Some members that haven’t been able to attend our regular meetings on the 2nd Monday of every month are wondering what’s going on! Well, I won’t be able to elaborate on everything because of space and time but here are some of the highlights. As President of Save Our Lakes Organization and being a City councilman for Keystone Heights keeps me very busy. I have had several phone calls with State Rep. Joe Pickens and a meeting at his Palatka office. Those in attendance were Dennis Barnhardt, VP, Robert Thomas, Board member, Jack Hall, Rep. Joe Pickens and myself. At the conclusion of this meeting Rep. Pickens said he would approach Mr. Kirby Green, Executive Director of the SJRWMD, to ask if he would consider funding the follow up study by Peter Schrueder. Rep. Pickens and Senator Evelyn Lynn supported the study and feel the study is very much needed to complete the final options we are requesting, like Option #5 and other water reuse projects that would help recycle water back to the Floridan Aquifer. As of this letter I am not sure about funding for this study, but we are not giving up the search for funds.
Other people I have contacted are Stakeholders of a current study going on right now! (I wish we would have known about this one from the start two years ago). The name of the group is Lower St. Johns River Reuse and Treatment Project West River Reuse Initiative Solutions. The object of this study is to reduce NITRATES being dumped into the St. Johns River from waste water treatment facilities (approximate amount of water per day is 50 to 70 million gallons! WOW!) The Stakeholders are CCUA (Mr. Ray Avery), JEA, FDEP( Jeff Martin), and CH2M Hill consultants for JEA. These are the only Stakeholders I know of, according to SJRWMD. The cost of this study is $ 120,000.00. I am thankful CCUA is one of the Stakeholders. Ray Avery is a very open minded person and has our lake area’s interest at heart. I have spoken to Mr. Avery and he understands the area’s water needs. Like Peter Schrueder, he also thinks Camp Blanding could be a good place to start to help recycle water back to the Floridan Aquifer and accomplish wet land restoration at the same time. I also think wetland mitigation with contractors could help raise money for this project when completed. Wetlands acreage created can be swapped when a contractor needs to fill in some wetlands in a project for example. They have to pay to create wetlands in another area. The current price I hear is 30 to 50,000 dollars an acre. I have also talked with Jeff Martin of FDEP. Mr. Martin also agrees this would be a good use of the final effluent and storm water. At a recent meeting with Kraig McClain, SJRWMD Program Manager of the water reuse project agreed it was not a bad idea either. They are looking at sending this water to west Clay County, but the cost may be too much to be considered, but they are listening. According to Kraig McClain, the estimated cost is $350,000,000. I have told them all we should be thinking of the whole State of Florida, not just the areas along the St. Johns River. Between the big cities and the new growth, we’re being pumped dry and we may never make it up with rainfall.
I think they need to recalculate and compare the costs for not doing it! Examples: desalinization plants, reverse osmosis plants, employees’ salaries, benefits, worker’s comp, vehicles, continuing education, electric bills for offices, and water bills—must I go on? I think you get the picture. Not to mention the negative effect on the Aquifer, wetlands, economy, recreation, the loss of increase in property values, lower tax revenues, food supply. I think if we can afford to keep sending the space shuttle up we can do this between County, State and Federal Governments.
I have contacted Representatives Mary Ann Gosa and Andrew Walmsley of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation . They will be in attendance at our meeting on July 9, 2007. We hope to gain the support of Farm Bureau representing the farmers in Florida. This organization can also help in grant requests and lobbying, all the way to Washington.
I am also hoping to speak to Mary Oakley. She is in charge of the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, started by Governor Charlie Crist. The local officials that I have been in contact with and whom are helping us are: Clay County Commissioners, Chereese Stewart, and Robert Bradley.
I have been in contact with St. Johns River Keepers Organization, a private nonprofit organization. I have talked at length with Neil A. Armingeon. He is going to try and attend our meeting in August. This group is responsible for getting the attention of SJRWMD and I feel they have helped get the study going. As I mentioned earlier, he wants more information, but he thinks our two groups can work together on these issues. This is great for us as they are a large and well funded group who have a lot of contacts that can help us. Well, I hope this helps to inform everyone of some of the many things we are doing. I have a lot more people to contact.
WE NEED YOU to be at our meetings and bring a friend. Just think what we can do with more people. We need help in obtaining memberships—there is power in numbers! Please don’t believe that its just rainfall! We have not been in a 30 year drought!!!
We will be holding a stakeholders meeting soon and I hope you can attend. A large turn out can show all these officials how important it is for FLORIDA.
Oh, by the way, Save Our Lakes aired their first radio talk show last month. Dennis and I both have been on the Sky Radio show 3 times with “Sky” host Jay Anderson. Hydrologist Peter Schrueder was on one of the shows with us by speaker phone. Jay Anderson likes having us on the show and agrees we’ve got to be proactive.
UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL


Vice Presidents Report by Dennis Barnhardt
As most of you already are aware of, the new Florida Governor Crist approved some “new state plan tax cuts” totaling $31 billion dollars of loss revenues for funding over the next two years. Which means for the year of 2008 Florida’s local governments will lose $15.6 billion in revenues and $16 billion in 2009. According to some whom have done the calculations this tax cut represents about $1,300 savings per homeowner.
Our request for the $50,000 to have the hydrologic study done, which by the way was approved by the City of Keystone Heights City Council and by the Clay County Commissioners and made its way through the Florida Senate and House of Representatives was vetoed by the Governor. Apparently this ended up being part of the tax cuts the new Governor promised to make if he were elected.
It is my guess that Governor Crist vetoed the request without even researching the validity or necessity of the environmental issues concerning our lakes.
According to an article published in the Florida Times Union titled “Quality of life will deteriorate”, written by the President of the Jesse Ball dupont Fund, Sherry Magill, Ph.D., she was quoted as saying, “The Governor and legislative leadership assume that lower property taxes will stimulate the economy through greater home building, a dubious assumption at best. Removing #31 billion in .local public dollar investments in our communities, while the population continues to grow, is more likely to result in diminished services, significant job losses, a crippled non-profit sector (the folks who come to your aid when you need them the most) and a deteriorating quality of life.”
When I was first made aware of the news (excuse the pun) I was blown out of the water. We all were counting on the funding to go through for the research study. Come to find out this was quite a blow to everyone. Consequently we are encouraging everyone to write a letter to the Governor and let him know how disappointed we are with his decision. I am very serious about this. The Governor needs to see the importance of this research and that the funding is an issue that involves the water resources of the state. The government is spending millions of dollars on looking into alternative water resources knowing that Florida’s population is going to continue to grow. The lake area around Keystone is sitting on top of a natural recharge to the aquifer system. Why wouldn’t you use any means available to use that natural resource?
If you need the address for your letter here is where you would mail that letter to:
Governor Christ
Office of the Governor
State of Florida Capital Building
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
The “Save Our Lakes” organization strongly believes that there is still hope. We also still believe as does Peter Schreuder, that Option #5 is still a doable option. There is much to work to be done and we need everyone in the community and those who are sympathetic to our cause to unite together.




Did You Know?
In the “Did You Know” articles we like to share with you information we have acquired over the years in our research of events that occurred to this lake region. All of these stories are taken from authenticated sources of documentation we have found. There was one in particular that we found to be of interest concerning a dam.
Back in the early 1970’s Brooklyn Lake and Lake Geneva were at their highest water levels that they had seen in awhile. From 1961 to 1969 the area had seen above average rainfall with an accumulative total of nearly 26 inches above average rainfall. Brooklyn Lake was for the most part at or above its outfall level of 115 ft. above sea level. In July of 1973 due to heavy rainfall flooding began to occur in Half Moon Lake and Putnam Hall. The flooding continued to get worse in August. Many of the residents homes in Putnam Hall had water up to their windows and State Road 100 and St. Rd. 26 were under water. The residents pleaded with the Putnam County commissioners to help alleviate the flooding condition.
According to a letter written Sept. 13 1973 by Mr. Melchem, Clay County Engineer, to the board of county commissioners, a dam had been discovered on Camp Blanding property between the Treat Road culvert and Magnolia Lake. The letter stated, “Field inspection with James Knowles and J. B. Thomas confirmed existence of a dam in the natural outlet from Lake Magnolia immediately upstream from a culvert under Treat Road on the Camp Blanding Military Reservation.” “Colonel Gilchrist advised that the dam was an unauthorized structure on the military reservation and had not in fact been built by the Florida National Guard. He expressed a desire to learn who authorized the construction of the dam. His only lead at that point was an implication that Florida Department of Transportation forces built the dam over the week-end of Sept. 8th. & 9th..” Director of Road Operations, Jay Brown, reported there was no involvement of construction of the dam by DOT. The letter went on to say, “Arrangements were made to meet Colonel Gilchrist at the dam site at 6:30 PM, Wednesday Sept. 12. Upon arrival at the dam with James Knowles, three men with heavy equipment were present” When questioned, Mr. Wilkinson (Superintendent of Roads and Bridges for Putnam County) stated that he had supervised construction of the dam under orders from Commissioner Sikes of Putnam County.
(By the way, Camp Blanding and Magnolia Lake are in Clay County not Putnam County.)
“Colonel Gilchrist ordered removal of the dam forthwith by Camp Blanding maintenance personnel at about 7:00 PM. Subsequently a truck and a flat-bed trailer identified as Putnam County equipment arrived with a driver and four laborers with a load of approximately five hundred filled sandbags. Mr. Wilkinson stated the purpose of the men and equipment was to “repair the dam if necessary”. By 8:30 PM that evening the water was once again flowing through Alligator Creek.
On May 10 1996 Mr. Phillip F. Baumgardner, a physics engineer, prepared a slide presentation for the Water Issues Workshop and the Clay county commissioners. Phil at the time of the presentation was also the President of the Lake Brooklyn Civic Association Inc.
Back in the 1990’s Phil Baumgardner, Rodney Bamford and Clay County Commissioner James Jett were very instrumental in acquiring the attention of the state and local governments to look into the ever increasing dilemma of the declining lakes in the Keystone Heights lake area region.
On page 5 of Mr. Baumgardner’s written portion of his presentation Phil states, “In 1949, the elevation of the water surface of Lake Magnolia and the creek at the Treat Road crossing was 5 to 6 feet LOWER than the 60 in. culvert as installed by the National Guard in 1987. You will recall a few minutes ago I told you that the Clark Report found the outfall elevation of Magnolia Lake to have been at +123.40 ft. NGVD in 1960. The 1949 quadrangle sheet shows the WATER SURFACE of Lake Magnolia and the creek to have been BELOW elevation +120.0 ft. NGVD. We believe that the installation of the four 24 in. culverts at a higher elevation in 1953 caused the creek bed toward Lake Magnolia to silt in to the 123.4 ft. NGVD elevation by 1960. Since the Water Management District would approve the permit for this culvert to be lowered only three feet, we believe the culvert is still 2 to 3 feet HIGHER than the natural historic creek bed was in 1949.”
Back in 1997 when they dug the portion of the creek bed out from the outfall of Magnolia to the Treat Road culvert to the elevation 123.40 ft. a.s.l., it was determined at that time that some erosion had occurred into the creek from a nearby sand and clay mining operation, which was only a few hundred feet from the banks of the creek. (What about the dam?)
Do we need to take another look at Alligator Creek?