In this episode, Brett sits down with national water quality data expert – Julie Espy. They discuss her rise through the ranks at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection; whether Florida’s Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) are still the best tool to remediate water quality degradation; and why one should never, ever, call her a Sooner
To learn more about the state’s Basin Management Action Plans, go here: https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/basin-management-action-plans-bmaps
To find out more about SAS, visit their webpage here: https://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html
To reach out to Julie directly, email her at: Julie.espy@sas.com
Our theme song is “Doing Work For Free”, by Bo Spring Band (Apple Music) (Spotify) (Pandora)
Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to Water for Fighting, where we discuss the past, present, and future of water in Florida with the people who make it happen. I’m your host, Brett Cyphers. I’ve spent over 20 years working with and getting to know the people who’ve made water, their life’s work, and I created this podcast to allow you, the listener, to get to know them as well. This episode of Water for Fighting is brought to you by Florida Water Advocates, Florida Water Advocates, where we’re tackling the water resource challenges of the future Today, I think you’re all really gonna like today’s guest, Julie Espy. Julie May be an Oklahoma native, but she’s an honorary Florida woman since she graduated from college and moved here in 1994. Julie worked her way up the ranks in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection over 23 years, finishing as the director of the Division of Environmental Assessment, and she’s now the National Director of Water Quality and Environmental Data Solutions at sass. Let’s get right into it. So you grew up in Oklahoma as the daughter of two Oklahoma State Cowboys. Is calling someone a sooner in your family fighting words?Speaker 2 00:01:17 Uh, absolutely. My dad pretty much wears orange and black or garnet and gold every single day. Uh, so yes, he would, uh, he would definitely disown me if I, uh, called him a sooner.Speaker 1 00:01:30 Well, tell me what that, that was like growing up in Oklahoma, where, well, where was your father from? Because you said he was in the military as a helicopter pilot, is that right?Speaker 2 00:01:38 My grandfather. YourSpeaker 1 00:01:39 Grandfather, yeah. Okay.Speaker 2 00:01:40 So my dad grew up kind of all over, you know, in Germany. Uh, he was born in New Hampshire, although he never really lived there, I don’t think.
