To fix Fishweir Creek, Corps facing many choices

[urbanlibertarian]

From Florida Times-Union

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-04-01/story/fix-fishweir-creek-corps-facing-many-choices

To fix Fishweir Creek, Corps facing many choices

By Steve Patterson

Sandbars that choke Fishweir Creek have grown, shrunk and moved in the long years people have talked about fixing silt problems on the little Jacksonville waterway.

And during years of nudging government offices to restore the creek behind his Avondale house, that fact made Mike Webster stop and think.

"What is it we are trying to, quote unquote, restore?" he asked.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been wrestling with the same question.

For although Webster and others have studied aerial photos from the 1940s and maps back to the 19th century, knowing for sure what the creek was like originally is nearly impossible.

By June, the agency expects to tell residents its recommendations for fixing the creek and ask for their thoughts.

That plan could be the best chance on the horizon for getting government money for actual work on a creek that meanders through old Westside neighborhoods near Cassat Avenue, then past Roosevelt Boulevard and Avondale to the St. Johns River.

Early drafts have been a sort of blank canvas for picturing a healthier creek.

"There's a lot of potential choices you can make," said Mike Hollingsworth, a biologist working on the Corps plan.

"Do we want to dredge a certain area, do we want to plant ... marsh in certain areas? ... Do we want to make an island over here, do we want to create manatee habitat over here?"

The creek has filled up for decades with silt flowing off construction sites and roadsides during storms, creating sandbars midstream that sprouted grass, then shrubs and maple and palm trees. Under a big cypress near Herschel Street where Avondale kids used to climb to plunge into the water, Fishweir now is only a couple of feet deep.

Near the creek's mouth, sand has filled in the creek's bottom until it's little more than a tidal flat.

Plastic bottles, beer cans, Styrofoam, garbage bags and tiny toys that washed downstream are lodged in the shorelines too, with geese, turtles and alligators making homes around them.

Webster asked the Corps to include some kind of a trash filter in its plan, arguing that natural shorelines shouldn't include a layer of man-made debris.

Money will help settle the choices about how to help the creek.
The Corps report will become a kind of funding application for a federal program that allots up to $5 million for any single aquatic restoration.

That represents a ceiling on federal money, but there are reasons to try for less. Because other reports about other creeks compete for the same money, the goal is to plan big environmental improvements for low prices.

Asking for too much could mean the entire restoration is shelved permanently.

Budget problems already derailed the project once.
The Corps began studying how to revitalize the creek early in the last decade, but in 2004 the money was recalled to pay for projects elsewhere.

A sliver of cash in 2008 allowed Corps employees to collect and test sediment samples from both Big Fishweir Creek, where Webster lives, and Little Fishweir, which snakes southward through Boone Park to join the big creek.

Another shot of money this year left the Corps with about $300,000 to finish the current study.

Teaming up with state or local projects during actual construction can help stretch the dollars, and Hollingsworth said the Corps wants its plan to complement what other governments do. That could mean, for example, working with the St. Johns River Water Management District on rebuilding natural grass beds.

Trash control around Fishweir is something City Hall has tried for years. Public areas along the creek are part of an annual St. Johns cleanup that happened less than two weeks ago. Scouts corralled 25 bags of litter, two tires and a bike.

West of Roosevelt, Webster says someone has also removed some of the trashed furniture, televisions and other debris he had discovered a few years ago on a wooded, city-owned patch of land. There's still a lot of trash there, though.

The city also has been trying to retire failing septic tanks near parts of the creek and lower coliform bacteria levels. Environmental department head Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi said he's not sure the city has other projects coming up that will fit naturally with what the Corps is considering.

steve.patterson@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4263

[kitester]

It is my understanding that the money for these types of projects is set over a certain time and that the projects are begun and completed in order. Browns Creek and the creek that runs through Arlington were on the list ahead of Fishwier. The money to dredge and clean BC was used up before the dredging was even close to finished. As soon as the next round of money is available that project will be started again and the cycle repeats until each project is completed. That would place Fishwier many years out in the plan. It is encouraging to hear that there may be a jump that could put wheels on the Fishwier dredging. The area beside the Loop Restaurant is just disgusting! I had heard that a woman wading there had caught flesh eating bacteria several years ago. I have seen people fishing or casting for shrimp off the bridge. There used to be a sigh that warned boaters of the manatees that might be found in the creek WEST of the bridge. At high tide a manatee would be stranded in the mud. I imagine there is a huge expense disposing of the dredge spoils. I would bet that there is a large amount of heavy metal contamination in the sediment along with just plain old sewage and debris. Those types of ingredients mean the spoil will have to treated as toxic waste and disposed of appropriately.   

[Ocklawaha]

Fishweir, Pottsburg, Hogans, McCoys, part of the worlds most deadly toxic soil. The spoil could be a source of wealth, all we have to do is convince the CIA to smuggle it out in sacks where it could be sold to North Korea's pip squeak, tin horn, bozo. This would effectively kill two stones with one bird!

OCKLAWAHA

[Captain Zissou]

Wow, you used to be able to jump into the creek?? Holy cow.  I've only seen the creek for the past 6 years or so and you'd never believe that was swimmable, navigable, or safe.  I hope they can restore the area soon.  That could be a great asset to the area.

[Dog Walker]

Add Miller's Creek in St. Nicholas to the list that needs cleaning out. 

I think that the water flow from the land was cut off as the areas developed and the water that began to enter the creeks now came from storm drains which were fast flowing and carried sand with them.  Looks like they will all have to be cleaned out every thirty years or so.

Just an amateur theory.  Anybody out there with others?

[Overstreet]

..........Those types of ingredients mean the spoil will have to treated as toxic waste and disposed of appropriately.........

They always need dirt at the land fill to mix and cover the other stuff.

[fieldafm]

Wow, you used to be able to jump into the creek?? Holy cow.  I've only seen the creek for the past 6 years or so and you'd never believe that was swimmable, navigable, or safe.  I hope they can restore the area soon.  That could be a great asset to the area.

My father and uncles used to swim in the creek when they were boys.  As a kid, I fished fishweir and used to catch a decent amount of fish.