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1 BY MR. NETTLETON:
2 Q. Dr. Hackney --
3 A. Yes, sir.
4 Q. -- would it be a fair statement that the
5 areas in the Everglades protection area where you
6 see increased organic accumulation over the natural
7 state are generally within the areas of nutrient
8 enrichment?
9 A. Within which area?
10 Q. Well, let's start with 2-A.
11 A. Okay. It is fair to say that that is
12 the area in which one sees the most organic
13 accumulation. Also, in some of the slough areas
14 there seems to be organic accumulation.
15 I did not conduct any studies comparing
16 areas and organic accumulation.
17 Q. On what do you base your statement that
18 there appears to be accumulation in the slough
19 communities?
20 A. On having taken some cores in those
21 areas and visually examining them.
22 Q. Are those historic slough communities?
23 A. Historic in what sense? In what time
24 frame are we?
25 Q. Let me rephrase it. In the slough
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1 communities that you obtained core data from, do you
2 believe those to be natural slough communities?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Is there anything in the core data that
5 would suggest that the organic accumulation rate was
6 any higher in that slough community, from the data
7 you collected, than you would see at a natural
8 background slough community?
9 A. No, with the exception that the slough
10 communities that I'm thinking about were closer to
11 where -- reasonably close to canals, and so I would
12 say that there would have been an influence of the
13 canal proximity to material that would be brought to
14 that location.
15 Q. You mentioned, as one of your effects of
16 hydrologic alteration on the Everglades ecosystem,
17 that the change in timing from winter dry-downs to
18 constant flooding has had a significant impact.
19 Can you tell me what you meant by that
20 or what impacts you are referring to?
21 A. I think what I said, or my intent was,
22 that the shift from a system in which the surface
23 sediment became aerobic for at least part of the
24 time, in other words, the dry-down, I would consider
25 that a major hydrologic change when that no longer
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1 occurred.
2 Q. Did you mean to suggest that that had
3 any resulting impacts on the ecosystem?
4 A. I would suggest that it has potential
5 for having an impact, yes.
6 Q. Well, have you seen any evidence which
7 would indicate actual impacts resulting from those
8 dry-downs, I'm sorry, from the flooding?
9 A. Yes, I've seen some areas in which there
10 were -- in which the plants had responded to
11 increased flooding, I don't know how much increase
12 that is, and grown and moved their meristems up off
13 the soil surface, had elevated meristems above the
14 normal level. And I would suggest that that is a
15 response to higher than normal water levels.
16 Q. And what type of plant are you referring
17 to there?
18 A. Sawgrass.
19 Q. Did you see a similar reaction by
20 cattails?
21 I think I have an assumption and it's
22 probably incorrect.
23 Well, let me rephrase the question.
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. Did you see any impacts on the cattail,
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1 any cattail plants resulting from constant flooding
2 as opposed to winter dry-down?
3 A. I can describe differences in the growth
4 habit of cattails that are in deeper areas, which I
5 would assume would be flooded more, than from
6 cattails that were in shallower habitats.
7 Q. My question is more specific, though,
8 than just a general what you would expect to see.
9 I'm wondering if you saw actual, as you
10 mentioned with the sawgrass, you see in the sawgrass
11 where the meristems are above the soil surface.
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. Have you seen any, I don't want to say
14 similar, but any types of impacts on sawgrass plants
15 as a result of the flooding?
16 A. Sawgrass or cattail?
17 Q. I'm sorry. Cattail.
18 A. Okay.
19 In the Loxahatchee area along the canals
20 where the water levels were higher than, during our
21 visit, than the more interior areas, the cattails
22 had more abundant adventitious roots, more roots
23 literally out of the soil. Their growing tips were
24 above the hard substrate, and I'm using substrate
25 loosely here because in those areas there was a
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1 pretty high floc, flocculent layer, and depending on
2 how you decide to determine what the surface of the
3 sediment was, your answer may change, but I'm not
4 including that floc layer as being part of the soil,
5 and so their, I would say their response to
6 increased flooding was to grow more adventitious
7 roots, try and be a little further off the soil
8 surface probably to have more access to oxygen, I
9 would guess.
10 Q. Would you expect that's the same
11 motivation, if you will, for the cattail meristem to
12 move above the surface of the sediment?
13 A. That's actually what I just said. We
14 were referring to cattails.
15 Q. I'm sorry, I mean sawgrass. I'm getting
16 bad at this.
17 A. Yes, I think the influence of deeper
18 water and more anoxic conditions at the surface
19 typically causes that response in plants.
20 Q. What is the significance of moving the
21 meristem of the sawgrass above the sediment surface?
22 A. Well, I think that the process is called
23 tussock formation, and it isn't just -- sawgrass is
24 not the only species that does it.
25 Many species produce tussocks or
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1 portions of their tissues that elevate themselves
2 above the soil, are the significance of it is it's
3 part of the plant's response to a changing
4 hydrologic condition, part of its ability to be able
5 to compensate for a change in its environment and
6 still persist and maintain itself.
7 Q. I probably didn't ask the question that
8 I wanted to correctly.
9 What ramifications are there from this
10 movement of the meristem from below the surface to
11 above the surface of the sediment?
12 A. One of the biggest ramifications, most
13 important one is that it leaves the meristem more
14 vulnerable to fires.
15 It probably also makes the meristem more
16 vulnerable to dry-downs, in other words, more
17 extreme dry periods where the meristem and the
18 surface roots could dry out where they might not dry
19 out were they still in sediment.
20 It also, some species particularly,
21 might make them better able to use nutrients in the
22 water itself versus in the soil.
23 So there are a number of ramifications.
24 Q. Would the ramifications be the same for
25 the changes in the cattail growth pattern due to
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1 flooding?
2 A. I would say that the general direction
3 of those changes would be, yes, but the degree would
4 probably be different.
5 I would suggest, for instance, that the
6 cattail meristem might be more vulnerable to drying
7 than would the sawgrass meristem.
8 The growth habit of the cattail is such that
9 the base of the leave culm usually contains the
10 active meristem that's going to produce the next
11 culm, so when it's elevated above the surface
12 frequently all of its meristematic tissue is up.
13 With sawgrass, although that's true to
14 some degree, it typically still does have
15 meristematic tissue down in the soil. Not as much
16 as it would if it weren't producing tussocks, but
17 still to some degree.
18 So I would say that sawgrass and
19 cattails, while they might respond to the same
20 pressures would respond to different degrees.
21 Q. Would you agree that generally speaking
22 sawgrass is better adapted to fire than cattail in
23 the Everglades?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And is that because generally the
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1 meristem for the sawgrass is below the sediment
2 surface?
3 A. Yes. I think that would be the prime
4 way that sawgrass would probably be more adaptive.
5 That assumes equivalency of the two in
6 terms of the severity of the fire and so forth.
7 Under some circumstances, for instance,
8 I could see an argument being made that sawgrass was
9 more impacted by fires than would be cattail,
10 particularly if we are talking about a drawdown that
11 is not very severe, just enough to expose the
12 surface of the sawgrass but not quite enough to
13 expose the surface of the cattail stems.
14 In other words, cattail is usually just
15 a little bit lower. So if it wasn't down any
16 further than that cattail might not be impacted at
17 all and even though sawgrass might lose its leaves,
18 the impact is still fairly minimum, but the cattail
19 wouldn't be impacted. It draw down in the water a
20 little more. And the same fire could do the same
21 thing to the sawgrass but might have a severe effect
22 on the cattail.
23 Q. Under your first example, if the leaves
24 of the sawgrass were burned down, and all things
25 else being equal, would you expect, again, not a
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1 deep heat fire of any kind, would you expect the
2 sawgrass to re-colonate that particular site or
3 would you expect cattail to move into it?
4 A. Under those conditions, given that the
5 sawgrass was reasonably healthy and growing fairly
6 well, I would expect it to regrow fairly quickly
7 particularly if the fire occurred during the
8 wintertime in which the soil was somewhat oxidized.
9 The effect of the fire would probably be
10 to make nutrients more available. Some oxygenation
11 of soil surface would allow those nutrients to be
12 taken up.
13 I would expect a fairly rapid re-growth
14 under that scenario.
15 Q. And conversely, if we had a deeper heat
16 fire which burned the meristems, and so forth, of
17 the sawgrass, would you expect the cattail to invade
18 into the area that was previously sawgrass?
19 A. If we were talking about hydrologic
20 regimenting that was basically the one that sawgrass
21 stand developed in, I would not expect cattail to
22 displace sawgrass. I would expect re-colonization
23 at some point in time.
24 It's fairly unusual for all propagules
25 to be killed even in a relatively severe fire.
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1 MR. NETTLETON: Off the record.
2 (Thereupon a discussion was had off
3 the record.)
4 BY MR. NETTLETON:
5 Q. Dr. Hackney, have you, yourself, or in
6 combination with anyone, done any specific research
7 in the Everglades to actually test or determine what
8 the hydrologic alterations of hydrology, what
9 effects that has had on the Everglades ecosystem?
10 A. No.
11 Q. And again, separating out the Urban, et.
12 al., and Kraft et. al. studies, are you aware of
13 anyone else doing research in an attempt to
14 determine the effect on the Everglades ecosystem of
15 hydrologic alterations?
16 A. The only thing of which I'm aware, and
17 that question was extremely broad, and, in fact, I'm
18 going to stop and let you break that into sections
19 as you wish.
20 Q. Well, let me separate out, as research
21 directed to separate out the effects from hydrologic
22 alteration on the ecosystem. Does that make sense?
23 A. Well, the ecosystem is everything. If
24 you could break the ecosystem up into some
25 components that you're interested in it would be
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1 easier for me to answer that question.
2 Q. Okay. Let's start with the marsh
3 metabolism and microbial communities.
4 A. No, other than what we've already talked
5 about.
6 Q. And what is it? Which are those?
7 What have we talked about as attempting to address
8 that issue?
9 A. Basically, the only ones that we have
10 discussed would be the Reeder-Davis paper, report;
11 the work that we talked about that I did out there.
12 We talked about the decomposition study
13 of Davis, and there's also a decomposition study of
14 Reeder and Davis which also had some, again,
15 microbiological implications.
16 Q. Well --
17 A. But that's it.
18 Q. Do those studies attempt to evaluate the
19 effects of hydrologic alteration on the marsh
20 metabolism and microbial communities?
21 A. They provide some data that relates to
22 it. They did not tease out those differences.
23 Q. What about the periphyton communities?
24 A. What about them?
25 Q. Are you aware of any research being
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1 conducted or that has been conducted to determine
2 the effects of alteration of hydrologic regimes in
3 the Everglades on periphyton communities?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Tell me what those are.
6 A. What I'm aware of that is beyond what I
7 have already told you about, is the work that's been
8 done by Bud Smart. I don't know what the status of
9 that is. I don't know if it's still ongoing.
10 It was ongoing as of my last time I was
11 at BDA.
12 Q. What involvement, if any, did you have
13 in Bud Smart's research project?
14 A. No direct involvement in terms of
15 collecting data.
16 He asked me several times about Del
17 12-13 carbon ratios and organisms and how that
18 methodology was used and whether it could be used to
19 delineate food changes, who's eating who, for
20 instance.
21 MR. HYDE: I think you used the term
22 "del." Didn't you mean delta?
23 THE WITNESS: Their reference is to
24 Greek. We use, the common term is del.
25 It's a stable carbon isotope ratio that
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1 describes how the plant is taking up
2 carbon, which is a conservative tracer.
3 BY MR. NETTLETON:
4 Q. On the plant, are you talking about
5 periphyton?
6 A. It doesn't matter.
7 Q. Other than Bud Smart's periphyton
8 research, are you aware of anyone else who's
9 conducting similar research or has conducted?
10 MR. HYDE: There's two questions
11 there, ongoing research versus past
12 research.
13 MR. NETTLETON: Both.
14 THE WITNESS: Well, I'm aware of a
15 fair body of past research based on having
16 looked at a lot of documents, but most
17 recently having looked at, I guess,
18 Chapter 16 in the Everglades Volume which
19 attempts to synthesize a lot of the data
20 on periphyton in the Everglades.
21 BY MR. NETTLETON:
22 Q. Is that, the Everglades Volume, is that
23 the book accepted by Steve Davis?
24 A. I believe that's it. 1994.
25 Q. Black cover?
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1 A. All I've seen are copies of chapters.
2 Q. They didn't give you a hard volume?
3 A. No, I didn't get a hard volume.
4 MR. HYDE: I gave Dr. Hackney Chapter
5 15 and 16. At $95 a pop it's a little too
6 expensive to send everywhere.
7 BY MR. NETTLETON:
8 Q. Do you intend to present any opinion
9 evidence at the final hearing on shifts in or lack
10 of shifts in the periphyton communities in the
11 Everglades?
12 MR. HYDE: Dr. Hackney is not being
13 offered for that purpose. I'm not going
14 to ask any questions along those lines.
15 THE WITNESS: No.
16 MR. NETTLETON: Okay.
17 BY MR. NETTLETON:
18 Q. Moving up the chain.
19 A. Good.
20 Q. The macrophyte communities, if you
21 remember my original question, with the exception of
22 the studies we have already discussed, are you aware
23 of any other research that's going on to determine
24 the effect of, let me broaden my question, of either
25 hydroperiod alteration or nutrient on macrophyte
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1 community shifts in the Everglades?
2 A. No, beyond what I've read in the Duke
3 reports, and I honestly cannot remember if there
4 were any studies set up that were started but had no
5 information; and Bud Smart's work, while it deals
6 with periphyton, has the potential to discriminate
7 between whether things are feeding on macrophytes or
8 periphyton.
9 So from that standpoint there could be
10 information that would be useful, but I don't know
11 that there is.
12 Q. Is Bud Smart's research looking at a
13 food web type of analysis?
14 A. Some of it.
15 Q. Move up to my next level, anyway,
16 macro-invertebrate, other than Rader, Richardson and
17 the Urban-Kobel studies on macro-invertebrate
18 community shifts, are you aware of any other
19 research related to that particular subject that's
20 ongoing or has been completed for the Everglades?
21 A. No.
22 Q. And the same question with regard to
23 fish and wildlife, are you aware of any ongoing
24 studies or completed studies on the effects of
25 either hydrologic alteration or nutrients on fish
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1 and wildlife in the Everglades?
2 A. I'm aware of studies that have attempted
3 to look at that. Those are not anything that you
4 haven't seen. They are not unpublished or
5 unavailable documents.
6 There were several papers presented at
7 the Ohio meeting dealing with bird populations, for
8 instance, higher parts of the trophic level, but I'm
9 not familiar with anything ongoing or relatively
10 new.
11 MR. HYDE: Bob, just to back up for a
12 moment, I don't want you taking my silence
13 as any indication for anything, but John
14 Davis, and other environmental scientists
15 have done some helminthic
16 macro-invertebrate testing for the EPA.
17 MR. NETTLETON: Glad to hear it.
18 BY MR. NETTLETON:
19 Q. Dr. Hackney, do you anticipate
20 testifying at trial concerning any issues relating
21 to community shifts in the macro-invertebrate
22 communities?
23 A. Are you going to ask me that question?
24 I'll answer it.
25 Q. Didn't I ask it?
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1 A. No, I mean --
2 MR. HYDE: I think Dr. Hackney means
3 if you ask him that question at trial he
4 will give you an answer.
5 THE WITNESS: I will give you the
6 best answer I can if you ask it of me.
7 BY MR. NETTLETON:
8 Q. Let me rephrase my question.
9 Have you been asked by the League, or
10 its attorneys, to present evidence or opinion
11 testimony at trial concerning community shifts in
12 the macro-invertebrate communities?
13 A. I have been asked questions about how I
14 viewed community shifts in the Everglades and what
15 those shifts could mean or could not mean.
16 MR. HYDE: We are not going to be
17 asking Dr. Hackney any specific
18 information about helminthic
19 macro-invertebrates. That is the realm of
20 other witnesses.
21 BY MR. NETTLETON:
22 Q. Okay. Dr. Hackney, have you been asked
23 by your clients to present any testimony at the
24 final hearing concerning impacts in the Everglades
25 protection area on fish or wildlife fauna?
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1 A. I'm having a difficult time with this
2 whole line of questioning because I don't know that
3 I've ever been asked to give specific testimony at
4 the hearing, and it may be a matter of semantics.
5 I have been asked questions like, well,
6 what do you think this means, and so forth, but I
7 have never been asked if I will say this in a
8 hearing.
9 Obviously, what I'm telling you and what
10 I tell the attorneys for the League, or whoever asks
11 me, is my best understanding related to the
12 question. Whether that's asked of me in the
13 hearing, I don't know.
14 MR. HYDE: Paul, we don't intend to
15 hold Dr. Hackney out as an expert in fish
16 or wildlife.
17 I think, as he's indicated in his
18 testimony, he talks about a community
19 structure, and I guess in a general sense
20 his testimony might implicate that, but
21 I'm not going to hold him out as an expert
22 saying what happens to wood storks or
23 anybody like that, anything like that.
24 MR. NETTLETON: Well, that's obviously
25 what I'm looking for, just to know if I
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1 have to develop those areas in your
2 testimony while we are here, and if I
3 don't need to I don't want to waste the
4 time doing it.
5 MR. HYDE: Well, I can assure you
6 that we are not going to present him on
7 that ground.
8 BY MR. NETTLETON:
9 Q. I would like to move to another area
10 that you indicated you would be presenting testimony
11 and that is the concept of the successional, I've
12 got successional ideas.
13 A. Okay.
14 Q. You described for us yesterday a climax
15 community. Is that the right term?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And that's a community that persists
18 indefinitely given no change in the environmental
19 parameters; is that right?
20 A. Its a self-sustaining self-maintaining
21 community that is resilient, can withstand
22 perturbations of certain magnitudes.
23 It has a whole array of characteristics
24 that are measurable and reasonably predictable.
25 It is a well-established definition of a
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1 certain kind of communities within the ecological
2 literature.
3 Q. And I believe you characterize a climax
4 community as being in steady state; is that correct?
5 A. To varying degrees, yes.
6 Q. And the other term that you made
7 reference to was succession. Am I correct that that
8 refers to the sequential movement of a system toward
9 a climax community?
10 A. Biotic succession. That is correct, for
11 biotic succession.
12 There are other types of successions
13 that don't carry with it all the implications and
14 that's why I'm being very specific on that.
15 That is also referred to as autogenic
16 succession.
17 Q. Biotic succession is also called --
18 A. Autogenic. Basically,
19 self- controlled.
20 Q. Now, you mentioned yesterday that
21 there's a debate, I guess, among wetland scientists
22 as to whether biotic succession actually occurs in
23 wetlands; is that right?
24 A. There's a debate as to whether the
25 predominant forces are autogenic or allogenic, and
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1 the difference is in allogenic succession the
2 physical forces of the environment maintain and
3 exert primary control over the climax community or
4 the community, period, as opposed to autogenic
5 succession in which the community itself exerts
6 control over the environment.
7 I think for brief definitions that's
8 acceptable.
9 Q. All right. I lost you, though, on your
10 definition of allogenic. Can you describe that one
11 again.
12 A. Allogenic is when the physical
13 environment continues to control the species
14 composition of a community.
15 Q. And am I correct that the debate that
16 you referred to is whether or not a wetlands is
17 autogenic or allogenic succession?
18 A. It's a matter of degree, in many cases,
19 in which it's very clear that upland communities are
20 primarily autogenic and that aquatic communities are
21 primarily controlled by the physical forces of water
22 and the physical environment, and that wetlands lie
23 somewhere in between. And so there are elements of
24 both theoretical ideas contained in what's happening
25 in wetlands.
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1 The general consensus is that wetlands are
2 primarily controlled by allogenic forces.
3 Q. Do you agree with that general
4 consensus?
5 A. I do, recognizing that there are clearly
6 some cases in which even though it's allogenic in
7 control, what's controlling species changes through
8 time, that there still are cases in which the
9 community itself exerts some control of the
10 environment.
11 And, typically, the most typical example
12 occurs with the plants changing elevation, for
13 instance, by accumulating sediments in rivers, since
14 the sediment comes from the river, and in case of
15 isolated wetlands often it's peat production.
16 Q. Can you describe for me what you mean by
17 physical environmental controls?
18 A. The physical controls are what I would
19 call the hydrogeomorphic characteristics of the
20 site, and the environmental controls, some of which
21 would flow from that but also include the chemical
22 nature of both the water and the soil, underlying
23 parent material, et cetera.
24 Q. Can you give me some examples of a
25 hydrogeomorphic characteristic?
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1 A. Okay. Wetland that is located on a
2 slope, for instance, is typically characterized by a
3 hydrology that consists of water coming out of the
4 ground to feed it. So its water source is ground
5 water which carries with it certain characteristics,
6 low oxygen, high nutrient content, et cetera.
7 The water is flowing in one direction,
8 going out or to the soil surface and then up through
9 vapid transportation.
10 The geomorphology is such that it's on a
11 slope so it does not get surface flooding, does not
12 get deposition coming from rivers or lakes, or
13 anything of that nature. No wave action.
14 That's what hydrogeomorphic character
15 is. It, more or less, describes the parameters
16 under which wetlands exists, flows of water,
17 directions of flow, water quality characteristics,
18 groundwater versus surface water, rain, versus rain
19 water. That's what meant by that.
20 Q. Let me ask a very general question and
21 then we can break it down as needed.
22 What is your opinion of how the
23 successional ideas apply to the Everglades?
24 A. Well, I think they apply to the
25 Everglades in the same basic way that they apply to
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1 most wetlands.
2 There is a, clearly a regional component
3 that makes each wetland somewhat different than
4 another wetland in that the species can be somewhat
5 different.
6 The general forcing functions of water
7 and topography are fairly uniform, although, still,
8 the species can exert some control, some being peat
9 formers some not being peat formers, but I would say
10 the Everglades fits into the general pattern
11 reasonably well.
12 Q. Am I correct that you do not believe the
13 Everglades is currently at a steady state?
14 A. I do not believe it's at a steady state.
15 Q. In your opinion, has the Everglades ever
16 been at steady state?
17 A. I think given parts of the Everglades
18 have probably be in something that resembles steady
19 state for periods of time.
20 I would really be surprised to find that
21 the entire Everglades, at any one period of time,
22 was all in a steady state, and most systems are
23 mosaics, responded somewhat differently because of
24 past short-term/long-term histories, a variety of
25 other things.
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1 Q. Do you believe any portions of the
2 Everglades today are currently at steady state?
3 A. I would -- I mean, there might be given
4 square meters that are at some point steady state,
5 but in terms of fairly large discrete areas, I don't
6 think so.
7 I base that on hydrogeomorphology, given
8 the large shift and change in the way water is
9 managed, for instance, I would just suspect that
10 that would cause alteration all up and down.
11 Q. Would alterations in phosphorus
12 concentrations and loads have similar effects?
13 A. Similar effects to what? I'm not sure
14 --
15 MR. NETTLETON: Would you read back
16 his last answer.
17 (Thereupon, the last answer was read
18 back by the reporter as recorded.)
19 BY MR. NETTLETON:
20 Q. Would you expect similar alterations
21 from changes in phosphorus loading and concentration
22 into the Everglades protection area?
23 A. You're basically suggesting that the
24 only alteration as opposed to background would be
25 just phosphorus?
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1 Q. Yes.
2 A. And the question is would I expect a
3 similar alteration of the Everglades to be occurring
4 basically everywhere?
5 Q. Yes.
6 A. I would expect that if there were
7 increased amounts of phosphorus, or many other
8 nutrients that do not have gaseous phases in which
9 they could be lost from the system like nitrogen, I
10 would expect that to cause increased phosphorus
11 loading in the soil and I would expect there would
12 be increased growth of plants.
13 Q. You described, I believe, the climax
14 community or the steady state situation as where the
15 peat sediment accumulation reaches zero; is that
16 accurate?
17 A. I would define the theoretical steady
18 state as a point where accumulation of organic
19 material and sediments equals a loss of organic
20 material and sediments.
21 Q. Can you just describe how, conceptually,
22 how you reach a zero level?
23 A. As if you were suddenly to have, for
24 instance, an increase in the water level and it
25 wouldn't really matter whether it was natural or any
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1 other way, what is effectively going to happen is
2 that the decomposition rate of the material that is
3 produced by the plant, particularly roots and
4 rhizomes in soils decreases, and so instead of, I'll
5 just use a number, instead of 50 percent of the
6 organics in the soil being lost through oxidation
7 during the year maybe only 25 percent is.
8 And, basically, the loss of organics or
9 mineralization is related to the degree of bacterial
10 and fungal activity in the soil, and that is
11 typically related to the amount of oxygen in the
12 soil.
13 So as there's less oxygen available the
14 amount of organic accumulation increases until it's
15 increased enough that you've gotten back to the
16 point that you had before. The amount of drying
17 time is causing there to be the loss of organic
18 material such that it equals the amount produced.
19 Q. Explain how the drying can result in a
20 loss of organic material.
21 A. Okay. There are many species of
22 bacteria that use carbon as their energy source.
23 Their respiration rate, their rate at which they
24 degrade, that is heavily dependent on the
25 availability of oxygen.
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1 If oxygen is not present many of those
2 shut down and so the loss of carbon is small, and
3 then you are relying primarily on anaerobic
4 decomposition which is a very inefficient process.
5 Q. Is the carbon, during the aerobic
6 process, where does it go? That, I guess, is my
7 question.
8 A. During the decomposition process?
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. It's converted to CO2.
11 Q. And released into the atmosphere?
12 A. Right or the water. It's this balance
13 that prevents wetlands from becoming uplands in most
14 cases where there's no big input of sediment.
15 If the plants just continue to
16 accumulate sediments then basically all the wetlands
17 would turn into uplands.
18 Q. Now, you mentioned something yesterday
19 called a Gleasonian approach. Tell me what the
20 Gleasonian approach is.
21 A. The Gleasonian approach would best be,
22 would most be associated with allogenic successional
23 ideas we discussed earlier.
24 Q. Are they synonymous? Are we talking
25 about the same thing or --
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1 A. They have had a long developmental
2 history, I guess, is the best way to say this.
3 Gleason and Clements are two plant
4 ecologists from the 19th century who developed
5 competing ideas or theories of succession.
6 And proponents over the years have
7 developed data that support one or the other, and I
8 think what I would say is that the modern theory
9 accepts components of both of these scientists'
10 ideas into our understanding of how natural plant
11 communities change with time and in response to
12 environmental variables.
13 And Gleason is dead so you can't call
14 him for a witness.
15 Q. Don't count on it. He's probably got
16 children or grandchildren.
17 In your opinion is the Everglades system
18 subject to allogenic or autogenic succession?
19 A. I think that it's probably dominated by
20 allogenic forces combined with disruption, combined
21 with disruption from -- sorry, I just lost the term
22 again -- disturbance phenomena.
23 MR. HYDE: Just so I'm clear, the
24 Everglades is most dominated by autogenic
25 or allogenic?
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1 THE WITNESS: Allogenic.
2 BY MR. NETTLETON:
3 Q. So you're saying the Everglades is
4 subject to allogenic succession augmented by
5 disturbance?
6 A. Well, the disturbance resets the
7 physical characteristics of an individual spot or
8 site in the Everglades on some regular or irregular
9 or a periodic basis.
10 Q. And am I correct, you're not making a
11 distinction between an anthropogenic and a natural
12 disturbance?
13 A. No. The impact of increased flooding or
14 fires would probably be in many ways the same.
15 Q. And can you tell me what the
16 implications of this are for purposes of the issues,
17 as you understand them, in this particular case?
18 A. The implications are that, simplistic
19 interpretations which have been generated fairly
20 rampantly, are probably naive.
21 Q. I was waiting for that word.
22 A. They are probably based upon the fact
23 that we do not have large, lengthy data bases that
24 contain really good, accurate information to where
25 we are absolutely able to know what happened through
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1 time.
2 I could, for instance, supply you with,
3 I guess I have, with a sequence of events that would
4 possibly transpire after a fire, that would have
5 reasonably good theoretical basis, but until one
6 actually followed that all the way through, making
7 careful measurements of hydrology and nutrient
8 availability, and all the other things we've talked
9 about and haven't talked about, one would not know
10 what are the dominant controlling physical
11 characteristics, at any stage in that change.
12 From a -- I keep trying to think of
13 implications. Everyone can draw their own
14 implications from what I've said.
15 I could see someone saying, for
16 instance, that one could use increased phosphorus as
17 a way of restoring the Everglades more rapidly to
18 its natural elevational state.
19 I could see the theory being used to
20 devise a hydrologic management scheme.
21 Again, you would really need to have
22 probably more information than we have.
23 I mean, I could see lots of
24 implications, but all of them, I would say, would be
25 the degree of certainty about which you would use
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1 that theory in making a decision as to how to
2 regulate water levels or phosphorus inputs, or
3 anything else.
4 The degree of confidence you would have
5 would vary, depending on your database for any
6 particular aspect of that.
7 Q. Absent anthropogenic changes in South
8 Florida or effects in South Florida, including the
9 project increased nutrient loading, and so forth,
10 into the Everglades, do you believe that we would be
11 seeing the cattail expansion as we currently see in
12 the Everglades?
13 A. What was the first part of the --
14 Q. Absent anthropogenic activity having
15 effects such as building a project or increased
16 phosphorus loading, if we were in the natural
17 Everglades system, would you expect to see the
18 cattail expansion that we are seeing, pursuant to an
19 allogenic succession?
20 MR. HYDE: Sounds like the big before
21 and after question.
22 THE WITNESS: You didn't give me all
23 the assumptions that you're making with
24 respect to this.
25 If, for instance, I'll give you a set
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1 of assumptions, go through a gradient. If
2 we are talking about the natural
3 Everglades without canals, without
4 anthropogenic influence of any sort, and
5 we are dealing with fires that were very
6 severe that lowered the water, lowered the
7 soil surface to a fairly high extent,
8 whatever the amount was, sufficient for
9 cattails, I would anticipate that cattails
10 would be a component of that deeper
11 water.
12 I would anticipate that their growth
13 would be fairly high at the beginning of
14 their colonization.
15 I would anticipate that they would
16 get there fairly quickly after whatever
17 fire occurred, and I would anticipate that
18 the length of time that it took before
19 they were replaced by something else would
20 be fairly lengthy.
21 Again, it would depend on the depth
22 of the fire, how much phosphorus was
23 there, et cetera.
24 Ultimately, I would expect them to be
25 replaced by another species such as
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1 sawgrass probably following a fire, or
2 maybe even some other disturbance such as
3 cold.
4 I didn't want to imply that cattails
5 would be the only species involved in that
6 whole process.
7 If the fire was deep enough even
8 cattail would be unlikely to establish.
9 BY MR. NETTLETON:
10 Q. I want to go back to your comments about
11 the numerous people having some simplistic and
12 somewhat naive ideas about what's occurring, and ask
13 you if you have any opinions relating to the
14 successional ideas or theories that you intend to
15 use these ideas to challenge any particular ideas
16 that have been expressed that you may view as
17 simplistic or naive?
18 You want me to try to rephrase that one?
19 A. Well, I think that individuals whose
20 view of wetlands includes an autogenic understanding
21 of how species replace one another, would come to
22 the conclusion that given basically no changes in
23 environment, a species could replace another
24 species.
25 I think it's easy to arrive at that
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1 understanding following general ecological theories
2 of autogenic succession.
3 There are an awful lot of people who
4 work in wetlands who are not really aware of a fair
5 bit of ecological information on succession and
6 zonation, and so forth, that do not appreciate the
7 allogenic response.
8 It is not uncommon in articles by
9 individuals who are fairly well-known in specific
10 wetland areas for them to make statements about
11 succession as a, just a natural extension of what
12 they have done.
13 Q. Well, let me try to be a little more
14 specific.
15 Do you have any specific person in mind
16 or persons in mind who are viewing this as an
17 autogenic succession system with regard to your
18 comments you've just made?
19 A. I don't have any particular individual
20 that I'm thinking of. I mean, I've heard a number
21 of people say things that I would have really liked
22 to have explored with them a little bit, because my
23 understanding of what they said could really have
24 been out of connect, but since they were on the
25 other side, so to speak, I really didn't have the
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1 opportunity to know if what they were saying
2 inferred that they thought that an autogenic process
3 was the one that ruled in wetlands or whether they
4 were just thinking about this one exception.
5 So I haven't had the chance to explore
6 that with any of these individuals.
7 Q. Well, we are getting there. Let me ask
8 you, who specifically are you talking about and what
9 were the nature of the comments that have raised
10 this concern with you?
11 A. Well, I think that Steve Davis, I
12 remember him saying something about replacement of
13 one species with another and, of course, that's kind
14 of the word. When I here that I wonder what they
15 are, assumptions are in that replacement, and often
16 I don't know.
17 Irv Mendelson made some statements about
18 replacement which I would love to pursue with him a
19 little further.
20 Many of the individuals who did not
21 directly do research in the Everglades but referred
22 to the cattail replacement of sawgrass have enough
23 ecological understanding to know what that means and
24 know what succession is, and I don't know what their
25 true understanding of it is.
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1 So I would say that anyone who talks
2 about replacement of one community by another
3 community would be vulnerable to argument.
4 Again, not knowing the context, it's
5 very difficult for me to say. We might agree
6 totally. I just don't know.
7 Q. Well, is the difficulty you have with
8 these comments just the use of the term
9 "replacement"?
10 A. It's the assumption that replacement of
11 one species or one community type by another occurs
12 just because of one small shift in environmental
13 conditions, the assumption that a community does not
14 have the ability to persist and resist invasion.
15 As I said before, I don't know for sure
16 if we really have a disagreement. All I know is
17 that they have said that and that's sort of a red
18 flag that makes me want to ask them some questions
19 about their view of how that occurs and what it
20 takes for that to happen.
21 Q. Well, what is your view of what is
22 occurring in area 2-A with regard to the cattails
23 encroachment? I won't say replacement.
24 A. My view of what is happening in 2-A is
25 that there are two different things that are
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1 happening or have happened in the past.
2 One is that there are disturbances which
3 leave open areas in which there are no plants in
4 which both cattails and sawgrass could theoretically
5 colonize.
6 A species that has propagules present,
7 propagules, again, seedings and rhizomes, if there
8 are two potential species that can colonize that
9 site then the one that is going to dominate
10 following that open space is going to be the one
11 that can best grow under the set of variables
12 provided including hydrology, nutrient supply, and
13 all the other things we have discussed.
14 Under those conditions, which is
15 disturbance related, and I'm not differentiating
16 here what kind of disturbance, it can literally be
17 individuals out there stomping the plants down,
18 anything that opens it up and allows there to be
19 that one-on-one kind of competition, that's the one
20 scenario in which what was one community could be
21 changed to another community.
22 And I could say it could go either way
23 depending on what the site conditions were.
24 The second way in which there would be
25 an exchange is when the physical attributes,
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1 chemical attributes, hydrology, whatever it is, has
2 changed to the point where one plant community is so
3 severely stressed that it simply is not able to
4 continue to maintain that same biomass. In other
5 words, it starts declining.
6 A sudden change, for instance, in
7 hydrology can lead to loss of a plant species where
8 a slower change over time can mean that species
9 stays.
10 So it isn't just how much water it's,
11 how fast and dry, and other things. Under those
12 scenarios, if a plant community is, again, not able
13 to keep up, relative to that balance of productivity
14 and respiration, then it becomes somewhat of a bare
15 area and another species that is capable of growing
16 better under that same set of environmental
17 conditions will move into those communities.
18 I say move in because what is basically
19 happening is one species is stopping to grow and so
20 there is no ability to maintain its position. Its
21 becoming a vacant spot, and then the other species
22 will replace it.
23 And I think that probably works both
24 ways. I think there are physical conditions in
25 which cattails would replace sawgrass, and I think
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1 there are physical conditions in which sawgrass
2 would replace cattails.
3 Q. And am I correct that in a situation
4 where you had environmental conditions, including
5 elevated phosphorus, you would more likely see an
6 invasion of cattail than you would sawgrass?
7 A. I would think that in areas in which you
8 had elevated phosphorus I think that cattails would
9 probably be the winner under the conditions we have
10 described, in a bigger part of the environmental
11 spectrum than it would if nutrients where less
12 available.
13 Q. With regard to the -- you mentioned you
14 heard Irv Mendelson mention a replacement.
15 Can you just put that in context for
16 me. What exactly do you recall him saying that
17 raises concern in your mind?
18 A. I can't remember the exact words, but
19 one of the questions that was written on that list
20 that we discussed earlier related to, does typha
21 replace cattails, and then --
22 Q. Sawgrass?
23 A. Does typha replace sawgrass. And I was
24 listening very intently to his answer because that
25 was fairly important, how he viewed that, and he
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1 said yes.
2 So that's what I remember hearing. I'm
3 sure he didn't use those words. He was much better
4 at saying it than I was.
5 Q. Well, are there more assumptions in the
6 question other than just does typha replace
7 sawgrass?
8 A. Yes, there are a whole bunch of, as
9 you're doing to me, the same sorts of things from
10 different angles asking the same questions multiple
11 ways to see how broadly he understood or believed
12 replacement occurred, and obviously what data he was
13 relying on, things of that nature.
14 Q. And you also mentioned Steve Davis. Can
15 you put that one in context for me, what you heard
16 Steve Davis say or read of his work? I don't know
17 if it was oral or written.
18 A. It's been some time since that
19 deposition, but I do remember him discussing cattail
20 expansion into sawgrass, and he felt very strongly
21 that that was occurring, and I'm almost positive
22 I've seen that in some of his writing as well.
23 Q. Well, I guess I'm a little confused. I
24 mean, do you disagree that cattail is expanding into
25 sawgrass areas in area 2-A, or has, over the last 30
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1 years?
2 A. I wish there were much better data than
3 there are. I am not convinced as to the extent and
4 the rate at which it has occurred. I'm not
5 convinced that is real.
6 I would say that I have become a severe
7 skeptic of rapid changes, such as we are discussing,
8 after sort of going through this same process for
9 the other wetlands in which there were tremendous
10 things happening that were related to one factor,
11 one variable alone, and upon years of data
12 collecting find out that, one, the rate was not
13 fairly as rapid as we thought.
14 And, two, the factors that were
15 influencing that change were multiple and very
16 complex.
17 And I'm referring in this instance, to
18 the Louisiana coastal wetland loss which in the very
19 generic sense sounds very much like we are talking
20 about.
21 Lots of data, looked like pretty good,
22 hard data, good aerial paragraphs, sure looked like
23 there were big changes going on, but once we really
24 got down and collected some real information,
25 started looking at what happened in fine scales, it
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1 became clear that there were many things going on,
2 not just one process, and then that there are
3 periods of changes, particularly following a
4 disturbance, in which there is just what appears to
5 be a very sudden and rapid change in vegetation, for
6 instance, but, in fact, the process leading to that,
7 for instance, drowning of plants, the stressing of
8 plants really occurred a long time before there was
9 a sudden change and finally the community just
10 starts to die off and there's a sudden replacement
11 by another community.
12 It looks very rapid to us when, in fact,
13 it was really a pattern of a long period of time and
14 with a very short period of time in which the change
15 was observed.
16 The bottom line is I'm unconvinced as to
17 the degree to which alteration and change has
18 occurred. I'm willing to accept that as a working
19 hypothesis, which I think we have been doing pretty
20 much the last day and a half.
21 Q. Well, if you can assist me through
22 quantification or otherwise, do you have any
23 information or evidence, or aware of any information
24 or evidence which would suggest that the expansion
25 of cattails in area 2-A has not been as extensive as
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1 has been assumed by Steve Davis, and so forth?
2 A. I think that there are data to suggest
3 that cattail expansion, to some degree, may be even
4 greater than what has been supposed, but not in the
5 same manner that Steve Davis has suggested.
6 Again, I'm not sure that there's just
7 simply one factor controlling cattail expansion.
8 Q. We may be talking about different things
9 here.
10 I'm talking just about the physical
11 expansion of the cattails into the sawgrass area
12 without regard to the processes that led to that.
13 Just the fact that the plants being there, do you
14 have any reservations as to the historical facts
15 that over the last 30 years there has been an
16 expansion, in spacial area, of cattails in area 2-A?
17 A. Do I disagree with that statement?
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. No, I don't disagree with that
20 statement.
21 Q. So what your disagreement is, is with
22 the opinions that have been expressed concerning the
23 processes or causative factors that have led to that
24 expansion; is that right?
25 A. That's an appropriate summary, I think.
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1 Q. In your opinion, Dr. Hackney, if we were
2 to reduce the phosphorus loads currently entering
3 the EPA from the EAA by 80 percent, reducing
4 concentrations to 50 parts per billion or less, from
5 current which, if I'm -- for purposes of the
6 question we can assume there's around 200 parts per
7 billion, would you expect to see any shift in the
8 cattail and sawgrass community over a long term,
9 say, over the next ten, fifteen years?
10 A. All other things being the same?
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. What I would anticipate would be over
13 that time span I would anticipate that there
14 wouldn't be, that there wouldn't be a major shift in
15 vegetation unless some of these other irregular
16 events occurred.
17 What I would anticipate would be that
18 the growth rate of cattail in the area in which soil
19 phosphorus is fairly high, it would continue to be
20 high. I would anticipate continued accumulation of
21 organic material.
22 I don't think that ten years is probably
23 an adequate time frame for there to be enough of a
24 change in the soil surface to make it appropriate or
25 colonizable, at least, by sawgrass. There might be
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1 other species that could possibly colonize it.
2 Q. Well, let me break this down a little
3 bit.
4 The same assumption of reduction of
5 loads and concentrations into the Everglades
6 protection area, would you expect to see the
7 phosphorus concentrations in the soils in
8 interstitial water, as we discussed earlier, see a
9 net flux of phosphorus being removed from the soils
10 as opposed to continuing to accumulate?
11 MR. HYDE: Is your question assuming
12 the same hydrological management of the
13 system by the District?
14 MR. NETTLETON: Everything else being
15 constant.
16 MR. HYDE: Like it's been for the
17 last ten years?
18 MR. NETTLETON: Right.
19 MR. HYDE: There's a lot of
20 mismanagement in there.
21 THE WITNESS: Well, I'm going to
22 ignore the individual disruptive events of
23 things like fires and severe cold, and
24 things of that nature, and just assume we
25 are talking about sort of steady
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1 management of water.
2 What I would anticipate is that the
3 mass balance of phosphorus that is there
4 is going to pretty much stay there.
5 I would anticipate that there is
6 going to be an exchange pool of which
7 there's some fair activity that's going to
8 be continued to be put into the water
9 column, be made available to any plant in
10 the water algae, including macrophytes;
11 and that that exchange pool, exchange of
12 phosphorus from the soil itself, as the
13 organic material accumulates on the top,
14 that there's going to be a gradient
15 produced from fairly high concentrations
16 of what the soil surface might look like
17 now to a less and a less, lower and lower
18 concentration. And at some point in time
19 the vast pool of phosphorus in that site
20 is going to be made reasonably unavailable
21 to the macrophytes themselves.
22 Now, the time span, I'm not sure that
23 ten years is adequate. It may be. I just
24 don't know.
25 BY MR. NETTLETON:
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1 Q. And taking it a step further, then, when
2 that pool has been exhausted so that there is no
3 longer a gradient, would there come a point in time,
4 assuming everything else being equal, regarding some
5 time span where you would expect that there would
6 know longer be a gradient in the soil phosphorus
7 levels?
8 A. Gradient from where to where?
9 Q. In our situation, north to south below
10 the S-10.
11 A. Well, I would still anticipate that
12 there would be some gradient because you're still
13 talking about a certain amount of phosphorus coming
14 in, and in general, nutrients, rivers, it doesn't
15 really matter what, whether there's a gradient from
16 one end or the other.
17 Q. Let me rephrase my question.
18 Would you expect the gradient to
19 essentially level off at a shorter distance south of
20 the S-10 structures as time passed?
21 A. I would think the gradient would become
22 less severe and more flat.
23 In other words, at some point in time
24 the nutrient input/nutrient output from the soil
25 surface would probably be somewhat equal.
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1 I would think it would be a decreasing
2 relationship, not linear.
3 Q. In that situation where we are
4 downstream to wherever that place is, all things
5 being equal, would you then expect, assuming there's
6 cattail and sawgrass mixed, would you expect, under
7 those conditions, that sawgrass would have a
8 competitive advantage?
9 A. When you say "mixed," what do you mean
10 by mixed? There are two scales of mixing.
11 There's a scale in which you have
12 discrete sawgrass and cattail communities that are
13 monocultures, for all practical purposes, of many
14 meters square, but if you view them as 100 meters by
15 100 meters they are mixed.
16 Then there is a mixed where you have
17 interspersed cattail and sawgrass growing mixed up,
18 and those are two different things.
19 Q. Okay. Using your second example, would
20 you expect sawgrass to out-compete the cattail in
21 that mixed type of environment?
22 A. Given the fact that such a community
23 might exist, or would exist, I would expect that at
24 that point in time you would see the opposite shift
25 that I mentioned earlier.
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1 There would be a, probably a slight
2 shift. I don't know what "slight" means. There
3 would be some shift in one direction or the other
4 depending upon what was missing or what was
5 changing.
6 At the same time there would also likely
7 be, with the sequestering of that phosphorus in the
8 soil, there's going to be accumulation of organics
9 which also would be producing hydrology.
10 So those two things are going to be
11 working to some degree, in the same direction. That
12 would be favorable for sawgrass.
13 Q. Okay. And let's take the first mixture
14 you described of a combination of monocultures 10
15 meters by 10 meters in a vaster field.
16 Would you expect, in that situation, the
17 sawgrass to begin out-competing the cattail in the
18 monocultures?
19 A. What I would expect is that both species
20 would lower the productivity and both start growing
21 a little less than they were, more nutrients, and
22 that they would both probably reach some steady
23 state with very little change as to areal extent of
24 each, at least into one or the other.
25 If there were vacant areas between them
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1 I would anticipate one or the other occupying them,
2 depending upon whatever set of conditions we are
3 talking about, and then what I would anticipate
4 would be somewhat of a steady state until some event
5 occurred that disturbed one or the other of the
6 plant communities to some severe degree. Extreme
7 flooding, for instance, sufficient to push sawgrass
8 too far to where it just started dying out, I would
9 have anticipated cattail invading what was
10 previously sawgrass, although it might be fairly low
11 in density.
12 And something like a fire that damaged
13 the cattails, I would anticipate sawgrass replacing
14 it.
15 My understanding and hypothesis is that
16 there is going to be a disturbance required for one
17 community type to replace another community type,
18 unless the physical chemical variables become so
19 extreme for one species or the other that it just
20 starts dying.
21 Q. Okay. Again, same assumptions only
22 carry your disturbance example a little bit further
23 on the flooding.
24 Are you saying you would, under the low
25 nutrient conditions that we are talking about, would
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1 you still expect the cattail to invade the sawgrass
2 areas where there is a flooding situation?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Okay. And would you expect, upon
5 reduction of the water levels, that the sawgrass,
6 again, same nutrient concentration, that the
7 sawgrass would come back and out-compete the cattail
8 in the area that it was previously in?
9 A. Under the situation in which the cattail
10 is fairly interspersed and not dense, is that the
11 scenario we painted here, that the cattail invaded
12 the deeper areas and then it got dryer?
13 I would anticipate that under those
14 conditions where there's vacant space then the
15 sawgrass would move into that vacant space.
16 Q. I'm not talking vacant space. I'm
17 talking about space where the cattail has come into
18 as a result of the flooding, and now we've drawn
19 down the water.
20 Would you then expect the sawgrass to
21 come back into that area and out-compete the
22 cattail, under the low nutrient conditions?
23 A. And we've drawn the water down?
24 Q. Right.
25 A. I think there probably would be cases in
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1 which if the cattail was -- had wanted to beginning
2 hitting its limits in terms of its tolerance to
3 drying down, I think that would occur.
4 I think Nancy Urban even demonstrated
5 that could occur under high nutrient conditions if
6 the impact is such that the plants themselves are
7 impacted.
8 Q. Okay. You indicated earlier that you
9 didn't know whether ten years would be long enough
10 or not for the type of reactions we discussed.
11 Do you have any information which would
12 suggest how long a time span we might be talking
13 about for this use of the pool of phosphorus?
14 A. No, I don't. I think that one could
15 probably take some of -- some data that are
16 available or could be generated fairly easily and
17 come up with some ball park estimates.
18 Q. When we were discussing community
19 dynamics yesterday, and specifically how species
20 influence one another, you mentioned grazing of some
21 sort. Can you tell me what you were referring to?
22 A. Grazing, I was referring to the impact
23 that herbivores have on the plants themselves. Is
24 that what you were interested in knowing, what
25 grazing is?
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1 Q. I just wanted to know what you were
2 referring to.
3 MR. HYDE: Cows in the Everglades.
4 MR. NETTLETON: What?
5 MR. HYDE: Cows in the Everglades.
6 THE WITNESS: Okay. I'm going to
7 have to give you a little more theory
8 here.
9 One of the, sort of the basic
10 attributes of wetland communities is that
11 many of them have fairly low grazing
12 rates, in other words, things that
13 directly eat them. It's not universally
14 true, but many of them do, and under those
15 conditions, there is nothing that, nothing
16 like grazing that can severely change the
17 biomass of those communities.
18 When you add a grazer to an
19 ecosystem, that grazer typically does not
20 have constant numbers in terms of their
21 populations or their population, or
22 populations fluctuate dramatically up and
23 down.
24 Grazers, basically, act in such a way
25 that the plant is required to have higher
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1 net primary production. They have to have
2 considerably more energy captured than it
3 takes for respiration because they are
4 having part of their energy taken away by
5 those grazers.
6 So the effect of a grazer can be that
7 a plant community that is on the edge of
8 its tolerance where it might be able to
9 stay in that particular environment for a
10 long period of time, the effects of the
11 grazer can be that just a little bit of
12 grazing can totally knock it out of that
13 environment, push it over the edge so then
14 it disappears and it can be replaced by
15 another species of plant.
16 BY MR. NETTLETON:
17 Q. Would you consider, I don't know the
18 best word to use, introduction of a grazer into a
19 system to be a disturbance?
20 A. If it is a particularly -- when you say
21 introduction, I'm assuming you mean an exotic
22 species.
23 Q. I would assume an exotic would be -- let
24 me just say a natural grazer moving from one
25 particular area into another area, would that, with
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1 that in your mind, would that constitute a
2 disturbance into the area into which the grazer
3 moves?
4 MR. HYDE: You said a natural grazer?
5 MR. NETTLETON: A natural grazer,
6 meaning non-exotic.
7 THE WITNESS: I would say that the
8 effect of having a grazer of significant
9 size, and I don't mean just big animals,
10 but you can have a large population of
11 little ones that would have the potential
12 for removing large portions of the net
13 primary production, would typically lead
14 to much greater plant species diversity
15 and much more of a mosaic pattern in an
16 environment than one would see without
17 that grazer.
18 The effect of a grazer is very much
19 the same effect as a predator in that it
20 can often allow several species to
21 cohabitate when they wouldn't cohabitate.
22 BY MR. NETTLETON:
23 Q. Okay. In discussing the energetics of
24 wetlands or that subject matter, does that include
25 the concept of the nutrient cycle or is that a
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1 separate concept?
2 A. Well, the two are linked to a degree. A
3 plant is not capable of using all of the insulant
4 solar radiation if it cannot sequester enough water
5 and nutrients, so the two are linked.
6 The energy flow through a system
7 determines the rate of nutrient cycling, I think.
8 For instance, they are related, more energy going
9 through the faster some nutrients cycle.
10 Q. Is there a particular unit of measure
11 that we talk about when we are talking about energy
12 moving through the system?
13 A. In past literature it's been calories.
14 Now we use jewels, but it's the same basic idea.
15 MR. HYDE: I like the idea of
16 counting jewels better.
17 BY MR. NETTLETON:
18 Q. I'm going to ask one of these questions
19 you have trouble with the concept, but do you intend
20 to be presenting testimony at the final hearing
21 specifically concerning the nutrient cycle as it
22 applies in the Everglades system?
23 A. I do not intend to be discussing the
24 details of nutrient cycling with the exception of
25 the fact that some of those aspects of cycling
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1 relate to plant growth, relate to decomposition
2 other than as they relate to the other things we
3 have discussed.
4 (Thereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
5 (Thereupon, the documents were marked
6 as Hackney Exhibit Nos. 9 through 13.)
7 BY MR. NETTLETON:
8 Q. Dr. Hackney, let me show you what's been
9 marked as Hackney Exhibit No. 9 and just ask you, we
10 talked about, yesterday, a proposal for the
11 decomposition research and ask you if that proposal
12 that is part of Exhibit 9 is the proposal that you
13 referred to yesterday?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Can you tell me what that proposal is?
16 And I believe the same thing is on Exhibit No. 10
17 and maybe that was attached to Exhibit 10.
18 A. This is the contract that was set up to
19 begin the pilot study.
20 Q. Is that the contract or a proposal for
21 the analysis by the university?
22 A. Yes.
23 MR. NETTLETON: Let me mark this
24 one.
25 (Thereupon, the proposal was marked
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1 as Hackney Exhibit No. 14.)
2 BY MR. NETTLETON:
3 Q. Let me show you what's been marked as
4 Hackney Exhibit No. 14 and ask you if that's the
5 proposal you were referring to yesterday.
6 A. This is -- this looks like an original
7 draft of that.
8 Q. And that's the original proposal or
9 original draft of a proposal for the report that's
10 been marked as Exhibit 3, your draft report?
11 A. No. The report that was Exhibit 3. Do
12 you have that exhibit on you just to make sure it is
13 Exhibit 3 that we are talking about?
14 Exhibit 3 is based on the contract that
15 you just showed me between UNCW and Breedlove,
16 Dennis & Associates. That is based on the data that
17 was intended to lead to this.
18 Q. Well, yesterday we were discussing the
19 fact that you had developed a proposal to carry the
20 research further than it went with the pilot study.
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. Is that the proposal you were referring
23 to?
24 A. This is the proposal.
25 Q. Exhibit 14 is what we are referring to?
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1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And am I correct this proposal was not
3 accepted as written?
4 A. It was not funded.
5 That was not the proposal that the
6 client saw. It was a final version of that,
7 obviously.
8 Q. Well, again, Mr. Hyde, this is the
9 closest thing we've found so far and I believe
10 yesterday you did indicate there was a typewritten
11 version.
12 A. I'm sure there was.
13 Q. If we could get that at some point.
14 MR. HYDE: I'll see if it's
15 available. I don't know if it was -- was
16 it in your papers?
17 MR. NETTLETON: We got this one
18 yesterday.
19 THE WITNESS: It should have been.
20 BY MR. NETTLETON:
21 Q. Do you recall whether there were
22 substantial changes between this draft and the final
23 proposal as it was presented to the client?
24 A. I'm sure there were changes. I don't
25 recall what they were. I don't recall there being
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1 any major change in emphasis or goals. There may
2 have been sample size changes, increase or decrease,
3 I don't remember, but I'm sure there were changes in
4 the first draft.
5 Q. Upon the failure to obtain funding for
6 this particular proposal, was there ever a proposal
7 created for what led to the pilot study?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Under what parameters did the pilot
10 study go forward? Was there any kind of written
11 hypothesis or study plan prior to any sampling that
12 occurred in the field?
13 A. I don't recall there being a written
14 study plan. No, I don't think there was.
15 Q. Well, I'm just trying to figure, how did
16 you -- was this all kept in your head as to how you
17 decided where you wanted to put your sites and how
18 many samples you were going to take, and so forth?
19