06 May County weighs in: Is a 20-foot high reservoir on Mecca Farms site the cure for saltwater invasion?
By Kimberly Miller
Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post
A dispute over how best to cure the saltwater-poisoned Loxahatchee River reached Palm Beach County commissioners who this week took a stand against a key element in restoration plans — a pricey deep-water reservoir with walls nearly 20 feet high.
The proposed above-ground reservoir, which would be built on 1,600 acres of the Mecca Farms site west of Palm Beach Gardens, would store freshwater that could be fed to the river to fight a saltwater invasion from the Jupiter Inlet.
The Army Corps of Engineers is accepting comments through Monday on the $473 million Loxahatchee River Watershed Restoration Project. The chance to weigh in is what triggered the county commissioners’ vote Tuesday to support the overall plan, but ask for a reconsideration of the towering reservoir.
A handful of organizations, including Sustainable Palm Beach County, were asked to keep their opposition to the reservoir quiet in the fall so the long-delayed rescue operation could make it to the comment phase, said former Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus, who is president of Sustainable Palm Beach County.
There was a fear the project, which is overshadowed by bigger-impact items such as the $1.6 billion reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, would get derailed as it has for more than a decade without a united front.
“We were asked to stand down last year and that this piece would be fixed, but that never happened,” Marcus said. “The fact that the county commission, which should take a lead on these discussions, says the emperor has no clothes is big.”
Marcus said her group has shown that a shallow reservoir on Mecca Farms, that would basically turn Mecca into a restored wetlands area, could be used in conjunction with land donated by the nearby Avenir development to restore the river.
Mecca Farms, once slated for The Scripps Research Institute, was purchased but the South Florida Water Management District in 2003. It is located off Seminole Pratt Whitney Road between the Beeline Highway and Northlake Boulevard.
A shallow reservoir, Marcus said, could be built for an estimated $28 million as opposed to $180 million for an above-ground reservoir.
“From a public safety perspective, it’s the height of the above-ground reservoir and proposed berm that is a concern,” said Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay, whose district includes areas west of State Road 7 to Lake Okeechobee. “In addition to that is the price tag.”
Corps spokesman John Campbell said it would be premature to comment on the county’s vote prior to the closure of the comment period.
The South Florida Water Management District said tinkering too much with the proposal could mean it wouldn’t make it into the 2020 Water Resources Development Act for funding. That would mean at least a two-year delay on a project that is already proposed to take 9 to 15 years.
According to the district, the proposed Loxahatchee restoration plan will meet 91 percent of the ideal flow level to the river during the dry season. Currently, about 60 percent of the flow is met.
Three decades ago, parts of the meandering Loxahatchee River earned federal designation as a wild and scenic river — one of only two in Florida.
But development, roads and canals have so altered the watershed that most of the freshwater the river gets during the dry season is from the Grassy Waters Preserve. That tap can be shut off during dry times because Grassy Waters Preserve also supplies the bulk of West Palm Beach’s drinking water.
Without a consistent freshwater flow, saltwater creeps deep into the blackwater system, pushing back native cypress trees and replacing them with brackish-water loving mangroves.
The Loxahatchee restoration effort has been ongoing for at least 15 years and is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP. The state and federal government would split the costs for the plan if approved.
“We have a chance to get this right,” said Everglades Law Center Executive Director Lisa Interlandi, who supports the river’s restoration but opposes an above-ground reservoir. “We don’t need to be putting more deep-storage reservoirs in neighborhoods.”
Comments about the restoration can be submitted by email to LoxRiverComments@usace.army.mil or mailed to Dr. Ann Hodgson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, P.O. Box 4970 Jacksonville, FL 32232.