Cocoa Beach Garden Club and Cocoa Beach Woman’s Club are “partnering” on responsibilities for judging this year’s Xmas decorations.
They plan to conduct judging during the period 12-15 December (after dark, of course)They are presently proposing 5 categories:
- Best Traditional Home
- Best Florida-style Home (they may decide to “drop” this category)
- Best Condo
- Best Business
- Best Neighborhood

The Brevard County School Board will be hosting public meetings on these proposals on November 10, 2011 at Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School Auditorium @ 6:30 pm

The School Board is discussing proposed changes to the school boundaries.  The changes do impact Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School and Roosevelt Elementary School.   The web page introducing all these proposed changes is:
http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/fp-includes/communityforum/Attendance_Boundary.html

The school board is considering several proposals to address overcrowding of Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School – which is presently at approximately 120% of capacity.   The proposal is to modify the high school and middle (junior high) school boundaries by shifting Patrick AFB students to Satellite, and shifting some IB (MYP) Middle School students to Clearlake.   Maps of the proposed changes are available at:
http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/fp-includes/communityforum/Attendance_Boundary_Documents/Proposals/2%20Prop%202.pdf

The school board is also considering converting Roosevelt Elementary (back) to a middle school.  That would move the boundaries of elementary school students to Cape View and Sea Park.     Maps of the proposed changes are available at:http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/fp-includes/communityforum/Attendance_Boundary_Documents/Proposals/5%20Prop%206.pdf

The school board is also closing Sea Park Elementary which would add students to Roosevelt Elementary.  That would move the boundaries of future Roosevelt elementary school students to Cape View.     Maps of the proposed changes are available at:http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/fp-includes/communityforum/Attendance_Boundary_Documents/Proposals/7%20Prop%2014.pdf

MOSQUITO CONTROL INFORMATION FOR BREVARD COUNTY 
AND COCOA BEACH

 

Brevard County Mosquito Control Battles Mosquitoes Emerging from Storm
Mosquitoes are beginning to emerge from the standing water left by the unnamed storm which hit Brevard County last weekend, and Brevard County Mosquito Control has already taken proactive steps to minimize the mosquito influx, which includes some natural control as well as chemical control of the aquatic mosquito larvae.
The adult mosquito emergence will be countywide, ranging from moderate to severe, and should increase from Saturday through Monday.
As Mosquito Control will use both aerial and truck-based chemical control methods, weather permitting, the mosquitoes should be adequately suppressed within 8 to 10 days. Mosquito treatments cannot take place if it is raining or winds exceed 10 to 15 miles per hour.
BCMC's surveillance network will determine which areas receive priority.  The hardest-hit areas will be treated first and the rest will follow.
If citizens are experiencing mosquito problems, they can access the website at www.brevardcounty.us/mosquito for daily locations to be treated and for other general mosquito prevention tactics.  They can also contact mosquito control for further information at the below contact numbers for north and south county.
From the Wickham Road exit on I-95 south to Indian River County, call 321-952-4523. 
For all areas north of Wickham Road to Volusia County, call 321-264-5032. 
The 2011 mosquito season in Brevard County has seen mosquito activity more than double than what has been experienced in this region over the past few years, and Brevard County Mosquito Control has treated more acres this year than in 2009 and 2010 combined.
In addition, here is some information for Cocoa Beach residents that may be useful:
(1) The City of Cocoa Beach is not in charge of mosquito control nor do they have the necessary equipment to spray for mosquitoes in residential neighborhoods.
(2)  Brevard County is responsible for mosquito control in the Cocoa Beach area and can be reached by calling (321) 264-6413.  If you make this call after 2:00PM and select "Extension #1", you will receive a recorded message explaining what areas are scheduled for spraying, at what times, and by what methods.
(3)  Areas south of Highway 520 in Cocoa Beach is identified as "Spray Area #38"
(4)  Areas north of Highway 520 to include Cape Canaveral is identified as  "Spray Area #37"
(5)  To obtain more information about mosquito control operations in Brevard County, please visit their website at:
http://www.brevardcounty.us/mosquito/sprayareas.cfm
Brevard County Mosquito Control (321) 264-6413

Florida Presidential Preference Primary set for January 31, 2012

VIERA, FL – Brevard County Supervisor of Elections Lori Scott wants Brevard’s 356,896 voters to know the date for Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary (PPP) has been set!  The Presidential Preference Primary Selection Committee met earlier today and announced the date of the PPP as January 31, 2012.
“With four elections scheduled over the next thirteen months, it is important for voters to be aware of the upcoming Election dates,” said Supervisor Scott.  “Although preparations for the Presidential Preference Primary have been on-going, having a firm date is imperative to secure the facilities used for Brevard’s 126 polling locations and to schedule mandatory training of our 1700 poll workers.”  
Upcoming Election Dates are as follows:
Municipal and Special District Elections - November 8, 2011;
Presidential Preference Primary – January 31, 2012;
Primary Election – August 14, 2012;
General Election – November 6, 2012.
As a reminder, Florida is a closed primary state.  During a Primary Election, voters will receive a ballot listing the candidates corresponding to their political party affiliation as designated on their Voter Registration Application.  The deadline for voters to change their political party affiliation is 29 days before an Election.  (January 3, 2012 for the PPP)
For additional information on the Florida Presidential Preference Primary or Voter Registration information, please contact the Election’s Office at (321) 633-2124 or visit www.VoteBrevard.com.
 

TO REGISTERED VOTERS -

On Tuesday, November 8, 2011, in accordance with the Charter of the City of Cocoa Beach, Florida, and the Election Code of the State of Florida, an Election is being called for the purposes of voting on this Ballot Question:

“Shall the City of Cocoa Beach adopt mixed use for downtown/Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA)?
The downtown/CRA vision plan developed over the last three years includes mixed use as a method to revive our local economic conditions and improve the downtown environment.

Do you approve of allowing an additional mix of retail and residential uses downtown as long as it does not exceed the city-wide density caps as set in the City Charter?

[  ]     Yes, to approve
[  ]     No, to reject”

Inquiries on the City of Cocoa Beach’s Election can be directed to the City Clerk's Office – (321) 868-3286, or visit the City’s Website at www.cityofcocoabeach.com, (Click on “Government” and then on “Elections”.)

Astronaut Corvette Parade
The City of Cocoa Beach will host a Corvette Parade on Saturday, May 7, at 9:34 a.m. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first American in space and duplicate the Corvette Parade of 1961 on the same parade route and at Alan Shepard's liftoff time of 9:34 a.m. The parade has been scheduled to take advantage of the many astronauts expected to be at KSC this weekend to participate in the Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction and the possible launch of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-134 mission. The event likely will go down in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest astronaut parade in history. The parade will "blast off" from the glass bank near the Cocoa Beach post office and library. Astronauts scheduled to participate include Scott Carpenter, Mercury; Dick Gordon, Gemini, Apollo; Walt Cunningham, Apollo; Edgar "Ed" Mitchell, Apollo; Bill Pogue, Skylab; Jack Lousma, Skylab, Space Shuttle; space shuttle astronauts Rick Hauck, Jon McBride, Fred Gregory, John Blaha, Bob Springer, Sam Durrance, Bob Cabana, Bruce Melnick, Susan (Still) Kilrain, Don McMonagle, and Jim "JR" Reilly; and space shuttle payload specialist John-David Bartoe.

Cocoa Beach is in the process of applying for the permit to constuct an ASR well.

The following are being considered:
Florida Administrative Code: 62-528.307
Table I - Cycle Test
Fact Sheet
Technical Advisory Committee
Draft ASR Permit
Intent to Issue

Astronaut Corvette Parade
The City of Cocoa Beach will host a Corvette Parade on Saturday, May 7, at 9:34 a.m. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first American in space and duplicate the Corvette Parade of 1961 on the same parade route and at Alan Shepard's liftoff time of 9:34 a.m. The parade has been scheduled to take advantage of the many astronauts expected to be at KSC this weekend to participate in the Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction and the possible launch of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-134 mission. The event likely will go down in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest astronaut parade in history. The parade will "blast off" from the glass bank near the Cocoa Beach post office and library. Astronauts scheduled to participate include Scott Carpenter, Mercury; Dick Gordon, Gemini, Apollo; Walt Cunningham, Apollo; Edgar "Ed" Mitchell, Apollo; Bill Pogue, Skylab; Jack Lousma, Skylab, Space Shuttle; space shuttle astronauts Rick Hauck, Jon McBride, Fred Gregory, John Blaha, Bob Springer, Sam Durrance, Bob Cabana, Bruce Melnick, Susan (Still) Kilrain, Don McMonagle, and Jim "JR" Reilly; and space shuttle payload specialist John-David Bartoe.
POC: Jon McBride, 449-4433

A Public Meeting has been scheduled for 10:00AM, Thursday, March 3, 2011 (Note: Meeting is in the Cocoa Beach City Commission Room) on a proposal to construct an Aquifer Storage & Recovery (ASR) Test Well at the Public Works Compound on Tom Warriner Boulevard in Cocoa Beach.  The City Manager has tasked our engineering & consulting firms (Quentin L. Hampton Associates, Inc., and MWH, Inc.) to prepare an information memorandum for publication and distribution prior to the above meeting.  The below "technical memoranum" was prepared by the above firms on February 14, 2011 and is hereby made available to the public for information purposes.  Questions regarding this memorandum and ASR-related topics of concern will be addressed at the March 3rd meeting.

     TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM on City of Cocoa Beach Aquifer Storage &
                                      Recovery of Reclaimed Water
Wastewater collected by the City of Cocoa Beach is treated to public access reclaimed water quality standards at the City’s Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) on Minutemen Causeway. Proposed improvements will enhance nutrient removal to satisfy Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT) standards.  At present, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit the highly-treated water to be released to the Banana River.  The Banana River is protected by the FDEP as an “Outstanding Florida Water” and as an “Aquatic Preserve”.  Discharges to these protected waters are limited under current federal and state regulations.

The City of Cocoa Beach constructed a City-wide irrigation system so that this highly treated effluent could be recovered as a beneficial resource in lieu of disposal in the river. While the City of Cocoa Beach only uses reclaimed water for in-plant process water and landscape irrigation, the FDEP allows for other uses of similarly treated reclaimed water such as fire fighting, toilet flushing, irrigation of edible crops and pastures, “recharging” the groundwater table, and injection into groundwater.

When reclaimed water is used for irrigation, there is a wide range of demands due to seasonal changes.  During the wet season, reclaimed water produced at the WRF can exceed irrigation demand. During such conditions, effluent is discharged to the Banana River. The City has constructed 20 million gallons of storage to help balance the supply and availability. These conventional storage tanks help during small changes of weather but do not offer enough storage for seasonal fluctuations in irrigation demand.  Therefore, excess reclaimed water is discharged to the river during the wet season and the tanks run out of reclaimed water during the dry season.  The storage required to achieve 100% reuse, eliminating discharge to the river in most years, requires large reservoirs or Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR).

The City of Cocoa Beach produced approximately 1.2 billion gallons of reclaimed water in 2010. During an average day, roughly 3,26 million gallons (MG) of reclaimed water were produced, however during extreme weather events that amount can increase significantly.  In 2008, the rainfall from Tropical Storm Fay caused 14 MG to flow to the WRF in a single day. Over the course of a year, approximately 90% of the plant’s reclaimed water is used for irrigation. During the dry season, irrigation demand regularly exceeds the amount of water produced.

Recently, the FDEP established Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) limits for discharge of nutrients into the river.  For this reason, there is an urgency to increase the reclaimed storage capacity in order to decrease the frequency of discharge events. The City entered into an Administrative Order (AO) with the FDEP that establishes a compliance schedule.  Proposed AWT process upgrades will decrease nutrient concentrations to the lowest practical levels at the City’s WRF.  Cocoa Beach residents prize the Banana River for its aesthetic and recreational uses and are committed to working with the FDEP and the USEPA to preserve and enhance its ecological quality and sustainability.  It should be noted that the FDEP is attempting to reduce the nutrient input to the entire Banana River and that the Cocoa Beach WRF is only one of many entities that discharge to the Banana River.

The aquifer system present in Central Florida consists of three main aquifers separated by confining layers that limit the vertical movement of water. The Surficial aquifer, commonly referred to as the “water table aquifer", is recharged by rainfall, irrigation, and surface water features such as lakes, rivers, and ponds.  Beneath the surficial aquifer, which is approximately 50ft thick, is a semi-confining layer (composed of dense clays and low porosity limestone) that separates the Surficial aquifer from the Upper Floridan Aquifer (UFA).  The UFA is the primary source of drinking water for Central Florida; it is a porous limestone formation that conveys water underground from north to south and from the center of the state out to the coasts. The UFA in coastal areas is typically brackish, and not fit for direct potable consumption.  Beneath the UFA is the Middle Confining Unit (MCU) consisting of dense clays that effectively limit the flow of water.  In some areas, the Avon Park Permeable Zone occurs, which is is an aquifer that is not used for drinking water. The MCU, composed of dense clays and low permeability limestone, provides a barrier to prevent flow of water between the UFA and the Lower Floridan Aquifer (LFA). The LFA is composed of limestone of varying porosity.  The top of the LFA in the vicinity of Cocoa Beach is estimated to be approximately 1,000ft below land surface (bls). The LFA has high salinity making it unsuitable for drinking water purposes; and lies below the “underground source of drinking water” (USDW). The proposed reclaimed water ASR well will be located in the LFA with an injection zone from approximately 1,200 to 1,500ft bls. The planned storage zone will be separated from the USDW by confining beds that will prohibit upward migration of the stored water.

The ASR well is designed to be within a porous section of the LFA that is vertically separated by the confining beds. Injection into the ASR well will displace high salinity water and replace it with fresh reclaimed water.  Mixing of the fresh water with high salinity water will be limited due to the semi-confining nature of the low porosity stone surrounding the storage zone. Thus, a fresh water “bubble” will be created.  This bubble will act as a storage vessel for withdrawal at a later date. When the water is withdrawn, it will be mixed with reclaimed water and stored in above-ground storage tanks for subsequent distribution.

In 2003, the EPA compared the relative risks associated with various methods of disposing of treated effluent, such as deep-well injection (one component in ASR), surface water discharge (such as to the Banana River), ocean outfall, and aquifer recharge through percolation ponds (“Relative Risk Assessment of Management Options for Treated Wastewater in South Florida”, EPA 816-R-03-010, April 2003). Based on distance to the nearest “receptor” and the time required to reach that receptor, the EPA notes that deep-well injection offers significantly less risk than surface water discharge. A receptor is anything in the environment that can be tangibly affected by a disruption in treatment. For Brevard County, the EPA states that the injected water would require 1,000 years to reach the layer where drinking water is withdrawn, compared to nearly immediate impact of ecosystems with surface water discharge. The EPA found that it could not enforce a no-fluid-movement policy for injection wells, and therefore is requiring the water be highly- treated prior to injection. The level of treatment required by the EPA is surpassed by the level of treatment required by the FDEP and  by that proposed at the Cocoa Beach WRF.  “Under this approach, the movement of fluids into USDWs, whether known or suspected, should not endanger the USDWs because the wastewater has been treated to a level that is no long a threat to the USDWs,” (EPA, Federal Register Volume 70, Number 224, Rules and Regulations, pg 70515, 22 November 2005).

As the ASR well is drilled through the various geologic layers and aquifers, care is taken to seal around the solid casing with grout cement. The borehole will start as a 42-inch diameter surface casing through the Surficial aquifer. A graphical depiction of the proposed well is provided as Figure 1 [See at end of this document]. The 42-inch hole will continue to be drilled into the UFA where a 36-inch steel casing will be set and sealed with grout. That hole will be continued through the UFA to the bottom of the Middle Confining Unit MC1, where a 28-inch steel casing will be grouted into place. This 28-inch hole will be continued through the Avon Park Permeable Zone (if present) and through the Middle Confining Unit MC2. A 16-inch fiberglass casing will be set and grouted into place at approximately 1,200ft bls. This will be the final casing and will convey water as it is injected and withdrawn. The open hole will be drilled from 1,200ft to 1,500ft bls.  In addition, two monitoring wells will be drilled adjacent to the ASR production well to continually measure the water quality and pressure within the overlying UFA, and a deep monitoring well to measure the injection zone adjacent to the ASR site.

Conclusion & Recommendations: The City of Cocoa Beach has evaluated various options to comply with the terms of the Administrative Order. Upgrading treatment processes at the WRF in conjunction with ASR for excess reclaimed water was determined to the most effective solution. Operation of the proposed ASR is not expected to introduce reclaimed water into overlying aquifers over a long duration of time.  It is the position of the City, FDEP, and SJRWMD that the proposed ASR well will better conserve our valuable water resources, and pose no tangible risk to public health and safety.  The reclaimed water ASR represents a pragmatic and well-studied response to the TMDL-related regulations limiting effluent discharges to the Banana River. <http://www.cityofcocoabeach.com/PublicFiles/Image/PIO/ASR Well Schematic-Fig 1.jpg>