County out of river hearing

County out of river hearing



By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 04/09/08

St. Johns County has been barred from participating in an upcoming public hearing that will review Seminole County's plans to withdraw 5.5 million gallons of water daily from the St. Johns River, a state judge ruled this week.

But County Attorney Patrick McCormack said Tuesday that he'll file a more detailed motion within 10 days so the county will be at the table when the issue is discussed.

"Obviously, this is an opportunity for St. Johns County to amend our petition and meet the concerns of the administrative law judge, and we certainly intend to do so," McCormack said.

The City of Jacksonville, also barred due to an insufficient petition, also will refile.

Seminole had filed a motion Monday to dismiss both entities from the hearing. The judge agreed because they are more than 100 miles north of the withdrawal site of Yankee Lake.

Jacksonville attorney Michael Howle, who represents the watchdog St. Johns Riverkeeper, said representatives from both county and city will be at the hearing in October.

"They can generate a lot of paper, but Seminole County isn't going to dismiss their way out of this case," Howle said. "The judge wanted (St. Johns County and Jacksonville) to plead their case with specificity. His order, which was only two paragraphs, invites the city and St. Johns County to remedy defects in their positions."

In essence, state Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston ruled that St. Johns and Jacksonville's request to be included failed to show how losing a tenth of an inch of water from the river could hurt, since both are more than 100 miles north of Yankee Lake.

Tampa attorney Ed De La Parte, representing Seminole County, said, "The law requires them to show an adverse impact of immediate sufficiency and that the (adverse) impact is not speculative or far-fetched. It's not surprising they found it hard to show that."

Neal Armingeon, St. Johns Riverkeeper, admitted the petitions need to be reworked, but said the bigger issue is the district's long-range plans for St. Johns water withdrawals.

"That 5.5 million gallons per day is just the first step for securing 84 million gallons per day," Armingeon said. "Of course they didn't start off with (the full) 84 million."

De La Parte has 30 years experience in water resource issues, including serving as general counsel for Tampa Bay Water during the years-long and legally contentious "Water Wars" of the 1990s between St. Petersburg, Tampa and Pasco County.

He said the St. Johns River Water Management District has studied the river's minimum flow levels for 10 years and added that there have been hundreds of workshops on the issue.

"Public suppliers (of water) will have metered intakes, which are certified to be 95 percent accurate," he said. "There won't be overpumpage."

The Yankee Lake Watershed spans 18.1 square miles in Seminole, with 13 named lakes and ponds and two named rivers, plus streams and canals.

Seminole County's groundwater usage along with that of Orlando, DeLand and Volusia County is already too high and will be exhausted soon. So the county applied for and got a permit to build an $80 million plant to process river water.

Armingeon said it's "insulting" that Seminole wants 5.5 million gallons per day "to water grass."

"I no longer trust scientific reports coming from the Water Management District staff," he said. "There is a continued cooking of numbers by the district. The percentage of accurate numbers is zero."

Some private studies by private hydrologists in Pasco County do contradict the district's numbers and claim their "minimum flow levels" are too low. But De La Parte said all of the district's scientific papers are reviewed by scientists not employed by the District, presented at public hearings and adopted.

The current controversy began after Seminole County applied for its processing plant in 2004, he said.

"Where has North Florida been in all the discussion and debates?" De La Parte asked. "No one has produced any evidence to say that this withdrawal will harm the river."

At the State Road 44 bridge in DeLand, the water flow has been gauged at 2 billion gallons per day, he said.

Armingeon said North Florida might have indeed been late coming to awareness discussion about the river's fate.

"There never was a meeting in North Florida about this. We now know how serious they are," he said. "This isn't about a tiny percentage of the river. This is about millions of gallons of water."

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