FLMS HAS TWO DIFFERENT PROGRAMS TO HELP FUND LAKE ENHANCEMENT PROJECTS

The first program is the LOVE YOUR LAKE Cost-Share Program. This program will contribute matching funds to expand larger lake enhancement projects. The second is the FLMS SHORELINE DEVELOPMENT AWARD PROGRAM which is a $200 award for small shoreline projects. 

FLMS LOVE YOUR LAKE COST-SHARE PROGRAM

FLMS has created a cost-share program to fund lake, pond and shoreline projects that demonstrate beneficial management techniques that will help protect, preserve and restore Florida's aquatic resources. Each year FLMS will solicit grant proposals which describe successful management projects. The proposals will be reviewed by a selection committee according to the criteria outlined below.  FLMS will provide matching funds for expenses incurred by the successful applicant.  Expenditures by the applicant can be in the form of labor or monetary contributions.  A selection committee organized by FLMS will review and select the project that meets the majority of the criteria rating points.  The rating system is as follows:

The application should include the following:  the person or entity performing the project, a one-page description of the proposed project (must include a maintenance plan), address of project, budget for the project, drawing of proposed enhancements (including plants used), and telephone number.  Applicants need to also agree to take plenty of before, during restoration and after photographs to provide to FLMS.  Deadline for submittal of project proposals is March 1.  Projects must be completed by May 1 of the following year.   Shoreline management projects may require permits from the Department of Environmental Protection and/or the Water Management District, as well as one from your local municipality.  The applicant is responsible for obtaining all permits required before starting the project.  If you have any questions, please email Maryann Utegg .  Please send Applicant Packet to by March 1:

FLMS
PO Box 950701
Lake Mary, FL  32795-0701

This type of project will benefit many members of your community by showing them how they can keep their shorelines environmentally friendly.  By enlisting the help of volunteers, your shoreline demonstration project will solidify ongoing efforts to preserve native Florida habitats.

For a Printable Version of the Guidelines, Click Here.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

Click a year to see the projects supported.

Four Shoreline Improvement Projects Receive 2005 FLMS Grants

1. Science Center of Pinellas County – Wetland Enhancement Project

The Science Center of Pinellas County is a teaching museum that features hands-on educational opportunities for more than 45,000 people who visit the center each year. FLMS in conjunction with a matching $5,000 grant from the South West Florida Water Management District is supporting the enhancement of The Science Centers wetland learning area. The enhancement project will include enlarging and deepening the existing wetland/pond area, removal of invasive and exotic plants, installing a pond liner and a water supply and recirculation pump.

2. Arrow Lake Restoration at Sawgrass Lake Park - Pinellas County

Sawgrass Lake Park is a 400 acre parkland located in urbanized Pinellas County. The park offers almost 1 mile of elevated boardwalk through a maple swamp and 0.5 mile of foot trails that traverse an oak hammock. The Anderson Environmental Education Center, located at the park, provides environmental education classes to approximately 3,000 fourth grade students annually, while annual attendance at the park exceeds 387,000 visitors.

Arrow Lake is a 1.6 acre pond located near the Sawgrass Lake Park Education Center. Arrow Lake has an established littoral shelf but is in need of restoration. The shoreline restoration work being supported by FLMS includes installation of native aquatic vegetation and construction of a kiosk with interpretive educational signs describing habitat restoration, watershed recharge, flood protection and habitat management.

Arrow Lake prior to restoration. Note sterile condition of shoreline.
Plants were sorted and placed by colored flags to indicate where students were to plant them. Colored coded flags were already in the pond to represent the correct planting elevations.
Students installed plants. Note color coded flags placed on shoreline to represent correct elevations to install plants. Students were given plants to install that corresponded to a specific color flag.
Shoreline after planting completed. Small signs in holders were placed next to plants to identify them.   Completed Shoreline! ---->

3. North Holiday Lake – St. Augustine

Holiday Lakes is a chain of ponds and lakes within the community of St. Augustine Shores. North Holiday Lake is the largest lake in the chain. This 30-acre lake drains directly into the adjacent tidal Moultrie Creek. Most of the vegetation around the edges of North Holiday Lake has been mowed down to the water line. The lake itself contains very little emergent vegetation and the exotic species Hydrilla is the dominant submersed plant. The restoration of North Holiday Lake and it's surrounding shoreline is being supported by FLMS and will include; (1) constructing a swale that will decrease runoff entering the lake and increase water infiltration time; (2) establishing an emergent littoral zone and a no mow zone around the lake's perimeter to enhance wildlife habitat; (3) enhance the upland shoreline with native vegetation (e.g., cypress and way myrtle); (4) reduce the cost of Hydrilla management by stocking triploid grass carp and (5) installing educational signs describing the shoreline restoration project.

4. Central Florida Zoo

ZooLab is part of the Central Florida Zoo's (CFZ) new Discovery Center that opened in March 2005. Thousands of central Florida middle school students visit the CFZ each year to learn about environmental management and conservation. The zoo is expanding its teaching facility by constructing a ZooLab pond that will be utilized by fifth grade students as part of the Cycles in Nature program. The pond will be built on the shore of a stream that runs through the CFZ property and eventually into Lake Monroe and the St. Johns River. Students will have the opportunity to observe and identify life in and around the pond using microscopes, dip nets, magnifying glasses and field guides. A goal is to help students understand how these plants and animals interact with their environment. The pond will also be used for summer camp programs. FLMS is supporting the construction of the ZooLab pond.

Five Shoreline Improvement Projects Receive 2004 FLMS Grants
FLMS awards $20,500 in "Love Your Lake" cost share grants.

1. Lake Seminole Park - Pinellas County ($6,200)

Lake Seminole Park is a 255 acre park located in central Pinellas County. The park offers boating, fishing, and 2 miles of passive recreational trails. Annual attendance at the park exceeds 1.2 million visitors. The shoreline restoration work supported by FLMS will focus on a 3.7 acre pond and include littoral shelf enhancement, the creation of a wildlife island, the installation of an aeration system, and the planting of native vegetation along the shoreline. Interpretive signage describing ecosystem/habitat management also will be installed. Signs will describe the functions of lakes and ponds including their importance to wildlife and the benefits they provide for flood protection, storm water management and watershed recharge.

2.  Saratoga Lake - Cape Coral ($4,300 )

Cape Coral 's Environmental Resource Division (ERD) is responsible for monitoring 300 miles of the city's fresh water canals. With declines in water quality, ERD is developing project demonstration sites to display what citizens can do to improve water quality in their back yards. The demonstration site project being supported by FLMS is located along the shoreline at Saratoga Lake Park . The littoral site will be planted with native submersed and emergent vegetation which will be identified by signage explaining the benefits of the enhanced shoreline. The project site also is scheduled to become a Florida Yards and Neighborhoods demonstration area.

3.  Cape Coral High School ($4,000)

The Cape Coral High School campus includes a fenced half acre pond site. Students and teachers have spent hundreds of volunteer hours enhancing the site. Debris has been removed, eroded banks have been repaired, exotic vegetation has been removed and a walkway and picnic tables have been installed near the pond.

The pond is utilized by migratory and resident birds, small mammals, amphibians, fish and other animals. Science teachers now plan to use the pond as an outdoor classroom and are joining the city sponsored Canalwatch and county sponsored Pondwatch programs. Students will learn to collect and analyze water quality data and track trends for this pond and other water bodies in the area. Students also will use the pond to learn about native/non-native flora, invertebrates, soils, fish and other ecosystem based curriculum.

The final phase of the pond beautification project is being supported by FLMS and includes the installation of additional shoreline vegetation and informative educational signs.

4.  Lake Alto Shoreline Restoration - Gainesville ($3,000)

Lake Alto is located in northeast Alachua County and is connected to Lake Santa Fe. Approximately 500 feet of shoreline near the county boat ramp will be enhanced. Exotic vegetation will be removed, and replaced with native vegetation. Shoreline trees and educational signs also will be installed.

5.  Lake Condel - Orange County ($3,000)

Lake Condel is a small lake (< 4 acres) located in Orange County. Recently, several hundred feet of invasive cattail was removed from the western shoreline. The lake is again visible but the littoral landscape is bare. The shoreline restoration project supported by FLMS includes replanting the impacted area with native aquatic vegetation and installing informative educational signs. The project will be completed by lakefront home owners and will enhance the lake shoreline by providing wildlife habitat, erosion control and sediments consolidation.

Four Shoreline Improvement Projects Receive 2003 FLMS Grants
FLMS awards $20,000 in "Love Your Lake" cost share grants.

1. Project Wise Guys - Lakeland Christian School. 

In 2002 sixth grade students at Lakeland Christian School initiated a watershed education project. Their hard work resulted in the creation of Faith's Forest, an enhanced stormwater retention wetland located on their school's campus. The Love Your Lake grant funds will be used to establish an educational nature trail through the project area, install story boards and develop a brochure providing information on Florida's water resources, stormwater run-off, flood control, exotic vegetation management and the use of native aquatic plants to improve water quality and provide wildlife habitat.

2. The Florida Aquarium - Tampa

The Florida Aquarium is the largest not-for-profit aquarium in the state of Florida. The Aquarium houses a living collection of over 9,500 animals and plants in its Wetlands, Bays and Beaches, Coral Reef, and Offshore galleries. The Aquarium is developing a new stormwater education program utilizing three on-site stormwater ponds. A number of improvements have already been made to several ponds in order to reduce pollutant loads being discharged into Tampa Bay. Additional improvements are needed and support for the project will be provided with a grant from the Love Your Lake cost share program. Funding will help provide an aeration / bubbler system for the wet-detention pond as well as additional educational signs describing the benefits of the project. 

3. Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens - Lake Osceola, Winter Park

The museum is located on Lake Osceola which is part of the Winter Park Chain of Lakes. Approximately 10,000 people visit the museum each year thus providing an excellent opportunity for public education. The Love Your Lake grant will support efforts to restore nearly 300 feet of Lake Osceola's shoreline. Restoration work will include the removal of exotic vegetation, revegetating the shoreline with more than 2,500 native plants, and creating a berm and swale system to reduce nutrient runoff into the lake. Educational signs describing the project and the function of the shoreline vegetation in lake ecology will also be installed.

4. Palma Sola Botanical Park (Bradenton)

The park is frequently visited by the public and is located adjacent to a large wet detention stormwater pond facility. Love Your Lake funds will be used to enhance a stormwater pond. Enhancements will include removing nuisance exotic vegetation and planting native aquatic plants and upland shade trees. Walking trails with educational signs that identify beneficial native plants and describe best management practices regarding shoreline landscapes will also be constructed adjacent to the stormwater pond.

The Florida Lake Management Society would like to thank the Free Family Foundation for helping us support successful community based shoreline management projects. The Love Your Lake projects selected each year serve not only to improve environmental conditions (e.g., fish and wildlife habitat, water quality) along shorelines but they also serve as an educational tool providing hundreds of project volunteers and thousands of others the opportunity to learn more about responsible lake and water resource management.

Three Shoreline Improvement Projects Receive 2002 FLMS Grants

1.  Riverbend Park- Jupiter- $4000

Riverbend Park is part of the Palm Beach County Parks system and is scheduled to open in 2002. This park will feature activities such as hiking, canoeing, and picnicking. Waterways have been reconstructed to re-hydrate cypress sloughs and to bring a flow of water to the Loxahatchee river, creating several hundred new acres of lake in the watershed.

Using the local community volunteers and the Jupiter Environmental Research and Field Studies Academy student body, invasive exotic plants will be removed and beneficial native vegetation will be planted along a 3 acre littoral shelf. Informational signs will be installed to teach the public the benefits of this ecosystem.

 2.  Central Florida Zoo- Lake Bartram Project- Sanford- $4000

As part of a large scale project to update the Zoo's facilities, Lake Bartram will be constructed to provide compensation storage, water quality treatment, wetland/upland native plantings, and connectivity with off-site wetlands. The Lake Bartram project will also provide an excellent educational opportunity for the large amount of Zoo visitors each year. Interpretive graphics will be located around the lake and will offer information on aquatic eco-systems, littoral zone function, wildlife species at the lake, and the Lake's goals as a conservation unit.

 3.  Narcoossee Community School- St. Cloud- $4000

The Narcoossee Community School seeks to restore and maintain the school lakefront campus on East Lake Tohopekaliga. This project will use classes and parent volunteers to identify and remove invasive plants, and research and plant beneficial native vegetation. Signs will be installed to identify lakefront plants and the school will maintain the environmental restoration for community viewing. The school is part of the public library system so the students will be trained to conduct educational tours of the restoration process. NCS students will also be working with the FFWCC as part of another restoration project in East Lake Toho and will have plenty of hands on training to ensure their awareness of aquatic ecosystem function and beauty.

Two Shoreline Improvement Projects Receive 2001 FLMS Grants

The Florida Lake Management Society has selected two municipalities to receive Love-Your-Lake cost-share awards in 2001. This year because of the generous contribution of $10,000 by Free Family Foundation to the Love-Your-Lake Program FLMS has selected projects in Hollywood and Windermere. Windermere's Johnson Park project will receive up to $8,000 while Hollywood's Oak Lake Park project will receive up to $4,000 as cost-share funding for native plant aquascaping, landscaping, and educational signs. The signs will be used for labeling native plants, explaining the benefits to the environment of the project and to describe any Best Management Practices within the project. Each year FLMS looks to award Love-Your-Lake funds to projects which benefit lakes and the environment.  Check back later for updates on the progress of these two projects.

City of Maitland Helps Fund Lake Charity Restoration Project in 2000

The Lake Charity Restoration Project was a collaborative effort between the Homeowners around Lake Charity, Orange County and the City of Maitland. The City and the Lakes Advisory Board (LAB) reviewed and approved the Lake Charity Restoration plan in January of 2000, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) issued an aquatic vegetation removal permit in May 2000. Orange County provided 80% of the funds needed for the project with the use of a Municipal Separated Tax Unit (MSTU), and the City of Maitland covered the rest of the funds. Additional funding for the project was obtained from the Florida Lakes Management Society (FLMS) for the installation of aquatic plants, Bald Cypress trees and educational signs.

A survey and the present low water level (11 feet below normal high water) put into evidence that the sedimentation process over the last 40 years has deposited over three feet of muck between the Druid Isle Lagoon and Lake Charity. The accumulation of muck has restricted water circulation and accelerated the growth of invasive plants and aquatic weeds in the lake. The water circulation between the Druid Isle Lagoon and Lake Charity was completely restored during the first phase of the project; 8 truck loads (approx. 144 cubic yards) of different types of weeds and invasive plants (i.e. hydrilla, cattails, etc.) were removed. Three hundred cubic yards of muck were dredged in a small corridor (25 ft. wide x 300 ft. long) to restore the original grade and water circulation in the lake. The muck removed from the lake was recycled on-site along the end of Druid Isle, and used to build an environmental berm to prevent stormwater runoff pollution.

The second phase of the project will begin in the northwest part of the lake as soon as the water level permits the use of an airboat and a special rake for the removal of vegetation. The lake restoration project focuses on the removal of invasive plants, aquatic weeds, dead woody plant materials and muck in Lake Charity.