BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A director for the St. Johns River Water Management District said that although the pipeline and intake station for the Black Creek Water Development Resource Project are complete, the treatment facility is only 75% finished, and the media used to filter water before its discharge into Alligator Creek is only 11% complete.
Dale Jenkins, the director of the district’s Division of Infrastructure and Land Resources, told the district’s governing board during its January 14 meeting that he could not say when Black Creek water would start flowing into Keystone Heights area lakes but estimated that March might be the earliest.
The Black Creek Water Resource Development Project is designed to recharge the Upper Floridan aquifer and raise water levels in Lakes Brooklyn and Geneva. The project is part of the lakes’ recovery plan, which helps the district comply with regulatory minimum flows and levels.
The project consists of three components: the intake and pump stations at the intersection of State Road 16 and the creek’s south fork, the 17.2-mile pipeline along State Roads 21 and 16, and the treatment facility on Camp Blanding between Lake Magnolia and Lake Brooklyn.
Jenkins said that the pipeline is half full of water now because of previous pressure testing.
The director added that testing of the system controls and data acquisition at the pump station should be complete within three to four weeks.
“So once all the pumps have been tested,” he told governing board members, “we’ll fill up that pipeline, we’ll fill up that tank, and then we’ll be ready to put water into the treatment system.
Jenkins said the project’s current holdup is the production of the treatment facility’s media, through which the brown, tannin, Black Creek water will be filtered before being discharged into Alligator Creek.
“The contractor is doing a major reconstruction of the treatment process,” he explained. “There are three brand new conveyors that are being put into place, and the contractor has informed me that they will be done sometime in late January. It should be able to produce media three times quicker than they are right now.”
The treatment facility at Camp Blanding consists of a water tank and six cells for filtering the water.
Jenkins said Cell 1 is almost full of media. Cells 2 and 3 are ready for media whenever it becomes available, and Cells 4, 5, and 6 are still under construction.
The director said the project’s final hurdle will be water quality testing once the treatment facility is complete.
