BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A St. Johns River Water Management District manager said the district cannot begin moving water from Black Creek to the Keystone Heights area until water levels in the creek rise to sufficient levels.
“It’s been really dry in the south fork of the Black Creek subbasin,” Dale Jenkins told the district’s governing board on July 8. “They haven’t been getting a lot of rain. There have been three little peaks during that time frame where the creek was above 25 cubic feet per second, which would have permitted withdrawal flow, but it dropped back fairly quickly.”
Jenkins added that progress is still being made on the project’s final phase, the treatment center within Camp Blanding.
“Cells 1 and 2 are completely filled with media and plants except for a very small area in Cell 2,” he said. “The plants will be put into Cell 2 next week. Cell 3 is about 85% full of media right now.”
Tim Miller, the district’s bureau chief of Water Resource Information, told the board that abnormally dry conditions developed in Clay County during June. He added that moderate drought conditions were observed in Putnam and Lake counties.
Lake Brooklyn’s water level dipped 1.1 feet during June, marking the seventh consecutive month the lake has lost water. The lake level in November was 112.1 feet. In June, the level had dropped to 108.1 feet. However, the lake remains above its long-term average.
