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the canal. He invited Board members to the site and to his home to see what is there. In closing, Mr. Hughes asks if the applicant will mine all 120 acres for the next 30 years. Alien A. Davis introduced himself as a Florida registered professional engineer since 1960 from Deland, Florida, appearing on behalf of his son-in-law, Stephen Hughes. Mr. Davis addressed technical issues in addition to and in conjunction with Mr. Hughes' pleadings. They really wanted the sand mining relocated away from homes; however, if it is to remain there, the element of pollution is a very real thing. He advised of extensive experience with similar pits and described in detail the hydraulic method versus total excavation by mechanical means. He maintained there would be a deleterious effect on the adjacent groundwater, and was quite concerned that the contaminant would affect Mr. Hughes' drinking water well adversely very quickly. He requested an independent lab, approved by the applicant and the homeowners, to test, at the applicant's expense, the wells in the area and the monitoring well to see what was really taking place with the groundwater. From his experience, the SJRWMD was pretty good at surface water, but he thought they were not really adept at being able to test or control groundwater. Concerning the traffic element, Mr. Davis advised he had 22 years experience with DOT and warned of traffic congestion on 82nd Avenue created by the slow-moving trucks entering the traffic pattern. He suggested the County's Engineering Department lay out acceleration and deceleration lanes where the trucks would be travelling and impose some additional traffic controls. Mr. Davis concluded that a five -story berm, which would be adjacent to Mr. Hughes' home, was a very real concern and requested a 300' buffer from the house to provide some relief. Mr. Davis offered to respond to questions from the Board, but there were none. Mildred Griffith stated that she lives on the corner of 74th Avenue and 1st Street SW and owns land down to 5th Street SW, immediately adjacent (at the south end) to the proposed mining operation and her daughter runs cattle on the property. Her family sold the 80 acres to Mr. Koehler some time ago. She was concerned about the real dangers of noise and air pollution from the dredging and trucking operations and other equipment and flying sand. She recalled that, at the PZC meeting, Mr. Koehler said, "Well, sometimes we have to be ugly before we can be beautiful." She 53 March 14, 1995 MOK In PAGE; POP