REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS THEIR ANSWER TO THE LOW LAKE?????? LAKE OKEECHOBEE BACKPUMPING FACT SHEET Lake Okeechobee has a surface area of 730 square miles and is the second largest freshwater lake wholly within the United States.  The Lake has been classified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a Class I Drinking Water source, which requires strict standards allowing only small amounts of pollution.  The Lake is the sole source of drinking water for several small towns on the south rim of the Lake and one of the sources of drinking water for West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, and the entire Lower East Coast metropolitan area.  The region south of the Lake, known as the Everglades Agricultural Area ("EAA"), contains over a half million acres of former Everglades that have been diked and drained to make them suitable for urban and agricultural development. Most of the land is in sugar cane cultivation.  Three companies own 87% of the land within the EAA. One of those companies is the United States Sugar Corporation which owns 104,000 acres in the EAA, much of it in the area directly south of Lake Okeechobee.  Polluted water is pumped off the sugar cane fields and collected in large District-owned canals.  At the north ends of these canals, the District owns and operates three pumping stations, S-2, S-3, and S-4, which are built into the Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounds Lake Okeechobee.  Each of these pumping stations has either three or four very large pumps each powered by a diesel engine about four times the size of a semi trailer engine. When all the pumps in a pump station are operating, the discharge is equivalent to the flow of a medium size Florida river.  The flow from the pumps creates a highly visible "plume" of dark (sometimes even black) colored water that can reach nine miles out into Lake Okeechobee.  The plume contains high levels of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) and high levels of dissolved organic materials that come from agricultural and urban wastes.  One of the largest pump stations is within 2 and ½ miles of the drinking water intake of South Bay, one of the small towns on the south rim of the Lake that uses the Lake for drinking water.  Earthjustice brought this lawsuit against the South Florida Water Management District in 2002 on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation.  The case is a Clean Water Act "citizen suit" which sought a declaration from the court that the District had to obtain federal Clean Water Act "point source" permits for its pump station discharges.  As "point sources," the discharges from the pumping station must meet pollution limits applicable to Lake Okeechobee.  The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians entered the lawsuit in support of the environmental groups.  The United States Sugar Corporation entered the case in support of the District.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entered the case on the side of the polluters - the District and U.S. Sugar - in early 2005. This was the first occasion in the 33 year history of the EPA that it entered a water pollution case on the side of a polluter.  No EPA witness testified at the trial and no EPA witnesses were provided for depositions.  Florida Wildlife Federation argued that when the District collects and then moves water in a way that harms the receiving water body (here Lake Okeechobee) it is responsible for cleaning up the pollution in the same way a city is responsible for cleaning up sewage it collects in its sewage system before it discharges its wastewater.  On average, the S-2, S-3, and S-4 pumping stations discharge 32 billion gallons of water into Lake Okeechobee each year.  Today, on average, the pumps contribute the equivalent of 60,000 one hundred pound bags of phosphorus to the Lake each year.  Because of this excessive fertilization, the Lake now chronically suffers from toxic blue-green algae blooms, including one in 2005 that generated toxin levels in Lake Okeechobee 65 times greater than the World Health OrganizationÂs safe drinking water guidelines.  Blue-green algae toxins can affect the liver, nervous system and skin and have been linked to increases in liver cancer, chronic fatigue illness, skin rashes, abdominal cramps, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, as well as deaths of dogs and cattle. The toxins are not removed by chlorination or boiling and algaecides (which kill the algae) result in the release of the toxins into the environment.  Phosphorus pollution levels in the Lake have risen continuously from about 40 parts per billion in 1960 to 240 parts per billion last year  an all time high. Phosphorus is a main ingredient in fertilizer and is an important component of animal waste and sewage.  The state and EPA have recently determined that the maximum allowable level of phosphorus pollution is 40 parts per billion.  In 1976, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection contended that backpumping into Lake Okeechobee from the pumping stations should be stopped. At trial, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reversed position and sided with the District in contending that no Clean Water Act permit was necessary.  After the trial was completed but before a decision was issued, EPA proposed an administrative rule that would exempt all water transfers from permitting under the Clean Water Act. The South Florida Water Management District  the defendant in the backpumping case  explained that the rule is "expressly designed" for the backpumping lawsuit.  Thirteen states and the Canadian province of Manitoba filed comments in opposition to the proposed EPA rule as did over 50 national conservation organizations.  Earthjustice will take the EPA to court to challenge the legality of the new water transfers exemption rule when it is adopted by EPA. The theory of the case will be that EPA may not legally exempt any polluters from the Clean Water ActÂs permitting requirements.

In cased you missed the map that was shown on TV for days following the 2004 election, most states are shaded red and only a few are shaded in blue. The blue states are shoved off into a corner and they are very expensive places to live and not overloaded with opportunities. So if you are like me, you have to find a place where you can enjoy the what the area has to offer and not let the political views of the majority get to you. The OP's viewpoints seem somewhat libertarian and then somewhat republican but who cares? Nobody. You can move to just about anywhere and nobody will shove their political views down your throat. Not even here do they do that. If I wanted to I could meet up with anoy political party that interested me but since I am not into politics I will go back to just enjoying the scenery and low cost of living, being close to good shopping and relatively OK driving distance to the big urban core where I can walk around for a few minutes or have a nice meal, feel like I stepped into the twilight zone then hop in the truck come back home where you can have a big property with horses and fire guns and play cowboys & indians and do whatever it is you please til the cows come home. The Knoxville area does come across as an area where this would be possible too so I'd say look at Knoxville.

we have bought home with the master and the LA/kitchen/breakfast facing north (we are in DFW TX area) the patio had a 10 ft deep porch overhang so the light is subdued at all times of the day--not really any direct sun coming in my husband want to paint all walls/ceiling same color--does not feel comfortable having different colors in areas that are visible from the main LA or hall (We do have that going on in current house but he is so used to it that he does not see it anymore--know what I mean)... the owners of the house painted most trim --except for master bath and kitchen which have med dark oak stain woodwork...the kitchen cabs do not go to ceiling which is 12 or more ft high--so there is painted trim above them and adjacent on door/way into pantry and other doorways... the trim color is medium beige with pinkish tint--think it is called "Covered Wagon" from paint cans left in garage...the walls are a tan w/yellow tint or some creamy white with tan/yellow--don't have a name on the can just a color code--one bedroom was painted a bright yellow with same pink-tone tan trim and the master/bath walls were painted sort of light green w/yellow maybe--hard to say ... when we were looking at the house prior to putting down contract--we through most walls were light tan and the trim was darker tan w/sort of olive tint--we have white trim and wood trim lighter than theirs now--but we normally saw the house later in the day for not that long a time period 2-3 times before closing... once their furniture was out and we were in house at different times of the day--the colors just changed dramatically... now trying to find a tan color w/o the yellow tint to tone down the pink in the painted trim... too expensive to repaint all house and lighten trim -- our painter said would probably take three coats to go to white-- I had a designer come out to do color consult--not someone I had a personal recommendation for--just took chance off recommendation on local posting site I visit and her web page. There is no BM color consultants in this area at all (which included Dallas and FTW which I though really strange)... her SW color deck color picks were basically too dark (I got 3 and painted samples) and many of her suggested colors had a grey tint--that was her color preference I think--and would have sucked the light out of the rooms I think... so that was money wasted-- right now I think we are going with KM color called Arizona Heat--knocked down to 75%--made up in SW paint which our painter uses but picked up some 2 oz samples from the BM store that I am going to paint in some different rooms....we kept most samples in the LA/breakfast/kitchen because that is where we will do most of our living time--if that makes sense would like to find stronger color for the dining room and for master bed but don't have the linens for that room yet... never had this much trouble in our current home--but that has 8 ft ceiling, smaller rooms, and more cross light--which makes a BIG difference I just don't want to get something too dark (especially because ceilings will be painted and not white) and get the SAD effect going... the people who lived here got a divorce which prompted their selling--so I am wondering if the paint colors contributed to disharmony... sorry to hijack the thread

So I have tried to find a local person. It’s easier said than done I’ve found. The architects and designers with a good reputation are booked up and don’t have time for smaller projects. There is a thing they call “mountain time” around here. It sounds charming but it’s not. Basically it means if they find something better to do (deer hunting, fishing, dirt biking) they just do . I actually ran into a former neighbor from Atlanta at the local grocery store at Christmas and she said that she and her husband had come up here to set up for retirement and they have ended up reopening their landscaping business up here and bringing up their entire crew as they couldn’t find a reliable person to do their place. They are now booked up for months out as other people realized they had a good crew that would actually show up. I am on a waitlist with an architect a neighbor recommended so am not giving up yet. I even asked at the courthouse when we went to get a permit to remove some trees and none of those people ever called back! It’s become a popular destination for retirement and a lot of new, expensive, building going on so my measly project must not be very enticing. RES I will do better measurements when I get back tomorrow. I just bought one of those laser measuring things so I don’t need someone there to help, which was a problem for me before. There are stairs going down to basement underneath the stairs going up to the upper master so no space for storage there :(.