Converted
02-17-2006, 07:18 AM
PORT SALERNO — Before a skeptical crowd, state water managers defended a plan to store and cleanse water from Martin County farms and homes Thursday, a day before construction on the $329 million project is scheduled to begin.
During the public meeting at Indian River Community College's Chastain Campus, St. Lucie River advocates questioned the ability of the planned reservoir and stormwater cleansing area to hold enough water during wet times, while duck hunters sought more recreational opportunities on the 12,000-acre site.
But almost everyone at the meeting also praised the scientists from the South Florida Water Management District for finally breaking ground on a project to improve the quality of water in the St. Lucie Canal, and the river into which it drains.
"The water quality is as bad as it gets," said Patrick Hayes, a member of a district advisory board and the Rivers Coalition. "Notwithstanding the water from the lake, just what's coming off our watershed is degraded. It's causing real problems in our estuary."
The project, part of the statewide $10.5 billion Everglades restoration effort, is designed to treat 65 percent of the stormwater flowing from nearby land. Other projects are planned to clean and store polluted water now being discharged from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River.
Ed Copeland, a district consultant with West Palm Beach-based HDR Engineering, said a 475-acre test cell — which includes two small reservoirs and two marshes for water cleansing — will be built at the site near Indiantown starting today.
Work to reconfigure nearby canals used for irrigation will begin in October, he added.
"These are the learning grounds," he said. "We'll spend time modeling and seeing where the water will go."
However, the engineers said they modeled the project using data from 1965 to 2000, mostly dry years in a decades-long climatic trends associated with changes in the Atlantic Ocean temperature. Hayes and other activists at the meeting suggested they use data from wet times — before 1965 and after 1995 — to determine whether more water storage is needed.
Currently, the reservoir will be about 15 feet deep, with 32-foot-high embankment walls surrounding it. The marshes would be about 1.5 feet deep, they said.
Copeland added that the project is also designed to accept water from a proposed diversion canal from the C-23 canal into the C-44, or St. Lucie Canal.
Newton Cook, the president of United Waterfowlers of Florida, said he hoped opportunities for outdoor recreation would be added to the design, which will be finalized in July.
Duck hunting and bass fishing will likely be as good in the reservoir as it is in the nearby Florida Power and Light reservoir, which was once open to the public, or the stormwater treatment areas south of Lake Okeechobee, he said.
"We have a lot of people driving two or three hours to the south," he said. "This gives people here in Martin County a place to go."
Size: 12,000 acres total, including a 3,400-acre reservoir and 6,200 marshes to clean the water.
Goal: To cleanse and store up to 65 percent of the water flowing from nearby farms and homes.
Public Use: A 100-acre Martin County park is included in the plan, which could also feature a boat.
Timeline: Construction on test cells begins today, with final completion scheduled for Dec. 31, 2009.
During the public meeting at Indian River Community College's Chastain Campus, St. Lucie River advocates questioned the ability of the planned reservoir and stormwater cleansing area to hold enough water during wet times, while duck hunters sought more recreational opportunities on the 12,000-acre site.
But almost everyone at the meeting also praised the scientists from the South Florida Water Management District for finally breaking ground on a project to improve the quality of water in the St. Lucie Canal, and the river into which it drains.
"The water quality is as bad as it gets," said Patrick Hayes, a member of a district advisory board and the Rivers Coalition. "Notwithstanding the water from the lake, just what's coming off our watershed is degraded. It's causing real problems in our estuary."
The project, part of the statewide $10.5 billion Everglades restoration effort, is designed to treat 65 percent of the stormwater flowing from nearby land. Other projects are planned to clean and store polluted water now being discharged from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River.
Ed Copeland, a district consultant with West Palm Beach-based HDR Engineering, said a 475-acre test cell — which includes two small reservoirs and two marshes for water cleansing — will be built at the site near Indiantown starting today.
Work to reconfigure nearby canals used for irrigation will begin in October, he added.
"These are the learning grounds," he said. "We'll spend time modeling and seeing where the water will go."
However, the engineers said they modeled the project using data from 1965 to 2000, mostly dry years in a decades-long climatic trends associated with changes in the Atlantic Ocean temperature. Hayes and other activists at the meeting suggested they use data from wet times — before 1965 and after 1995 — to determine whether more water storage is needed.
Currently, the reservoir will be about 15 feet deep, with 32-foot-high embankment walls surrounding it. The marshes would be about 1.5 feet deep, they said.
Copeland added that the project is also designed to accept water from a proposed diversion canal from the C-23 canal into the C-44, or St. Lucie Canal.
Newton Cook, the president of United Waterfowlers of Florida, said he hoped opportunities for outdoor recreation would be added to the design, which will be finalized in July.
Duck hunting and bass fishing will likely be as good in the reservoir as it is in the nearby Florida Power and Light reservoir, which was once open to the public, or the stormwater treatment areas south of Lake Okeechobee, he said.
"We have a lot of people driving two or three hours to the south," he said. "This gives people here in Martin County a place to go."
Size: 12,000 acres total, including a 3,400-acre reservoir and 6,200 marshes to clean the water.
Goal: To cleanse and store up to 65 percent of the water flowing from nearby farms and homes.
Public Use: A 100-acre Martin County park is included in the plan, which could also feature a boat.
Timeline: Construction on test cells begins today, with final completion scheduled for Dec. 31, 2009.