City Commission recently received a long-awaiting report on possible solutions to erosion along Bishop and Mullet creeks, but the long wait will continue for residents who have been affected.
For several years, residents, especially in the Harbor Woods Village neighborhood, have complained that erosion from the two creeks has been eating away at their properties. A series of small fixes have been implemented over the years, but three years ago, the city was able to get the U.S. Army of Engineers to commit to doing a full-scale study of the problem to provide possible solutions.
Results of that 182-page report were shared with Commission at a recent special meeting.
While the Army Corps explored multiple possible fixes, including buying residents' homes and tearing them down to create a retention pond, it ultimately settled on 18 fixes, the biggest being installing new sheetpile walls along Bishop Creek in the Rainbow Farms and Harbor Woods Village subdivisions, at an estimated cost of $8,084,400 - the bulk of which is for the new walls.
However, Commission was told that price tag is just for construction and doesn't include permitting and design. In fact, it's not clear yet whether the city can even get permits for the recommended actions. City Manager Matthew Spoor told Commission the next step needs to be reaching out to the three permitting agencies - the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Swiftmud) and, ironically, the Army Corps of Engineers to see if all three will sign off on permits for the fixes and what the permitting costs will be. (While the study was completed by the Army Corps, Army Corps permitters were not consulted by the study staff).
Assuming the city gets the green light from all agencies, the next step would be to design the project, with an estimated cost of $300,000. City staff told Commission that design alone will take about a year. It's unknown how long it will take the city to get responses back from the three permitting agencies, but Spoor told Commission that he planned to immediately contact all three.
If permitting is possible, and once the design is completed, the final - and hardest step - will be to figure out how to pay for it. The city presently has $1,5 million budgeted for the project, well short of the roughly $8.5 million total cost.
Spoor told Commission that the city would apply for state and federal grants, and he is confident the city will get some help from one of both of those governments, but applications can only be made for what he called "shovel ready" projects, so exploring such funding will only be possible after the design is completed.
For the balance of the project, assuming Commission decides to move forward with it, could be taken care of by raising stormwater rates or borrowing the money. Spoor also said the entire set of recommendations doesn't need to be done, specifically citing some fixes behind the Florida Sheriff's Youth Ranch that are far less serious than the ones in neighborhoods.
Photo credit - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report