported from the EAA in some
 4   fashion; is that correct?
 5       A.    That becomes a part of the uncertainty
 6   involved in estimating exports.
 7       Q.    The next sentence, "The summation of
 8   sources and sinks does not represent a mass balance,"
 9   is that a correct statement?
10       A.    Yes.
11       Q.    Why doesn't it represent a mass balance?
12       A.    Without being able to do a complete
13   tracking of imports of all transformations of
14   phosphorus, it is not clear that we have been able to
15   obtain all the measures.  When one wants to claim a
16   mass balance, they have been able to track all
17   particles of phosphorus coming in and all particles
18   of phosphorus leaving and account for the storage.
19             In this analysis, we were able to track the
20   things that are commonly measurable and have been
21   reported in some form or another.  We cannot take
22   account for the things that are unmeasurable or
23   processes we are unfamiliar with.  And I believe
24   that's what it says in the following sentence.
25       Q.    Would that primarily relate to the export

                                                 59

 1   aspect of your budget or are there uncertainties also
 2   with regard to the import?
 3       A.    Well, again, the definition of uncertainty
 4   is a statistical definition of how well do we trust
 5   any of our data?  And in any global form of analysis,
 6   there is going to be where you're taking sub-samples
 7   to quantify those global mass transfers, there is
 8   going to be uncertainty, just in the statistical
 9   nature of the data, the distributions of the data.
10   We can speculate with each one of the sources that we
11   were looking at -- imports, exports, transport out of
12   waste materials -- that there are probable sources of
13   uncertainty, and these we don't know about, which are
14   the most important.  We wouldn't know until we know a
15   total mass budget.  And, of course, I'm not sure if
16   that's even possible; to completely know where the
17   mass has been.
18             There is some concern that the waste
19   products from the vegetables and where they are
20   deposited and where they enter either the flow stream
21   or the soil could represent a significant
22   uncertainty.  On the other hand, we may find that
23   really there is very little phosphorus in those
24   materials.  The amount of materials is small, it
25   remains in the field, and, therefore, it becomes part

                                                 60

 1   of one of the other pools of stored phosphorus, and
 2   it is very small, say, compared to mineralization
 3   rates.  So once again, when we go and we look for
 4   sources and sinks, we start with no influence as to
 5   the relative magnitude.
 6       Q.    Is there anyone with the District that is
 7   attempting to answer some of these questions that you
 8   have just outlined?
 9       A.    I don't know.
10       Q.    All right.  Under the category of sources,
11   the first sentence there has some strikethroughs
12   after saying that, "Fertilizer is the single greatest
13   import source of phosphorus to the EAA".  Do you know
14   why that sentence -- or actually the next two
15   sentences -- were struck?
16       A.    I have no idea why Dave Swift was editing
17   this in this fashion.
18       Q.    The numbers that were contained in the
19   strikethrough sentences, do they represent correct
20   numbers, as far as you know?
21       A.    Yes.
22       Q.    Did you arrive at an estimate in terms of
23   preparing the budget of the amount of fertilizer
24   applied per acre for sugar cane fields?
25       A.    Could you restate that question?

                                                 61

 1       Q.    Yeah.  Well, let me -- the next sentence
 2   after the strike-through says, "In Hendry County
 3   approximately 525 Tons phosphorus were used on sugar
 4   cane in the EAA" and then there is a strike-through
 5   for what appears to be "60,000 acres at 17.5 pounds
 6   per acre".  What I am wondering is whether that
 7   pounds per acre figure was derived also for other
 8   areas than Hendry County.
 9       A.    Well, in the following sentence it shows
10   the same strike-through relative to Palm Beach
11   County.
12       Q.    Yeah.  With the same number in terms of
13   pounds per acre; is that correct?
14       A.    Correct.  So the question is did we do the
15   analysis from the perspective of pounds per acre
16   recommended?
17       Q.    Yes.
18       A.    That was one form by which we estimated how
19   much phosphorus was used.
20       Q.    Did you attempt to verify that pounds per
21   acre figure with any of the farmers within the EAA?
22       A.    Indirectly.  Again, given the acreage of
23   sugar cane farmed in the EAA and the number of
24   individuals involved in farming and, of course, the
25   variations in their rotational characteristics and,

                                                 62

 1   therefore, how much phosphorus they would use on the
 2   planted crop versus the various ratoons and soil
 3   type, et cetera, et cetera, individual anecdotal
 4   information from specific farmers would neither --
 5   would not be useful for confirming a basin average
 6   value.
 7             We did check with various principals and
 8   various corporations, as well as knowledgeable
 9   experts at the Belle Glade experiment station, as to
10   whether these were reasonable numbers to use, and at
11   the time they seemed reasonable and acceptable, but
12   there was a very large variation in what's actually
13   been done.  Some people don't fertilize at all,
14   either by soil test or by instinct, some people
15   fertilize a lot, either by soil test or that's the
16   way it's done, and there is no specific rule.  It
17   depends also on the cropping sequences.  If they do
18   it after a certain vegetable crop, they will or they
19   won't.
20             So, although we made an effort to
21   confirm -- Do you put on 200?  No.  Do you put on
22   zero all the time?  No.  -- and then narrow it in
23   from there as to what was a reasonable estimate, it
24   would be useful to have specific fertilizer usage
25   data.  There was some question as to whether even the

                                                 63

 1   best growers had the specific year-to-year
 2   information of what they specifically used on their
 3   ownership.
 4       Q.    These numbers that are contained in this
 5   paragraph are annual numbers, are they not?  This is
 6   an estimate of annual usage?
 7       A.    Correct.
 8       Q.    Did you specifically contact, for example,
 9   U. S. Sugar Corporation and ask them if they had
10   records concerning fertilizer use?
11       A.    No, we did not, because at the time it was
12   indicated that we would not get any sort of
13   reasonable response.
14       Q.    Who indicated that to you?
15       A.    Everyone we inquired that of.  We talked to
16   people that were knowledgeable about what U. S. Sugar
17   does; in particular, the experts at the University of
18   Florida.  And Carolyn Fonyo, who was on contract with
19   us, to help us develop the budgets for the whole Lake
20   Okeechobee basin, also inquired of the people that
21   she knew.  But, at the time we were developing this
22   budget, it was considered fruitless to try to get
23   specific numbers.  We did ask specifically of
24   representatives from the Florida Sugar Cane League if
25   we could get such numbers.  They said, "Oh, yes, of

                                                 64

 1   course", and we didn't receive any numbers.
 2       Q.    So if numbers that we have in here -- let
 3   me see if I understand exactly how your numbers were
 4   derived.  Did you work backwards from a recommended
 5   application rate per acre and multiply that number
 6   times the entire acreage to get to your total of
 7   fertilizer used in the EAA?
 8       A.    Yes.
 9       Q.    Okay.  And then what did you do to attempt
10   to verify that total number?
11       A.    Well, we compared that against actual
12   purchases to see if they were reasonable, and they
13   appeared to be in the same degree of uncertainty.
14       Q.    And the data that you got on actual
15   purchases, was that on a per-farm basis?
16       A.    No, sir.  That was on a county basis.  And
17   then we had to derive from that the probable usage
18   within the EAA.
19       Q.    So you received a number of the total
20   pounds of phosphorus sold within a given county?
21       A.    Broken out by fertilizer formulation.
22   There's something like 200 formulations used in this
23   county.  Some of those are quite clearly used for
24   lawns, some are quite clearly used for various
25   vegetables crops, and there are some that are quite

                                                 65

 1   clearly used for sugar cane.
 2       Q.    Okay.  How did you know that fertilizer
 3   sold within a particular county, let's say Palm Beach
 4   County, was actually used within Palm Beach County?
 5       A.    There is no proof from looking at the
 6   specific data.  One has to look at the surrounding
 7   county data in terms of looking at Broward County and
 8   Hendry County and Martin County and Okeechobee
 9   County.  There is still the possibility that some
10   fertilizer mill in the Glades could be purchasing and
11   could be manufacturing and directly delivering to a
12   grower in Palm Beach County and we would not be able
13   to account for that.  However, indirectly, by looking
14   at the usages in counties, and specifically that the
15   other surrounding counties do not have the crop types
16   that Palm Beach County and the eastern parts of
17   Hendry County have, it was fairly clear that those
18   fertilizer purchases were not ending up in the EAA;
19   that the fertilizer use in the EAA was primarily
20   restricted to purchases in Hendry County and Palm
21   Beach County.  As such, though, it would be useful
22   and appropriate to go back through the whole list of
23   formulations, across a series of years, and compare
24   directly between the formulations and the acreage of
25   crops, and come up with a tighter correlation between

                                                 66

 1   purchases and usages.
 2             At one time it was possible to work with
 3   fertilizer manufacturers and confirm with them where
 4   the purchases from their various offices or mills was
 5   being used, and at one point in 1988 International
 6   Minerals Corporation, for instance, was quite happy
 7   to sit down with us and talk to us about where the
 8   purchases of fertilizer from their groups ended up.
 9   Now, I don't know how specific that information would
10   have gotten, and we were unable to follow up on it,
11   so I'm not sure how much we would have gotten,
12   because in some sense this is proprietary
13   information, and I'm not sure how much of it would
14   have been shared with us in the end.
15       Q.    What about the University of Florida people
16   you were working with; in particular, IFAS?  Did they
17   have more accurate records in terms of actual usage
18   on a per-farm basis?
19       A.    Well, that's where the primary information
20   we got came from.  Carolyn Fonyo, again, was on
21   contract with us to develop the budget, and she
22   interviewed farmers, county extension agents, various
23   growers, as well as the research experts within the
24   University of Florida, both in Gainesville and at the
25   experiment stations.  She confirmed, to the best of

                                                 67

 1   her ability, what the usages were.
 2       Q.    Okay.  So you feel fairly comfortable that
 3   your 5600 tons of phosphorus per year was an accurate
 4   number at the time you prepared your phosphorus
 5   budget?
 6       A.    I believe two things of the data; best
 7   available information, and within the order of
 8   magnitude it's correct.
 9       Q.    Within what order of magnitude?
10       A.    It could be, in a sense you know, 6,000.
11   It could be, in a sense, 5200; but I think 5600 is a
12   good number.
13       Q.    So you think you're within 10 percent?
14       A.    I believe so.
15       Q.    The next paragraph, "Phosphorus found in
16   precipitation is an important import source".  Do you
17   concur with that statement?
18       A.    Yes.
19       Q.    How did you measure phosphorus in
20   precipitation?  How did you derive your numbers for
21   the budget?
22       A.    With this I have to refer to work that was
23   completed by Jim Grimshaw at the District.  There has
24   been considerable argument and discussion over what
25   are reasonable phosphorus concentrations in rainfall,

                                                 68

 1   and I asked him to provide me with what he thought
 2   was the best estimate, and I simply multiplied that
 3   by the volume of rain that lands on the acreage of
 4   the EAA to arrive at a loading.  Specifically,
 5   though, I did not investigate the various means by
 6   which the precipitation were collected and analyzed.
 7       Q.    And you didn't do the analysis yourself?
 8       A.    No, sir.
 9       Q.    The next sentence reads, "Bulk
10   precipitation, both-dry fall and rainfall, has been
11   collected for a 14-year period for the EAA".  Do you
12   know who collected that data?
13       A.    I think it came from various sources.  At
14   this point, I don't specifically remember.
15       Q.    Would that be data actually collected by
16   the District?
17       A.    I believe it would include District data,
18   University of Florida data, I think there is a NOAA
19   station involved.  I don't remember.
20       Q.    And what about USGS?  Would they have --
21       A.    They may have been involved at that stage.
22   Various players have been involved in that.  Again, I
23   would have to defer to Jim.
24       Q.    The next sentence, "The average of the
25   annual phosphorus load is 102 tons per year for the

                                                 69

 1   532,000 acres of permitted agricultural land"; was
 2   that a figure that was derived by Mr. Grimshaw?
 3       A.    Which figure?
 4       Q.    The 102 tons per year.
 5       A.    No.
 6       Q.    Is that your number?
 7       A.    Yes.
 8       Q.    How did you calculate that number?
 9       A.    The average rainfall times the average
10   amount of land times the average concentration.
11       Q.    Okay.  And what did you mean by "permitted
12   agricultural lands"?
13       A.    We use the acreage of land that has water
14   use permits with the District for agricultural
15   activity.
16       Q.    And that is the difference between that and
17   the next number, the number in the next sentence, the
18   632,000 acres just described as total muck lands.
19       A.    Right.  I don't remember specifically, but
20   I believe it also includes the Holey Land the
21   Rotenberger tract and other areas that are not
22   permitted for agricultural use.  Areas around the
23   various towns, various out-acreages that were not
24   being farmed.
25       Q.    Can you tell me why the average annual

                                                 70

 1   phosphorus load would increase as the area increased?
 2       A.    I believe that's simply a function of as
 3   you increase area, you increase the amount of
 4   precipitation that has occurred within.
 5       Q.    Okay.  So it is just a straight calculation
 6   based upon an average --
 7       A.    Right.
 8       Q.    -- number times acres?
 9       A.    Right.  There is no other relationship.
10       Q.    Do you have any idea of how many sampling
11   stations were located within the EAA to measure
12   rainfall and analyze the phosphorus contents of it?
13       A.    I don't recall.
14       Q.    And there is, at the end of that, the last
15   sentence of that paragraph, there are two words; "per
16   acre", with a question mark.  Do you know what that
17   refers to?
18       A.    Well, again, Dave Swift was editing this
19   section to match with the editorial style of the rest
20   of the SWIM plan, and the only thing I can guess is
21   he wanted certain things on a per-acre basis, as
22   opposed to a general basis.  Since this data, the
23   primary data used in this was average for the basin,
24   it is really not proper to report it as per acre.
25       Q.    Okay.  Do you recall what the average

                                                 71

 1   concentration of phosphorus and rainfall was that was
 2   utilized for these calculations?
 3       A.    No, I don't.  It is in a different
 4   document.
 5       Q.    The next paragraph refers to, "Water
 6   withdrawn from Lake Okeechobee for irrigation
 7   contains phosphorus load".  Did you make any estimate
 8   on the total load that would be imported into the EAA
 9   based upon withdrawals from Lake Okeechobee?
10       A.    Yes.
11       Q.    Is that the 32 ton figure that's contained
12   in that paragraph?
13       A.    Yes.  Let me correctly define that.  The
14   load estimate is for the structures on Lake
15   Okeechobee for the EAA.  The loadings are calculated
16   by a different group.  I accepted their numbers.
17       Q.    Okay.  What group made those calculations?
18       A.    That would be on your data management or
19   water quality analysis group.
20       Q.    Who would be in charge of those groups?
21       A.    Currently?
22       Q.    Uh-huh.
23       A.    Dr. Leslie Wedderburn.
24       Q.    Do you know who within those groups
25   actually provided you with the information?

                                                 72

 1       A.    Personnel have changed quite a bit.  I'm
 2   not sure exactly who was responsible for the
 3   calculations.  These were data that were being
 4   prepared for the '89 SWIM plan, and as the data
 5   became available, I simply adopted the commonly
 6   accepted data for consistency.
 7       Q.    Do you recall whether your budget was
 8   contained in the '89 plan?
 9       A.    I don't remember.  I don't believe it was.
10       Q.    With regard to withdrawals or water from
11   Lake Okeechobee entering the EAA, did the 32 ton
12   number relate exclusively to irrigation withdrawals
13   as contrasted to pass-throughs from Lake Okeechobee?
14       A.    To best answer that question, I would want
15   to back up and mention that I believe the actual
16   numbers we were working with is -- there were 52 tons
17   leaving the lake going south each year, and there
18   were, over that 14-year period, an average of 20 tons
19   being back-pumped to the lake for flood control.
20   Now, we know the 20 tons going back to the lake was
21   for flood control, but, of the 52 that came south at
22   that time, there was not a clear analysis of how much
23   was used for irritation versus pass-through to the
24   areas south.  And in that light, I'm not sure if I
25   would want to directly subtract the 20 off of the 52

                                                 73

 1   and then say well, 32 should be the ones analyzed for
 2   going south versus internal consumption.  I realize
 3   that's not a direct answer to your question.
 4       Q.    No.  I am just wondering whether there is a
 5   way to get a better handle on the number that is
 6   actually used for irrigation versus what was
 7   pass-through water.
 8       A.    Right.  Well, there is, and it is my
 9   understanding that some attempt at that analysis has
10   been made since I prepared this.  One can look at the
11   distributions of releases from the lake relative to
12   pumping on the south end of the EAA.  Since all water
13   leaving the EAA has to be pumped out, one could do an
14   analysis to show when it was released versus when it
15   was pumped and fairly accurately define how much was
16   passed through, as opposed to internal use.
17       Q.    All right.  And your tonnage figure for
18   phosphorus coming from the lake, was that based upon
19   the volume of water times average concentration of
20   phosphorus?
21       A.    I do not remember the exact formulation of
22   the calculations, but I have believe that the way
23   they were calculated is they took the biweekly or
24   monthly sampling.  Actually, I should say I don't
25   know.  I speculate that we have autosamplers at each

                                                 74

 1   of the pumps, as well as doing monthly or biweekly
 2   sampling, and those data were used to estimate loads
 3   based on pumping rates over those short periods of
 4   time to estimate the loads coming there.  So it was
 5   using the specific data, as opposed to average
 6   values.  One could pose that they used average lake
 7   concentrations and total pumpage and estimated the
 8   loads.  They did not do that.  They used more
 9   specific data.  The actual formulation of those load
10   calculations I am unfamiliar with.
11       Q.    Do you know what period of record was used
12   for the calculation on the load from Lake Okeechobee?
13       A.    I believe it was the same 14-year period
14   that was used as the base period for the SWIM plan.
15       Q.    Did the District have autosamplers back in
16   1973?
17       A.    I don't know.
18       Q.    When you say "autosampler", can you
19   describe what that is?
20       A.    An automated water sampling device of
21   several configurations basically set to take samples
22   either based on a time increment or on a pumpage
23   increment, and I cannot say that I have a record, I
24   am knowledgeable about what protocols were used at
25   those pump stations.

                                                 75

 1       Q.    Is this also what is commonly referred to
 2   as a composite sample?
 3       A.    They would be composite samples.
 4       Q.    As contrasted to a grab sample?
 5       A.    Correct.
 6       Q.    You said that the autosamplers were
 7   designed to sample based upon either a time increment
 8   or a flow increment.
 9       A.    That's generally how they are configured.
10       Q.    Do you know, with regard to the ones
11   measuring water out of Lake Okeechobee, whether those
12   were based upon a time interval or a flow interval?
13       A.    I don't have personal knowledge of how they
14   have been configured over the period of record.
15       Q.    Well, if they were based on a volume of
16   flow, how often would you obtain a sample from the
17   autosampler?
18       A.    Still, again, depends on how they were
19   configured.  Several ways they could be configured;
20   depending on the amount of water they were willing to
21   capture and the device they were using.  Better off
22   to talk to the person who is responsible for that.
23       Q.    Yeah.  Well, he's not here right now.  What
24   I am wondering about is how frequently would a sample
25   be taken?  Daily, weekly?

                                                 76

 1       A.    I'm not sure.  I would assume it would be --
 2             MR. COUSINS:  Don't assume.  If you're not
 3        sure --
 4             THE WITNESS:  I don't know.
 5   BY MR. BLANK:
 6       Q.    Okay.  What about in the instance of grab
 7   samples?  Do you know how frequently they were taken?
 8       A.    Our general pattern is either biweekly or
 9   monthly, but I don't know the schedule for those
10   stations.
11       Q.    Do you have any idea how, if you had
12   bimonthly samples -- let's say two samples a month on
13   water flowing from Lake Okeechobee and those samples
14   contained different concentrations, let's say one was
15   at 100 and the other one was at 150 -- am I correct
16   that you also had daily flow records --
17       A.    Yes.
18       Q.    -- Okay.-- how would one have made an
19   interpretation of daily flow records, versus
20   bimonthly water quality calculations, to determine
21   total load for the month?
22       A.    Again, I do not know how it was
23   specifically calculated for that.  And that's been
24   published in other areas.  I simply accepted the data
25   that they had developed.

                                                 77

 1       Q.    Okay.  Were there other sources of
 2   phosphorus as a part of your budget that aren't
 3   contained in this summary?  We went through Lake
 4   Okeechobee precipitation and fertilizer.
 5       A.    I don't believe so.
 6       Q.    What about seepage?
 7       A.    It was not included.
 8       Q.    Is there a reason why it wasn't included?
 9       A.    We had no quantifiable numbers.
10       Q.    Do you know of anyone that has measured the
11   amount of seepage entering the EAA?
12       A.    No, I have no one who has measured seepage.
13       Q.    And the next category, "Internal sources",
14   this relates to oxidation of muck soil; is that
15   correct?
16       A.    Yes.
17       Q.    And there is a number there which says what
18   60 pounds of phosphorus per acre per year?
19       A.    Yes, sir.
20       Q.    How was that number derived?
21       A.    I have not reviewed the direct
22   calculations, but I believe that's an average value
23   for oxidation for the entire EAA.
24       Q.    Who performed those calculations?
25       A.    Well, there's two parts:  The last part in

                                                 78

 1   terms of -- those are estimates that were derived
 2   from research conducted by the University of Florida,
 3   where they estimated the rate, the average rate, of
 4   oxidation, times the amount of phosphorus that
 5   occurred in a given volume of soil to estimate what
 6   the average release of phosphorus would be on a per
 7   acre basis.
 8       Q.    Were these actual field experiments that
 9   were conducted in terms of oxidation rates?
10       A.    They were field measurements taken.  I
11   don't recall if specific long-term experiments were
12   conducted to specifically define local oxidation
13   rates.
14       Q.    Do you know if the measurements were taken
15   on fertilized versus unfertilized fields?
16       A.    No.
17       Q.    You do not know?
18       A.    I do not know.
19       Q.    Now, how does oxidation of muck soil differ
20   from mineralization of the muck?
21       A.    It depends on your definition.  Oxidation
22   generally refers to the overall subsidence, which
23   would include a physical component as well as a
24   mineralization component.  The oxidation is just the
25   decrease in volume of the muck, whereas

                                                 79

 1   mineralization is more specifically defined toward
 2   the behavior of phosphorus within the muck.
 3       Q.    Are we talking about two different rates of
 4   phosphorus release or source here; one for oxidation
 5   and a different one for mineralization?
 6       A.    No.  We are -- oxidation is primarily a
 7   description of the change of the muck soil itself,
 8   and mineralization is the more specific change of
 9   phosphorus within that muck.
10       Q.    And can you tell me how the figure of
11   19,500 tons of phosphorus per year was derived at
12   relative to mineralization?
13       A.    Again, it is the amount of phosphorus
14   released through oxidation times the number of acres
15   affected.
16       Q.    Through oxidation?
17       A.    Right.  Oxidation is the process of change
18   of the muck soil, and mineralization would be the
19   release of phosphorus during oxidation.
20       Q.    Okay.  And the next sentence, "However, the
21   mineralized phosphorus is likely to be absorbed to
22   the soil or immobilized by soil microbes," what was
23   the basis of that statement?
24       A.    A general understanding of soil processes.
25       Q.    Is that a statement that you wrote?

                                                 80

 1       A.    Correct.
 2       Q.    Okay.  And can you describe that soil
 3   process that would result in immobilization or
 4   absorption?
 5       A.    Yes.
 6       Q.    Please do so.
 7       A.    The mineralization process would be the
 8   breakdown of the organic matter in the soil, and it
 9   is presumed that the primary product would be a
10   single phosphorus molecule as it mineralizes and
11   breaks down.  However, the whole 19,000 tons of
12   phosphorus does not occur as phosphorus molecules
13   available for transport because the oxidation process
14   is primarily microbially mediated release of
15   phosphorus and the phosphorus is incorporated into
16   the microbes, as they eat the soil, as it were.  So a
17   large portion of the phosphorus is just converted
18   into microbial biomass, and as the microbes die, it
19   is released to the soil as an organic form, which
20   either can absorb physically to the particles or
21   simply exist in the soils as an organic phosphorus
22   molecule.  The phosphorus that's released by the
23   microbes, but not incorporated, will absorb to the
24   soil particles directly.  In either case, a majority
25   of the phosphorus simply combines in soil particles

                                                 81

 1   in a different form, but remains in the soil profile.
 2             There is some evidence from specific field
 3   studies that during oxidation, under fertilized and
 4   unfertilized fields, the phosphorus, as determined by
 5   fractionation procedures in laboratories, converts
 6   from an organic form to an inorganic form through
 7   subsidence and mineralization, and reaccumulates in
 8   the soil profile.  So as the depths of the soil
 9   decreases with oxidation, the phosphorus converts
10   from an organic form to an inorganic form, and it may
11   move in the profile -- the profile of the soil simply
12   being the depth of the soil -- it may move from an
13   upper to a lower strata, but simply remains in the
14   soil.  And that's a general view of the processes
15   involved.
16       Q.    In its inorganic form, is it available for
17   uptake by vegetation?
18       A.    It may be or it may not be, because in the
19   mineral form, it may form a precipitate that's
20   unavailable, just like rock phosphate, or it may be
21   simply absorbed in the soil particles, in which it is
22   highly labile.
23       Q.    You mentioned some actual field experiments
24   or studies that were conducted with regard to this
25   phenomenon.  Who was it that conducted those studies?

                                                 82

 1       A.    Various researchers had conducted them.  I
 2   don't remember whether I have cited any in this
 3   paper.  Well, one individual who did some
 4   tractionation was Ian Nicholson, which is cited in
 5   the back of this write-up.  I don't remember other
 6   names directly.
 7       Q.    What about Reddy; did he do any?  Ramesh
 8   Reddy.
 9       A.    I don't remember reviewing any of his work
10   specific to this area at the time.
11       Q.    I am just looking at your references, and
12   about halfway down on the first page there is a --
13       A.    Two Rameshes.
14       Q.    Yeah.  One of them dealing with soluble
15   phosphorus released from organic soils.
16       A.    I believe those are more generic
17   discussions.
18       Q.    Okay.
19       A.    And they are not based on specific data
20   from the EAA.
21       Q.    And were you able to come up with any
22   accurate estimate of the amount of phosphorus due to
23   oxidation or mineralization that was actually
24   released to surface waters?
25       A.    Could you restate the question?

                                                 83

 1             (Thereupon, a portion of the record
 2              was read by the reporter.)
 3             THE WITNESS:  I developed an estimate of
 4        phosphorus released to surface waters; however,
 5        there is no detailed experimental data, or I
 6        reviewed no detailed experimental data that
 7        showed that it resulted directly from oxidation
 8        or mineralization.
 9   BY MR. BLANK:
10       Q.    How did you arrive at your estimate?
11       A.    My estimates were based on field data
12   collected by CH2MHill in their 1977, 1978 work.  I
13   don't recall if I used other information or not, but
14   I specifically remember theirs.
15       Q.    Do you recall what that number was?
16       A.    The number that sticks in my mind right now
17   is 600 tons.
18       Q.    And this figure would be for the entire
19   EAA?
20       A.    Yes, sir.
21       Q.    And is this a number that would relate to
22   fertilized as well as unfertilized fields?
23       A.    It would be a combination of all fields.
24       Q.    Is the last sentence of that paragraph,
25   "Accurate estimates of the contribution of oxidation

                                                 84

 1   to phosphorus loss are not available" still a correct
 2   statement?
 3       A.    Well, I think I prefer the word "good"
 4   estimate.  The question of accurate simply infers an
 5   acceptable, yet unidentified, level of uncertainty.
 6   Everything is accurate within a measure of some
 7   measure of uncertainty.  But in the sense that there
 8   are estimates available now that are more accurate
 9   than the ones I used, I believe other data have been
10   developed since then, but I have not seen the data
11   sets.
12       Q.    Are you aware of any data that has been
13   developed concerning phosphorus losses due to
14   oxidation from fertilized fields versus unfertilized
15   fields?
16       A.    I'm not aware of any specific data sets.
17   It would be embarrassing to the scientific community
18   if such data sets had not been developed in the last
19   few years.
20       Q.    All right.  Are there any other internal
21   sources that you are aware of that we haven't
22   discussed?
23       A.    Yes, there are.
24       Q.    And what would they be?
25       A.    They are not presented here in such a way,

                                                 85

 1   but the mill water and residues from the mill would,
 2   in a sense, represent an internal source, although
 3   they could also be interpreted as the final outcome
 4   of an import.
 5       Q.    Is that covered under the category of
 6   exports?  I see a heading there under cane mills.
 7       A.    Yeah.  Perhaps that's included there.  It
 8   is a definition of what internal sources are.  I
 9   guess the only internal source would be the soil
10   itself and the others are represented under exports.
11   Although, if one was tracking individual particles of
12   phosphorus, there could be a mix.  Anyway, they are
13   included under exports.
14       Q.    All right.  Under the export category there
15   is the distinction made between point sources and
16   non-point sources; is that correct?
17       A.    Correct.
18       Q.    Let's see.  The third sentence of that
19   paragraph says, "Phosphorus losses from each field
20   consist of crop exports, leaching losses, and surface
21   runoff".  Do you see that sentence?
22       A.    Yes, sir.
23       Q.    Okay.  When you refer to crop exports,
24   you're talking about actually harvesting of the crop
25   and exporting the crop from the field or the EAA; is

                                                 86

 1   that correct?
 2       A.    From the field.
 3       Q.    Okay.  And what are you referring to by
 4   "leaching"; the term "leaching losses"?
 5       A.    Those would be losses that would result in
 6   sub-surface transport of phosphorus that would
 7   probably not be measurable in local field ditches.
 8   As you track the water, you can either measure it
 9   coming off in the surface water either at the edge of
10   the field or the edge of the farm, but leaching
11   losses would be those that would be recovered
12   elsewhere; deep seepage that might show up at our
13   pump station in a large canal, but would not be
14   measurable as surface runoff.
15       Q.    Do you have any estimate of the amount of
16   phosphorus that would be exported through leaching
17   losses?
18       A.    Not specifically.
19       Q.    When you say "not specifically", that
20   would, to me, indicate you do have some feel there,
21   but can you tell me what that would be?
22       A.    The reason why I say "not specifically" is
23   the statement here about phosphorus losses from each
24   field is meant to be a general statement about mass
25   balances, and in trying to quantify a budget, what

                                                 87

 1   kind of numbers you want to be able to elucidate, we
 2   have some numbers for looking at large movements of
 3   phosphorus and we have some specific field data that
 4   shows leaching losses from that specific field, but
 5   we do not have experimental data or field
 6   observations that track the leaching losses from the
 7   field and out from the EAA, so we have parts of the
 8   picture, but not something that directly links.
 9       Q.    So you haven't been able to come up with
10   any sort of a good or accurate estimate of the amount
11   of phosphorus that would be exported through the
12   leaching mechanism?
13       A.    Not specifically.
14       Q.    Are we talking here about leaching losses,
15   are we talking about ground water movement?
16       A.    That would be the end result.  Right.  It
17   wouldn't be ground water leaching, but in the end, it
18   would be the ground water transport of the
19   phosphorus.
20       Q.    Which could potentially be collected by one
21   of the District canals, but be flowing below the
22   field drainage canal?
23       A.    Exactly.  Probably collected by our primary
24   canals.  So in a sense, it will still be quantified
25   as the complete loss from the basin, but trying to

                                                 88

 1   identify those losses relative to a specific field
 2   would be difficult.
 3       Q.    Do you have any idea of -- assuming that we
 4   are losing phosphorus through this leaching mechanism
 5   and there is a percentage of it that's traveling
 6   through ground water, would that movement through
 7   ground water have an effect on the phosphorus content
 8   of the water?  Would it reduce the amount of
 9   phosphorus from the point of time it left the field
10   until it entered a District canal?
11       A.    It should.
12       Q.    By virtue of the fact that it is traveling
13   through lime rock?
14       A.    Calcareous rock with a potential sorptive
15   capacity for phosphorus.
16       Q.    On the next page under the heading "sugar
17   cane", the second sentence says, "Approximately 60
18   tons per acre --
19       A.    Correct.
20       Q.    -- "total annual biomass are grown, and
21   34.2 tons cane per acre per year are processed".
22   Where was that information derived?
23       A.    From those two data sources.
24       Q.    From the Sugar Cane League and Gasho and
25   Shih?

                                                 89

 1       A.    Yes.
 2       Q.    Who are -- who is Gasho?
 3       A.    A graduate student, I expect, but it could
 4   be -- I'm not sure.
 5       Q.    This is one of the reference items
 6   contained --
 7       A.    Yes, sir.
 8       Q.    -- in the back of your report?
 9       A.    Yes, sir.
10       Q.    And the next sentence, "Phosphorus uptake
11   is estimated at 16 to 22," what does "lbsp" mean?
12       A.    It means a typo.
13       Q.    Oh.
14       A.    "Pounds phosphorus per acre" is what the
15   whole thing says, but the P has kind of wandered over
16   from the H.
17       Q.    And this uptake that you are referring to
18   is phosphorus that is assimilated into the plan
19   itself as part of the growth cycle?
20       A.    Correct.
21       Q.    And further down there is a statement,
22   "Approximately 5 tons of ash per acre are released
23   into the atmosphere."  Do you see that statement?
24       A.    Yes.
25       Q.    Where did that number come from?

                                                 90

 1       A.    I do not recall at the moment.
 2       Q.    Did you attempt to make any estimate of
 3   whether any of the ash transported from the basin is
 4   deposited in the Water Conservation Areas or further
 5   to the south of the EAA?
 6       A.    That is a question that has been posed, and
 7   I have not been assigned to make those estimates.
 8       Q.    Do you know who has been?
 9       A.    No, sir.
10       Q.    How did you derive the figures in the next
11   sentence, "From the field, approximately 55 percent
12   of the cane biomass is shipped to the mill"?
13       A.    I don't precisely remember right now.  That
14   information is available in a different document.
15   But I believe the way I estimated it, based on
16   conversations with field experts, including Joe
17   Arsenago (phonetic), is once we have the biomass in
18   the field, there have been some studies done to
19   evaluate the effect of burning and harvesting on the
20   amount of biomass going to the mill, because this is
21   a critical production factor.  How much of the
22   extraneous biomass can you leave in the field versus
23   how much do you have to process?  And the goal would
24   be only process the sugar and leave everything else
25   in the field, if you could do it.  So they have made

                                                 91

 1   some estimates about how much is lost of the biomass
 2   that's grown in the field, how much is in the tops,
 3   how much is lost during burning, different intensity
 4   of burning, how much is removed and left in the field
 5   during harvesting, basically all the limbs chopped
 6   off, and, therefore, how many tons gets to the mill?
 7   And there is also a measure of how many tons arrive
 8   at the mill?  So between the estimate of how much
 9   they believe they are leaving in the ground as well
10   as the comparisons between total production and how
11   many tons arrive at the mill, you can estimate how
12   much material leaves the field.
13       Q.    All right.  And the 2200 figure was derived
14   simply by multiplying the 55 percent times the 4,000
15   tons; is that correct?
16       A.    I think we arrived at that two ways:  One
17   was a measure of the tonnage that arrives at the
18   mill, because that's a separate estimate.  They weigh
19   every truck and they know exactly what tonnage they
20   are processing.  And it was also estimated from how
21   much we thought was leaving the field to make sure
22   that those two numbers, in essence, verified each
23   other.  And then you multiply that by the percent of
24   phosphorus in the material that is arriving at the
25   mill to get the tonnage of phosphorus.  So the

                                                 92

 1   tonnage of material was estimated in two ways.  The
 2   estimate of phosphorus in that tonnage was estimated
 3   one way.
 4       Q.    That's what I am getting at.  How did you
 5   estimate the phosphorous in the tonnage that actually
 6   went to the mill?
 7       A.    Okay.  Average content of phosphorus in
 8   materials after arriving at the mill.
 9       Q.    How was that determined?
10       A.    By taking total -- and I believe this is
11   how I did it, I don't remember the details -- of the
12   cane -- there is the stem material and there is the
13   leaf material -- and I believe we had numbers for the
14   total and the leaf material -- and if we subtract out
15   the amount of tonnage that was left in the field, you
16   have the approximate tonnage of the material that
17   gets to the mill.  And that concentration of
18   phosphorus per ton, or per pound, of material leaving
19   the field, times the amount of tons of material
20   received at the mill, gives you the tonnage of
21   phosphorus received at the mill.
22       Q.    Did anyone actually conduct experiments to
23   measure the phosphorus content of the biomass
24   arriving at the mill?
25       A.    Or more specifically, did I use any number

                                                 93

 1   of those done?
 2       Q.    Uh-huh.
 3       A.    It has been done.  I don't recall how much
 4   detailed information we used, because any sub-set of
 5   information has an unknown uncertainty, so we used
 6   average numbers.  Any particular load of material
 7   coming to the mill would differ, and we don't know by
 8   how much.
 9       Q.    Assuming that you did use information that
10   had been prepared by somebody else, it would be
11   listed in your reference section to your budget?
12       A.    Yes.
13       Q.    Okay.  Want to take a break for lunch?
14       A.    Sure.
15             (Thereupon, a luncheon recess was taken.)
16 

                                                 94

 1                    AFTERNOON SESSION
 2   BY MR. BLANK:
 3       Q.    All right.  Let's go back to the fun stuff
 4   here.  I think we had just finished the section
 5   dealing with sugar cane, and let's go to the section
 6   entitled "cane mills".
 7             The first paragraph says, "Of the 2200
 8   tons" -- which I guess was derived from the prior
 9   paragraph; is that correct?
10       A.    Correct.
11       Q.    " -- that enter the mill, the majority
12   leaves as filter cake from the settling ponds."  What
13   is filter cake?
14       A.    Basically, that's the burned material that
15   has been recovered either as a liquid form -- well, I
16   guess it would be a slurry primarily, either coming
17   out of the boilers directly or as washdown from ash
18   recovery.  It is sent out to settling ponds, where
19   basically it is settled out, and the water is, in a
20   sense, filtered away, and then you have the filter
21   cake material that you have to dispose of.
22       Q.    When you say the "majority", do you have
23   any way of quantifying what you mean by "majority"?
24       A.    Well, the way we quantified majority is
25   nothing leaves as sugar, a small fraction leaves as

                                                 95

 1   molasses, some leaves as furfural, the rest of it
 2   ends up in the filter cake or leaves out the chimney
 3   as ash.
 4       Q.    Okay.
 5       A.    And that pretty much takes care of the mass
 6   of phosphorus.
 7       Q.    And what happens to the filter cake after
 8   it goes to the settling pond?
 9       A.    It depends on the mill, of which I believe
10   there are five mills in the basin.  Some claim that
11   it stays on site forever, others -- I have witnessed
12   them hauling it off in dump trucks and dumping it
13   on -- well, that particular set of dump trucks were
14   going out to an unused parcel that had a broadcast
15   antenna on it, and they dump them, smooth them out,
16   and that's where it sits.
17       Q.    What mill was this that you are referring
18   to?
19       A.    That was the co-op mill at Belle Glade.
20       Q.    And it was just land spread; is that what
21   you're saying?
22       A.    Dump truck spread.  Now, I don't know what
23   they did with it after that.  It is possible they
24   could have moved it again.  It is my understanding,
25   from the brief discussion of the representatives

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 1   there who didn't want to have a thing to do with it,
 2   that it was just going to be smoothed out and
 3   planted.  But that is only one case example.
 4   U. S. Sugar claims that I believe they have two
 5   mills.  At their mills, it stays in the ponds.
 6       Q.    Did anyone measure the phosphorous contents
 7   of filter cake, as you know?
 8       A.    I believe there have been measurements, but
 9   I have not seen any data.
10       Q.    And so the output from the processing
11   plants then is the majority of it is filter cake, as
12   far as the fate of phosphorus entering the plant?
13       A.    I can't verify that.  We know that the
14   residual solid material, as filter cake, may remain
15   on site or leave site; and where it goes off site, we
16   are not sure.  The phosphorus -- since we don't know
17   the contents of phosphorus in the filter cake
18   material, we do not know how much of it may have
19   leached out of the filter cake before it left the
20   site.
21       Q.    When you say "leach out", you mean through
22   the settling pond?
23       A.    Right.  And how much may go out through
24   ground water or surface water off site at the plant
25   before the filter cake is hauled off.  I think this

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 1   represents a significant lack of knowledge at this
 2   point.
 3       Q.    Do you know if there is a surface water
 4   discharge from any of the settling ponds?
 5       A.    I do not have personal knowledge of where
 6   their discharge points are.
 7       Q.    Do you know that they do have discharge
 8   points?
 9       A.    By definition they have to.  They get a
10   significant rain.  That will fill up their ponds.  It
11   will surface discharge so, at some point, they will
12   discharge.  The question is whether this is an
13   engineered solution or simply one that occurs.  And
14   at what point on the location and relative to amount
15   of labile phosphorus, I have not seen any
16   calculations is on that.
17       Q.    And what is furfural?
18       A.    Furfural is an organic material.  I believe
19   it is a solvent that's made from the biomass
20   residual, that -- at least one of the chemical
21   corporations has made a plant that will take the
22   biomass residual and convert it into this organic
23   solvent that's of some use.  I'm not sure what it is.
24       Q.    Are you aware of any measurements of
25   phosphorus content of furfural?

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 1       A.    The experts tell me the phosphorous content
 2   of furfural is very close.  It is a trace contaminant
 3   in the process.
 4       Q.    For the purposes of your budget, did you
 5   use an estimate of phosphorus content for furfural?
 6       A.    Yes.  Zero.  The volume of furfural that's
 7   produced is small.  Furfural itself, if it's made
 8   correctly, contains no phosphorus; and as a trace
 9   contaminant, the thought was it doesn't even estimate
10   a ton a year.
11       Q.    Okay.  Down in the bottom of this page
12   there is an item under the lead in, "The waste
13   materials are composed of", do you see that item?
14       A.    Yes, sir.
15       Q.    And the first item is, "Cane trash"?
16       A.    Uh-huh.
17       Q.    What are you referring to as "Cane trash"?
18       A.    This is the material -- As you mechanically
19   and chemically treat the sugar cane to remove the
20   sugar, this is the residual biomass.
21       Q.    And that is burned to provide energy for
22   sugar refining; is that correct?
23       A.    Yes, sir.
24       Q.    And the next sentence says that, "During
25   the burning process, 90 percent of the ash is

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 1   recovered".  Your authority for that is a report from
 2   the Florida Sugar Cane League; is that correct?
 3       A.    Yes, sir.
 4       Q.    Do you recall which report you are
 5   referring to there?
 6       A.    No, I do not.
 7       Q.    Do you see it listed on the attached
 8   references?
 9       A.    I do not.
10       Q.    Would this have been a written report or --
11       A.    My memory I'm not sure of, but I believe it
12   was oral communication.
13       Q.    Do you know who you would have spoken to?
14       A.    I believe I was talking with Ed Barber.
15       Q.    What was Mr. Barber's position at the time
16   you were speaking to him?
17       A.    I believe he was the Sugar Cane League's
18   environmental spokesperson.
19       Q.    This would have been sometime in 1989?
20       A.    Yes.
21       Q.    And for the purposes of your budget, the 10
22   percent phosphorus that was not recovered from the
23   ash was considered to be a complete export from the
24   basin; is that correct?
25       A.    Yes.

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 1       Q.    Why did you consider it to be a complete
 2   export?
 3       A.    I do not recall.
 4       Q.    Subparagraph 2, on the next page, the
 5   heading "Water" -- there is a parentheses --
 6   "Discharged primarily through evaporation during
 7   sugar crystallization".  What does that refer to?
 8       A.    This is subparagraph 2 under, "Waste
 9   materials from the cane mills".
10             Of the two materials that are used in the
11   mills that can contain phosphorus we have the cane
12   trash, which we just discussed, and we have the
13   water.  And the first indication here is of all the
14   water that would have phosphorus in it at the mill.
15   The primary loss of water would be through
16   evaporation.
17       Q.    This, what you are referring to here, is
18   water that is discharged to the settling ponds;
19   right?
20       A.    This is water that goes into the mill, and
21   then, where does the water that goes into the mill --
22   what is the fate of that water?  So the first
23   sentence there says well, of the water that goes into
24   the mill, the primary loss of water is through
25   evaporation.

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 1       Q.    All right.  And then the next sentence is
 2   referring to discharges to the settling ponds?
 3       A.    Right.  Because on the previous page, under
 4   cane mills, the third line says, "Typical mill use is
 5   1 MGD."  So here, when we are explaining 10,000 going
 6   to the settling ponds, we are attempting to explain
 7   where does the rest of the water go?
 8       Q.    Okay.  Then the next sentence, "From the
 9   settling ponds, some phosphorus is discharged to the
10   shallow ground water and some is lost to surface
11   water drainage ditches," have you attempted to
12   quantify the amount that goes into ground water or
13   the amount that goes into surface water ditches?
14       A.    Yes.
15       Q.    How did you do that?
16       A.    We looked at the flow patterns of the water
17   around the mills, and based on looking at the
18   concentrations of phosphorus in the settling ponds,
19   the adjacent canals, and any ground water wells, we
20   attempted to discern how much of the phosphorus was
21   likely to discharge off site and become an export
22   from the site.
23       Q.    And what were the results of that
24   investigation?
25       A.    Not very conclusive.  Our one set of data

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 1   that we received from Dungan, who works for DER, his
 2   conclusion at looking at cone depressions around the
 3   wells -- I'm sorry.  We looked to his data for
 4   concentrations of phosphorus in the water, we looked
 5   at cone depression data developed by hydrogeologists.
 6   I don't remember whether they were District
 7   hydrogeologists or others.
 8             It appeared that most of the water that
 9   would leach from the ponds and adjacent canals would
10   be drawn back to the mills when they were drawing the
11   1 MGD of water from the shallow ground water.  So the
12   primary fate of phosphorus in the ground water was to
13   be brought back toward the mill.  So consequently, we
14   do not expect that there is much phosphorus lost
15   through ground water transport.  However, there was
16   sufficient information to suggest that the
17   concentrations in adjacent canals was high enough to
18   indicate that phosphorus was being lost through
19   surface water into our primary canal system.
20       Q.    When you say "our", you mean the District's
21   primary canal?
22       A.    The District.
23       Q.    What mills were you looking at when you
24   drew that conclusion?
25       A.    The only data that was available at that

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 1   time, I believe, was the -- I believe we had Bryant
 2   mill data at that time, but we also had the
 3   U. S. Sugar Clewiston plant mill.  However, we were
 4   not able to convert the concentration data into
 5   off-site loads.  There was insufficient flow
 6   information and temporal information to convert that
 7   into local or seasonal loads from the mills.
 8       Q.    So how did you deal with that in the
 9   context of your budget?  What number did you use for
10   surface water?
11