General manager
A St. Johns River Water Management District official said all three elements of the Black Creek Water Resource Development project are now under construction.
The primary goal of the project is to increase recharge to the Upper Floridan aquifer in northeast Florida using excess flow from Black Creek, in Clay County. The project is also expected to contribute to regional minimum flows and levels recovery and may help improve water levels in lakes and the Alligator Creek system, including drought-stressed lakes Brooklyn and Geneva. Restoration of the lakes is a secondary benefit of the project.
Dale Jenkins, the district’s director of its Division of Infrastructure and Land Resources, told the district’s governing board on October 10 that the pump station and intake at the creek, the 17-mile pipeline from the creek to Camp Blanding, and the water treatment system that will discharge water into Alligator Creek between Lakes Magnolia and Brooklyn would all be underway by the end of the month.
Jenkins said a pre-construction meeting for the water treatment system was scheduled for October 11, and he anticipated work on that element to be underway before November 1. The pump station and intake at the creek had been delayed by a nonperforming drill bit, but that delay has been remedied. Jenkins added that the electrical building at the pump station site is nearly complete, 4,500 feet of pipe has been buried, and workers are installing 400 feet of pipe per day along State Roads 21 and 16.
