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01/22/10 - 06:12 PM
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Bay County, Fla:An ongoing controversy continues at the new airport. Yesterday’s massive rains, once again, bring up issues of storm water drainage.
Charles Hanson has lived on Burnt Mill Creek all of his life. He says he’s disgusted with the condition of his creek.
“I’ve never seen it like this before,” said Hanson.
He says he knows where it’s coming from.
“We followed the source the source all the way up to Morrell branch this morning and it’s a direct branch that comes straight out of the airport,” he said.
But the airport says they’re following all of the Department of Environmental protection’s guidelines for storm water runoff. They’ve been in trouble before with the DEP for the same problem, costing them close to a million dollars in sod.
“The airport authority has a full and open relationship with the FDEP. We have representatives on the project site almost on a daily basis,” said KBR Construction manager, Roy Willet.
If you look around at the airport, it looks like a swamp, with temporary holding ponds and ditches filled to the brim. Willett says that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
“We temporarily hold the water on the project site then release it at a later time,” he said.
The ponds aren’t going to be there when the airport opens. They plan to have the drainage systems operating by March.
The DEP says the water has to meet certain turbidity requirements which means it has to be clear before it gets here it goes through a series of chemical treatments.
“We’re using mechanical pumps to take that water to pump it into stabilized area in the surrounding,” said Willett.
While the airport says they have it up to code and under control, their neighbors aren’t convinced.
“It’s silt and sand that’s poured out of the airport that’s made all this brown since yesterday afternoon,” said Hanson.
The DEP says they are assessing the site.
The airport says the recent rains are a minor setback, but they are still on schedule to open on May 23rd.
Let me add a few facts to this conversation. I too have been around these bays many years. I have seen hurricanes with torrential rains in this area. In areas like West Bay and Burnt mill Creek and Crooked creek the water does turn brown but not from mud, it is from the “tannin” that washes out of the woods that turns the bays and creeks a tea color. This does not harm the plants and animals and fish with any significance. After a few days the tannin flushes out of the bays. What we saw in burnt mill creek during the last big rain was mud and sand silt that came from the airport construction area. This was documented from aerial flyovers and from a visual inspection by local conservation groups. This mud and silt does tremendous harm to fish and other sea life. We were told that measures would be taken so this would not happen. Obviously those measures failed.
my gosh what whiners, i have been running the bays in this area all my life, and when it rains the rain causes the water to move faster which in turn stirs up the silt on the bottom on the creek, which inturn causes the water to become brown, and heres a shocker it will stay that way in the bays for a few days until everything settles back down to the bottom. anyone that knows anything about the bay knows this. the news just found a couple of people that dont want the airport up there and wanted to cry, get a life move to the next issue.
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if all this was coming from the airport, then where does all the other teaing all over the bay come from, even way before they started building or even started thinking about it, when it rained it stired up the bay and whamo it turned brown? as far as hurting the bay life, i dont see it? when it rains and all the fresh water is in the bay and its brown the fish swim out to saltier waters until it gets flushed out.