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While work is underway to build the 17-mile pipeline, a contractor hasn't been named to build a treatment system to lift color from Black Creek water.
A state agency’s bid to protect water levels at Clay County’s shrunken Keystone Heights lakes is getting pushback from utilities including JEA, which on Monday could challenge plans that depend on pumping water through a 17-mile pipeline. JEA likes the St. Johns River Water Management District’s plan to build the pipeline from Black Creek but worries it could be stuck paying an “inequitable” bill for $13 million. “While we support the project … we have to do that with the customers in mind and what the financial impact might be,” CEO Jay Stowe told his board before it gave hi...
But first, it has some cleaning to do. Excess water from Black Creek, a tributary of the St. Johns River, will be diverted by pipeline into Alligator Creek. From there, it will flow into Lake Brooklyn and eventually percolate into the aquifer, said Dale Jenkins, district director of projects. “We would do it only under conditions of high wet-weather flow. We can divert up to 10 million gallons a day safely from Black Creek, which would protect the Black Creek system,” Jenkins said. “The primary purpose is a regionally beneficial aquifer recharge. The way we do that is by moving the wate...