BY DAN HILDEBRAN
An official with the St. Johns River Water Management District stated that fluctuating water levels in Black Creek are still too low for the district to initiate water discharges into Alligator Creek, which flows into Lake Brooklyn as part of the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project.
The project consists of a 17-mile pipeline, pumps, and a treatment facility within Camp Blanding. The project could divert up to 10 million gallons of water a day from Black Creek to Keystone Heights area lakes. It is designed to replenish the Floridan Aquifer and is part of the district’s recovery plan for minimum flows and levels of Lake Brooklyn and Lake Geneva.
Dale Jenkins, the district’s division director for infrastructure and land resources, said the minimum flow for withdrawals from Black Creek is 25 cubic feet per second.
He said that because of low and fluctuating levels, the district is using available Black Creek water to test the treatment facility at Camp Blanding.
“The water that’s coming through that’s above 25 CFS,” he told the district’s governing board during its August 12 meeting, “we’ve been using it to rinse the media in Cell 3 and I’m happy to report that the water quality testing we’ve done in two rinses in Cell Number 3, they’re meeting the water quality criteria.”
“Right now,” he continued, “there’s just enough water to where we continue to rinse the media in Cell 3 and to keep the plants growing in Cells 1 through 3. But yes, once we get a little bit more consistent flows, we should be ready to start moving water into Alligator Creek and eventually Lake Brooklyn.”
Jenkins also reported that one previous delay in the project, caused by a contractor’s inability to produce filtering media for the treatment facility, has been resolved.
“I’m also happy to report that the media processing company has put some changes in place that have really helped speed things up a little bit,” he said. “And that’s working very well. The last two weeks in a row. They’ve hit their targets for producing media. So, we’re hoping that that trend would continue.”
Jenkins told the board that all six treatment cells should be complete around the end of 2025. However, water discharges into Alligator Creek would begin as soon as levels in Black Creek are adequate.
