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| WRA Recently Completes Innovative Wetland Mitigation Strategy
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On June 21, 2003, residents living around Little Bayou Park in south St. Petersburg were invited to join City officials, environmental regulators and private sector developers for the official ribbon cutting ceremony of the Little Bayou Habitat Restoration Project. The successful completion of the restoration project sets a strong precedent marking the beginning of a new era in creative wetland mitigation solutions.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District's (SWFWMD) Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) program initially developed the concept for the restoration project, located on City of St. Petersburg property, in the early 1990's. It wasn't until 2001 that the project became a reality through a unique agreement between Echelon Commercial LLC, a local developer, and several environmental permitting agencies including the City of St. Petersburg, the Pinellas County Water and Navigation Control Authority, SWFWMD, and the United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACOE).
As part of a proposal to develop Carillon Town Center along Ulmerton Road in St. Petersburg, Echelon was seeking permits for a 1.7-acre wetland impact that involved filling a marginally functioning wetland directly adjacent to Ulmerton Road. As part of the permitting process Echelon was required to implement a wetland mitigation plan that included a combination of restoration and creation of nearly 6 acres of wetlands. With no suitable areas for mitigation located on the Town Center site, Echelon turned to their engineering and permitting consultants, Water Resource Associates (WRA) of Tampa, to develop an innovative mitigation solution.
Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in the environmental permitting industry, WRA Principal, Mark Farrell, P.E., developed a unique mitigation strategy that would incorporate the Little Bayou Restoration Plan initially proposed by the SWFWMD SWIM program 10 years earlier. Farrell became aware of the SWIM program needs during the time he was Assistant Director of SWFWMD prior to his departure in 1997. Farrell proposed a plan in which WRA, along with the help of Scheda Ecological of Tampa, would take over the restoration project where SWFWMD left off. The team of consultants would provide excavating and grading design, wetland planting design, contactor procurement, and construction management of the project from start to finish. Echelon agreed to provide 100% of the funding for the design and completion of the restoration project.
After nearly 12 months of negotiations between WRA and the permitting agencies, SWFWMD, USACOE and Pinellas County agreed that completion of the restoration project at Little Bayou would fulfill mitigation requirements. The Little Bayou Restoration Project was constructed over a period of three months and was successfully completed in April 2003. The project is now open to the public and includes a series of deep marsh holes interconnected by shallow mash channels. Newly planted wetland plants, flocks of seashore birds, and schools of fish continue to establish themselves at the site. In addition, a120-ft boardwalk has been constructed to allow nearby residents easy access to a number of fishing holes that were excavated and filled with fragments from 450 feet of demolished seawall. These areas now act as artificial reefs. (See Photo Links Below)
In the end, Echelon Development benefited as they were able to fulfill all permitting requirements without searching for and purchasing expensive offsite land for mitigation. SWFWMD benefited as their SWIM project that would have been years away from implementation was taken over, completed and paid for in full within one year. In addition, Pinellas County, the City of St. Petersburg, area residents, and the ecosystem of Tampa Bay benefited as a vacant park built from fill dirt was transformed to re-create a fully functioning estuarine ecosystem in an location previously void of such habitat.
The successful outcome for all parties involved makes the completion of the Little Bayou Restoration Project a testament to the benefits of a public/private partnership in the realm of environmental permitting and regulation.
Click on the links below to see different construction phases of the restoration project.
Photo 1: Excavation
Photo 2: Excavation
Photo 3: Excavation
Photo 4: Seawall Removal
Photo 5: Contour Grading
Photo 6: Contour Grading
Photo 7: Wetland Plantings
Photo 8: Wetland Plantings
Photo 9: Wetland Plantings
Photo 10: Boardwalk
Photo 11: Information Sign
Photos 12 & 13: Pre-Post 1
Photos 14 & 15: Pre-Post 2
Photos 16 & 17: Pre-Post 3
Florida's Competing Water Users Create a Permitting Challenge for the Future
Source: The Tampa Tribune. 30 July 2003
Who should get a permit to pump more water? The people filling a new subdivision or a farmer who grows crops?
It hasn't come to that decision yet for the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), though governing board members have discussed what will happen when competing requests for permits surface. Seeing this on the horizon, the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services has spent the past two years crafting an agricultural water policy. The result is part concrete recommendations, mostly about how agricultural water- use permits are issued, and part public relations. The Agriculture Department would also like to see water districts evaluate estimates of farming needs more often than the current practice of every five years to give farmers more flexibility in permits because of weather conditions or changing crops.
If you count pastureland and tree farms, more than half, or 52 percent, of Florida's 35 million acres is used for agriculture. Farming of all types accounts for 48 percent of the water pumped from aquifers each year, making it the largest single water user. Water for people accounts for 30 percent. Ultimately, the needs of both groups will either rise or stay about the same, with farming projected to use 47 percent of the water withdrawn by 2020 and the public's share rising to 33 percent.
No one knows when the day will come when agencies will have to choose between farming and development, according to Mary Ann Gosa, Assistant Director of Government Affairs for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation. However, Dave Moore, Executive Director of the SWFWMD, says that conflict may not come if all water users find sources other than wells, the traditional supply.
Moore said water suppliers, mainly public utilities, are looking more at tapping excess water from rivers and storing it in reservoirs such as the 15-billion-gallon one being built in southeast Hillsborough County. Another way to avoid the conflict is for agriculture to continue finding ways to use less water. The citrus industry, for example, has gone from massive overhead sprinklers to more efficient micro-irrigation. Farmers now capture excess water that runs off from irrigation to use again.
Federal Study Shows Mercury Levels Higher in Florida than in Other States
Source: The Florida Specifier. v. 25. n. 7. July 2003
A new report by the National Wildlife Federation indicates that mercury pollution continues to be a major problem in Florida and other states. This report found that rain falling from the skies over 12 states contains levels of mercury that far exceed what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for people and wildlife in surface waters. It also said that many states, including Florida, have statewide fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination. The NWF analyzed mercury rain data in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
Mercury in Florida rainfall measured more than five times the federal health standard for lakes, according to the report, which based its findings on data from the nationwide Mercury Deposition Network. Sources of mercury in the atmosphere include coal-burning manufacturing plants, ore smelting plants, and the production of devices that contain mercury.
However, Tom Atkeson, Mercury Coordinator at the FDEP, stated that mercury levels in Southern Florida have declined substantially since the mid-1990's largely due to restrictions on local mercury sources such as incinerators for medical and municipal waste. Atkeson said mercury emissions will continue to drop significantly in Florida as a result of an agreement between FDEP and Tampa Electric Company.
Conversely, Atkeson stated that higher mercury concentrations have consistently been found in rainfall across the state from southern Florida to the Okefenokee Swamp in Southern Georgia. "Air can have a significant effect on water quality. More than 95 percent of the total mercury load in the Everglades comes from air deposition," said Atkeson, who called the NWF study a "good, accurate report
Agreement Reached on Florida's Impaired Waters List
Source: EThe Florida Specifier. v. 25. n. 7. July 2003
In June, state and federal regulators announced they had reached an agreement on the list of Florida water bodies that are listed as impaired, along with others that will require further evaluation. This agreement was viewed as a milestone in the ongoing effort to restore water quality to Florida's rivers and lakes.
Florida submitted the prioritized list of impaired waters to EPA in May. The agency approved the list, adding some waters from the state's planning list as a result of differences between the two agencies' listing procedures. Other waters were added to the final list after the two agencies agreed on a different approach to evaluating bacteriological data. All of the additional waters were assigned a low priority, FDEP officials stated.
The EPA 's agreement with Florida's impaired waters list was a strong vote of support for the state's administrative rule that was used to determine which water bodies to place on the cleanup list, according to FDEP officials. Environmental groups had challenged the rule recently in federal court, stating that application of the rule represented a change in federal water quality standards. However, in late May, the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee upheld the state's procedure for identifying polluted lakes and rivers.
NPDES Enhancements Stand to Benefit Small MS4 Operators
Source: FThe Florida Specifier. v. 25. n. 7. July 2003
Local operators of small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems under Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program can look forward to some streamlining by state regulators in their effort to simplify compliance with certain requirements. Rulemaking has already begun on provisions that would affect the required submittal of annual reports, their content and eventually lead to electronic submittal of information, according to Michael Bateman, NPDES Administrator at FDEP. In order to reduce the voluminous size of reports, Bateman said FDEP would prefer that the reports focus on data and MS4 program results that indicate the effectiveness of the systems at reducing pollution.
Further guidance on the required monitoring that MS4's must conduct is also due out from FDEP. Some changes to monitoring requirements have already occurred. Monitoring has been eliminated from discharges from landfills, dry weather field screening, and discharges from high-risk industrial locations. MS4 operators have six months from the date of their permit issuance to submit a proposed monitoring plan, which FDEP said must be developed in conjunction with the Bureau of Watershed Monitoring. According to Bateman, monitoring is critical to verifying that the MS4 stormwater management plan is working effectively.
The new system will depend heavily on an environmental technical advisory team compromising of representatives from federal and state planning and resource protection agencies. The advisory team will review transportation project proposals during early planning phases and comment on potential environmental ramifications. Planners will then be able to avoid or minimize adverse impacts at a minimal cost by considering alternatives earlier on during the planning process. FDOT expects the new system to greatly reduce project delivery times while adding an additional safeguard to the environment.
Governors of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama Sign Memorandum of Understanding
Source: U.S. Water News Online
The governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the sharing of water from the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue each signed the memorandum, which details the principles of their agreement on how to allocate water from the three-river basin over the next four decades. The basic agreement details how much water would flow south and sets an expiration date of 2040 for the plan. The Chattahoochee flows from Atlanta to Columbus, Ga., forming the Alabama-Georgia border south of that point. The Flint forms south of Atlanta, flows southwest to Lake Seminole and converges with the Chattahoochee to form the Apalachicola, which flows through the Florida Panhandle.
David Struhs, Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said the state is happy with the agreement, but also emphasizes that ``there are some issues still not resolved.'' Struhs said some details, including the agreement's expiration date, flow minimums and drought plans are of particular importance to Florida. He attached his concerns to the memorandum of understanding. ``It is especially important that these non-drought flows do not become targets,'' Struhs said. ``Florida's position is that an allocation formula cannot allow more water to be taken out of the system than is currently being negotiated during the term of an agreement without mutual consent.''
The governors said they plan to have a draft agreement finished by the end of August. Then, there would be a 60-day public comment period on the proposal. If the agreement is signed after that period, the federal government will begin a 255-day comment period.
Since January 1, 2000
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