BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Telegraph Staff Writer
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The St. Johns River Water Management District governing board unanimously approved a $23 million contract to filter water from Black Creek before releasing it into Alligator Creek, north of Lake Brooklyn in Keystone Heights.
The filtering system is part of the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project, a plan to pump up to 10 million gallons of water daily from Black Creek to the Keystone Heights area.
Bob Naleway, the district’s chief of its Bureau of Projects and Construction, said the water treatment component is one of the three major segments of the project. The other two segments are the pumping station and the pipeline.
Naleway added that after state and federal officials insisted that Black Creek’s dark water be filtered before entering the creek, the district’s consultants evaluated seven different technologies that might accomplish the task.
He said the advisors settled on a natural filtration system developed by the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Group, adding that a similar natural filtering system was already operating near Doctors Lake to remove phosphorus from effluent before discharge into the St. Johns River inlet.
Nailway described one difference between the two filtration systems.
“In (the Doctors Lake) case, the system uses above-ground piping easily visible after installation,” he said. “The design of the Black Creek treatment system will primarily be below-ground piping to distribute the water evenly. Both applications, though, include a liner and underdrain piping to collect the treated water.”
