BY DAN HILDEBRAN
St. Johns River Water Management District Executive Director Mike Register told the district’s governing board that all three phases of the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project are progressing.
The approximately $100 million project consists of intake pumps in the south prong of Black Creek, 17 miles of 30-inch transmission pipe, and a 20-acre treatment area within Camp Blanding.
Additional coverage of the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project
Bradley re-elected to water district chair – November 28, 2023
All three phases of Black Creek project progressing, November 7, 2023
Pipe in the ground, pumping station delayed – Black Creek project update, August 15, 2023
District approves $23 million contract to filter water – April 13, 2023
Next challenge for lakes: vegetation – December 12, 2022
Black Creek project celebrated – October 26, 2022
Black Creek pipeline bid $20 million under cost estimate – September 16, 2022
Black Creek pipeline bid approved, September 14, 2022
Black Creek critic says project will go forward – July 1, 2022
Water from Black Creek to flow south in August 2024 – March 25, 2022
August start date for Black Creek project – March 15, 2022
Black Creek project awaiting final permits – October 14, 2021
Keystone gives Bradley key to the city – September 15, 2021
Depending on water levels in the creek, the system could pump up to 10 million gallons a day from the creek toward Keystone Heights, where the water would be treated at a facility within Camp Blanding and then released into the Etoniah Chain of Lakes with Alligator Creek and Lake Brooklyn being the closest destinations. The St. Johns River tributary system includes Little Lake Keystone, Lake Geneva, Old Field Pond, Halfmoon Lake, Putnam Prairie, Goodson Prairie, and Etoniah Creek. Etoniah Creek flows into Rice Creek, which empties into the St. Johns River two miles downstream.
According to district models, the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project should recharge the Floridan Aquifer with up to 4.5 million gallons of water each day. In addition, the project could increase the open water in Lake Brooklyn by up to 387 acres and increase the emergent marsh in the lake by up to 91 acres.
Register updated the district’s governing board during its February 13 meeting and showed the nine-member panel an aerial drone photo of the treatment area under construction within Camp Blanding.
He said the treatment area will consist of six two-acre cells and a 590,000-gallon water storage tank.
Register added that the pumps at the intake station would be delivered to the site in March.
During an earlier meeting of the governing board, Dale Jenkins, the district’s director of its Division of Infrastructure and Land Resources, said workers are burying around 400 feet of pipe daily along State Roads 16 and 21.
