BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The president of the Save Our Lakes Organization told the Keystone Heights City Council that the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project is on schedule and that water should be flowing from the creek toward Keystone Heights no later than the first quarter of 2025.
The project is a combination of pumps, a filtration system, and 18 miles of pipe that could transport up to 10 million gallons of water daily from the creek to Keystone Heights lakes and the Floridan Aquifer. The project is the critical element of the district’s recovery plan for Lakes Brooklyn and Geneva, which have both fallen below regulatory minimum flows and levels.
Vivian Katz-James told the council that installation of the pipe along State Roads 16 and 21 should be complete in October based on information from the St. Johns River Water Management District. The district will take around two months to test the filtration system and other project elements.
“So, water should start flowing into Alligator Creek, best guess: December (2024) or January of 2025,” she said. “It’s coming in south of (Lake) Magnolia, so it doesn’t have a long way to go to get into Brooklyn. (The water management district) expects to have an average of 7.5 million gallons a day coming into Brooklyn, and we’re going to see what happens with Geneva.”
Katz also spoke to the Lake Geneva fishing pier project. She said she would ask Clay County Commissioners to support the pier, in addition to the Clay County Utility Authority. She added that Save Our Lakes has earmarked a contribution to the nonprofit by the Keystone Heights Volunteer Fire Department a few years ago for pier construction.
“I think we’re in very good shape funding-wise for the pier,” she said.
Regarding the Geneva Project, a SOLO-led effort to clear the dry lakebed of Lake Geneva of trees and vegetation before water levels on the lake rise, Katz-James said her group is awaiting permits from Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection.
“We’re not sure what the permit will be, but what we’re hoping for…is a permit that allows us to move in and cut and haul everything out in a very simple fashion.”
She added that once her group gets regulatory approval for the project, a logging company can clear the trees and debris from the lakebed in two weeks.
