St. Lucie County is currently teeming with initiatives aimed at creating cleaner rivers and improving water quality, with 10 projects either in the planning stages, underway or recently completed.
They are all being carried out with help from the 2018 voter-approved half-cent sales tax and $19 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) of 2021.
To take advantage of the funding, money needed to be reserved by the end of 2024 and projects completed by the end of 2026.
“Residents are seeing improvements like better drainage, improved roads and new stormwater ponds,” said St. Lucie County Water Quality Division Director James Lappert. “In some neighborhoods, we are updating things that we hadn’t updated for 50 or 60 years.”
The Water Quality Division’s mission is to manage county stormwater systems to prevent flooding and property damage, and to protect water quality.
A sampling of some of the projects in progress:
• A stormwater master plan is expected to be finished this year with the most recent document updated in the 1990s. Five priority basins were identified after public outreach and interviews with stakeholders, and a capital improvement plan that will last 20 years will be created.
• Two of eight boxes are currently under construction in the River Park Baffle Box Program located west of and along the North Fork of the St. Lucie River. A baffle box has multiple compartments and filters of various sizes that allow water to flow through, with each compartment capturing different types of debris and sediment. The boxes are being constructed in River Park, a subdivision with aging septic systems and shallow swales that send stormwater into tidal waters with little or no pre-treatment.
• Construction is 90 percent complete in the Indrio Savannahs, a 297-acre preserve that contains a natural flow-way connecting the northernmost county lands to Taylor Creek. The former sand mine is cut off from the natural wetlands onsite and will be connected resulting in nutrient reductions.
• A project at the Sheraton Plaza Stormwater Treatment Area is 70 percent complete, with ARP funds used in the construction of a shallow water treatment train with dry detention areas and native vegetation to create a habitat to hold larger levels of stormwater runoff resulting in improved water quality.
• Fifty percent of a Harmony Heights subdivision project to put in new stormwater ponds and update swale systems is complete. “This is a community retrofit,” said Lappert. “We’re going in and improving drainage from 50 years ago.”
• Work at the Ancient Oaks Preserve Wet Pond is complete at the southwest corner of a 1.7-acre parcel along Oleander Avenue in the Ancient Oak Preserve/Weldon B. Lewis. The southwest corner of the property was reserved to add stormwater treatment in the area. A wet pond was constructed to help stormwater runoff treatment, thus improving water quality. Final walkthroughs and certification are pending.
Some projects have already been completed, such as the 8.8-acre stormwater treatment area along south Citrus Avenue meant to capture and treat stormwater runoff and minimize flooding; it was completed in 2024. “That’s an awesome project,” said Leppert. “We’ve squeezed it in with all these beautiful wetland plants. After a growing season or two, it’s going to look awesome.”