AQUATIC PLANT MANAGEMENT FUNDING

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Sources of Management Funds
When the Department's aquatic plant management program was created in 1971, funding focused on water hyacinth control. Hydrilla was still in its early dispersal stages, and with little experience with submersed invasive plants, managers and lawmakers could not foresee the extent to which hydrilla could expand within or among Florida's public waters. State aquatic plant control funds were derived through $2 from each private motor boat registration and 40% of commercial boat registrations. An additional $2.8 million was transferred from the Gas Tax Trust Fund; a portion of the revenues generated by fuels to power boats. Federal funds were provided through a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in two programs; the Aquatic Plant Management (APC) Program in eligible public lakes and rivers, and the Removal of Aquatic Growth (RAG) Program in Designated Federal Navigation Projects. In addition, the USACE controlled water hyacinth in the St. Johns River and many of its tributaries as well as within the levee surrounding Lake Okeechobee.

Additional boat registrations and incremental funding increases in the gas tax transfer could not keep pace with expanding hydrilla. From the early 1980s through the late 1990s, aquatic plant management funding was inadequate and hydrilla expanded within infested waters and into new waters. The Department's Bureau of Invasive Plant Management (BIPM) developed a priority system to address the most urgent aquatic plant control problems and worked to acquire additional state funding to supplant the diminishing federal contribution. Once hydrilla becomes established in a water body, it is difficult if not impossible to eradicate. If funding is sufficient, hydrilla can be controlled. However, if funding is insufficient hydrilla expands within waters and to additional waters and the cost to achieve and sustain control spirals upward.

Hydrilla reached its high water mark in 1994 with a standing crop of nearly 100,000 acres and an estimated 140,000 acres infested by subterranean tubers. At that time most of Florida's largest lakes and reservoirs were nearly covered with hydrilla. Regulatory agencies including the Department, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Water Management Districts, and the USACE teamed together with associations like the Florida Aquatic Plant Management Society (FAPMS), Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society (BASS) and local homeowner associations to inform Florida Legislative Members of the problems and the additional recurring funding needed to achieve maintenance control of hydrilla.

The Legislature formed a study commission that concluded in 1998 that the Department's aquatic plant control program was effective and efficient, but needed additional revenues to achieve its statutory mandate of maintenance control of invasive plants in Florida public waters. A 1999 report by the Florida House of Representatives Committee on Environmental Protection determined the level of funding necessary to manage aquatic plants in public waters, and a bipartisan effort in the Florida Legislature identified the Florida Forever Act as a rational source of this funding. Environmental and culturally important properties are acquired through the Florida Forever program and Legislators reasoned that a portion of these funds (2.28%) should be applied toward invasive plant management to conserve the attributes that lead to the purchase of these lands.

Governor Bush concurred with these conclusions acknowledging that the Department's aquatic plant management program met four basic criteria for receiving increased State funds:

• statewide benefit vs. a few localities
• public benefit vs. special interests
• the program is subject to objective review
• the funding sources are logical and appropriate

Distribution of Management Funds
The Florida Legislature determines the level of aquatic plant management funding each year based upon information contained in the BIPM annual report. This report documents the levels of invasive and nuisance plants in Florida public waters, provides the percentage of waters in which invasive plants are under maintenance control, and estimates the funding necessary to achieve and preserve plant maintenance in public waters. (click here to see the latest PDF copy of this report)

Each year, the Legislature appropriates aquatic plant control funds, called spending authority, to the Department's Invasive Plant Trust Fund. BIPM staff meets with contractors, representatives from environmental agencies, and other interested stakeholders to develop general management plans and budgets for each eligible water body, as well as priorities among water bodies. Plant management programs are developed for and funded in about 350 of the 450 eligible waters each year. Funding levels range from as low as $50 to control new boat ramp infestations of torpedo grass or hydrilla to more than $5 million to manage large-scale hydrilla infestations in central Florida reservoirs. These budgets are flexible because they are developed as much as a year in advance and are subject to change from highly variable parameters like plant growth and weather conditions.

If greater than anticipated problems arise, funds are transferred from lesser priority projects. If problems do not arise as anticipated, funds are shifted elsewhere or are returned to the Invasive Plant Trust Fund for use the following year. A recurring misperception about the aquatic plant management program is that managers spend money unnecessarily at the end of the year to prevent the budget from being reduced the following year. The reality is that this practice does not occur in the Department's aquatic plant management program since it is not only irresponsible, but also unnecessary. Returning unused funds to the Invasive Plant Trust Fund for later use and funding aquatic plant control under a needs-based budget each year renders end-of-the-year spending unnecessary.