Water transfers rarely work, even less than mitigations, and usually have negative consequences somewhere. The idea here is analogous to those uninformed individuals who say that we might as well bottle water from Ginnie Springs because, if not, it just goes down to the Gulf and is wasted.
From an earlier post, we have written:
The problems began in this area, some say, when JEA of Jacksonville began drawing huge amounts of water from the aquifer. This left a cone of depression which lowered some of the lakes in the area, leaving some docks high and dry and property values down. Less pumping would probably fix the problem over time, but this does not seem likely to happen.
Read the original article with photos here in ClayTodayOnline.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Construction enters second stage for Black Creek Restoration Project
GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Lake Region residents have patiently waited for the Black Creek Project to become a reality for nearly 40 years. After years of planning and discussing, the project is already in its second of three phases. Once completed, the regional project will refill the upper part of the Florida aquifer. It involves taking some excess water from Black Creek’s South Fork at State Road 16 and transferring as much as 10 million gallons daily through a 17-mile pipeline. Along the way, it will pass through a filtration system to remove tannins before the water flows into Alligator Creek, which flows into Lake Brooklyn. The project also will increase the recharge to the Upper Floridian aquifer and Lower Sante [sic] Fe basin through the lake bottom. Work on the new pipeline has started as workers complete the pump station. The $100 million project consisted of three stages. Installation of a pump station started on Oct. 24, 2022, and it’s nearly completed.
The second stage for the pipeline is underway. The third stage – the filtration station – will start later this summer.
