383 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 384 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 385 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, JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 386 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 387 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 388 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 389 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 390 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 391 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 392 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 393 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 394 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 395 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 396 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 397 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 398 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 399 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 400 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 401 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 402 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 403 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 404 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 405 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 406 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 407 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 408 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 409 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 410 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 -- JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 411 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 412 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 413 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 414 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 415 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 416 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 417 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 418 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 419 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 420 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, JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 421 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 422 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 423 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 424 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 425 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 426 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 427 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 428 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 429 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: JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 430 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 431 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. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 432 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 433 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 434 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 435 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 436 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 437 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 438 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 439 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 440 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 441 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? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 442 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 JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 443 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 There wasn't anything on paper relating to that 20 before it was done? 21 A. Well, some site selection was done early 22 in the fall. I don't recall the dates in which a 23 number of sites were examined that may or may not 24 have had the best attributes relative to the study 25 that was proposed there. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 444 1 What, essentially, happened was we had a 2 contract in place which would analyze a certain 3 number of samples for us, what it amounted to, and 4 when this was not funded what was done was to take 5 the total amount, total number of samples that we 6 had arranged to have analyzed and devise a small 7 study which would give us as much data as could 8 possibly be generated with basically no additional 9 funds or time. 10 Q. Would it be fair to say that the pilot 11 study was a subset of this, of the proposal set 12 forth in Exhibit No. 14? 13 A. Yes. It's certainly a subset of 14 components for task one, and the final task here 15 that's not labeled as to what task it was, but the 16 samples that were analyzed with respect to the 17 study, Exhibit -- 18 Q. Three. 19 A. -- 3, are, parts of them are contained 20 in here in terms of the methods and in terms of some 21 of the interest components. 22 Some parts that are in that Exhibit 3 23 were not contained in here. 24 Loxahatchee, for instance, was a 25 separate set of data that wasn't envisioned at the JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 445 1 time this was written and was collected because of 2 the -- it was some of the data that we did collect 3 for comparative purposes. 4 Q. Am I correct that some sample collection 5 occurred with regard to the, what became the pilot 6 study prior to the proposal being made to the 7 client, that proposal being made? 8 A. Yeah, I think that's correct. 9 Q. Let me show you what's been marked as 10 Exhibit No. 11, and am I correct that that reflects 11 a description of the sites used in the pilot 12 study? 13 MR. HYDE: It might be better just to 14 ask the witness to identify the document 15 first. 16 MR. NETTLETON: I was trying to move 17 it a little quicker but -- 18 MR. HYDE: Okay. 19 THE WITNESS: This is a document that 20 I've looked at in preparation for this, 21 and my name is on here as having been on 22 this particular trip. And I think that 23 this is the trip in which I collected some 24 information, but I did not -- this was not 25 my writing. I did not generate this JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 446 1 memo. 2 BY MR. NETTLETON: 3 Q. Well, does the date reflect, I believe 4 it's September 30, 1992, does that reflect the date 5 of your site visits, to the best of your 6 recollection? 7 A. It was in that time frame. 8 Q. Have you reviewed that document other 9 than for purposes of coming here to testify? In 10 other words, have you seen that before? 11 A. I assume I have. It was sent to you 12 with my documents, and I recall seeing many of these 13 same things. I just don't remember. 14 Q. It makes reference to photographs 15 throughout. Do you have possession of the 16 photographs that it makes reference to? 17 A. No. 18 Q. Who would have those? 19 A. They would reside with BDA. 20 Q. Getting back to my original question, 21 does that reflect on there a description of the 22 sites that were used in the pilot study? 23 A. Can I see Exhibit 3? 24 Q. Dr. Hackney, maybe to save some time, it 25 appears you're going through trying to check the JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 447 1 latitude, longitudes against the -- I guess we could 2 all do that if we went back and did it. I was just 3 asking more a generic question, I guess with any 4 qualifications you need to add to it, whether it's 5 your understanding that that was a description of 6 the sites that were used for the study project? 7 A. These are descriptions of sites that 8 were looked at. 9 Q. Okay. 10 A. And what I was attempting to do is to 11 determine if any of these individual sites were the 12 ones that were looked at in terms of potential 13 stations, and I did not see at least the two 14 stations that were used in here, but there could 15 have been some of the sites that were looked at and 16 discussed. 17 Q. Okay. 18 A. As I recall, this trip was a trip for a 19 number of purposes, including getting me to as many 20 different types of places as I could possibly get 21 into in the time allocated. 22 Q. Do you recall whether samples were taken 23 during that trip of either soil cores or leaves? 24 A. That's what I was trying to recall. I'm 25 trying to think whether that was -- is this a list JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 448 1 of exhibits? 2 Q. I don't know what that is. 3 MR. BARTELL: It's my list of 4 exhibits. You're welcome to look through 5 it. 6 THE WITNESS: Do you have the one 7 that you asked me a question out of 8 yesterday which I think was this one? 9 MR. BARTELL: It's Exhibit No. 5. 10 THE WITNESS: No. I'm sorry. 11 MR. NETTLETON: Are you looking for 12 the time zeros and time -- 13 THE WITNESS: (Nodding negatively.) 14 It was actually a document that I did not 15 have in my possession and that I had a 16 hard time finding, which was my copy of my 17 field notebook. 18 BY MR. NETTLETON: 19 Q. Let me show you what's been marked as 20 Exhibit No. 12. 21 A. Okay. Yes, it was on this date in which 22 samples were collected. I think the first set of 23 samples that I sent to Dr. Padgett were on this 24 date. 25 Q. That is September 30, 1992? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 449 1 A. It's September 29th. 2 Q. Okay. 3 A. Which is -- this is what the confusion 4 is right here. 5 Q. And we just handed you what's been 6 marked as Exhibit No. 12. Can you identify that, 7 for the record? 8 A. This is a copy of notes from a field 9 notebook that I used on 29 September and 30 10 September, January 14th, February 19th. The last 11 page of that is a page of a notebook from Bud 12 Smart's notebook, which he accompanied me on 13 2-19-93. 14 Q. On the last page is his writing? 15 A. Last page. 16 Q. And the rest of Exhibit No. 12 is your 17 writing? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Can I have that back, please. 20 I show you what's been marked as Exhibit 21 No. 13, which is a letter from you to Mr. Hyde. 22 It's an unsigned copy, but the question I would just 23 like to ask you, is the reference in this letter to 24 the draft imbalance manuscript, is that what we have 25 been referring here to as Exhibit No. 3? JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 450 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. And then further down where you see I've 3 highlighted it some more, there's a reference to 4 several papers of yours, and perhaps others I don't 5 recall right now, that you wanted to review. 6 Can you identify for me what 7 specifically those papers were? 8 A. I think that I -- that they have been 9 identified in -- all of them have been identified 10 during the last two days. 11 Q. Okay. 12 A. I would say that that includes all that 13 I have identified here. It may have included some 14 that I thought may have been important and had 15 absolutely nothing to do with it. 16 Q. Am I correct, though, it makes reference 17 though, I believe, to some of your own papers, and I 18 don't think we have identified any of your own 19 papers other than Exhibit No. 3? 20 Were there any other of your own papers 21 that you reviewed for purposes of Exhibit No. 3? 22 A. Of my own papers? 23 Q. Right. That you authored or 24 co-authored. 25 A. No. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 451 1 Q. May I see that back. I may have 2 misread. 3 I want to backtrack a little bit. I 4 know you hate to hear that. I have some questions 5 about Exhibit 3, but before we get into that, I 6 wanted to follow-up with some from yesterday that I 7 had forgotten about earlier. 8 Yesterday you expressed the opinion that 9 there were several means by which cattail may come 10 to dominate an area, and you mentioned removal of 11 the dominant species through disturbance where there 12 are rhizomes, and so forth, available and water was 13 appropriate; and that, therefore, and we didn't 14 really continue on from there, and I was wondering 15 if you could tell me what the other means would be 16 where cattail, I believe you had expressed, 17 mentioned three, but what other means, in your 18 opinion, could cattail come to dominate a particular 19 area? 20 A. And the first was? 21 Q. First was removal of the dominant 22 species through disturbance. 23 A. I'm trying to go back and think about 24 what we were discussing. 25 A second would be, if one of the JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 452 1 extremes for the other variable, for another 2 variable were reached. 3 Q. What do you mean? 4 A. Well, too much water, too low or high of 5 something. At that point in time one community is 6 not going to be making it and the opportunity for 7 the other would be there. 8 And I think the third, the third would 9 be something probably related to grazing or some 10 biotic influence that's different between the two 11 communities. 12 I've attempted to be in the same context 13 in which you asked that question yesterday. I'm not 14 sure that I am, but I think I'm. 15 Q. When you mentioned the extremes for one 16 of the variants such as too high a water, wouldn't 17 that be considered a disturbance, under your 18 definition? 19 A. Well, I would consider the two might, 20 you know, you could say the two are the same or 21 somewhat related, but you could also suggest they 22 are different. 23 Some types of disturbance would remove 24 the sawgrass, say, fairly quickly, others may be a 25 slower process. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 453 1 Q. Okay. The third thing you mentioned was 2 grazing. 3 A. Uh-huh. 4 Q. Is that what you said? 5 A. Or I used that as an example. There 6 could be other biotic effects that would influence 7 one species or another. Parasitism, for instance. 8 Q. Am I correct, then, in your opinion, in 9 order for cattail to invade an area that it's not 10 currently established in, there would have to be 11 some type of activity, disturbance or something, 12 which would remove or highly stress the current 13 occupant of that area? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. Dr. Hackney, would you consider the 16 Everglades ecosystem to be a stable system? 17 MR. HYDE: I think this has been 18 asked and answered quite a bit. 19 THE WITNESS: I guess I was going to 20 ask you whether this is different than the 21 question you asked me before, and if so, 22 what was the difference in the two 23 questions? 24 BY MR. NETTLETON: 25 Q. Well, I think before we were talking JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 454 1 about whether the Everglades was in steady state, 2 and now I'm asking if there is a distinction in your 3 mind. If there's not let me know, but my question 4 is, do you understand the Everglades to be in a 5 stable condition? 6 A. I think there are a number of contexts 7 of stability. 8 I would say it's not in a -- it is not 9 stable relative to fauna and flora. 10 There is an instability developing that 11 I would suspect will reverberate through many of the 12 ecosystem functions, characters and even structure. 13 So from that standpoint, I would say no, 14 it's not stable. 15 Stability is one of those terms, it's 16 very loaded in ecology. 17 Q. Do you have Exhibit 3? Will you turn 18 to Page 4, the last paragraph. 19 I just had a couple questions about the 20 description of the study. 21 First of all, on the first aspect of the 22 core samples, why was it decided to limit the cores 23 to 10 centimeters? 24 A. To look at the -- 25 Q. What was the basis for looking at only JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 455 1 the 10 centimeters from the surface? 2 A. Basically this is the zone in which much 3 of the root metabolism is going to be occurring. It 4 is the zone in which most of the living roots are 5 found. It's the zone in which there is the most 6 likely to be fungi that could be interacting with 7 the roots. 8 Q. In the last sentence of that, again, now 9 turning to the decomposition of the leaves, it talks 10 about high and low nutrient conditions. 11 Are you referring there to conditions in 12 the water, soil, or pore water or a combination? 13 A. I'm referring to the water itself. 14 Q. Being the surface water? 15 A. Surface water. 16 Q. Turning to the next page, if the 17 February 19th date for the HN site, the high 18 nutrient site, indicates measurements of 19 conductants, DOA, PH, were there also phosphorus 20 levels examined on that day? 21 A. No. 22 Q. Do you have any information to tell you 23 what the phosphorus concentrations were in the 24 surface water on February 19, 1993? 25 A. No. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 456 1 Q. And I have the same question with regard 2 to the low nutrient station. 3 A. That was your question before, was it 4 not? 5 Q. No, it was the high nutrient station. 6 Now my question is do you have any information -- 7 I'll back up. 8 When you took the samplings at the high 9 nutrient or the low nutrient site, on any sampling 10 date, did you ever measure phosphorus concentrations 11 in the water? 12 A. No, I did not. 13 Q. Did anyone else? 14 A. At the high nutrient site there is a 15 large data set for soil, I mean water, phosphorus in 16 the water. 17 Q. At the site itself? 18 A. In the site or very close to it. 19 Q. How close in proximity? 20 A. Within 10 meters. 21 Q. And what are the, to your knowledge, or 22 understanding, what is the phosphorus concentration 23 levels during the time periods that you did sampling 24 reflected at that site? 25 A. I don't know. I have not seen them. JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 457 1 Q. How did you know that that was a -- to 2 be considered a high nutrient site? 3 A. I think Bud Smart or Joe Birch or Joe 4 Carlson, or one of the other scientists, directed me 5 to that site as their high nutrient site. 6 Q. So you had no independent information as 7 to the nutrient levels in that site? 8 A. No. 9 Q. Turning to the low nutrient site, how 10 did you determine that this particular site was low 11 nutrient? 12 A. The same is true for that site. 13 Q. Turn to the map at the back, it's on 14 Bates page ending 85, I believe. 15 Am I correct that for the high nutrient 16 site in area 2-A there's an arrow pointing up closer 17 to the S-10. Is that where it was located? 18 A. Yes, this was a map that was created at 19 BDA, and I'm still not sure exactly what happened, 20 but they have the GIS system, and I do not, so their 21 drawing of this map was supposed to put station 22 location and the transects from which data were 23 derived, and the high nutrient station came at a 24 place that clearly was not. 25 So they were sent this back with the JACK BESONER & ASSOCIATES 150 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 371-1537 458 1 coordinates and asked to redo it. I have not gotten 2 a redraft yet. 3 Q. So this is their plotting of their 4 highly sophisticated GIS system? 5 A. I think somebody just put the wrong 6 number in. 7 Q. Let me ask you, the low nutrient site, 8 as it's reflected on here, is that fairly accurate 9 as to its location? 10 A. It's located in the lower portion. It's 11 obviously not on the levee itself. The ability to 12 plot these points is not as good as I would have 13 supposed. 14 Q. How close in proximity to the levee was 15 the low nutrient point? 16 Again, we are referring to the levee 17 between 2-A and 2-B.