Cogan grass, PFAS wells, Osteen Road

1:34:50All right, thank you. Okay. Um I'm gonna go real fast. Um I just wanna draw staff's attention. to the spreading problem of Cogan grass and I see us Mowing it constantly. Um it's now it's on Starkey Boulevard. It's on fifty two. I've alerted Secretary Gwen and I'm gonna do it again. um next week. But when we mow it, we spread it. And w it's really hard to get rid of and I really, really am saying we

1:35:20gotta get ahead of it before we look like parts of Hernando where it's just covered with it and nothing eats it. It's very hard to kill. So we need to start having a program to take care of it. Um I got a call from Chris Snow. Now he's now It was Water Utilities Inc. and I think I think that's the name of it. Now they're Sunshine something. They changed their name. It's one of the private utility companies. They are um they have a delivery area an Orangewood. uh which

1:35:50is Darlington. Um they found PFAS in those wells as I've talked to you about Mike Carbala. Um He gave me a call. They had to shut down most of the wells. Really they should have shut down all of them, but then they couldn't give anyone any water. So I offered to them that the county would take over that area and not give contaminated water to the people, but they didn't want that. So we called me to tell me that the Feds changed the rules and it's now Point zero zero zero

1:36:20four parts. It's like quadrillion. Um that um you can't have PFAS in which they don't even know how they test for that yet. But um he wanted me to be aware that the rules have changed. And it could be an issue over there. Um Again I want to talk about Osteen Road because I want this to get done while we're still alive. Yeah.

1:36:44Just on on that report uh with the water utility. Have you have you sent a letter to the uh PSC talking about what's going on there so they can look at Should they be shutting them down or should they be Uh looking at the right-of-way. Oh I don't know

1:36:56the process. Is that is that how that works?

1:36:59Is that what we should do?

1:37:06So when it comes to ratings, they either get satisfactory, unsatisfactory, poor that will will hurt them and they won they will want they won't will not want to deal with that. And D E P. might be the other person to reach out to as well.

1:37:19Let me let me have a a look into that a little bit deeper. You know, we did have some initial conversations with uh Utilities Inc. on on this particular issue, so yeah, we're not on the same page with them obviously. Uh but before we engage on the PSC side, I think I'd like to have the team do a little more a little more research and have a few more conversations with Utilities Inc. just to make sure that everything is is aligned.

1:37:42Okay. Um so Osteen Road would not be an MPO road, it would be a um a county project. So I just want to bring that up again that that um it's an important road to connect. Um there are one, two, three, four schools That are affected. And uh people have to drive All the way around it affects the intersection at fifty

1:38:11Um And um whenever traffic is dispersed through multiple areas it's always better. Um so Amskills uh uh has a

1:38:25And um I'm very pleased that we're back having interns at the utilities department. So we have ten Pasco County students who are affiliated with AMSkills. going through um a somewhat of an apprenticeship program at the utilities department. We actually had fourteen that wanted to do it, but we couldn't match up the mentors. But um we're told next year we're gonna work really hard so that all students who want to have a job and get some job training during the summer um we can accommodate them and I'm gonna work on the doing

1:38:55the same with Tampa Bay Water if there if we have that opportunity. Um I attended an event in Tampa Um Norma Henning was the Um honorary consul general for almost thirty years, maybe uh no, twenty years in the Tampa Bay area and um she has moved to Minnesota so we have a new honorary consul general from for Germany um who is an attorney in one of the big firms downtown and really excited that um Pasco

1:39:25County is being singled out as one of the counties that's absolutely the best relationship with um with them and they and I was the only commissioner there so that was fun. And um I think that's it. We have eleven thirty times certain. So we'll move on to your presentation.

1:39:42Madam Chairman M again, Osteen Road, the citizens in that neighborhood do not want it in that community. There is an elementary and a technical school there. There were no concerns previously when the previous private school was there. So they knew where they were purchasing. And I think we should look at the other concerns b um the other consideration. We can open up another road so they have two accesses.

1:40:09I'm sure we can have two access points. I'm sure there would be a public hearing and all that for it. But um but I was here when they tried to do that road connection before. And um Commissioner Mariano?

1:40:20Could you bring that map up again? Because I'd like to talk about that too. Okay, sorry,

1:40:23one second. Bring up that map. There may be uh another one off of uh Little Road. Which is even better. Then you have even more connections.

1:40:32I would love the little road. I think there w the constraint was the wetlands. But I would be in full support of that. Go ahead, Commissioner Yeager.

1:40:42I think if they zoom up the screen where it says Ridgewood to the right and then Blueberry Hill Estates says that little road, I think it's Hutchinson.

1:40:47Yeah.

1:40:48Right there.

1:40:52I don't know why that was never done in the first place. Um The other one that looks over going across east west is right where it says Pen Academy is going across. It looks like there's some type of road going across there too. There could be another connection. I think we should look it up open all three.

1:41:10I understand. I I I think think if you open up all three, it it's gonna diversify all the traveling. So that's what we try to do with traffic. You wanted to have many options to go to, they'll pick the best one for them.

1:41:20Yeah. And I have no doubt that the residents on Orchid Lake would love to not have all the traffic come down their road. So the residents on the other side that don't want to see any more

1:41:28traffic. Resonance on Magnolia and the other side. Of course. In addition, right there where you have the horizontal opening, but then if you look down Osteen, heading north onto Autumn, there is another road right down where your mouse, if it goes to the left. Nope. Yeah. Right below the school there's that road right. Right where your cursor is to the left. Um you can open that and have other access points to the school, although the gates would be locked after school hours.

1:41:58Well you can't get to r you can't get to Ridgewood doing that. Okay. We have an eleven thirty time certain so I'm gonna call them up. Thank you.